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The SPK has today restituted a Chinese ridge turret figure from the collection of the Ethnological Museum of the National Museums in Berlin to the heirs of the writer and ethnologist Eduard Fuchs. The clay object once served as a gable finial in China and centuries later adorned the garden of Villa Fuchs in Berlin-Zehlendorf. Fuchs was persecuted by the National Socialists because of his political views and had to leave behind all his assets, including the ridge turret, when he fled to France. In 1952, the State Museums in East Berlin acquired the object for the East Asian Collection, which was still being built up.

Hermann Parzinger, President of the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation, explains: "Once again, the range of fates of persecution is evident, as is the range of collections in which Nazi-looted artefacts can still be found. Identifying this property, making contact with the descendants of those who were spoliated and finding appropriate solutions with them - this was and remains a Herculean task that will keep us busy for years to come, even though it is now more than a quarter of a century since the Washington Principles were signed and the SPK has already returned more than 350 works and almost 3,000 books since then. We know that this is by no means the end of the process."

The heirs of Eduard Fuchs are very pleased about the return of the Dachreiter. After all, it recognises that Fuchs only lost it because he was persecuted by the National Socialists early on due to his political opposition to them.

Eduard Fuchs (31 January 1870, Göppingen - 26 January 1940, Paris) was a German cultural scientist, historian, writer and art collector. He was best known for his three-volume "History of Erotic Art" and the six-volume work "Illustrated History of Morals from the Middle Ages to Modern Times", which earned him the name "Sitten-Fuchs".

Fuchs also built up an extensive private collection. In addition to works by his friend Max Slevogt and Max Liebermann, it also included around 6000 sheets by the French caricaturist Honoré Daumier. The collection also included a large moral history collection (drawings, prints, posters, leaflets) with around 20,000 objects and a collection of East Asian faience, porcelain and clay sculptures with a focus on Chinese roof riders. Fuchs had acquired Haus Perls, built by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, after the First World War and asked the architect to build an extension, which was completed in 1928. Eduard Fuchs wanted to make his collection accessible to the public here. It would have been the world's first collector's museum in which the donors provided both the collection objects and the villa as an exhibition venue, as well as a large endowment for staff, purchases and maintenance. When the National Socialists came to power, these plans were cancelled.

As Eduard Fuchs was socialist and at times communist and anti-militarist and tried early on to organise resistance against the National Socialists, he was persecuted by the National Socialists as early as February 1933. Immediately after the Reichstag fire, he fled to France with his wife. He died in Paris in 1940.

In Fuchs' absence, his art collection was confiscated by the National Socialists. With the help of supporters, Fuchs succeeded in having the confiscation cancelled at the end of 1934. However, part of the collection had to be auctioned off to pay the Reich flight tax. Fuchs' daughter from his first marriage, Gertraud Fuchs, took care of this together with lawyers.

On 16 and 17 June 1937, 481 works of art were auctioned off at the Berlin auction house Lepke, and on 15 and 16 October of the same year, also at Lepke, 799 sculptures from Fuchs' collection of East Asian art. Among them was the now restituted ridge turret figure as lot no. 99. The art dealer Ernst Fritzsche acquired it for 75 RM. Three further auctions of the Fuchs Collection followed in November 1937 and 1938. Ernst Fritzsche sold the ridge turret figure to the State Museums in the eastern part of the city for DM 2,000 in 1952.

Information about the object:

Weighing almost 29 kilograms and standing half a metre tall, the ridge turret figure (ident. no. 45823) dates from the Qing dynasty. The yellow, green, turquoise and dark aubergine-coloured glazed clay object depicts a mythical creature with a man standing next to it. It was originally used to crown a gable.

Many of the ridges and curved roofs of historical Chinese houses and temples have figurative decoration, which can be made of glazed ceramic, metal or wood carving. The ends of the ridge are often occupied by dragons.

The most common are rows of small figures running along the ridge of the rafters, made of clay and glazed to represent mythical creatures or real animals, of which horses, elephants, hares, chickens and dolphins are easily recognisable. Among the mythical creatures are figures of the immortals, the dragon (chin. long) and its female counterpart the phoenix (chin. feng), lions, the sky horse and the sea horse, the mythical creatures Suangyi and Xiezhai and a fish-like hybrid creature.

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