Hungarian Art: Provenance Research & Holocaust Era Claims

Uncovering looted Hungarian art from 1938-1948. Research reveals provenance details, names, addresses & museum records, now available to identify Nazi-era art claims.

Any gallery hanging a Hungarian painting with a valuable chain-of-ownership space between 1938 and 1948, any type of collector that purchased a “Main European personal collection” at a New York sale, or any kind of public auction home pleased to list things “obtained in Europe after the battle” is now on notification: This archive is a time bomb under your wall tags.

Tracing Looted Art in Pécs

In Pécs, a certified report traces the chain of custodianship as property moved from the ghetto right into the local gallery– carpetings gliding down from porches, statuaries brought upright, glass flagged as breakable.

One documents records just how the state split the materials of Baroness Hatvany-Deutsch’s home at Lánchíd utca 6 into two streams: weapons and Habsburg imperial pictures to the Battle Gallery in Buda Castle, art collection to the Gallery of Arts.

Hatvany Family Art Dossier

A dossier on the Hatvany family members castle in Hatvan checklists dozens of jobs, from Old Masters to Hungarian modernists, measured to the half-centimeter, noted as state residential property and provided under guard into Budapest Museum custodianship.

My group at the Holocaust Art Healing Effort has actually spent months undergoing every web page and uploading the lead to a 470-plus-post series on X– total with names, addresses, artists, dimensions, pet crate numbers and museum consumption notes.