The Lost Museum: The Nazi Conspiracy To Steal The World's Greatest Works Of Art
by Hector Feliciano
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Description
Between 1939 and 1944, as the Nazis overran Europe, they were also quietly conducting another type of pillage. The Lost Museum tells the story of the Jewish art collectors and gallery owners in France who were stripped of rare works by artists such as Vermeer, Rembrandt, Degas, Cezanne, and Picasso. Week after week, thousands of crates of this art streamed from Paris into Germany, many stamped with a swastika and the words "Property of the Third Reich." Before they were through, the Nazis show more had taken more than 20,000 paintings, sculptures, and drawings from France. The pieces were cataloged, photographed, and shipped to Germany, often with the help of moving companies and friends and servants of the families themselves. The premium cultural spoils of war were destined for the museum of European art that Hitler planned to create in Austria, as well as for the private collections of Hitler, Goering, and other Nazi dignitaries. Looted Entartete Kunst - modern artworks - were sold into France and Switzerland's flourishing wartime art market. The Lost Museum explores the Nazis' systematic confiscation of these artworks, focusing on the private collections of five families: Rothschild, Rosenberg, Bernheim-Jeune, David-Weill, and Schloss. The book is filled with private family photos of this art, some of which has never before been seen by the public, and it traces the fate of these works as they passed through the hands of top German officials, unscrupulous art dealers, and unwitting auction houses such as Christie's and Sotheby's. Many works were returned to their owners after the war, but thousands of them - and, in some cases, their owners - disappeared. Some of these lost artworks are tracked down in this book to their present-day locations in Europe and the United States. More than 2,000 of the works that were looted or sold to the Nazis found their way into French national museums, where they are labeled as "unclaimed." Still others can be found in Switzerland. Hector Feliciano spent more than seven years tracking down the story of this Nazi pillaging. Drawing on recently declassified documents, interrogation reports, detailed Nazi inventories, private family archives, museum catalogs, and dozens of interviews, Feliciano paints a vivid picture of a concealed international art trade with links in France, Germany, Switzerland, Great Britain, the former Soviet Union, and the United States - controversial disclosures that have provoked an ongoing debate in Europe. show lessTags
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Member Reviews
I started reading The Lost Museum, thinking it would delve into the derring-do world of World War II art theft and the subsequent attempts to locate priceless artwork. While it indeed covered these issues, The Lost Museum spent a lot of pages reciting biographies of early 20th Century Parisian art dealers and referring to a lot of artists I have never heard of before. Please note that I am a philistine and don't know my art but there were points where I felt I could skip a page or two and not miss much. Still worth reading, though.
The oddest fact I learnt from The Lost Museum was that Hitler would regularly send two agents, unbeknownst to each other, to auctions with the order to purchase a particular painting at whatever cost. Cue the show more two agents madly bidding against the other and sending the price sky high. I'm beginning to think that Hitler chap was a bit odd. show less
The oddest fact I learnt from The Lost Museum was that Hitler would regularly send two agents, unbeknownst to each other, to auctions with the order to purchase a particular painting at whatever cost. Cue the show more two agents madly bidding against the other and sending the price sky high. I'm beginning to think that Hitler chap was a bit odd. show less
Which was fantastic and quite enjoyable. Also very informative. Anyone interested in art theft, how art is sold, pillage and how WW2 was the ultimate time to steal great works of art must find this book. I truly enjoyed it.
It's really, really good, well written and it made me look for 2 titles : one is already requested in ILL The Faustian Bargain and the second was ordered for the library The Monument Men.
A good introduction on the subject of spoiled art during WW2.
It's really, really good, well written and it made me look for 2 titles : one is already requested in ILL The Faustian Bargain and the second was ordered for the library The Monument Men.
A good introduction on the subject of spoiled art during WW2.
The book to read if you are interested in looted art by the Nazi's
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Common Knowledge
- Canonical title*
- Le musée disparu. Enquête sur le pillage des oeuvres d'art en France par les nazis
- Original title
- El museo desaparecido
- Original publication date
- 2001 (1e édition originale espagnole) (1e édition originale espagnole); 2009-01-15 (1e traduction et édition française, Gallimard) (1e traduction et édition française, Gallimard)
- People/Characters
- Herman Göring
- Important places
- London, England, UK; Sotheby's, London, England, UK
- Important events*
- 2e guerre mondiale (1939l1945)
*Some information comes from Common Knowledge in other languages. Click "Edit" for more information.
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Statistics
- Members
- 284
- Popularity
- 113,670
- Reviews
- 3
- Rating
- (3.73)
- Languages
- 5 — English, French, German, Portuguese, Spanish
- Media
- Paper, Ebook
- ISBNs
- 12
- ASINs
- 1
