Getty Provenance Index® has expanded its coverage of German auction sales catalogs (previously spanning 1930–1945) to include those from 1900 to 1929, enabling a fuller understanding of this volatile period and of the dealers and collectors involved. More than 3,140 auction catalogs from over 130 auctions houses from dozens of cities across Germany and Austria were added to the Sales Catalogs database. Over 568,500 records are now searchable online, containing paintings, sculptures, drawings, and miniatures.
The updated German Sales webpage is here: http://www.getty.edu/research/tools/provenance/german_sales.html
You can search the Sales Catalogs records here: http://piprod.getty.edu/starweb/pi/servlet.starweb?path=pi/pi.web
A blogpost on the project is here: http://blogs.getty.edu/iris/half-a-million-records-on-early-20th-century-german-art-market-added-to-getty-provenance-index/
For art market researchers, this expansion of the data will provide a longer perspective on art market shifts and trends during the first half of the 20th century, a span of years characterized by social upheavals, two great wars, seismic cultural shifts, economic booms, and devastating depressions. Provenance researchers will gain greater context for works of art that were looted or forcefully sold during the turbulent years of the Nazi regime. This new data will open up new possibilities for scholars in the field and provide new insights for provenance and art market research.
This project is a partnership between the Getty Research Institute, the Heidelberg University Library, and the Kunstbibliothek—Staatliche Museen zu Berlin. More information about both phases of this project, Art—Auctions—Provenance: The German Art Trade as Reflected in Auction Catalogues from 1900–1929 and German Sales 1930–1945: Art Works, Art Markets, and Cultural Policy, is available on arthistoricum.net.
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