April 28, 2000

Sotheby's put Freud picture into crusher

By Will Bennett, Art Sales Correspondent

A GBP.100,000 picture by Lucian Freud was accidentally put in a crushing machine and then sent to the tip by two Sotheby's porters who mistook it for packaging. The study was made by Freud, regarded as Britain's greatest living painter, in preparation for a full-size painting and had been sent to Sotheby's London saleroom by a private collector. Experts at the auction house in New Bond Street had asked for it to be sent in so they could make an assessment before offering it in the contemporary art sale this summer. When it failed to arrive there were fears that it had been stolen. But film from security cameras showed that porters had put the picture, encased in a wooden protective box, into a crushing machine. Still unaware of their mistake, they then sent it to the tip. A Sotheby's spokesman said: "It is an extremely unfortunate situation and we have taken immediate steps to prevent it happening again." The porters have not been sacked but the spokesman said the owner of the picture had been fully compensated. Freud, the 78-year-old grandson of Sigmund Freud, set a record price for a contemporary British artist when his paintings Large Interior W11 sold at Sotheby's in New York for more than £3.5 million. In 1998, Naked Portrait with Reflection fetched GBP. 2.8 million in London, becoming the most expensive work of contemporary art sold in Europe. Most of Frued's works are portraits or nudes, one of the latter being a picture of the model Jerry Hall.

Amber Room Piece Back in Russia

MOSCOW (AP) - One of two pieces known to still exist from Peter the Great's famed Amber Room was returned by Germany on Thursday, more than half a century after being stolen by retreating Nazi troops, the ITAR-Tass news agency reported. The piece - an elaborate mosaic of amber - came to Moscow aboard a special plane also carrying German Culture Minister Michael Naumann, the agency reported. Naumann is to turn over the mosaic and a chest of drawers from the room in a ceremony Saturday at the Yekaterinsky Palace outside St. Petersburg, the royal residence that once included the room. The chest of drawers was to arrive in Russia separately, the report said. The 18th-century Amber Room got its name from the magnificent panels of golden-brown amber that lined its walls. The furnishings were presented by Prussian King Frederick William to Czar Peter the Great. Nazi soldiers looted the palace in World War II and stripped the Amber Room bare as they retreated from their failed campaign against Stalinist Russia. The room's contents were moved to a castle in Koenigsberg, now the Russian city of Kaliningrad, and disappeared from there in 1945. The German woman who bought the chest recognized it in a television report and turned it over to authorities in 1997. It is not known how much she paid for it. The mosaic was found in the possession of a man from Bremen, Germany, in 1997, and the city purchased it from him to avoid a lengthy legal battle. The return of the Amber Room pieces is part of an agreement under which Russian authorities will give Bremen back 101 graphics and watercolors, including art by Albrecht Duerer, Manet, Goya and Toulouse-Lautrec. The works disappeared from a Bremen museum in 1945.

From: "wyxhsz" hsuzhong@public2.east.cn.net
Subject:

Suggestion From Christie's (Hong Kong) Can Not Be Accepted

Maybe Christie's (Hong Kong) feels some shame at auctioning the robbed cultural property of Yuanmingyuan, a suggestion for the auction from 30th this month be risen today from the house. The suggestion includes: 1, Changing the name of the special auction. The auction will be not specially for the property from Yuanmingyuan. 2, Giving some explanation just before the auctioning. 3, Don't stop the auctioning because of the contract with the "collectors". Shame on the house! Such suggestion can not be accepted. Any robbed property can not be auctioned by any house. The property robbed in war should be returned, without any time limitation. This is the principle proposed by the international society.

From: Klaus Graf graf@uni-koblenz.de
Subject:

Donaueschingen digital

Donaueschingen Digital - a draft

"Surely it is known to you, that the old Sepp from Eppishausen, living on Meersburg castle, is inclined to sell his valuable collections. You will certainly understand, that I put great store on the fact, that the collections will not be dispersed but preserved in its entirety for our Swabia." (Prince Carl Egon II of Fürstenberg in a letter to Franz-Joseph Mone, about the collections of Joseph von Lassberg, July 7, 1853)
Since the early 1980s, the Fürstlich-Fürstenbergische Hofbibliothek in Donaueschingen (Donaueschingen Court Library) is in the process of being dissolved gradually by its owner, the present Prince of Fürstenberg. The entry of this most important private library in the Baden-Württemberg volume of the Handbuch der historischen Buchbestände in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland was not allowed by ist owner. Responsible governemental authorities failed to prevent the sales. In 1982, 20 outstanding illuminated medieval manuscripts were sold at auction. In 1994, 326 highly valuable incunabula were sold at auction. The state of Baden-Württemberg acquired only some 90 incunabula and the remaining collection of 1050 manuscripts in 1993-1994. In fall 1999, the important collection of printed and manuscript music (3612 and 3920 items resp.) could be bought for the Badische Landesbibliothek Karlsruhe. The library's other holdings of some 130,000 printed books are now going to be dispersed in a number of auctions. Until now, public libraries unfortunately could only acquire a fraction of the books for sale.
The Donaueschingen Court Library in its entirety is now destroyed. The library and its building represented a unique ensemble of great historical value. Its holdings, accumulated since the late 15th century, comprised medieval manuscripts, incunabula, manuscript music and printed books up to the 19th century. In the opinion of independent specialists, this library has to be counted as a significant part of our cultural heritage. In any case, it should have been preserved in its entirety as a resource for research in the time to come.
Although the loss of valuable historical information already is irretrievable, by means of information technologies important information in book-history could still be rescued. The project Donaueschingen Digital not only aims to reconstruct the former holdings of the Donaueschingen Court Library in a virtual reality, but also tries to collect all book-historical information which is still accessible. This refers particularly to provenance research. A large number of volumes bears inscriptions by members of the house of Fürstenberg, the Counts of Helfenstein and other nobles, which were important for politics and culture in the south-west of Germany, Switzerland and Austria. The catalogue records should contain the title, but also scans of individual title pages and other relevant autograph information. Donaueschingen Digital will be finally obtainable as an OPAC for research, but also represent a memorial for a lost part of our cultural heritage. The reconstruction of the Carthusian library of Buxheim, realized by the American Germanist William Whobrey, could also serve as a model for Donaueschingen Digital. Donaueschingen Digital is open to everybody who is interested to contribute: Libraries, book dealers, collectors, scientists and interested citizens.
Priority should be given to the reconstruction of the library of Joseph von Lassberg (1770-1855), which was acquired by Carl Egon von Fürstenberg and therefore became part of the Donaueschingen Court Library. The famous free-lance scholar of German Romanticism collected in its lifetime some 11,000 books, but also medieval paintings and other works of fine art. Each of his books bear inscriptions, annotations or shelf-marks from his hand. Joseph von Lassberg's life, works and ideas were indeed a transfiguration of the German Middle Ages. He had a bias towards research on the Swabian Minnesänger and the edition of their works, and even Lassberg's spelling followed medieval models. The library of the excentric bibliophile was mirroring his interests in many ways and so did the innumerable manuscript entries in his books. However, organization and holdings of this library are almost unknown. The virtual reconstruction of the Lassberg library aims to enhance our knowledge about this outstanding scholarly library. Thanks to the engagement of the Thurgauische Landesbibliothek in Frauenfeld (Switzerland), some 200 books from the Lassberg library could be acquired and will thus remain accessible for research.
We are very much indebted to the auction houses for their support and cooperation. Thanks are also due to Josef Nolte, who left his notes from the 1970s with Klaus Graf. Nolte's records contain a large number of title pages in xerox, inscriptions, mostly taken from books on law and theology, formerly belonging to the Counts von Helfenstein and passed to the Donaueschingen Court Library in the 17th century. These records include a card file (by K. S. Bader) of books on law indicating previous owners, too.
The steps towards Donaueschingen Digital are

1. Proofs of location
New locations of books should be ascertained (including the incunabula and manuscripts sold by Sotheby's in 1982 and 1994 resp.) Private owners are asked for their support in registering (anonymously) former Donaueschingen books.
2. Provenance research
Individual characteristics of the books (inscriptions, book-plates, manuscript additions and entries, armorials and external binding features) should be documented, possibly by scans.
3. Research on Joseph von Lassberg and his library
4. Research on the history of the Donaueschingen Court Library and its holdings Records of the Fürstlich-Fürstenbergisches Archiv in Donaueschingen should supplement this part project.
5. Digitization of the card file catalogue of the Donaueschingen Court Library A catalogue available on-line (OPAC) would be desirable. In this way, bibliographic research on the holdings could be enhanced.
6. Digitization of selected books formerly owned by the Donaueschingen Court Library
7. Data collection of other central European noble libraries in private hands This bibliographic addendum aims to define the place of the Donaueschingen Court Library within the context of comparable noble libraries.