Provenance Research

Confiscations between 1938 and 1945 (or in Germany from 1933 onward) were closely linked to other Nazi persecution measures, including murder. Sales or bequests of property belonging to disenfranchised individuals and institutions took place under duress. Salzburg Museum – formerly known as the Salzburg Municipal Museum Carolino Augusteum (SMCA) – also received numerous objects that had been confiscated from their rightful owners during the Nazi era.

Immediately after 1945, members of the British, French, and US armies in Austria and Germany began efforts to conduct systematic provenance research and secure the restitution of objects. At the same time, the rightful owners – if they had survived – or their descendants began searching for their art and cultural assets and made inquiries. Salzburg Museum also received numerous inquiries, which led to restitutions being made on a case-by-case basis, but rather reluctantly and with some delay. However, the museum did not conduct active, comprehensive provenance research during this period or in the decades that followed.

In accordance with the Federal Law on the Restitution of Artworks from Austrian Federal Museums and Collections, Salzburg Museum decided to systematically search its holdings for questionable objects from 2011 onward and to return them where appropriate.

The objectives of provenance research at Salzburg Museum are to document objects restituted immediately after 1945 and to research acquisitions and bequests made between 1933 and 1955 in the relevant archives in Austria and abroad. Other priorities include identifying questionable objects still held by the museum, compiling dossiers as the basis for restitution decisions, and processing external inquiries on an ongoing basis. The focus is on objects from ‘Aryanised’ collections and objects confiscated from churches, monasteries, associations, and other organisations. In recent years, Salzburg Museum has already restituted numerous objects, with more to follow.