Cases of the provenance research

Helene Taussig

Inv.-Nr. 1280-95 © Salzburg Museum (The item was returned by Salzburg Museum to the heirs of Helene Taussig 2012 and, in agreement with the heirs, acquired by Salzburg Museum.)
Inv.-Nr. 1280-95 © Salzburg Museum (The item was returned by Salzburg Museum to the heirs of Helene Taussig 2012 and, in agreement with the heirs, acquired by Salzburg Museum.)

The painter Helene Taussig (1879–1942), who lived in Anif/Salzburg, was persecuted as a Jew after Austria’s annexation (Anschluss) by the German Reich, and her assets were ‘Aryanised’. Taussig’s artworks came into the possession of the painter Wilhelm Kaufmann during or after the Nazi era under circumstances that remain unclear. Between 1988 and 2010, Kaufmann and his family donated 19 paintings by Taussig to Salzburg Museum. Following inquiries from the Compensation Fund in 2008 and a relative of Taussig in 2009, Salzburg Museum’s Board of Trustees decided on 25 June 2009 to initiate the process of natural restitution. On 4 January 2012, 19 paintings were returned, eleven of which were acquired by Salzburg Museum in agreement with the heirs.