Arts and Culture

Returning the Past

A recent discovery by an Academy fellow leads to the return of a nineteenth-century sculpture of Albrecht Dürer to the National Gallery in Berlin.

A nineteenth-century sculpture believed to have vanished during the Second World War has been rediscovered on the grounds of the American Academy in Berlin. The sculpture, Albrecht Dürer als Knabe (Albrecht Dürer as a Boy), made by Friedrich Salomon Beer (1846-1912) in the early 1870s, became part of the Nationalgalerie der Staatlichen Museen zu Berlin in 1878, and shortly thereafter part of the Old National Gallery's permanent exhibition. In 1940 the work was given to the National Socialist Ministry of Finance. Nazi finance minister Walter Funk had the work transported to his then-residence at Am Sandwerder 17-19, the current location of the American Academy in Berlin, where the work has remained since.

The discovery of the marble sculpture's provenance was made by art historian Jeffrey Chipps Smith, of the University of Texas at Austin, when he was the Anna-Maria Kellen Fellow in the spring of 2010. Beer's sculpture will first be returned to the National Gallery for restoration and then, from May 23, 2012 to September 2, 2012, will be part of the exhibit "Der frühe Dürer" (Early Dürer) at the German National Museum, in Nuremberg. The sculpture will then be returned to Berlin. (photo: M. Mau)

Click here to download the press release (German only).