Research into the provenance of artworks stolen or confiscated from their Jewish owners during the Nazi regime (“Nazi-looted art”) observes internationally agreed guidelines. These are founded on the Washington Principles adopted in December 1998 at the Washington Conference on Holocaust Era Assets.
These principles require public collections to review their holdings in order to ascertain whether they contain any Nazi-looted art and either to restore any objects thus identified to the victims or their heirs or else to explore alternative fair and just solutions with them. The Washington Principles were recently fine-tuned when 25 countries agreed in March 2024 on a code of Best Practices. In Germany, guidelines for applying the Washington Principles were first set out in a Joint Declaration adopted in 1999 by the federal, state and local authorities. This was accompanied by recommendations in the form of a non-legally-binding guide, including a checklist to help determine whether an artwork qualifies as a looted asset. A manual for provenance research, designed as a practice-driven toolbox, describes how to track down basic data for working through this checklist.
The examination of the Berlinische Galerie’s collection follows the guidelines and manuals for identifying Nazi-looted art drawn up since 1998 . The key documents can be read in the following.