18th century Frankfurts cupboard

Advice concerning the application for restitution of NK 986

Report number: RC 1.12

Advice type: NK collection

Advice date: 18 September 2003

Period of loss of ownership: 1940-1945

Original owner: Private individual

Location of loss of ownership: The Netherlands

NK 986 – 18th century Frankfurt cupboard (photo: RCE)

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Recommendation

By letter of 6 December 2002, the State Secretary of Education, Culture and Science asked the Restitutions Committee for advice on the decision to be taken concerning the application by Mrs S.-L., of 8 November 2002, for restitution of an 18th century Frankfurt cupboard included in the State collection under inventory number NK 986.

The facts

Further to the application for restitution, the Committee initiated an investigation into the facts. Within this framework, the Committee asked the Origins Unknown agency (hereinafter referred to as Bureau Herkomst Gezocht) to carry out an (archive) investigation into the provenance of NK 986. In addition, the Committee contacted the applicant in order to obtain additional information concerning the circumstances in which the property was lost and the characteristics of the cupboard. Moreover, the Committee requested advice from Mr Dr R. Baarsen, Head of the Department of Sculpture and Applied Art at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, and the cupboard was physically examined for the characteristics referred to by the applicant.

General considerations

The Committee has drawn up its opinion with due regard for the relevant lines of policy issued by the Ekkart Committee and the government.

The Committee asked itself whether it is acceptable that an opinion to be issued is influenced by its potential consequences for decisions in other cases. The Committee resolved that such influence cannot be accepted, save cases where special circumstances apply, since allowing such influence would be impossible to justify to the applicant concerned.

The Committee then asked itself how to deal with the circumstance that certain facts can no longer be traced, that certain data has been lost or has not been retrieved, or that evidence can no longer be otherwise compiled. On this issue the Committee believes that, if the problems that have arisen can be attributed at least in part to the lapse of time, the associated risk should be borne by the government, save cases where exceptional circumstances apply.

Finally, the Committee believes that insights and circumstances which, according to generally accepted views, have evidently changed since the Second World War should be granted the status of new facts.

Special considerations

The applicant, resident in New Rochelle in the United States, is acting on behalf of the heirs of her parents.
In her letters of 8 November 2002 to the State Secretary of Education, Culture and Science and of 14 January 2003 to the Restitutions Committee, the applicant declares that she recognised the Frankfurt cupboard (NK 986) in a photo which was published on the website of the Bureau Herkomst Gezocht as being her parents’ property stolen during the war.
The investigation revealed that the protestant family L., which was held by the Nazis to be Jewish, fled Nazi Germany in 1938 and settled on the Minervalaan in Amsterdam. Once the Germans had occupied the Netherlands and after the (natural) death of the father of the applicant, the family was interned in the Westerbork camp in 1943. Regarding the loss of the Frankfurt cupboard, the applicant states that she heard from a fellow prisoner in camp Westerbork that the contents of her parent’s house had been seized by the Nazis shortly after their arrest in 1943 and had been sent on in its entirety to Germany. The family survived the war in the Theresiënstadt camp and emigrated to the United States in 1947.
The applicant stated that she did not have any proof to substantiate her claim. However, during the investigation in the archives, a document from 1957 was found in which the mother of the applicant specifies the goods stolen during the war from the residence on the Minervalaan. This list includes a cupboard which complies with the description of the Frankfurt cupboard (NK 986).
The Committee therefore assumes that the family L. involuntarily lost a Frankfurt cupboard during the war as a consequence of persecution by the Nazi regime.
The investigatory report by the Bureau Herkomst Gezocht shows that nothing is known (any more) about the pre-1948 provenance history of the cupboard included in the State collection under number NK 986. In 1948, the Netherlands Art Property Foundation (Stichting Nederlandsch Kunstbezit / SNK), which is the Dutch authority involved in the recovery of the works of art removed from the Netherlands during the war, gave the cupboard in loan to the embassy in Berlin and it then ended up at the embassy in Bonn in November 1950. Later, the cupboard was returned to the Netherlands and in 2002 was being used at a ministry in The Hague.
In the light of the information provided by the applicant, it can be determined that there are no indications that contradict the fact that the cupboard included in the State collection (NK 986) is the same Frankfurt cupboard stolen from the family L.
In order to gain a better insight into the possibility of identifying the cupboard, the Committee consulted a furniture expert. Mr Dr. R. Baarsen, Head of the Department of Sculpture and Applied Art at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, provided the following description of the Frankfurt cupboard (NK 986): “This is an example of a storage cabinet of which a large number were manufactured in the period 1690-1760. (…) However, the item in question has a number of unusual characteristics which make it fairly exceptional and easily recognisable, (…) Therefore, it can fittingly be stated that if an illustration exists which shows even just a small section of the cupboard that corresponds completely with the preserved item of furniture, the identification can be regarded as certain”.
Neither the applicant nor her family have any photos of the cupboard (any more). The applicant was, however, able to remember characteristics of the cupboard, such as woodworm damage and the type of interior of the cupboard which, although not unique, are not visible on the photo published and which correspond to item NK 986.
On the grounds of the above, the Committee concludes that the right of ownership of Mr and Mrs L. of NK 986 is sufficiently plausible and that there are no indications that contradict this. Now that, to date, no other application for restitution of NK 986 has been submitted and the Committee regards the chance that a conflicting claim is submitted in the future to be negligible, the application for restitution can be granted, on the basis of the involuntary loss of the property during the war. This conclusion does not change the fact that a conclusive identification of the Frankfurt cupboard (NK 986) as the former property of the family L. is impossible, if only because, as shown by consideration 8, it is a genus case. In this context, moreover, we would like to refer to that stated in the general considerations, namely that it is plausible that the period of time that has lapsed is partly the reason for the proof problems that have arisen, and that the related risk should therefore be borne by the government.

Conclusion

In view of the above, the Committee advises the State Secretary of Education, Culture and Science to hand over the Frankfurt cupboard, which is part of the State collection under inventory number NK 986, to the heirs of P. and E.R. L.-S.

Adopted at the meeting of 18 September 2003.

J.M. Polak (Chairman)
B.J. Asscher (Vice Chairman)
J.Th.M. Bank
J.C.M. Leijten
E.J. van Straaten
H.M. Verrijn Stuart

Summary RC 1.12

18TH CENTURY FRANKFURT CUPBOARD

On 6 December 2002 the State Secretary of Culture asked the Restitutions Committee for advice on the decision to be taken concerning the application for restitution of an 18th century so-called ‘Frankfurt’ cupboard (NK 986). This application was submitted to the State Secretary on behalf of the heirs of Mr and Mrs L. on 8 November 2002. In a letter to the Restitutions Committee, dated 14 January 2003, the applicant stated that she had recognised the cupboard from a photo as having previously been her (Jewish) parents’ property. She added that she no longer had proof to substantiate her claim: when the family returned after the war from the camp where they had been interned there was practically nothing left of the contents of their house in Amsterdam. The applicant stated that she had heard from a fellow prisoner in Camp Westerbork that the contents of her parents’ house had been seized by the Nazis and because of the many valuable items taken directly to Hitler’s headquarters.

The information about the provenance history of the cupboard with registration number NK 986, as determined by the investigation carried out by the Origins Unknown Agency (BHG), starts in 1948. It proved impossible to find information about the period before then. However, the NK inventory number does suggest that the cupboard was discovered in Germany after Germany surrendered in 1945, that it was determined on the basis of the information available at the time to ‘originate from the Netherlands’ and that it was therefore allocated to the Netherlands. In 1948 the Netherlands Art Property Foundation (SNK) loaned the cupboard to the embassy in Berlin and then to the embassy in Bonn before it finally ended up at the Ministry of Defence in The Hague. The investigation showed that this was the only so-called ‘Frankfurt cupboard’ in the NK collection. The following is known about the events surrounding the family’s loss of possession of the cupboard. The investigation turned up a document dating from 1957, in which the applicant’s mother from the United States listed the property stolen from her house during the war. This list includes a ‘Frankfurt cupboard’. The Committee concluded from this that the family in any case owned a Frankfurt cupboard. In order to gain a better insight into the possibility of identifying the cupboard with registration number NK 986, the Committee turned to a furniture expert. Dr. R. Baarsen, conservator at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, described the cupboard as “…an example of a storage cabinet of which a large number were manufactured in the period 1690-1760” but added that the item in question had a number of unusual characteristics, which “…make it fairly exceptional and easily recognisable…”. In his opinion, a picture of the cupboard – even if it showed just a small section of the cupboard that corresponded completely to NK 986 – would be enough to determine the identity of the cupboard. However, neither the applicant nor her family had any photos. Nevertheless, the applicant was able to remember a number of characteristics of the cupboard. Although not unique, these were not visible on the photo that the applicant had seen and did correspond to the cupboard registered as NK 986.

The Restitutions Committee adopted its advice at its meeting on 18 September 2003. Its conclusion was that the Frankfurt cupboard with inventory number NK 986 should be handed over to the heirs of Mr and Mrs L. who were the applicant’s parents. The Committee’s advice took account of the fact that it was impossible to conclusively identify the Frankfurt cupboard (NK 986) as the former property of the applicant’s family, if only because the cupboard was a generic item. However, based on the results of the investigation and given the lack of evidence to the contrary, the Committee concluded that the family’s right of ownership of the cupboard was sufficiently plausible. In this regard the Committee referred to its general consideration that since it was plausible that the period of time that had lapsed was partly the reason for the proof problems that had arisen, the related risk should be borne by the government. On 11 November 2003 the State Secretary decided according to the Committee’s advice to grant the request for restitution of the Frankfurt cupboard, which had been number NK 986 in the Dutch National Art Collection.