Rosa Oppenheimer Explained

Rosa Oppenheimer
Birth Name:Rosa Silberstein
Birth Date:31 July 1887
Birth Place:Berlin, German Empire
Death Place:Auschwitz concentration camp, German-occupied Poland
Nationality:German
Occupation:art dealer
Spouse:Jakob Oppenheimer
Known For:art collection

Rosa Oppenheimer (; 31 July 1887 − 2 November 1943) was a German Jewish art dealer who was murdered in the Holocaust. The art she owned together with her husband Jacob is the subject of several high-profile restitution claims.

Early life

Rosa Silberstein was born on 31 July 1887 in Berlin and died in the Nazi concentration camp in Auschwitz on 2 November 1943.[1] She married Jakob Oppenheimer and took his name. They worked together as art dealers.

Art Dealer

Rosa's husband Jakob was the managing director of Margraf and Co, which was owned by Albert Loeske who died in 1929.[2] [3] Rosa and Jakob Oppenheimer worked for the Galerie Van Diemen, which was part of the Margraf group.[4]

In his will Loeske left the Margraf group to the Openheimers but the Nazis would not allow Jewish directors.[5]

Nazi persecution, deportation and death

Under Hitler's Third Reich, a Nazi and close friend of Hermann Göring, Bolko von Richthofen, was named director of the Margraf group. In 1935 the art was auctioned off in forced sales at the Paul Graupe auction house.

The Oppenheimers fled to France in 1933.[6] Jakob Oppenheimer died there as an impoverished refugee in 1941.[7] Rosa was interned in at the Drancy camp in France,[8] then deported and died in Auschwitz on 2 November 1943.[9]

Restitution claims

The heirs of Jacob and Rosa Oppenheimer have filed several restitution claims for art seized by Nazis or relinquished in forced sales.[9] [10] [11]

In 2008 the Dutch Restitutions Committee recommended that artworks be returned to the Oppenheimer family, stating, "In the Committee’s opinion, the applicants have sufficiently shown that the work of art was auctioned at a forced auction set up by the Nazi authorities to implement anti-Jewish measures and the Committee therefore adjudges that it can be considered involuntary loss of possession as a result of circumstances directly related to the Nazi regime." [12] [13]

In 2009, following years of investigation two Renaissance paintings that had been in a forced sale in 1935 were restituted by the Hearst Castle which said that Hearst was not aware of their origins when he acquired them from I.S. Goldschmidt Gallery in Berlin.[9] [14]

In 2011, the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston reached an agreement with the Oppenheimer family concerning a settlement for tapestries that had been the object of a forced sale.[3]

Also in 2011 the Landesmuseum Württemberg in Stuttgart, Germany restituted to the Oppenheimer heirs a 16th-century wooden sculpture of St. John the Baptist that had been looted by Nazis in 1933, then auctioned off to Heinemann and Dr. Benno Griesbert.[15]

In 2017 the heirs demanded the restitution of two paintings which were at the National Gallery of Ireland which refused the claim based on the research of a provenance expert[16]

Notes and References

  1. Web site: Rosa Oppenheimer. 1 March 2021. geni_family_tree. en-US.
  2. Web site: German Lost Art Foundation – Project finder – Provenienz Margraf & Co. (Galerie van Diemen, Altkunst, Dr. Otto Burchard). live. https://archive.today/20210301100315/https://www.kulturgutverluste.de/Content/03_Forschungsfoerderung/Projekt/Museum-fuer-Kunst-und-Gewerbe-Hamburg/Projekt3_en.html. 1 March 2021. 1 March 2021. www.kulturgutverluste.de.
  3. Web site: Artdaily. Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Reaches Purchase Agreement for 17th-Century Tapestries. 1 March 2021. artdaily.cc. English.
  4. Web site: ASSOCIATION OF ART MUSEUM DIRECTORS ART INSTITUTE OF CHICAGO STATEMENT BY JAMES CUNO, DIRECTOR OF ART INSTITUTE OF CHICAGO TO SUBCOMMITTEE ON DOMESTIC AND INTERNATIONAL MONETARY POLICY, TRADE AND TECHNOLOGY OF THE COMMITTEE ON BANKING AND FINANCIAL SERVICES UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES JULY 27, 2006.
  5. Web site: REPORT OF THE SPOLIATION ADVISORY PANEL IN RESPECT OF AN OIL PAINTING BY PIERRE-AUGUSTE RENOIR, 'THE COAST AT CAGNES', NOW IN THE POSSESSION OF BRISTOL CITY COUNCIL. On December 2nd, 1933 a Berlin Nazi Court banned the Oppenheimers from being directors of Margraf & Co. and Bolko von Richthofen, a zealous Nazi and close acquaintance of Herman Göring, was appointed administrator of the group. Its subsidiaries were forced into liquidation in 1933 … and 1934 … and their entire stock was sold at five Judenauktionen or 'Jew auctions' in Berlin at Paul Graupe between January 25th and October 12th, 1935. The remainder was offered at two more sales at Dr. Walther Achenbach on September 30th and October 13th, 1937. Finally, the parent company of Margraf & Co. was liquidated by von Richthofen in 1938..
  6. Web site: Philadelphia Museum of Art – Collections Object : A View of Florence / Allegory of Maffeo Barberini's Florentine Birth. 1 March 2021. www.philamuseum.org.
  7. Web site: Spoliation de biens juifs : Une histoire qui se termine bien | Plus | Radio-Canada.ca .
  8. Web site: Lost Art Internet Database – Jüdische Sammler und Kunsthändler (Opfer nationalsozialistischer Verfolgung und Enteignung) – Oppenheimer, Jacob. 1 March 2021. www.lostart.de.
  9. Web site: Art returned to Holocaust victims' heirs. 1 March 2021. The Jerusalem Post . 11 April 2009 . en-US.
  10. Web site: 17 September 2015. Nazi-Auctioned Renoir Painting Stays in UK. 1 March 2021. Artnet News. en-US.
  11. Web site: La France va restituer 3 tableaux. 1 March 2021. LEFIGARO. 8 March 2014 . fr.
  12. Web site: Oppenheimer Restitutiecommissie. 1 March 2021. www.restitutiecommissie.nl.
  13. Web site: Road to Calvary – Oppenheimer Heirs and Private Person — Centre du droit de l'art. 1 March 2021. plone.unige.ch.
  14. News: McElroy. Compiled by Steven. 12 April 2009. Art Returned to Owners' Heirs (Published 2009). en-US. The New York Times. 1 March 2021. 0362-4331.
  15. Web site: St. John the Baptist (Getty Museum). 13 October 2021. The J. Paul Getty in Los Angeles. en.
  16. Web site: 9 October 2017: Restitution claims for three paintings, two by the heirs of Rosa and Jakob Oppenheimer of Berlin, owners of the Margraf group, and one by the heirs of Alfred Weinberger. 1 March 2021. www.lootedart.com. Following receipt of the claims, the National Gallery commissioned Laurie Stein, a private provenance researcher, to conduct further investigations. She concluded that the sale of the two Oppenheimer paintings in 1934, when they were acquired by the National Gallery, was not under duress and that the sale proceeds were not confiscated..

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