The missing puzzle piece

Objects, provenance, fates

23.10.2024 – 02.03.2025

Studio exhibition

Böttchergäßchen building, Böttchergäßchen 3, 04109 Leipzig

What do we actually know about the objects in our museum collection? When did they arrive at the museum? Who owned them before? Are there perhaps even cultural assets that became part of the collections unlawfully? These questions cannot always be fully answered right away. Therefore, the Museum of City History Leipzig will highlight the search for the »missing puzzle piece« to establish the origin of an item, i.e. its provenance, in a specific exhibition for the first time.

Since 2019, the museum has intensified ist efforts in provenance research and, in particular, the systematic search for art stolen by the Nazis within its own collections. These efforts are supported by the German Lost Art Foundation. The results of the comprehensive research efforts carried out so far will be presented in specific cases as part of this studio exhibition. Moreover, the museum’s approach to dealing with both unobjectionable and critical provenance will be highlighted. Works of art acquired by the auction house of Hans Klemm, the gift of the pencil drawing »Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy on his death bed« by the German-American pianist Franz Rupp and acquisitions from the estates of the Mendelssohn Bartholdy and Wach families will play a central role in this. These examples will illustrate how certain works of art reached the museum’s collections, as well as the fates and history behind those items.

The exhibition is funded by the German Lost Art Foundation as part of the research project.