In April 2000, the Museum's director, Philippe de Montebello, joined other museum directors in presenting testimony before the Presidential Commission on Holocaust Assets, and discussing ways in which the museum community could make information on the provenance of paintings in their collections more widely available. It was decided that museums would present on their Web sites paintings likely to have been in Europe that had gaps in their provenance during the years 1933 to 1945.
In December 2000 the American Association of Museums (AAM) appointed a task force to formulate guidelines for museums to follow in posting their provenance data on the World Wide Web. The task force included museum professionals as well as representatives of the Presidential Commission on Holocaust Assets and the Holocaust Claims Processing Office of the New York State Banking Department. It was decided that museums should now provide information on all European paintings that meet the expanded criteria set out in the Introduction to this section; previously, museums had focused primarily on European paintings that had gaps in their history of ownership. In addition, works that may be classified as Judaica (such as menorahs, Torah pointers, ceremonial objects, and so forth) that meet these criteria will also be listed.
The AAM task force was also charged with developing a means of helping individuals search for European paintings and Judaica among all United States museum collections. In response, the Metropolitan is working with the AAM and other museums to create such an online research tool.
The Metropolitan Museum's Online Provenance Research Project
In April 2000 the Metropolitan put online images and provenance information for European paintings that contained gaps in their history of ownership. In accordance with the AAM guidelines, the Museum is conducting additional research and updating its records. New information will be added continuously to the Museum's Web site until all European paintings and Judaica that meet the criteria noted above have been identified. Therefore, the Provenance Research section of the Museum's Web site should be considered a work in progress. (Paintings that were acquired prior to 1933 or created after 1945 have been excluded, as have British and American works whose known provenance includes only collections in North America or Britain.)
A link to the list of paintings in this section, sorted by artist's name, is provided below. By selecting a painting's title, visitors will see an image (which can be enlarged) and its currently known provenance information. The paintings link is followed by a link to the list of maiolica in this section from the Alfred Pringsheim collection. Again, by choosing from the list, visitors will see an enlarged image and its provenance information.
A link to those works that were seized by the Nazis during the Holocaust era, later restituted to their rightful owners, and eventually entered the Museum's collection is included in this section, as is a link to a list of Metropolitan Museum publications on European paintings, and a link to the full transcript of Director Philippe de Montebello's testimony before the Presidential Commission on Holocaust Assets.
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