US, museum sells Cranach painting given by Jew to Nazis: part of proceeds to heirs

A painting executed by Lucas Cranach the Elder along with his workshop, which was surrendered under pressure to the Nazis by a Jewish collector from Hamburg, will be sold at auction by the museum that currently owns it, the Allentown Art Museum in Allentown , Pennsylvania, U.S., and part of the proceeds will be turned over to the rightful heirs. This is the agreement (although details on the percentages have not been revealed) that the institution has reached with the very heirs of Henry Bromberg, who sold several works from his collection while fleeing Nazi Germany, including the Portrait of George the Bearded, Duke of Saxony (c. 1534) by Lucas Cranach the Elder and workshop. The painting was purchased by the Allentown Art Museum from a New York gallery in 1961 and has been on display at the museum ever since.

The Allentown Art Museum was pleased to reach what it believes is a fair and equitable settlement with the Bromberg heirs, in the spirit of the Principles of the Washington Conference on Nazi Confiscated Art and the applicable guidelines of the International Council of Museums (ICOM), the American Alliance of Museums (AAM) and the Association of Art Museum Directors (AAMD). The Pennsylvania Attorney General approved the museum’s decision to proceed with deaccessioning the painting (i.e., alienating it from the collections). In January 2025, it will be included in Christie’s sale of antique artworks in New York: the estimate is not yet known at this time.

The museum, meanwhile, will highlight the work in a special exhibition of two paintings owned by Jewish families in Germany in the years leading up to World War II, an exhibit that will illustrate the different trajectories of artworks during and after the Nazi period. The exhibition will be on view from Aug. 29 to Oct. 20, 2024, and will include information about the museum’s decision to officially remove the Portrait of George the Bearded from its collection based on its previous ownership by the Bromberg family. In addition, on Sept. 28, 2024, at 1 p.m., the museum will host a conversation on art and the return of Nazi-era stolen works with distinguished experts Richard Aronowitz, Christie’s global head of restitutions, and Eileen Brankovic, Christie’s international commercial director of restitutions, moderated by Elaine Mehalake , vice president of curatorial affairs at the Allentown Art Museum. The lecture is free; seats can be reserved in advance from the museum’s website.

Allentown Art Museum President and CEO Max Weintraub says, “It was extremely important for the museum to engage in the ethical dimensions of the painting’s history in the Bromberg family. This artwork entered the market and eventually found its way to the museum only because Henry Bromberg had to flee persecution in Nazi Germany. That moral imperative prompted us to act. We hope that this voluntary act by the museum will inform and encourage similar institutions to reach just and equitable solutions.”

The Bromberg family says, “We are pleased that another painting from our grandparents’ art collection has been identified, and we are pleased that the Allentown Art Museum has carefully and responsibly verified the provenance of the portrait and the circumstances under which Henry and Hertha Bromberg had to part with it during the Nazi period. After emigrating to the United States, our grandparents initially settled in New Jersey. After several years, they moved to Yardley, Pennsylvania, to be near their son Edgar and his family. This makes the fair and equitable solution for the painting in the Allentown Art Museum particularly special.”

US, museum sells Cranach painting given by Jew to Nazis: part of proceeds to heirs

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