At the end of September 2021, the Staatsgalerie Stuttgart received back a work of art that had been missing since the Second World War. It will be on display there for a few weeks from November as part of a special presentation. RESTAURO on the Restauro of a war loss In 1902, the painting “Fish and Shells on the Beach” by Jan van Kessel the Elder (1626-1679) from Ludwigsburg Palace was […]
At the end of September 2021, the Staatsgalerie Stuttgart received back a work of art that had been missing since the Second World War. It will be on display there for a few weeks from November as part of a special presentation. RESTAURO about the restitution of a war loss
In 1902, the painting “Fish and Shells on the Beach” by Jan van Kessel the Elder (1626-1679) came to the Staatsgalerie Stuttgart from Ludwigsburg Palace. During the war, it was stored together with other works of art in a vicarage and thus saved from destruction. However, when employees of the Staatsgalerie inspected the storage location in 1945, they found it almost completely empty.
At the end of 2020, the small painting was then identified in French private ownership and handed over to a representative of the Ministry of Science, Research and the Arts as well as the director and the provenance researcher of the Staatsgalerie at the Embassy of the Federal Republic of Germany in Paris on September 24, 2021. Prior to this, the former owner has been searching for the original owner with the help of an art expert and a lawyer.
As soon as the artwork has received a new frame and approval from the team of restorers, it will be on display for several weeks in the form of the special presentation “Bienvenue! Late homecoming of a war loss” in the rooms of the Staatsgalerie. With the return of this work, a painful gap can now be closed: The counterpart, which has been orphaned for 77 years, can now be presented again with its counterpart in the permanent collection.
In 2016, an Alsatian collector and archaeologist bought a valuable copperplate engraving by Albrecht Dürer at a flea market in Sarrebourg, France – a work that had been considered lost since the Second World War. When the expert discovered the stamp of the Staatsgalerie Stuttgart on the reverse of the sheet, he donated his find to the museum’s collection of prints and drawings. Read more here.












