The Gemäldegalerie in Berlin is in the process of releasing hundreds of digitized photos of paintings that were lost in a fire during the Second World War, The Art Newspaper reports. Among the lost works are ten paintings by Rubens and five by Van Dyck.

From late 1941, the most important works in the Gemäldegalerie’s holdings were moved to the control tower of the Friedrichshain air-raid shelter for safekeeping. In March 1945, with the war drawing to a close and the threat intensifying, the decision was made to evacuate the most important pieces to underground salt mines. These works were later recovered by American forces. However, around 430 paintings—most of which were large-format artworks that were too big to fit in the mine shafts—remained in the Friedrichshain bunker. These works were destroyed in two catastrophic fires that tore through the Friedrichshain flak tower in May 1945.

In 1925, in response to the widespread loss of cultural property during the First World War, Berlin museum photographer Gustav Schwarz (1871–1958) was commissioned to photograph the entire collection of the Gemäldegalerie. The resulting glass negatives, which have survived to this day, now serve as a unique visual record of nearly all the artworks lost during the Second World War.

The digitization of the negatives—the majority of which are of very high quality, including some early color images—offers an invaluable resource for future research.

While the photos are expected to be officially released via the Gemäldegalerie’s online database later this year, many are seemingly already available. They can be found by searching the phrase ‘Most likely destroyed in May 1945’ in the museum’s online catalogue.