Abstracts from the Speakers’ Corner held on Tuesday 18 March at the Wallraf-Richartz-Museum & Fondation Corboud in Cologne. If you wish to contact one of the speakers, please find their contact information by clicking on their names.

Haunted by a Mark

Peter van den Brink, Former Director of the Aachen City Museums, Suermondt-Ludwig-Museum in Aachen, Germany

During recent research on the portrait painter Cornelis van Cleve, the letters “IF” were discovered on the back of the portrait of a young lady in the Wallraf-Richartz-Museum. The same mark came to light on two other panel paintings: an anonymous Adoration of the Magi (also at the Wall-Richartz-Museum) and Hans Memling’s Virgin and Child at London’s National Gallery. These three panels, all with a provenance leading to the significant nineteenth-century Cologne collections of Ferdinand Franz Wallraf (1748-1824), Franz Josef Engelbertink Kerp (1775-1841) and Johann Peter Weyer (1794-1864), suggest a pre-Wallraf Cologne collection mark. Van den Brink believes “IF” refers to the extensive but mostly unknown collection of Johann Maria Farina (1718-1787). This collection of the former was auctioned on 1 September 1788, but unfortunately no annotated auction catalogue seems to have survived. Van den Brink hopes to find more paintings with the mark IF and to compare them to the 1788 catalogue.  

Phanton Pain or Phantom Pleasure: Dealing with the Former Princely Collections in Germany

Almut Pollmer-Schmidt, Curator of Applied and Fine Arts, Meininger Museen in Meiningen, Germany

Following the abdication of German princes in 1918, the newly established democratic states often issued artworks as compensation (“Fürstenabfindung”). In eastern Germany, agreements to settle claims on estates expropriated after 1945  were reached only in recent decades and included the transfer of artworks from now public collections. Over time, many of these artworks entered the art market and subsequently found their way into the collections of prominent museums. This is seen in the case of Saxe-Meiningen, too. 

This history raises crucial questions for contemporary curatorial practice: Knowing the details of previous collections is fundamental to understanding the inventories of former palaces now serving as our museums. Is researching restituted objects merely a matter of addressing past losses of the very place (“phantom pain”) or can it also offer unexpected benefits (“phantom pleasure”)? Pollmer-Schmidt is interested to learn how other curators view this as it not only impacts a museum’s relationship with the descendants of noble families but also presents potential avenues for professional networking on a global scale. 

Little Stories: Genre Painting of the Seventeenth-Century

Andrea Steckerova, Senior Curator of 17th- and 18th-century Dutch Art, Národní galerie Praha – Šternberský palác in Prague (Praha), Czech Republic

The National Gallery in Prague houses a significant collection of over 150 Dutch and Flemish genre paintings, a body of work that has yet to be comprehensively presented or published. This collection, notable for its strong representation of the so-called peasant genre, reflects the collecting preferences of the Bohemian aristocracy, nobility, and wealthy bourgeoisie during the eighteenth-, nineteenth-,  and the first half of the twentieth-century.  

An upcoming exhibition and accompanying publication will explore the interpretation, meaning and function of these paintings. The aim of the project is not just simply showcasing the artworks, but to illuminate the art historian’s role in their interpretation, specifically addressing the tools and methodologies employed to uncover their “hidden meanings”. By demonstrating the radical evolution of genre painting studies over the past sixty years and illustrating how interpretations have varied across decades, the exhibition intends to make visitors aware of the diverse art-historical discussions surrounding these works, contingent upon the analytical methods applied. Steckerová is looking for ways to convey these methodological shifts to a contemporary audience and how to engage the public in considering all these different interpretations and meanings.

Recovered to Flanders: Investigating the Provenance of the DER-works of the Flemish Community

Sabrina Lind, Provenance Researcher, Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten (KMSKA) in Antwerpen (Antwerp), Belgium

In 2024, the Flemish Government, in collaboration with the Royal Museum of Fine Arts in Antwerp (KMSKA), established a position for a provenance researcher. One aspect of this project involves investigating the provenance of the so-called “DER works”, paintings repatriated to Belgium by the Department for Economic Recovery (DER) in the early 1950s. Currently, 38 of these paintings are held in various Flemish museums, including the KMSKA, as long-term loans from the Flemish Community. Given that the last major study of these artworks occurred around the turn of the millennium, it is now opportune to re-examine the DER works. They will form the starting point of a new and proactive provenance research initiative in Flanders, conducted in accordance with international provenance research principles. This renewed investigation will leverage newly accessible sources, such as online resources from Fold3 and the Deutsches Historisches Museum, and incorporate contemporary (digital) research methodologies, including close collaboration with restorers. Lind would like to know about cases that her research can help with, as well as learn more about projects in other museums and or opportunities to collaborate.

Hunting the Unicorn

Michael Philipp, Chief Curator, Museum Barberini in Potsdam, Germany

Together with the Musée de Cluny in Paris, the Museum Barberini in Potsdam is preparing an exhibition exploring the iconography of the unicorn. The exhibition will feature approximately 150 artistic representations of this mythical creature from pre-Christian times to contemporary art, originating from both European and non-European countries. The works from the northern and southern Netherlands include paintings by Jan van Kessel, Paulus Potter, and Maerten de Vos, Brussels tapestries, prints, manuscripts by Jacob van Maerlant, as well as craft objects and the Staff of St Amor from Munsterbilzen. The exhibition will thematically examine the unicorn’s reception in the history of religion, allegory, science, medicine, and its aesthetic expression, such as in Wunderkammer objects. The central aim is to trace the cross-cultural and cross-temporal fascination with the unicorn, revealing both shared and unique aspects of its interpretation. Lenders to the exhibition include the Louvre, the Prado, the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, the Kunsthistorisches Museum Vienna, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Victoria & Albert Museum.  

A particularly noteworthy and largely unknown object is a tapestry (550 x 96 cm) from St. Gotthardt’s Church in Brandenburg an der Havel, depicting a secular unicorn hunt. Likely created at the end of the 15th century and first documented in 1885. Nothing is known about its origins and how it came to be in the Brandenburg church. No comparable works are known for this iconography, which is presumed to be based on a French or Flemish model. This significant tapestry will undergo restoration at the Museum Barberini in preparation for the exhibition. Philipp is searching the history of the tapestry and hopes to retrieve its provenance. As the sources of the tapestry remain unknown, he is also very interested in finding possible similar secular unicorn hunts in graphic sources such as book illustrations.