Bavarian State Painting Collections Reacquire Albert Schwendy Painting Stolen from Jewish Banker During Nazi Era
After thorough provenance investigation, the Bavarian State Painting Collections returned Albert Schwendy's artwork "Die Porte Saint Martin in Paris" to Rudolf Hofmann's heirs and repurchased it. This piece, created circa 1867, was initially owned by Hofmann, a Jewish bank director who put it up for auction in 1934. In 1941, the Gestapo confiscated it amid the gallery's "Aryanization." By 1944, it had entered Bavarian collections, marked as "non-Aryan ownership." Hofmann, born in 1879, suffered persecution and perished in a bombing raid in 1945. A short film detailing this case will be released later this year in the ARD Mediathek as part of "Kunst, Raub und Rückgabe. Vergessene Lebensgeschichten."
Key facts
- The painting "Die Porte Saint Martin in Paris" by Albert Schwendy was restituted to Rudolf Hofmann's heirs and then reacquired by the Bavarian State Painting Collections.
- Provenance research identified Rudolf Hofmann as the original Jewish owner who consigned the work in 1934 via Galerie Hugo Helbing in Munich.
- The Gestapo seized the painting in 1941 during the "Aryanization" of the gallery, and it entered the Bavarian collections by 1944.
- Rudolf Hofmann (1879–1945) was persecuted as a Jew despite his Christian-baptized children and non-Jewish wife.
- Hofmann and his daughter died in 1945 in a Munich bombing while in a "Judenhaus" on Elisabethstraße.
- A short film about the case will be released in the ARD Mediathek from late 2025.
- The Bavarian State Painting Collections oversee museums including the Alte Pinakothek, Neue Pinakothek, and Pinakothek der Moderne.
- The restitution occurred on August 12, 2025.
Entities
Artists
- Albert Schwendy
Institutions
- Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen
- Galerie Hugo Helbing
- Bayerischer Rundfunk
- ARD Mediathek
- Alte Pinakothek
- Neue Pinakothek
- Pinakothek der Moderne
- Sammlung Schack
- Museum Brandhorst
- Doerner Institut
Locations
- Munich
- Germany
- Paris
- France
- Bavaria
- Newtonstraße
- Elisabethstraße