The Stiftung Preussischer Kulturbesitz, the foundation which runs the Berlin State Museums, has announced its intention to return two works of art to the daughter-in-law of Max Silberberg who died in a concentration camp.
Silberberg, an industrialist from Breslau, once owned one of the most important private collections of the Weimar Republic. Seized by the National Socialist regime, his pictures were sold at a forced auction in 1935. A Van Gogh drawing entitled “Olive trees before the Alpillen mountains” (shown here) went to the Kupferstichkabinett, and a Hans von Marées painting, “Self-portrait or man with a yellow hat” went into the Nationalgalerie collection. The chairman of the Kulturbesitz Klaus-Dieter Lehmann indicated that purchase of the two works may be possible.
Originally appeared in The Art Newspaper as 'Berlin restitution'
