The collection of the great Berlin newspaper publisher Rudolf Mosse (1843-1920) was the first to be forcibly auctioned off by the National Socialists in 1934. Following intensive negotiations, three major works from the collection have now been restituted from German and Swiss museums to the heirs of Rudolf Mosse. They will be auctioned off at the Grisebach auction house in Berlin on 1 June 2016. They are important works of 19th century art: Adolph Menzel's pastel "Emilie, the artist's sister, in a red blouse" (estimate € 300,000-400,000), Wilhelm Leibl's "Portrait of the Councillor of Appeal Stenglein" (€ 120,000-150,000) and Ludwig von Hofmann's "Spring Storm" (€ 200,000-300,000), one of the central paintings of German Art Nouveau.
In recent years, Grisebach has repeatedly been able to auction important works of art that have been restituted to the collections of Alfred Sommerguth, Max Liebermann and Hermann Pächter or sold with the express consent of the former owners. "We are delighted that the Mosse heirs have placed their trust in us to prepare these important works for sale following their restitution. We are very aware of our special responsibility in this regard," says Grisebach Managing Director Micaela Kapitzky.
Eric Bartko, spokesman for the Mosse Art Restitution Project: "It is very clear that today's Berlin is the cosmopolitan, politically progressive capital of a socially and politically progressive nation, like the Berlin that Rudolf Mosse and Theodor Wolff championed in the pages of the Berliner Tagblatt. Today's Berlin is not the Berlin it was under the National Socialists. The socially and politically progressive positions that Berlin represents in Europe today reflect the socially and politically progressive positions pursued by the Mosse heirs. That is why it is important to us that these three works from Rudolf Mosse's collection are shown again in the place where they were on public display for many decades and then auctioned off."