Throughout the world, there are many works of art that have a contested

provenance Provenance () is the chronology of the ownership, custody or location of a historical object. The term was originally mostly used in relation to works of art, but is now used in similar senses in a wide range of fields, including archaeology, p ...

. This may be due to theft, lost documentation,

looting Looting is the act of stealing, or the taking of goods by force, typically in the midst of a military, political, or other social crisis, such as war, natural disasters (where law and civil enforcement are temporarily ineffective), or rioting. ...

, or just information lost to antiquity. In some cases, just the previous or current ownership of the work is disputed, but in other cases the

authenticity Authenticity or authentic may refer to: * Authentication, the act of confirming the truth of an attribute Arts and entertainment * Authenticity in art, ways in which a work of art or an artistic performance may be considered authentic Music * A ...

of the work itself may be thought to be a

forgery Forgery is a white-collar crime that generally consists of the false making or material alteration of a legal instrument with the specific mens rea, intent to wikt:defraud#English, defraud. Tampering with a certain legal instrument may be fo ...

. During World War II, Nazis stole many works of art from Jewish families, or looted them from cities in the war.

Art Institute of Chicago

In 2024 the Manhattan District Attorney demanded that the

Art Institute of Chicago The Art Institute of Chicago, founded in 1879, is one of the oldest and largest art museums in the United States. The museum is based in the Art Institute of Chicago Building in Chicago's Grant Park (Chicago), Grant Park. Its collection, stewa ...

relinquish the painting Russian War Prisoner by

Egon Schiele Egon Leo Adolf Ludwig Schiele (; 12 June 1890 – 31 October 1918) was an Austrian Expressionist painters, painter. His work is noted for its intensity and its raw sexuality, and for the many self-portraits the artist produced, including nude sel ...

, arguing in a court filing that the painting was looted by Nazis from the

Holocaust The Holocaust (), known in Hebrew language, Hebrew as the (), was the genocide of History of the Jews in Europe, European Jews during World War II. From 1941 to 1945, Nazi Germany and Collaboration with Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy ...

victim

Fritz Grünbaum Franz Friedrich "Fritz" Grünbaum (7 April 1880 – 14 January 1941) was an History of the Jews in Austria, Austrian Jewish cabaret artist, operetta and Schlager music, popular song writer, actor, and master of ceremonies whose art collection wa ...

, and that the provenance published by the museum was false. The Art Institute of Chicago, the only American museum to resist the seizures, fought back in a court filing of its own, saying that "it had been legally sold by Grünbaum’s heirs".

Cleveland Museum of Art – Apollo Sauroktonos by Praxiteles

The

Cleveland Museum of Art The Cleveland Museum of Art (CMA) is an art museum in Cleveland, Ohio, United States. Located in the Wade Park District of University Circle, the museum is internationally renowned for its substantial holdings of Asian art, Asian and Art of anc ...

purchased a bronze sculpture of ''Apollo Sauroktonos'', which some believe to be the only bronze in existence from the original Greek artist

Praxiteles Praxiteles (; ) of Athens, the son of Cephisodotus the Elder, was the most renowned of the Attic sculptors of the 4th century BC. He was the first to sculpt the nude female form in a life-size statue. While no indubitably attributable sculpture ...

. However, the work has an incomplete provenance, and some claim it is a later

Roman Roman or Romans most often refers to: *Rome, the capital city of Italy *Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD *Roman people, the people of Roman civilization *Epistle to the Romans, shortened to Romans, a letter w ...

copy.

Louvre – Bronze Monkeys

Recently there has been debate within the antiques industry regarding a bronze monkey held in the

Louvre The Louvre ( ), or the Louvre Museum ( ), is a national art museum in Paris, France, and one of the most famous museums in the world. It is located on the Rive Droite, Right Bank of the Seine in the city's 1st arrondissement of Paris, 1st arron ...

initially believed to be the work of famous sculptor

Giambologna Giambologna (1529 – 13 August 1608), also known as Jean de Boulogne (French), Jehan Boulongne (Flemish) and Giovanni da Bologna (Italian), was the last significant Italian Renaissance sculptor, with a large workshop producing large and small ...

. Following the finding of two other bronze monkeys by British antique dealer Colin Wilson, however, the validity of the monkey held in the Louvre, claimed by 'experts' to be the real work of Giambologna, has been called into question. The Louvre monkey is simply too deep to fit the niche in which it was supposedly situated on the ''Samson and a Philistine'' fountain it was originally designed and created for. The quality of the monkey in the Louvre is also up for debate; the form is not lifelike, the fur is not realistic, and the pose does not match the poses of the monkeys in the

Uffizi The Uffizi Gallery ( ; , ) is a prominent art museum adjacent to the Piazza della Signoria in the Historic Centre of Florence in the region of Tuscany, Italy. One of the most important Italian museums and the most visited, it is also one of th ...

drawing, which is the only evidence for the monkeys being in the niches. Colin Wilson's monkeys, however, do match this drawing, are made of a gunmetal dated to the 16th/17th century, are unrefined, and are of a high lead content, all of which are traits of a work of Giambologna. The debate continues to this day. In July 2008, the Colin Wilson monkeys, along with a newly discovered third, were sold at auction.

Republic of Austria – the equestrian painting of Bellini from the Sarah Lederer Collection

Ernst Lederer, a well known art historian, has been "dazu bewogen" (induced) to "donate" this valuable painting to the Republic of Austria in return for an export license for a fragment of the large Lederer collection which was destroyed at the end of the war by SS troops at

Schloss Immendorf Schloss Immendorf was a castle in the village of Immendorf near the market town of Wullersdorf in the district of Hollabrunn District, Hollabrunn in the northeast of Lower Austria, within the Weinviertel region. From 1942 to May 1945, the Institu ...

(including famous paintings by Klimt and Schiele) or like the textiles and drawings disappeared during 1938–1940. In such a case Austrian courts would refuse to accept any claims for compensation. The famous Klimt Fries in the Lederer collection was, however, not included in the export license, and it took until the 1970s when Chancellor Bruno Kreisky himself started negotiations for the Republic of Austria to buy the Klimt Fries from Lederer.When Erich Lederer had tried to get back the Bellini painting in the 1950s the Austrian Ministry for Education refused.

Other items

* ''

Victorious Youth The ''Victorious Youth'', also known as the , the or the ''Getty Bronze'', is a Ancient Greek sculpture, Greek bronze sculpture, made between 300 and 100 BCE, in the collections of the J. Paul Getty Museum, displayed at the Getty Villa in Pacifi ...

'' *

The Hunt of the Unicorn ''The Unicorn Tapestries'' or the ''Hunt of the Unicorn'' () is a series of seven tapestries made in the Southern Netherlands around 1495–1505, and now in The Cloisters in New York City. They were possibly designed in Paris and woven in B ...

Getty kouros The Getty kouros is an over-life-sized statue in the form of a late archaic Greek kouros. The dolomitic marble sculpture was bought by the J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, California, in 1985 for ten million dollars and first exhibited there ...

* The Mary Tudor pearl, one of the most famous stones in the crown jewelry of Spain, most commonly associated with the pearl known today as

La Peregrina The La Peregrina pearl is one of the most famous pearls in the world. Its owners include the Monarchy of Spain, Spanish monarchs, the history of the pearl spans almost 500 years and recently belonged to actress Elizabeth Taylor. The jewel is ...

, but the Pearl of Kuwait is also claimed to be historical original. * ''

Sripuranthan Natarajan Idol The Sripuranthan Natarajan Idol, is a 900-year-old statue of Natarajan — the dancing Shiva — that was stolen from the ancient Brihadeeswarar temple of Sripuranthan, smuggled to the United States, and then sold to the National Gallery of Aus ...

'' *

Tilla Durieux Tilla Durieux (born Ottilie Godeffroy; 18 August 1880 – 21 February 1971) was an Austrian theatre and film actress of the 20th century. Early years Born Ottilie Helene Angela Godeffroy on 18 August 1880 in Vienna, she was the daughter of the ...

portrait by

Oskar Kokoschka Oskar Kokoschka (1 March 1886 – 22 February 1980) was an Austrian artist, poet, playwright and teacher, best known for his intense expressionistic portraits and landscapes, as well as his theories on vision that influenced the Viennese Expre ...

* ''Flora'' (bust)

References

External links

MoMA Provenance Research Project

Art Institute of Chicago Provenance Research Project
{{DEFAULTSORT:Artworks with contested provenance Art forgeries Cultural lists