59 lost Berlin sculptures found
May 19 2016
Picture: TAN
The Art Newspaper reports that, at a conference in Florence on 3rd May, art historians announced the discovery of 59 Italian Renaissance sculptures that had been presumed lost in Berlin after the Second World War. A fire at the flak tower in which many of Berlin's art treasures had been stored was thought until now to have destroyed almost everything inside. For example, most of the Gemaldegalerie's large paintings perished, which is why all the pictures on display in that museum today are on the smaller side. But many sculptures survived, chiefly of course those made of marble and bronze:
For decades, German art historians had no way of knowing what was lost in the fire and what survived in the Soviet Union. But since 2005, dozens of German and Russian museums have been cooperating on a number of projects to investigate the fate of art missing from both countries. The discovery of the 59 sculptures was revealed at a symposium in Florence on 3 May.
"Most of the sculptures were damaged, some are even in fragments," says Neville Rowley, curator of Italian Renaissance art at the Bode Museum, who was part of the research team. "They can’t currently be shown because of the state they are in. But there are plans to exhibit the sculptures at the Pushkin Museum after they’ve been restored."
Imagine if even some of the large pictures have in fact survived...
