Cultural property expropriated as a result of Nazi persecution refers to the cultural property which was confiscated from persecuted persons between 1933 and 1945. The terms "Nazi-looted cultural property" or "Nazi-looted art" are used synonymously. Information on "cultural property expropriated as a result of Nazi persecution" can be found here.
The Lost Art Database lists individual objects and collections for which a seizure as a result of Nazi persecution has been proven or can be suspected. In addition, cultural property relocated as a result of the war is documented. Found-Object Reports and Search Requests on and for cultural property in the broader sense are recorded, i.e. movable objects of artistic, historical or archaeological value or from other areas of cultural heritage. This includes, for example, books and archival documentation as well as objects of everyday use.
The Lost Art Database does not list cultural property whose unlawful deprivation is related to circumstances of loss other than those listed above. This includes, for example, losses as a result of colonial rule or during the Soviet occupation and the German Democratic Republic (GDR).
No. The Lost Art Database is constantly updated and expanded to include further cultural property. There is no legal obligation to report via the Lost Art Database.
The Search Requests and Found-Object Reports are based on the information provided by the reporters. The responsibility for the content of the reports lies with the respective requesting or reporting legal entities and individuals. The Lost Art Team does not conduct its own research on the Search Requests and Found-Object Reports. Within the scope of its possibilities, it merely checks whether the information provided by the reporter is plausible.
The Search Requests and Found-Object Reports are based on the information provided by the reporters and reflect their current knowledge.
Information about individual objects or collections can be submitted to the contact information provided in the data set. Please use the Lost Art ID or the named PURL for identification.
Private individuals and institutions in Germany and abroad can report cultural objects for the Lost Art Database. Requests and Reports are published exclusively on behalf of and only with the consent of the reporting individuals and institutions. Here can be found: Information on requests and reports
Anyone can submit information about individual objects or collections to the contact information provided in the record. Please use the Lost Art ID or the named PURL for identification.
The Lost Art Team does not conduct its own research on the Search Requests and Found-Object Reports. Within the scope of its possibilities, it merely checks whether the information provided by the reporter is plausible. If the plausibility is substantially questioned by third parties, the report is marked as "disputed".
The publication of Search Requests and Found-Object Reports is intended to bring former owners or their heirs together with those currently in possession of the cultural property. Restitution and other just and fair solutions in dealing with Nazi-looted cultural property are the goal of these publications. Subsequently, cultural property can be reported as "restituted". The registration of restituted cultural property does not claim to be complete and serves to create transparency.
We recommend the following citation scheme:
Lost Art Database, PURL, (accessed XX.XX.20XX).
The Foundation deletes an entry, request or report from the Lost Art Database when reporters request this in writing. Cultural objects can also be removed from the database if information is found to be untrue or implausible.
No. The Lost Art Team checks the plausibility of notifications, but does not undertake in-depth provenance research.
No. The documentation of an individual object or a collection in the Lost Art Database does not imply that it is in fact a cultural object seized as a result of Nazi persecution or removed as a result of the Second World War. The documentation has no effect on the right of ownership, the right of disposal or the existence of other legal claims, neither in favor of nor at the expense of the respective reporter or a third party. The entry in the Lost Art Database does not replace any legal assertion by the authorized institution or person that may be required nor any other measures to secure rights.
The "Provenance Research" module, originally available at lostart.de has been removed with the 2021 relaunch. The data it contains was generated in 2001, before the establishment of the German Lost Art Foundation, for the appendices to the Guidelines. These data sets are currently being revised to take into account the current state of research and will be available via Proveana – Database Provenance Research.
You have the possibility to download result lists as CSV file. You can open the file directly with an appropriate program (Excel, OpenOffice, LibreOffice, etc.) or save it. A maximum of 500 data records can be exported.
When opening the CSV file directly, either the data is loaded (Excel) or an import dialog is displayed (OpenOffice, LibreOffice, etc.). When loading directly into Excel, the respective default character set of the Excel installation is used. Since the universal character set UTF8 is used for the CSV data, umlauts and similar characters may be displayed incorrectly without conversion. For a correct display of the data in Excel, it is therefore recommended to use the corresponding import function for CSV files in Excel. You can find instructions at the following external link here.
The Advanced Search function allows you to search in specific fields, combine different search terms for a more focused search result.
At the right of the entry fields, you will find a drop-down menu with search criteria Select a search criterion first and then enter your search term in the entry fields to the left. At the right, you can choose so-called Boolean operators like “AND”, “OR”, “AND NOT” from a drop-down menu to decide whether the search results need to contain all of the terms or not. With the “Add search field” button, you can add further terms to your search.
To "truncate" a word, i.e. to replace the word ending by a symbol in order to get more results, you can use an asterisk *:
Example: The search entry “water*” finds “watercolour”, “watercolor”, “watermill” etc.
In order to replace a character by a placeholder, you can use a question mark as wildcard character.
Example: “wom?" finds "woman", "women", etc.
Do not use hyphen characters in combination with wildcard caracters (* and ?).
To search for several words in exact sequence of characters, enter the terms by adding quotation marks at the beginning and the end of the phrase.
Example: "Houses on the river”
Reset the search by going to the main menu "Search" or enter a new term in the search slot. At the left of the search results, there is a list of filters relevant to the search. These filters help you limit the number of hits.