Thread by @OpenLinkArtData

A look at Arthur Pfannstiel.
(Adolf Wuester Nazi art looting connection)

a thread...

Member of staff of ERR, Bordeaux and of GIS. Friend of von Behr, for whom he is said to have acted as an informer. In touch with Wuester. Believed under indictment for espionage. Now in Fresne Prison, Paris in custody of Seine Tribunal-ALIU Final Report
lootedart.com/MVI3RM469661

Pfannstiel had married a French woman, and the pair had a deep knowledge of the French art world. Pfannstiel reportedly furnished von Behr with the names of Jewish collectors and later in the war worked as an agent for the SD.-Goering’s Man in Paris
@prof_ecampbell
#provenance

Pfannstiel translated Hitler, Ludendorff and Celine and authored books about Modigliani
data.bnf.fr/fr/13009669/ar…
#deepdive #provenance #Nazi

artic.edu/artworks/27281…

Paul Guillaume, Paris, acquired directly from the artist probably by 1916–c. 1929 [Wayne 2002 and Pfannsteil 1929]. Madame Lederlin, Paris, by 1933 [Collection de Madame Lederlin, Galerie Jean Charpentier, March 22–23, 1933, lot. 134].

artic.edu/artworks/80586…

Galerie Zborowski, Paris, probably acquired directly from the artist. Bernheim Jeune, Paris, before 1929 [Pfannstiel, 1929]. Reinhardt Galleries, New York, by 1936 [this and the following according to Winterbotham Collection inventory, Oct. 2, 1936,

Bernard Schuster. Modigliani: A Study of His Sculpture. Jacksonville, Fla., 1986, pp. 44–45, 49, 57, 88, no. XXV, ill. pp. 49, 80, 88.
metmuseum.org/art/collection…

(Schuster AND Pfannstiel according to the publisher)

Another metric to consider for a Red Flag Nazi AUTHOR like Pfannstiel:
number of artworks that cite him as a source justifying a provenance....

Secret Modigliani called Pfannstiel’s art books “full of mistakes“
secretmodigliani.com/ctl-pfannstiel…

”Full of mistakes”
“Nowadays it would not survive a minimum analysis”
”Definitely not a reliable of trustworthy source”

(Secret Modigliani on Pfannstiel’s reliability)
secretmodigliani.com/ctl-pfannstiel…

Pfannstiel and the story of the fake Modigliani sculpture should be linked to this knowledge graph, too

(and not only because it’s amusing, but also for what it reveals about the significance of his name in a citation)

books.google.es/books?id=HgMUz…

Notable Works of Art now on the Market: Supplement
Source: The Burlington Magazine , Dec., 1958, Vol. 100, No. 669 (Dec., 1958) Published by: (PUB) Burlington Magazine Publications Ltd.
Stable URL: jstor.org/stable/872618
Portrait of Max Jacob

Pfannstiel and Jos Hanstein of Kunsthaus Lempertz

And that famous art expert, Hermann “Vose”

(Did the transcriber misspell Voss as in Hermann Voss, director of Hitler’s planned Führermuseum in Linz, or is there really a separate person named Hermann Vose?

Transcript of several articles concerning the trial of ERR agents Ebert, Utical, Scholz, Hofer, Lohse and previous hit Pfannstiel next hit . Transcribed from 2 March 1950 and 4 August 1950 issues of Le Monde.

God bless Le Monde, which reported on Arthur Pfannstiel several times, including his sentencing in a French court

What happened to Pfannstiel’s head at the trial for Nazi art looting?
One of the many mysteries...
via @KulturWelt

“Arthur PFANNSTIEL (1901-1984), peintre et marchand allemand. Résidant en France à partir de 1926, il appartient à la section de Bordeaux de l’ERR. Il est en contact avec Kurt von Behr et Adolf Wüster. En 1946, il est incarcéré à la prison de Fresnes, inculpé d’espionnage”

“En Allemagne, les Archives de Coblence, archives de l’État fédéral...contiennent... le résumé des échanges entre l’ERR et les marchands d’art Gustav Rochlitz, Arthur Pfannstiel, Allen Loebl, Adolf Wüster”

“Ten of these exchanges—with dealers Adolf Wuester, Max Stocklin, Arthur Pfannstiel, Galerie Neupert on behalf of Alfred Boedecker; Dr. Alexander von Frey; Galerie Almas-Dietrich, in Munich; and the Dik Gallery in Amsterdam—were for Hitler, Ribbentrop, and Bormann.”

networks of Nazi looting get complicated

How to place one individual Nazi art looter like Pfannstiel in context as he evolves over time and into new areas of activity, in a way that is useful for tracking looted art and forgeries?

“Georg Ebert, qui dirigea la section de la zone française occupée de 1940 à 1941, fut condamné à un an de prison; son collaborateur, Bruno Lhose, fut déclaré absous et excusé ; un peintre nommé Arthur Pfannstiel se vit infliger trois ans de prison avec sursis“
-Le Monde 1951

Perhaps if we group the links into interesting categories:
- fellow Nazi art looters
- victims
- clients
- employers
- publishers
- people/orgs who cite him
- objects connected to him (looted, fakes & normal)
- publications
- law enforcement
- supporters/whitewashers
- events

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