Kröller-Müller Museum

Investigation results

This museum has 2 objects with a potentially problematic provenance.

Result of this investigation

The museum reports that all acquisitions made in 1933-1940 and after 1948 have been checked, a large number of which have clear and reliable provenance. The remaining items were checked in internal sources including the registration system, purchase documents and annual reports, as well as labels and other marks on the objects themselves. Investigators also looked at exhibition and auction catalogues. In a follow-up investigation, pictorial records at RKD (The Netherlands Institute for Art History) were checked as well as art gallery archives. Investigators also looked at the SNK (Netherlands Art Property Foundation) archive. They were able to complete the provenance of some objects.
Following the investigation, the museum reports two paintings with potentially problematic provenance. The museum bought Isaac Israels’s Café-Chantant on Nes in Amsterdam in 1949. It had been sold in 1943 at Paul Brandt auction house in Amsterdam. Who had owned it before that is not recorded. The museum bought George Breitner’s Excavating the Construction Site of Maison de la Bourse [in 1953] after it had been sold in 1943 at a Frederik Muller auction. Who submitted it for sale is not recorded.

Information from previous research (report Museum Acquisitions 1940-1948)

View reaction of Kroller Muller Museum in the report Museale acquisitions 1940-1948 which was published in 1999 in response to the previous museum research.

About this museum and its collection

Kröller-Müller Museum specialises in nineteenth- and twentieth-century art. At the core of its collection is an extensive selection of work by Vincent van Gogh. Picasso, Renoir, Monet, Mondrian and other prominent artists are represented by major works. The sculpture garden, which emerged as a significant part of the museum in 1961, surveys the development of sculpture since the nineteenth century.