The Secret Sketch Uncovered From A Nazi Treasure Trove | Fake Or Fortune? | Perspective

foreign [Music] the art world where paintings change hands for fortunes so thank you very much but for every known Masterpiece there may be another still waiting to be discovered this is it International art dealer Philip mold and I have teamed up to hunt for lost works by great artists we use old-fashioned detective work and state-of-the-art science to get to the truth science can enable us to see beyond the human eye every case is packed with surprise and Intrigue is it or isn't it afraid then but not every painting is quite what it seems two artists rather than one it's a journey that can end in Joy there is enough to support the conclusion that it is by Tom Roberts or bitter disappointment I don't think it's a work by Gogan I'm very sorry in this episode can we prove that this is a sketch by the great 20th century sculptor Henry Moore there's a lot of Henry Moore's out there that's what I'm worried about our investigation will take us back to one of the darkest moments in European 20th century history [Music] he was buying art from Jewish people who were later you know deported to Auschwitz will shine a light on its hidden secrets you think we seem to be getting so close with this drawing and then it just pulls away our investigation will take us on a trail from rural England to a secret art horde [Music] on a train from Switzerland to German a large amount of cash in our quest to solve the mystery [Music] sometimes fake or Fortune gets involved with a story which makes headline news in 2012 a stash of over a thousand artworks were found hidden away in the home of an elderly German man Cornelius gurlitt this extraordinary collection became known as the girl it horde among the huge stash of paintings are masterpieces by the likes of Monet Suzanne Picasso many were thought lost forever some were believed looted by the Nazis Cornelius girl it's horde is now held at a museum in Bern in Switzerland and they've been in touch to ask us to help investigate a drawing out of the hundreds of works it's the only one potentially by a British Artist so here's the drawing in question and it purports to be a work by Henry Moore that great 20th century sculpture and artist what certainly looks like his kind of subject matter doesn't it these great reclining nudes and not only that if it is by Henry Moore we're getting two drawings for the price of one because if you flip it over you can see he's used the paper economically what really interests me about this is where this came from because I remember I was in The Newsroom when the story broke about Cornelius girlitt and he is the man whose collection this drawing has come from and he had this collection he inherited it from his father he wasn't spending the money this was not a man with a lavish lifestyle he just lived in this dark little apartment surrounded by the most glorious art and the question of course being asked by the art world at the time is where did his father get it from I mean that's key because that takes us takes us back to those really dark moments in the 30s when art was being plundered from Jewish families there were those forced sales Modern Art was being stripped out of museums so we need to establish where the picture came from in order to then work out where it should go Cornelius gurlitz horde has to be researched if it was Art stolen or looted from Jewish families in World War II it should be returned so our investigation needs to establish two things [Music] firstly is this a genuine sketch by Henry Moore or is it a fake and secondly if it is a Henry Moore how did it work by a British Artist end up in Germany the answer to this will decide it's fate [Music] beginning our investigation in rural Hertfordshire at the Henry Moore Studios and Gardens hi there what few words Dale is the director of the Henry Moore Foundation and chair of the review panel which authenticates Moore's Henry Moore is best known for his Monumental sculptures the son of a Yorkshire coal miner he rose to International prominence after the second world war and today his work is in museums and public spaces in 38 countries from Tokyo to Rome to London but what about our little sketch could this be by the same hand Godfrey's taking us to one of Henry Moore's Studios which is filled with the small maquettes the territory models for his sculptures I think for many people this is possibly Moore's most interesting Studio it's an extraordinary space isn't it it's like looking into Henry Moore's mind absolutely you've heard the benefit of looking at this drawing what do you think are its chances of being by Henry Moore I mean at this point what I would say is it is a work of art I would be very keen to get in front of the review panel are many Works submitted to your panel your authenticating panel we receive around two to three hundred inquiries every year but only 30 or 40 will make it through to the review panel that is a lot though it is a lot but more was a very long-lived and prolific artist and he was copied and faked very often but still we also see real Henry Moore drawings that we weren't aware of that we can add to the catalog resume what do we need to do to prove this drawing to you what evidence do we need to bring you we need the whole package to come together the evidence the object the comparisons and then we're in business we're going to do her downers on this one aren't we I mean there's a lot to prove and there's a lot of Henry Moore's out there that's what I'm worried about Moore may have made his name through huge sculptures but his ideas often started as a sketch it was a way he could work through his thoughts time and time again in both sketches and sculptures he returned to his favorite subject the reclining female nude this was something that artists had explored and exploited for hundreds of years but the difference is that Henry Moore applied the language of abstraction of abstract art what he did was play around with the form the shape the space the voids producing something Dynamic and new in the 1920s and 30s Moore was out of step with much of the British art establishment he rejected the classical looking figures of traditional sculpture but looked instead for inspiration on the continent a radical artists like Picasso and brancusi his early work blazed a trail for British modernism it has to be said that his art wasn't always well received the morning post thundered that his work was a menace to students from which they should be protected some of his public sculptures were adopted blue paint and tired and feathered but in the end Henry Moore won his sculpture began to spring up in squares and Four Courts across the globe and every one of his sculptures was a testament to that expressive new language that he'd created the language of Henry Moore at the moment we've only seen a photo of the sketch but I can already see Echoes of the shapes and forms that more explored in his sculptures but as Godfrey said we've got a lot of work to do before we'll convince him that this is a genuine more to get any further we need to see the sketch In the Flesh and that means a trip to Switzerland [Music] I've never been to burn the cat has Switzerland before it's rather lovely isn't it yes but Switzerland is the country of my two greatest weaknesses cheese and chocolate but at least you managed to hold back on the cookie clubs I even went through a phase of them should have known we're on our way to the Museum of Fine Art which houses Cornelius gurlitz collection [Music] Dr Nina Zimmer is the museum director nice to meet you nice meeting you welcome to the Christmas then here the sketch was hidden away in Cornelius gurlitz apartment for over half a century and still isn't on public display [Music] suspense foreign it's it's stronger it's fresher than it looked in the photograph definitely there's something about seeing it in real life these these Strokes are so much more clearly defined aren't they and it has this rather unconventional format it's it's not one of the standard artists paper sizes right what do you think of it um it's a good it's a good question because it doesn't fall into any normal category does it it's it's both work in progress a thought pattern and it looks as it's been been cut or snipped in some way well these bits have been stuck on haven't they it's like it's like a collage or yes and then this bit is what this bit's missing here is it appears to be where does this stand in terms of all the artwork that's come in from the garlic collection well um the golet collection we need to place it into three different provenance categories they're they're the so-called red works Amber and green red meaning danger looted art or potential looted art and green meaning no concerns it was legitimately in the call it possession and where does this fit into it and this currently is an Amber it's a bit worried I mean you must have this about where it might have come from well one theory is that it was a work that was confiscated by the Nazis as so-called degenerate art the term degenerate art was adopted by the Nazi party in the 1920s and was used to describe any art which didn't fit Hitler's taste in effect Progressive Modern Art [Music] in 1937 two state-sponsored exhibitions were held in Munich the first the great German art exhibition showcased works that presented the Nazi ideal of German nationhood and share was what Hitler called his chamber of Horrors a warning to the German public and the depravity of Modern Art the paintings and sculptures on show featured what Hitler would have seen as distorted and dismembered bodies unsettling Landscapes and sculptures more influenced by primitive art than the classical ideal with its distorted human forms could this drawing be one that Hitler wanted to suppress and how does it fit into the girl it horde [Music] I want to find out a bit more about the collection as a whole our sketch was one of just a staggering 1500 Works found in Cornelius gurlitz apartment Nina has some of them on display in her Museum we named her I mean look at this money it's just gorgeous and then you've got what is a Mane over there I mean these are the great names of art it's incredible to think that Cornelius girl it just had them we didn't even have them on the walls of his apartment did he just had them stacked up or in piles on the floor so this was his passion he loved art and if not art it was Wagner and cakes how'd you know that well we know that's when he exited the apartment was to go to the little coffee and cake shop around the corner and he treated himself to a different cake every day and the way Cornelius girl it was discovered was through suspicion about his taxes wasn't it he was questioned on a train from Switzerland to Germany with a large amount of cash and he started to say some weird things he mentioned his dad art collection from that moment on they were on his toes [Music] cornelius's collection was seized for investigation by the German authorities but within two years he died and in a surprise move left the entire collection to the museum here in Bern thank you now it's Fallen to them to research every one of the 1500 pieces to check who are the rightful owners foreign tic collection and has everything from Old Masters to Impressionists but the greatest part is modern art and would have fallen into the category of what the Nazis called degenerate art [Music] when it comes to the sketch we're looking at the Henry Mall if it was a piece of degenerate art that had been removed by the Nazis from a German Museum and has now ended up in the garlic collection what's the legal status of that that's sort of the X to the rule allies have right after the recited that whenever the Nazis stole art from their own institutions and sold it off the new owners are the rightful owners so if our sketch the Henry Moore schedule it was a piece of degenerate art that had been removed by the Nazis from a German Museum it would now legitimately belong to the burn Museum and it would stay here absolutely yes so that would be a good outcome for you that would be one good outcome of course an equally good outcome would be if we can establish its looted art if we could restitute it to the rightful owners from a family that would be an amazing outcome as well of course all this is academic unless we prove that this is a genuine work by Henry Moore at First Sight the sketch is offering few Clues there's no date no title no signature initially I didn't think that it was going to be the sort of thing that collectors would would fight over but I think it is I think this is something that if it were right and I know that the museum would never consider selling it if it could be proved to be by more but certainly could be worth fifty sixty thousand pounds so in short we've got a lot to fight for here but I'm excited our research is going to help decide the fate of this work of art it's both a challenge and a responsibility we need to gather as much evidence as possible including scientific data we've asked paper conservator Nicholas Burnett to carry out some tests on the sketch he's using an XRS spectrometer to send x-rays to identify elements in the pigments and infrared to see if he can reveal any hidden elements once this data is analyzed it could bolster the forensic case for the drawing [Music] the other crucial line of inquiry is the provenos cornelius's father Hildebrand gurlitt who built up this collection and so it's to Hildebrand we need to turn next Hildebrand grew up in Dresden in a literary and artistic family as an adult he continued the family tradition now his career began in svika It's a Small Town in southern Germany let me show you there it is and there he was curator of a small Museum and he decided to get rid of sell-off these are old-fashioned traditional verse he didn't like and he embraced Modern Art and he made a name for himself he began to make waves and from there he moved let me show you to Hamburg and there he became the director of the kuns for Ryan of Hamburg which is the the Art Association if you like and again he was championing Modern Art it was a hugely exciting time to be in Germany I mean all of that new art the the innovation of expressionism and a new type of realism and my guess is that it must have been a really appropriate and thrilling time for someone like Henry maller's work to be appreciated and perhaps appreciated more in Germany than at home I think quite possibly so I mean although there was an elite who who really appreciated what Henry Moore was about I mean the rank and file was sometimes disgusted England was not a great place to be and in Germany what he could Prosper he could be a contemporary artist well I think this is where we need to look in Hamburg and see what was happening with Hildebrand girl in there and see if we can find a connection between this forward-looking curator and this radical British sculpture makes sense while Fiona heads off in search of Hildebrand garlic in Germany I've returned to England in pursuit of evidence to see if I can put that name Henry Moore to our sketch and who better to ask than someone who can offer an intimate insight into the man and artist Mary Moore Henry's only child grew up in Perry Green in Hertfordshire surrounded by her father's work [Music] to meet me at the family home hoglands now a museum and I'm intrigued to know what she thinks about her sketch I get a really strong sense in this room of it being a lived in room almost as if your parents we had not long ago I'm very glad that that you feel that because it's pretty much the way it's always been or the way it's been since they died um nothing has been changed we've kept everything that that was in this room and into this room my father was able to put all the things he truly loved or admired African Oceanic natural found objects it's all the art that he loved to look at and talk about how important was the process of drawing to him drawing was a tremendously important process because drawing makes you really think about what you're looking at and drawing enabled him to think and analyze form I mean if you're making a sculpture you have to get a huge block of stone you spend a long time making it so drawing is a shorthand way of working out sculptural ideas he could close the door and immediately reach inside himself into that subliminal part of himself may I show you our drawing I'd love to see your drawing I realize that if this is to be by your father it's much earlier than when you're talking about it would be long before you were born I mean why do you think we've got so many forms on one page and and there seem to be cut marks as well if this is to be by Henry Moore and I'm I'm not asking you that at the moment but what could the process be what's he up to well in the way that a musician would juxtapose kind of or do repeat versions of a different set of notes he's doing the same with the reclining figure so you've got one two three four five six on this side and then he turns it around so you've got six variations I think they're called variations in music on a reclining figure with the arms in different positions so she's sometimes leaning on her arm or she's raised her arm she's got her arm behind her it's a way of working out which if you were to do it in sculpture you'd have to carve watch 12 sculptures to to make these points but he's doing it with drawing did he see his drawings as finished complete works of art yes he did do you think you might be able to sense your father in this I very much see his hand in the way that these figures are drawn I really see his the fluidity of his hand the skill the shape the form the things that interest him about the position of the head the position of the feet the way the feet lap over the way the feet are always kind of solid on the ground I see my father the sculpture in this drawing of sculpture found it really revealing going into the lair of Henry Moore and he was also fascinating talking to Mary and the way that she understood he used his sketches and have been in that room having seen all of those objects having drunk in that atmosphere I feel not only do I know Henry Moore better but I'm much better acquainted with our drawing as well so now I need to properly compare it to some unquestionably authentic Henry Moore drawings and there's plenty to choose from amongst the three and a half thousand here at the Henry Moore Foundation I've managed to find three in the collection which I think progressed the case for our drawing even more one of them is This Magnificent one I'm just standing in front of I have to say I covet it it's so beautiful and this is so close to ours in one major respect this is a montage and this comes out of that tradition of collage that you see in Cuba's diet at the beginning of the 20th century not all together unlike ours look at the obvious thing you know this is a montage but now I've seen this one I can sort of see it standing alone as a work of art there's something rather Dynamic about it rather confrontationally different you know it's a it's a piece of Modern Art in in its complete sense and also as if one needs any more evidence look what I managed to pull out of the collection this extraordinary little Smoking Gun this is an example of the type of sketches having been snipped up that are looking for a home looking for an image upon which to be created into a montage this reclining figure is so like the ones in our picture in particular that one in the bottom left and one can assume therefore that this is something that Henry would have cut up but for whatever reason they haven't found a home for it sadly it'll never find a home now but what it does do is Freeze Frame a moment in the process a process that has gone into making our drawing and we can see elsewhere [Music] while Philip's building up the case for Henry Moore in England I've traveled to Hamburg in Germany in search of Hildebrand gurlitt before the war Hamburg was a Cosmopolitan Port City and a center for daring Modern Art in 1930 Hildebrand moved here to take up a position as director of a prestigious Art institution the kunsvarine and I've arranged to meet Catherine hickley there she's a journalist and an expert on Hildebrand gernit es or to make any connection between Hilda and gurlitt and Henry Moore yes so this file is full of clippings from an exhibition that Hildebrandt gol it put together on new English art oh yes that's about the only German here I can understand no English quotes Gothic script doesn't help does it and in this article here we can see that he mentions Henry Moore as one of the artists who he had shown in this exhibition which was very daring at the time and when was that that was in 1932 so before the Nazis came to power and it was the first exhibition of Modern English art to take place in Germany since the first world war so Hildebrandt Golic really um blows the trail by doing that and what did he make of Henry Moore well he said that Henry Moore and the other sculptors of his generation a complete break from what we imagine English are to be which was always a little bit soft subtle and elegant powerful primitive overflowing and forceful are perhaps words that give an idea of this almost abstract art well he's got that right yes and I think you can see that Moore had far more in common in a way than with the German expressionist artists of that time than he did with the traditional English art and that's why Hildebrandt gullet was very keen on more is it anything here that confirms that there were Henry Moors at this exhibition yes we have also a catalog from the exhibition all right so Hamburg 1932 there he is Dr Hilda and girl director of the kunsarone Hamburg right so here's a list of all the Petworth Henry Moore aha okay so there's a figure there's a mask a woman mother and child head drawing in his drawings isn't it yes it's a bit frustrating because it doesn't actually say what the drawings are off that's right there's not much detail and that's unfortunately often the case with sketches what about this bit after is written in Germany what does that mean that said some tile Lai Garden there's museums for Constance so that means they were partially on loan from the Museum of Art and applied art in Hamburg right okay but hang on this is progress then because we know that um sketches 68-72 so there were five sketches by Henry Moore in this exhibition in hamburger 932 put on by hildren garlit and the sketches were borrowed from this museum for kunson governor in Hamburg now what what do you know about that museum well the museum was run by Mark sourland so max our land and hilbang got it were very much on the same page and they knew each other and Max our land was presumably involved in setting up this exhibition so the next place we need to go then is Max Island to try and work out if any of these drawings that he loaned to Hilbert and gerlid are the drawing that we're looking for so could Max sowland have been the person who first brought our sketch to Germany in 1932 he was the director of the Museum of kunste and geburber or arts and crafts here in Hamburg [Music] like Hildebrand gurlitt he too championed Contemporary Art and bought a lot of it for the Museum's collection Max Allen's letters are kept in the Hamburg University library and that's where I'm heading to now I'm hoping they'll offer us some more clues [Music] all sorts of letters in here written by Henry Moore there's a fantastic find and they're written to Dr sowland when you next see Dr Gillett he says will you please tell him I'm very sorry I could not send a large reclining woman in green haunt and Stone wonderful to actually see Henry Moore's handwriting and his signature this is a year earlier 1931. dear Dr sarland thank you for your letter telling me you decided to keep all the drawings and the small carving and for your check of 20 pounds and fifteen Shillings which I received yesterday it makes me feel very proud to know that my work is represented in your Museum so this is confirmation from Henry Moore that Max Allen bought these drawings and a small carving for the museum in Hamburg Max Islands Museum frustration what it doesn't say is what the drawings are my exhibition with Leicester galleries that's the Leicester galleries in London is meeting with more success than I had let myself hope for knowing how bad the financial depression is everywhere because it was in 1931. my wife wishes to be remembered to you and we hope that when you're next in London you will not forget to call and see us your Cecilia anymore people are obviously friends I mean Henry more clearly felt that Max Ireland and Hildebrand gerlid were Kindred Spirits when it came to appreciating this kind of art and Henry Moore's art in particular back in 1931 1932 what this letter does is lay a whole trail of Clues like little breadcrumbs so we now know that Henry Moore had an exhibition at the Leicester galleries in 1931. Max Allen bought some drawings and a small carving of 20 pounds and 15 Shillings from that exhibition and took him to Hamburg for his Museum we also know that Hildebrand girl at Max Allen's friend borrowed some drawings for his Exhibition at his Art Association quincevarine in Hamburg in 1932. what we don't know is where they are drawing is amongst the drawings mentioned here so what we need to do now or maybe what Philip could do actually is try and find what was shown in that Henry Moore Exhibition at Leicester galleries in 1931 and see if our drawing is there [Music] back at the Henry Moore archives I've homed in on the catalog will it have a description of our sketch look of an exhibition of sculpture and drawings by Henry Moore the Leicester galleries London 1931. I mean it's a superb little object I mean it's so simple isn't it I mean it's it's a great piece of thirties design it's in two sections the first is sculpture by Henry Moore with very simple descriptions head head figure well is wasn't exactly imaginative when it came to titles was he another exciting bit the drawings and rather similar to the sculpture very simple descriptions seated woman from Life seated woman in an armchair seated woman seated woman with necklace well at least these these ones that refer to single subjects can't be ours because ours is a multiple image and as my eye runs down the list number 42 could possibly refer to us reclining figures for sculpture number 52 figures plural and Lead sculpture well not impossible so in this list although it's far from conclusive there are two described with clearly more than one figure and possibly many figures which might refer to ours this doesn't rule it in but this doesn't rule it out [Music] back in Hamburg my trail has also gone cold this is because in 1933 hildebrand's life and career were engulfed by the momentous political events sweeping through Germany it was the year Hitler cemented his power nazi racist ideology and the systematic persecution of the Jews became state policy Hildebrand Gurl it was himself a quarter Jewish and was dismissed from his job at the kunstivalrine but he was a survivor he reinvented himself he moved from being a museum curator to an art dealer I'm with Catherine in the alster lake area of Hamburg where Hildebrand lived in the 1930s he always said I only became a dealer because I had to because I could no longer work in the museums I had no choice obviously he did very well he was able to live in this wealthy area of Hamburg yes exactly in a very beautiful house with 12 rooms and so um he also had family on the way and 1932 is when Cornelius was born so he had pressures financially and here in Hamburg he had this dealership in his apartment where he kept stashes of drawings under the counter which he would sell to people very cheaply by the degenerate artists by people like Otto dicks or or Ansley kishner he was taking a risk selling degenerate art even under the counter he did he was a risk taker he was a bit of a cowboy really I mean he had no cramps whatsoever about bending the laws if that was going to suit him or who was going to profit from him and he also allowed his own moral compass to go adrift he was buying art from Jewish people in Hamburg Jewish people who were desperate to leave the country and needed to pay all the punitive taxes that the the Nazis imposed on them and also Jewish people who were later you know deported to Auschwitz and so on and he also bought art that he knew was looted from Jewish people and of course he was a quarter Jewish himself and he was a quarter Jewish himself and he was taking advantage of people who just happened to have more Jewish grandmothers than he did himself basically in the late 1930s another opportunity opened up for Hildebrand and this time he made an even more audacious move despite his Jewish Heritage he became one of four dealers approved of by the Nazis to sell so-called degenerate art in 1937 the Nazi regime started systematically removing degenerate art off the walls of all the museums in Germany and the Hamburg museums didn't Escape The Purge the confiscated Works were taken to Berlin before being sold on the international market and that's where I'm heading now could our sketch have been amongst those taken to Berlin because that's where Hildebrand garlit would have been able to buy it [Applause] with Fiona closing in on Hildebrand gurlitt I'm still trying to find vital evidence that proves our sketch is actually by Henry Moore I'm hoping that science will help Nicholas has been comparing our sketch to those authenticated Works which I looked at at the Henry Moore Foundation can he find common chemical elements in the pigments hello Nicholas hello Philip so you've now had time to analyze our drawing have you got anything to report yes slightly mixed though slightly mixed I don't like that word mixed well this is the sheet from Burn Right our drawing yes and this is a very comparable piece from the Henry Moore Foundation seems very similar in the style of course it's got brown ink yeah yep so this is the xrf Spectra for the drawing at the Henry Moore Foundation so this is showing us the elements in the ink and this nice tall Peak here is iron and this slightly less tall one is calcium and this little Peak here is sulfur now the rest are really the level of noise so so you've got iron calcium and sulfur in the drawing in the Henry Moore Foundation yes of quantities that we can see very clearly on that graph just say okay so how does ours look well if we add the Spectra for the drawing in burn in blue you can see it corresponds here we have iron and we also have calcium when we come to the sulfur there's absolutely nothing there there's not even noise oh so very different intensity of quantities of the iron and the calcium and no sulfur the thing is this is really on the limit of what the machine will accomplish so there's a thin watercolor wash there's not really much pigment there this is this is frustrating we seem to be getting so close with this drawing and then it just pulls away so we have a very comparable drawing in terms of of its style and materials and date in brown ink and it's not the same brown ink well it might be you can't really say one way or the other okay you said mixed earlier on yeah anything good yes while I was in Burn I was able to shine an infrared light through the drawing which is of course attached to a backing and take a photograph of what made it through that's really thrilling what you've just done because you've shown that we're only looking at a basically part of the artifact that there's a there's a whole lot more behind and of course we couldn't access that indeed this hasn't been seen since the backing was applied which might have been many decades ago excavated this drawing if we rotate this voila that's compelling it's that preoccupation with another aspect of the female form he's he's machine gunning out these images time and time again in a different in in in slight details of a mother holding a child yeah I mean that's that's the profile of the suspect Henry Moore that we're looking for and if we compare it to the sheet at the Henry Moore Foundation look exactly the same a man who's too mean just to use one side of the paper he likes to use both well I don't know about mean but maybe just working at such a pace and just so so into his work that rather than grabbing another sheet of paper just flipping it over and carrying on you know some really nice like looking over his shoulder as he's working here [Music] reflect on what we've just discovered with Nicholas encouraged I am I mean it's hardly likely is it that a forger is going to put on the back of that piece of paper where it's not designed to be seen where it would be laid down other drawings and not only that it's exactly how Henry Moore worked he would continue to develop his ideas on the back of the piece of paper to tell you the truth I hadn't come here in order to try and discover something like that it was the brown ink I was interested in but we've come away with something really quite exciting and positive having said that we've been here before I mean what was still lacking is that clinching piece of evidence that knockout blow fact something and there will be something out there I hope that will give us the reassuring name of Henry Moore to attach to this drawing [Music] I've arrived in Berlin and I think it was here that Hildebrand garlic might have been able to lay his hands on our sketch the so-called degenerate art was taken to Berlin much of it was stored in the shernhausen palace on the outskirts of the city this is where a select few art dealers would have come to pick pieces to sell hildebrand's specialist knowledge of the very art Hitler hated made him a valuable asset to the regime and as the grandson of a Jew he possibly saved himself in the process today shanhassen Palace is a museum and public park and on this sunny summer's day it's hard to imagine it's Sinister past welcome to Chanel Palace thank you very much is the director of the museum it's lovely yes and so this is where the Nazis in this beautiful room chose to keep all the art that they disapproved so it was rebuilt as a museum in the 1930s and in the first floor we had exhibitions with approved art so art the Nazis liked and promoted it's a healthy looking peasants lovely landscape love Landscapes mothers which young people and here on the ground floor all the rooms were packed with pieces of art by today's Most Wanted and also most valuable artists so amazing I brought some pictures of this time it's four trade yeah you know and just just piled in the corner and I didn't Point together all those paintings you think I mean that is worth tens of millions of pounds yeah I do have a picture of this very room so it can be very nicely detected by the mirror over there so get really an idea how the room looked during the 1930s here and it's absolutely amazing how I mean this whole thing must have been stacked with with hundreds of paintings yeah look at this all just piled up higgledy-piggledy yeah least 8 000 pieces of Art in here so an amazing number of of really the best pieces and Hildebrand garlit would have come here he would have come here he was one of just four art dealers who got the allowance to come in here to choose from all the piles and to choose what he'd like to sell abroad S I thought he was it's like he's in a Sweet Shop yeah it is yeah he's quite an ambiguous character healed around garlic but I can see that the Temptation for him would have been overwhelming when confronted with this quantity of the best art and is there an inventory of what was brought and what was sold yeah there was one um there was a very detailed list I don't have the original list but there are copies of it and I do have one okay nobody could give to you so I'd certainly love to see it yeah sure can do so Hildebrand made a lot of money for himself and the Nazis selling works of art from the shernhausen Depot on the international market none of the art was supposed to stay in the country and anything which wasn't sold was meant to be destroyed but Hildebrand kept some of it for himself perhaps including our sketch but all dictators love their paperwork and Hitler is no exception this is an inventory an exhaustive inventory of all the artworks that the Nazis confiscated from museums around Germany and it listened by town there are thousands here cultural vandalism on an epic scale so I'm looking for Hamburg for Max silence Museum here it is it's in alphabetical order of course more here we go more Schism for steinbilled work so that sketches for a stonework or stone sculptures and here is Dr gurlitz name so this this is proof this is absolute proof the Hildebrand girl it bought a Henry Moore sketch for five Swiss Francs it says here that had been taken from Max Allen's Museum and stuck in the palace here this is a big breakthrough we now have proof that Hildebrand gurlitt not only borrows sketches from Max Allen he bought one and we know that Max Allen got his sketches directly from the artist himself because we've seen the letters from Henry Moore to prove it I mean all my instincts suggest this must be the sketch that we are investigating it sounds the same there's no description so I can't be sure and neither can any committee that would authenticate this work and I've seen things turned out for Less back in London we've been putting together our dossier to present to the Henry Moore review panel but at the 11th Hour I've just received some exciting news from Catherine while I was in Berlin she carried on trawling through the archives in Hamburg and has turned up what I believe is the final piece of the puzzle I can't wait to share with Philip I think we've established a very strong problem Australia remember the name Max allend he was a man who ran the museum in Hamburg kunson governor and he bought his sketches directly from Henry Moore well we've managed to track down the purchase inventory for that Museum from 1931. let me draw your attention to number 71 in particular Henry Moore a study sheet for 13 designs for stonework watercolor now that much we already know but it's what's underneath it's really interesting 10 studies for a reclining figure three dry for a mother and child and the overall impression is of blue and brown tones so that is a detailed description short of having a photograph you don't get better than that do you you don't and look at this width 31 centimeters height 29.2 okay one bit at a time should we see how many figures there are because it says 10 10 reclining figures three okay ten reclining mother and child so let's have a look you can one two three four five six seven eight nine ten reclining female forms and one two only two mother and Childs you see I wonder if the third one went in this Gap year I've always been a bit worried about that Gap now I thought that was a sort of meaningful artistic Gap but I think you're right I think you know it makes absolute sense now let's think about the dimensions now if you measure the mount behind it measures 31 by 33 if however you just measure the sketch you get 29.2 times 31 you get it I mean I give you well it looks to me like a total slam dunk for our sketch everything is here bought from Henry Moore London 21st of April 1931 we knew that already and then in a later hand this is written in a pen here confiscated as degenerate art in August 1937. but then this this drawing that we have been able to nail for so long everything is written here I know this is really good and dimensions and everything but and I'm really enjoying telling you this you always put me down in these situations why shouldn't there be something else out there that fits this description we know he did so many drawings you know he was up in the evenings doing them you know almost like knitting so it could be it could be and overall we know the committee have already considered another drawing that fits that description [Music] it's the Moment of Truth we've submitted all our research to the Henry Moore review panel having traveled across Germany in search of evidence about our sketch we've been invited back to the Henry Moore Foundation to hear Godfrey's verdict [Music] and Nina Zimmer director of the museum in Bern has come to join us but have we done enough have we convinced her to give the sketch from the girl it horde a green light hello Nina welcome to the Henry Moore Foundation so you've flown over from Switzerland for this news how are you feeling excited and very very curious I think so well it's that moment isn't it it is indeed have you come to a conclusion we have and um it's all in this letter Nina because I'm here today as well I can tell you that the review panel were delighted to accept this drawing into the catalog resume we think it's a very special edition so thank you very much so what every bit of this is by the man himself absolutely and indeed images on the the back of the drawing that haven't been seen by anyone since Moore himself probably most of a century ago this is a tremendous bonus for us and we're delighted what do you think of that you know I'm very happy very happy pickles come to that conclusion well we were really hopeful that everything was going to fit together we needed the provenance that we we felt confident about we needed more detail on it we have that now and it opens this period up again for even more intense research and and what we know about this period of art history and Moore's place in it now begins to develop and what about the provincial senior because that was such a big part of this story and once I saw that inventory from 1931 to me it seemed to clinch it I just wondered you have a system at the Museum a red light for paintings or sketches that you don't own and before ones you're not sure about and green for ones you can say are now the possession of your Museum where does this stand now I think we're confident enough to say it's green now excellent all right so please read we are very very happy and knows so much more now about the history of this work and it's it's a one um exception in the entire 1500 gold Trove there's only one Henry Moore it to fit this into the puzzle of the history I think you helped us a lot so would you share it to the public in Switzerland we will definitely show it in the museum [Music] what a fascinating process the search for our sketch in the shadow of Hildebrand gurlid and he was such an ambiguous figure and he exploited the horrors of the Nazi regime to amass a huge art collection for personal gain but then we know there were several Henry more sketches in Germany at the time most are presumed lost or destroyed but we have this one he saved it and I've I've no doubt now that we've added all of this this Rich emotive history that as a drawing it's even more desirable to collectors I can see I can see people paying 50 60 70 000 pounds for it but of course it's not about that it's about this terrifically important time in in British art history in European art history when a British Artist triumphantly arrives on the international stage of of the avant-garde Henry Moore and now and now we have that tangible proof one of those lost drawings has been returned [Music] foreign

Channel: Perspective

Views: 211,325

Keywords: history documentaries, art history documentaries, art and culture documentary, TV Shows - Topic, art history, Documentary movies - topic, tv shows - topic, henry moore, rodin, gurlitt, cornelius gurlitt, nazi, trove, treasure trove, looted art, nazi art, gold train

Id: gO85xRmhT58

Length: 58min 18sec (3498 seconds)

Published: Sat Mar 11 2023