Specialized portals and databases
Compilation of the Berlin Art Library on the "History of the Art Market in the Nazi Period"
Further projects on auction catalogues, art galleries, etc.
The Art Dealership Julius Boehler in Munich, Lucerne, Berlin and New York - Indexing and Documentation of Traded Works of Art 1903-1994
Founded in 1880, the Munich art dealer Julius Böhler was one of the major art dealers in the German-speaking world in the first half of the 20th century, with an international reputation. For many years, research into his art dealership has been one of the most urgent desiderata of provenance research. In 2015, with the support of the German Research Foundation (DFG), the Central Institute for Art History was able to acquire the object index system, the photo folders, and the customer index of the Julius Böhler company. With funds from the Ernst von Siemens Art Foundation, the object index system and the customer index were digitized, initial research was initiated, and thus a basis for answering incoming inquiries was created. Since 2019, the index system has been recorded in a database with funding from the German Lost Art Foundation.
Mainz, University Library of the Johannes Gutenberg University
The Johannes Gutenberg University has an extensive collection of catalogues of the Paris auction houses Hôtel Drouot and the Galerie Georges Petit from the years 1855 to 2013. The majority of the auction catalogues, some of which are annotated, came from the library of the former Art History Research Center in Paris (1942-44), along with other German- and French-language publications. The books arrived at the Institute of Art History in Mainz in the course of the reestablishment of the university in 1946.
As part of a scientific project "The Provenance of the Mainz Book Collection from the Art History Research Center in Paris (1942-44)" funded by the German Lost Art Foundation in Magdeburg from January 2017 to June 2019, the approximately 850 auction catalogues were digitized, thus facilitating access for researchers.
Paris, Institut national d´histoire de l´art – INHA
The Bibliothèque de l‘Institut national d´histoire de l´art digitizes auction and sales catalogues from its own holdings (collections Jacques Doucet) and from the collection of the Bibliothèque Centrale des Musées Nationaux. These are catalogues of renowned auction houses and art dealers from Europe and the USA. Currently, approximately 11,000 titles are available online in Open Access for the years 1600-1946. These can be found by entering the keywords "catalogue de vente" or "catalogue de enchères". The search can then be further restricted using other parameters such as time frame, location, and place of storage.
Tôkyô, National Research Institute for Cultural Properties 東京文化財研究所
The National Research Institute for Cultural Properties Tokyo has created the "Digital Archive of Auction Catalogues" in cooperation with Tokyo Art Club. This database has been freely accessible since January 2021. It includes the metadata of the approximately 337,000 works photographed in the 2,565 catalogues dating from the late Meiji to the Showa era. The photographs themselves can be viewed on site on a dedicated terminal.
Access to metadata (search in Japanese recommended):