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Salamander

Ernst Deutsch (Austrian, 1883–1938)
1912

Medium/Technique Poster, color lithograph
Dimensions Sheet: 70.1 x 95.3 cm (27 5/8 x 37 1/2 in.)
Credit Line Museum purchase with funds donated by Leonard A. Lauder and the Ernest Wadsworth Longfellow Fund
Accession Number2013.363
NOT ON VIEW
ClassificationsPrintsPosters

Provenance1938, Hans Sachs (b. 1881 – d. 1974), Berlin; 1938, confiscated by the Nazi Propaganda Ministry and taken to the Kunstgewerbemuseum, Berlin; transferred to the Museum für Deutsche Geschichte, later the Deutsches Historisches Museum, Berlin; 2012, deaccessioned by the Deutsches Historisches Museum for restitution to Hans Sachs’s son, Peter Sachs, Sarasota, FL; January 18-20, 2013, Sachs poster collection sale, Guernsey’s Auctions, New York, lot 333, to the MFA. (Accession Date: April 24, 2013)

NOTE:
Hans Sachs, a Jewish dentist in Berlin, built up an extensive collection of posters during the first part of the twentieth century. In 1938, his collection was confiscated; Sachs fled Germany with his family and settled in the United States. Believing the collection to have been destroyed during World War II, Dr. Sachs applied for, and received, financial compensation from the German government for the poster collection in 1961. The posters were later discovered to be held by the Deutsches Historisches Museum in Berlin. Dr. Sachs’s son sought to recover the collection, and by order of the Federal Supreme Court in Germany, it was returned to him in 2012. Peter Sachs sold the collection at auction in 2013.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION:
On the collection, see René Grohnert, “Hans Sachs—Der Plakatfreund. Ein aussergewöhnliches Leben, 1881-1974,” available online at http://www.dhm.de/ausstellungen/kunst-kommerz-visionen/hanssachs-derplakatfreund.htm.

The Commission for Art Recovery has collected a number of documents leading up to and including the German court decision: http://www.commartrecovery.org/cases/hans-sachs-poster-collection