The Allentown Art Museum has entered into an agreement with the heirs of Henry Bromberg, who sold works from his collection while fleeing Nazi Germany, including Portrait of George the Bearded, Duke of Saxony (ca. 1534) by Lucas Cranach the Elder and workshop. The painting was purchased by the Museum from a New York gallery in 1961 and has been on view at the Museum since.
Allentown Art Museum President and CEO, Max Weintraub, says, “It was extremely important to the Museum to engage in the ethical dimensions of the painting’s history in the Bromberg family. This work of art entered the market and eventually found its way to the Museum only because Henry Bromberg had to flee persecution from Nazi Germany. That moral imperative compelled us to act. We hope that this voluntary act by the Museum will inform and encourage similar institutions to reach fair and just solutions.”
The Bromberg family says, “We are pleased that another painting from our grandparents’ art collection was identified and are satisfied that the Allentown Art Museum carefully and responsibly checked the provenance of the portrait of George the Bearded, Duke of Saxony and the circumstances under which Henry and Hertha Bromberg had to part with it during the Nazi-period. After emigration to the United States, our grandparents first settled in New Jersey. After several years, they moved to Yardley, Pennsylvania, to be near their son Edgar and his family. This makes the fair and just solution for the painting in the Allentown Art Museum particularly special.”
The Allentown Art Museum was pleased to reach a fair and just solution with the Bromberg heirs in the spirit of the Washington Conference Principles on Nazi Confiscated Art, and applicable guidance from the International Council of Museums (ICOM), the American Alliance of Museums (AAM), and the Association of Art Museum Directors (AAMD). The Pennsylvania Attorney General has approved the Museum’s decision to deaccession the painting. In January 2025, it will be included in Christie’s Old Master sale in New York.
The Museum will highlight the work in a special display of two paintings owned by Jewish families in Germany in the years leading up to the Second World War, illustrating the different trajectories of the artworks during and after the Nazi period. The installation will be on view August 29 through October 20, 2024, and will include educational information about the Museum’s decision to deaccession, or officially remove, Portrait of George the Bearded from its collection based on its prior ownership by the Bromberg family of Hamburg, Germany.
Main Image: Lucas Cranach the Elder and Workshop (German, 1472-1553), Portrait of George the Bearded, Duke of Saxony, ca. 1534, oil on panel.
Anna Melnykova, "Palace of Labor (palats praci), architector I. Pretro, 1916", shot with analog Canon camera, 35 mm Fuji film in March 2022.
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