Works of art are a statement of and a commentary on the
time, place and persons who created them and patronized them. They
are the images of the civilization gone bye and help us to understand history. Although
we may not realize it, art is a cultural statement that remains to inform and
educate future generations of how life once was. This is what makes certain
pieces of art more poignant and famous than others, when they come to symbolize
a generation or period of time.
Though priceless and invaluable there have been occasions in
history when they were not shown the respect they deserved and they were
pillaged, plundered, stolen and destroyed. Thus either unknowingly or worse
still, knowingly and with a vengeance of intolerance they have been destroyed
and left gaping holes in the story of our civilization. So whether it was
because of the World Wars or it was the plunder of Muslim fundamentalists of
ISIS or Taliban, many precious works of art were lost forever. Accidents, fire,
negligence and botched up restoration efforts too have contributed to the
tragic loss of priceless artworks.
The wars have had a very detrimental impact on culture and civilization
and art which remains an embodiment of both has suffered most and many epics
have been lost forever. The invading armies were either ignorant of their true
value or were so afraid of their potential to revive a culture that they
purposely destroyed them.
When properly taken care of, works of art can
persist through millenniums that tell the stories of the times passed to future
generations. To preserve cultural heritage from getting destroyed, art
galleries and museums have installed a set of rules designed to protect the
artworks from thieves, vandals, and accidents. Artworks are often protected by
safety ropes that keep the visitors at a reasonable distance. Some pieces are
placed inside bulletproof glass boxes.
But, since art venues are trying to keep the sense of accessibility, many works are showcased without these protective items. Instead, they are guarded by a series of guidelines that the visitors must obey. For instance, viewers are often asked to leave their belongings (such as briefcases and umbrellas) at the front desk. Since children are prone to accidents of all kinds, museums demand that they must be accompanied by adults. Food and drinks are not allowed and touching the pieces is strictly forbidden.
There's a reason why museums and galleries ask people not to touch works on display. Human skin carries natural oils and acids that are harmful to artworks. A single touch can initiate permanent changes, darken the paint or corrode metal. But despite these rules, accidents happen and artworks get shattered, punched through or completely destroyed.
But, since art venues are trying to keep the sense of accessibility, many works are showcased without these protective items. Instead, they are guarded by a series of guidelines that the visitors must obey. For instance, viewers are often asked to leave their belongings (such as briefcases and umbrellas) at the front desk. Since children are prone to accidents of all kinds, museums demand that they must be accompanied by adults. Food and drinks are not allowed and touching the pieces is strictly forbidden.
There's a reason why museums and galleries ask people not to touch works on display. Human skin carries natural oils and acids that are harmful to artworks. A single touch can initiate permanent changes, darken the paint or corrode metal. But despite these rules, accidents happen and artworks get shattered, punched through or completely destroyed.
41. Five Dancing Women - Edgar Degas
Five Dancing Women is a pastel painting by Edgar Degas that
features the subject for which he is best known. More than half of his works
feature dancers and they were the subject that he most identified with. Done
sometime in the late 19th century, this pastel piece of art depicts five
beautiful ballerinas. The dancers appear on stage mid-performance. Degas is
considered by many to be an impressionist despite the fact that he thought
himself to be much more of a realist.
This piece was part of the collection of Baron Mor Lipot Herzog
who had one of the greatest art collections in all of Europe and was a jew. It
was the largest in Hungary and featured more than 2,500 works of art. Baron Mor
Lipot Herzog died in 1934 and the collection then went to his widow who died in
1940. After that the art collection passed down to his three children, Andras,
Istevan and Erzsebet.
In 1944, Hungary an ally of Nazi Germany not only began forcing
all Jews to register their art but also began sending them to Nazi death camps.
The Herzog family attempted to save their art by hiding in the basement of one
of their factories, but it was eventually discovered. Andras was sent to a work
camp where he later died, but his daughters did manage to escape.
Today a significant portion of the Herzog collection is on display in various museums throughout Hungary. The family has filed suits to try and get the art back but to no avail. There has also been no information on what happened to this Degas work but it has not appeared in any museums in Hungary. The art was divided soon after it was found with some of the art staying in Hungary and some being sent to Germany.
42. A Harlot’s progress - William Hogarth
This encompasses a series of 6 works by W. Hogarth and in these
6 plates he had depicted the rise and fall of a prostitute. Hogarth, an English
painter is seen as the father of ‘satirical caricatures’. The original
paintings depict the story of a young lady who, finding herself in London gets
into prostitution and dies aged 23. We see her selling her body for money,
getting arrested for it, succumbing to poverty and eventually dying of
syphilis. Her disgrace doesn't end there though. In the final plate her coffin
is used as a tavern bar, ironically enough in the presence of other whores and
whoremongers bringing the story to a full circle. These plates were also gutted
in a fire, but due to the massive number of copies sold, they managed to remain
for about 30 years.
A Harlot's Progress (also known as The Harlot's Progress) is a
series of six paintings (1731) and engravings (1732) shows the story of a young
woman, M. (Moll or Mary) Hackabout, who arrives in London from the country and
becomes a prostitute.
The first of Hogarth’s ‘Modern Moral Subjects’, he intended the
pictures to stand without accompanying text. The series had 1,240 subscribers
and was so popular that pirated versions were quickly issued. A Male version of
this morality is found in another series called 'the Rake's progress' (1735)
where a man gradually loses all his money on wine, women and gambling in a
series of 8 successive paintings. He is finally in a mental asylum in the last
painting. Marriage-a-la-mode (1745) is a similar riches to rags story told in 6
pictures. The 'Four Stages of Cruelty' (1751) is the most gruesome series of 4
pictures by this artist in which he shows how a young boy tortures animals,
becomes a criminal as an adult and eventually hung at the gallows.
43. Philosophy - ceiling panel for the Great Hall of Vienna University (1899
- 1907) - Gustav Klimt
Upon presenting his paintings commissioned by University of
Vienna entitled Philosophy,Medicine and Jurisprudence, Klimt came under attack
for ‘pornography’ and ‘perverted excess’ in the paintings. In the end, none of
the paintings would go on display in the university. In the very very end, in
May 1945 all three paintings were destroyed by retreating SS forces. In1911
Medicine and Jurisprudence were bought by Klimt’s friend and fellow artist,
Koloman Moser. Medicine eventually came into the possession of a Jewish family,
and in 1938 the painting was seized by Germany. In 1943, after a final
exhibition, they were moved to Schloss Immendorf, a castle in Lower Austria,
for protection. In May 1945 the paintings were destroyed as retreating German
SS forces set fire to the castle to prevent it falling into enemy hands. All
that remains now are preparatory sketches and a few photographs. Only one
photograph remains of the complete painting of Medicine, taken just before it
was destroyed.
Philosophy was the first of the three pictures presented to the
Austrian Government at the seventh Vienna Secession exhibition in March 1900.
It had been awarded a gold medal at the World Exhibition in Paris, but was
attacked by many art critics in his own country. Klimt described the painting
as follows: "On the left a group of figures, the beginning of life,
fruition, decay. On the right, the globe as mystery. Emerging below, a figure
of light: knowledge". Critics were disturbed by its depiction of men and
women drifting in an aimless trance. The original proposal for the theme of the
painting was "The Victory of Light over Darkness", but what Klimt
presented instead was a dreamlike mass of humanity, referring neither to
optimism nor rationalism, but to a "viscous void".
Medicine was the second painting, presented in March 1901 at the
tenth Secession Exhibition. It featured a column of semi-nude figures on the
right hand side of the painting, representing the river of life. Beside it was
a young nude female who floated in space, with a newborn infant at her feet,
representing life. A skeleton represented death in the river of life. The only
link between the floating woman and the river of bodies is two arms, the
woman's and a man's as seen from behind. At the bottom of the painting Hygieia
tood with the Aesculapian snake around her arm and the cup of Lethe in her
hand, turning her back to mankind. Klimt conveyed an ambiguous unity of life
and death, with nothing to celebrate the role of medicine or the science of
healing.
Jurisprudence, too, is laden with anxiety: a condemned man is
depicted surrounded by three female furies and a sea monster, while in the
background, the three goddesses of Truth, Justice, and Law look on.
44. An Angel with Titus Features -
Rembrandt van Rijn
Rembrandt van Rijn or simply Rembrandt as he has become known
today was active as a painter from 1620 until his death in 1669. He was a
printer and a painter, showing an early skill for the craft. He was able to
open his own studio at a very young age and was known to have created hundreds
of paintings and etchings throughout his lifetime. He also had several periods
where he explored different techniques and themes, but his work was always
recognized for the skill and the emotion behind them.
It was in his later years that more and more biblical themes
appeared in his works and it might have been around that time that he completed
this piece. This elegant but soft piece evokes very strong emotions and
portrays the skill that Rembrandt was known for. There is very little known
about this piece even before World War II however. This piece is cataloged by
the Art Loss Register as missing due to the Nazi invasion of France.
This artwork was kept in chateau in the French countryside.
There it was found by the Nazis and taken to Paris sometimes in 1943. It is
believed then that this piece was set aside to become part of Hitler’s museum
along with more than 300 other pieces of art that Hitler found to be worthy. It
is well known that Hitler had great respect for the old masters and therefore
would have wanted a Rembrandt in his museum. Even though 162 of the pieces that
were slated for Hitler’s museum were recovered, there has been no sign of many
of the others.
45. Temples of Palmyra
In May 2015, the terrorist group ISIS captured Palmyra, an
ancient city in Syria that holds many archaeological ruins. Over the next eight
months, ISIS plundered and destroyed a number of archaeological sites,
including ancient temples dedicated to the gods Baalshamin and Bel
The Temple of Baalshamin was an ancient temple in the city of
Palmyra, Syria, dedicated to the Canaanite sky deity Baalshamin. The temple's
earliest phase dates to the late 2nd century BC; its altar was built in 115 AD,
and the temple was substantially rebuilt in 131 AD.
The temples date back around 2,000 years and featured several
massive, finely decorated columns. At the time the temples were in use, Palmyra
was under Roman control. The city was becoming a hub for trade, bringing the city
great wealth. A hybrid of eastern and western design, this temple showcased the
cultural diversity and great wealth of Palmyra.
The temple, consecrated to the Mesopotamian god Bel, worshipped
at Palmyra in triad with the lunar god Aglibol and the sun god Yarhibol, formed
the center of religious life in Palmyra and was dedicated in 32 AD, the temple
was destroyed by ISIS.
46. A Hunting Trip - Józef Brandt
This historic painter Józef Brandt, who spent a large part of
his life in Munich, became famous for his depictions of hunting, rows, battles
and Kozak-Tatar fights, as well as the 17th-century Swedish wars. Józef Brandt
also had a huge influence on later Polish painting, as well as literature
(notably the Trilogy of Sienkiewwicz. His painting entitled A Hunting Trip was
kept at the Silesian Museum in Katowice until the Second World War. Following
the invasion of the German army, the museum's collection was transported to the
Landesmuseum in Bytom. Many works were either destroyed or stolen during
transport. Towards the end of the war, the cultural heritage stored in Bytom
was transferred to local monasteries and palaces. Their further fate remains
unknown.
The painter was acclaimed for his military art. Throughout the
second half of the 19th century, he was the leader of a Polish artistic colony
in Munich. He was born in 1841 in Szczebrzeszyn, and died in 1915 in Radom. His
other famous paintings are Chodkiewicz in the Battle of Khotyn and Return from
Vienna – Rolling Stock. Brandt reached his highest artistic form in the 1870s
and 1880s. After the presentation of Battle of Vienna during the World’s Fair
in 1873 he was awarded Order of Franz Joseph. In 1875 he was designated to be a
member of Academy of Fine Arts in Berlin, and in 1878 he got a honorary
professorship in the Bavarian Academy.
47. Portrait of a Young Woman -
Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio
This oil on canvas painting is relatively small at only 23 by 14
inches. It was part of the Kaiser-Friedrich Museum prior to the war.
Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio was known for creating paintings that have a
realistic observation of the people within them. He captures both photo
realistic representations of people but also the depth of their emotional
state. His dramatic use of lighting in his paintings would greatly
influence the Baroque paintings that would follow him.
Portrait of a Young Woman is no different from the rest of his
stunning works. It features a beautiful young woman, nicely dressed and
touching some flowers at her chest. The precision in her facial expression
truly captured the personality of the subject matter. It has not been seen
since 1945.
The painting belonged to the Kaiser-Friedrich Museum (now the Gemaldegalerie) in Berlin but was moved to the Berlin-Friedrichshain Flak tower repository. The painting was moved because the tower had reinforced concrete structures which were believed to be anti-aircraft and therefore a perfect place to protect the priceless artwork.
The painting belonged to the Kaiser-Friedrich Museum (now the Gemaldegalerie) in Berlin but was moved to the Berlin-Friedrichshain Flak tower repository. The painting was moved because the tower had reinforced concrete structures which were believed to be anti-aircraft and therefore a perfect place to protect the priceless artwork.
As of May 1945 the painting was believed to be in the tower but
when the Soviets entered Berlin they found it difficult to keep a tight guard
on the paintings still stored within the tower. That month a fire started
within the tower that spread throughout the entire repository. It is believed
that all of the art was destroyed but in 2011, a painting that was believed to
be stored in the tower turned up for auction in New York. This leads some to
believe that other paintings might have been saved.
48. Portrait of Trude Steiner - Gustav
Klimt
This portrait by Gustav Klimt was of the daughter of Jenny
Steiner a Viennese collector. Gustav Klimt was a popular painter in Vienna who
was very selective about who he chose to paint. With no end to the commissions
coming to his door he could pick the portraits that most appealed to him. In
most cases he opted to paint women as they were his favorite subject. It was
said that he would paint day and night in his home wearing nothing other than
sandals and a robe.
Gustav Klimt was very secretive about his methods and how he
painted. His golden period was during the early 20th century and it was then
that he not only used gold in his paintings but that he was at the height of
his popularity as a painter. He died in 1918 after suffering a stroke due to
the pneumonia epidemic of the time.
The Portrait of Trude Steiner was one of the commissioned
paintings that Gustav Klimt did. It is a simple piece that gives a softer and
less erotic feel than some of Gustav Klimt’s other works. It was commissioned
around 1900 which was before Gustav’s golden period and before he became a very
prominent painter throughout Vienna.
The painting was lost when Jenny Steiner fled Austria with her
daughters in 1938, shortly after the Nazi invasion of Vienna. The painting was
taken by the Nazis that same year under the pretense of being part of a
collection to pay the taxes. It was sold at auction around April of 1941 and
there has been no information on the portrait since then.
49. General Honjō's Samurai Sword - Goro
Nyudoo Masamune
Japan’s most famous swordsmith, Goro Nyudoo Masamune made this
quasi-legendary katana – said to be perhaps the finest sword ever made – in the
early 14th century. It was wielded in combat over the course of centuries,
getting its name from a 17th-century owner, General Honjō Shigenaga. The story
goes that another samurai attacked Honjō with this sword and split his helmet
in two with a single blow, but Honjō won the fight and took the sword as his
prize. It was worn by the Tokugawa shoguns and declared a national treasure of
Japan in 1939. It disappeared, along with a collection of 15 prized swords, in
January 1946, when these blades were taken by someone who appeared to be an
American allied officer. None has been recovered.
Swordsmith Gorō Nyūdō Masamune (lived A.D. 1264 to 1343) is
considered by many to be the greatest sword maker in Japanese history. This
sword is named after one of its owners, Honjo Shigenaga, who took it as a prize
after a 16th-century battle. The sword came into the possession of Tokugawa
Ieyasu, a leader who became the first shogun of Japan, after winning a series
of wars in the 16th century.
The sword would be passed down through the Tokugawa family until
the end of World War II, when, during the American occupation of Japan, the
sword had to be turned over to American authorities who were concerned that
this sword, and others like it, could be used as weapons against the Americans.
The sword never re-appeared again. It's possible that American soldiers
destroyed the sword, along with other captured Japanese weapons; or they may
have brought the sword to America, meaning it could be re-discovered.
The last record of this sword’s whereabouts was during 1862,
when it was given by Tokugawa Ishige to the imperial family to mark his
marriage to Princess Kazunomiya. However, that this is the first Masamune sword
that has been identified in roughly 150 years.
50. The Just Judges - Hubert and Jan van
Eyck
The "Just Judges" is a panel that is part of the Ghent
Altarpiece, a 15th-century work of art painted by Hubert and Jan van Eyck that
is located in the Saint Bavo Cathedral in Ghent, Belgium. The panel shows a
number of characters on horseback, their identity uncertain. Philip the Good,
who was Duke of Burgundy at the time the altarpiece was created, is likely one
of the characters on horseback. The panel was stolen in 1934 and has never
been found.
The panel was removed from the frame, apparently with care,
leaving the other panels undamaged. In the empty space was left a note, written
in French, with the words, "Taken from Germany by the Treaty of
Versaile", a reference to the fact that the altarpiece, having been
removed to Berlin by German forces during World Wat I, had to be returned in
accordance with Article 247 of the Treaty of Versailles. On 30 April, the
Bishop of Ghent received a ransom demand for one million Belgian francs, to
which the Belgian minister refused to agree. A second letter was delivered in
May. The Belgian government then commenced negotiations with the thief arguing
that since the lost panel was a national treasure, the diocese's ownership
interest was subordinate to that of the nation. Correspondence continued
through October between the thief and the government, with the exchange of at
least 11 letters. In an act of good faith the ransomer returned one of the
panel's two parts (a grisaille painting of St John the Baptist).
However, despite the passage of time, new tips continue to come
in and the case file is still active with the attorney general's office still
updating the 2,000-page file, wrote art historian Noah Charney in an article
published in the Guardian in 2013. Before the Just Judges was stolen in 1934,
there were numerous other attempts to steal it and other parts of the Ghent
Altarpiece.
With this I conclude the five part series of lost treasures of the world of art. Whether it was a deliberate act of theft or a natural calamity like earthquake, floods, or accidents like fire, shipwreck, plane crash or pure negligence of the connoisseurs like touching, poking or destroying inadvertently or lack of tolerance towards art, whatever may be the reason, but loss of a priceless work of art is an incalculable toss to our culture and heritage. I felt it was best to spread this message through the social media so that those who also feel similarly can simply spread the word by passing on the Facebook and WhatsApp messages to their friends and family. We must always remember that this is our treasure, we have inherited it and it is our responsibility to pass it on to the next generation.
Developing a taste for art brightens up our lives in more ways than one. Visits to museums and galleries, reading books and watching documentaries on Art History, discussing with those who know all together make you more and more an art connoisseur. And once you start enjoying Art it becomes your responsibility to protect it so that others too can enjoy!
