1900s

Man Buys 10.000 Undeveloped Negatives At a Local Auction and Discovers One of The Most Important Street Photographers of the Mid 20th Century

“Man Buys 10.000 Undeveloped Negatives At a Local Auction and Discovers One of The Most Important Street Photographers of the Mid 20th Century”

by Vivian Maier via “Weburger“

Imagine this : perhaps the most important street photographer of the twentieth century was a nanny who kept everything to herself. Nobody had ever seen her work and she was a complete unknown until the time of her death. For decades Vivian’s work hid in the shadows until decades later (in 2007), historical hobbyist John Maloof bought a box full of never developed negatives at a local auction for $380.

John began to develop the negatives and it didn’t take long before he realised that these were no ordinary street snapshots from the 50’s and 60’s — these pictures were a lot more then that. Maier’s work is particularly evocative for those who grew up in the 50′s and 60′s because she seemed to stare deep into the soul of the time and preserve the everyday experience of the people. She ventured outside the comfortable homes and picturesque residential neighborhoods of her employers to document all segments of life in and around the big city.

Ohio Art Museum to Return Likely Stolen Artifact to Germany

“Ohio Art Museum to Return Likely Stolen Artifact to Germany”

via “ABC News“

A 450-year-old German artifact that was used to tell time and to make astronomical calculations will be returned to a German museum from which it was likely stolen, according to the Toledo Museum of Art.

The device, called an astronomical compendium or astrolabe, disappeared from the Gotha Museum in Gotha, Germany, sometime in 1945.

“This was a one-of-a-kind scientific device,” said Brian Kennedy, president and director of the Toledo museum. “It’s sad to see it go, but it’s not ours.”

Americans occupied Gotha during the war and many of the museum’s collections were moved in 1945 to the former Soviet Union once authority over the area was transferred from United States.

The astronomical device, though, was one of the few items from the museum that didn’t end up in the Soviet Union. Instead, it landed in the hands of a New York art dealer before it was sold for $6,500 in 1954.

The museum in 2013 received a letter from the director of the Gotha Museum, saying that it found out about the piece in Toledo and believed it was theirs.

Kennedy said they reviewed documentation, including photographs, from the Gotha Museum and determined that the piece on display in Toledo was “most likely one and the same.”

The two museums then reached an agreement to get the historically valuable piece back to its rightful owner, Kennedy said. . . .

“New Year’s Eve in a Restaurant” (1912)

“New Year’s Eve in a Restaurant” from ‘La Vie Heureuse’ Magazine, Dec. 15, 1912

Items of Jewish victims of Theresienstadt discovered during house renovations

“Items of Jewish victims of Theresienstadt discovered during house renovations”

via “World Jewish Congress“

Terezin (Theresienstadt), a fortress and garrison town built at the end of the 18thcentury, was used by the Nazis as a transit camp for Jews rounded up in Czechoslovakia and deported from elsewhere in Europe. They were held in the ghetto until they could be transported to camps farther east.

Nearly 160,000 Jews went throughTerezin. Most perished either there or in the death camps of Nazi-occupied eastern Europe. The camp remained in operation from autumn of 1941 till its liberation in May 1945.

The discovery of the objects, some of which bore their owner’s names, was disclosed by the Ghetto Theresienstadtproject, which is funded by German and Czech sponsors. “The unexpected finds such as these suggest that an abundance of precious legacies from the ghetto period are still waiting to be discovered in buildings throughout Terezin,” the group said in a news release.

The group said the highlight of the find was the head tefillin, a small black capsule containing a handwritten parchment scroll with the “Hear, O Israel” verses from Deuteronomy. The home owners discovered the objects while replacing a roof truss in their attic in November. “In their view, the way that the objects were concealed under the beams indicates the great importance that the prisoners gave in hiding their possessions,” the group said.

Wisteria Lamps 1901

Can I just say “JEALOUS!” I pretty seriously love these! **DB

“2 Wisteria Lamps Centerpiece of Tiffany Auction”

by “Washington Times“

The Associated Press

Two nearly identical Tiffany wisteria lamps designed in 1901 have sold for over $1 million each at auction.

They sold at Sotheby’s on Wednesday. One sold for $1,205,000, the other for $1,145,000.

They were part of a group of seven Tiffany lamps collected by dealer Sandra van den Broek over three decades. The current owner acquired them over the past 10 years.

The two leaded-glass lamps are successively numbered, indicating the 2,000 pieces for each were cut from the same sheets of glass. They came into Van den Broek’s possession 15 years apart.

The shade was designed by Tiffany Studios artist Clara Driscoll.

The auction also featured 34 other Tiffany lots. Among the highlights was a 25-light lily chandelier owned by descendants of the Havermeyer family. It sold for $149,000.