Professional paper
The Artistic Inventory of The Academy's Palace - The Current State of Provenance Research of Items Received From the Commision for Gathering and Protection of Cultural Monuments and Antiquities
Ivan Ferenčak
Abstract
The Artistic Inventory of the Academy’s Palace was registered as an independent museum collection in 2012, with the beginnings of its acquisition dating back to the early days of the Academy in the mid-19th century. A significant number of items in the collection, primarily pieces of furniture, were transferred to the Academy in the late 1940s through the Commission for Gathering and Protection of Cultural Monuments and Antiquities (KOMZA). Research into the provenance of the items in the collection is conducted through comparative examination of the objects and archival research, with records created by the Commission standing out as particularly valuable. Since data regarding the provenance of the items in the collection, as well as the growth of the entire collection, is scarce, the paper begins by explaining the circumstances under which the Academy received objects from the Commission in August 1947. In reconstructing the transfer of materials, it is also emphasized that this was not the only occasion on which items from the Commission were brought to the Academy. Through selected examples of items acquired from several locations – castles in northwest Croatia and homes of Zagreb’s bourgeois families – the paper discusses methods and challenges in identifying materials in cases where written sources are lacking or unclear, or where item markings are missing. The importance of photographic sources is especially emphasized. Finally, through the example of a furniture set transferred in 1941 to the Museum of Arts and Crafts and later to the Academy, the paper highlights the continuity of the confiscation and redistribution of private property across different regimes.
Keywords
Provenance Research; Artistic Inventory of the Academy’s Palace
Hrčak ID:
331584
URI
Publication date:
12.12.2024.
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