Leipzig, 1922 · Edition of 500 · 50 drawings
Handzeichnungen alter Meister in Privatsammlungen
Drawings by Old Masters in Private Collections
Felix Becker
In 1922 the art historian Felix Becker published fifty Old Master drawings from private collections of the time, in Leipzig, Dessau, Munich and elsewhere, all of them, in his words, “previously unpublished.” They were reproduced on 48 loose sheets in a portfolio printed in an edition of 500 copies. This site documents one copy, sheet by sheet, and asks where the drawings are now.
Where are they now?
104 years on, most of the fifty drawings have not yet been traced.
5
in museums
Plate 7, Harvard Art Museums; plates 8 and 13, The Metropolitan Museum of Art; plates 29 and 36, Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen.
1
traced to a 2022 sale
Plate 44, sold at Christie’s New York in January 2022. Buyer not identified.
1
lost in World War II
Plate 3, the Cranach, recorded by Boijmans as missing since the war.
43
not yet located
No secure museum or auction record found so far.
Inside the portfolio
