Master Drawings Rediscovered: Treasures from Prewar German Collections [Hardcover]

Tatiana Ilatovskaya (Author), James Leggio (Editor), Leonid Kheifets (Photographer), Lynn Visson (Translator)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 1996

For 50 years the State Hermitage Museum in St Petersburg held a treasure trove of work which had been taken from German private collections to the Soviet Union at the end of World War II, and was believed by the outside world to have been lost or destroyed. This book presents 89 of these works - drawings by major 19th- and 20th-century artists, including Goya, Daumier, Rowlandson, Cezanne, Delacroix, Ingres, Millet and Toulouse-Lautrec. Also among the drawings is one of Van Gogh's best-known works, the watercolour "Boats at Saintes-Maries". A colour illustration of each drawing is accompanied by detailed commentary and provenance, and the author also provides an introduction to the art that disappeared during World War II.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

This catalog presents the third exhibition by the Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg, of artworks removed from Germany after World War II and sequestered for 50 years. This volume reproduces 89 drawings chiefly from former private collections, a number of them previously unpublished. The drawings span the 19th and 20th centuries, with 30 by Goya and substantial numbers by Daumier, Menzel, Signac, and Archipenko, as well as individual sheets by Ingres, Cezanne, Van Gogh, and others. The detailed two- to three-page commentary on each work is perceptive and focused on the art-historical and aesthetic issues. A brief introduction sketches the provenance of many of the drawings. The political question of ownership is raised but not resolved; in any case, placing these images back in circulation is itself a great service. Valuable for general readers and specialists, this is highly recommended for all collections.?Jack Perry Brown, Art Inst. of Chicago Lib.
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Book Description

Recently it became known that for nearly fifty years the State Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, Russia has held in storage a major trove of artworks from German private collections. Taken to the Soviet Union at the end of World War II, these masterworks had not been seen and were generally thought to have been lost or destroyed.

In addition to seventy-four important Impressionist and Post-Impressionist paintings were the eighty-nine drawings featured in this book. Among the artists represented are:
-- Francisco de Goya
-- Honore Daumier, Paul Signac, Paul Cezanne
-- Eugene Delacroix, J. A. D. Ingres, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec
-- Jean-Francois Millet, Adolph von Menzel, Thomas Rowlandson
-- Emil Nolde, Alexander Archipenko
-- Vincent van Gogh

Here is a chance to view these long-lost masterpieces, presented with an illuminating commentary, placing each drawing within the context of the artist's body of work and citing it's provenance and relevant literature. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 224 pages
• Publisher: Harry N. Abrams; 1st edition (December 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0810937883
• ISBN-13: 978-0810937888
• Product Dimensions: 11.1 x 9.2 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,238,246 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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5 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Treasures from prewar German collections, April 30, 1997

By A Customer

This review is from: Master Drawings Rediscovered: Treasures from Prewar German Collections (Hardcover)

First to be exhibited to the public were seventy-four Impressionnist and Post-Impressionist paintings, published by Abrams in the acclaimed Hidden Treasures Revealed. Now-in this splendid companion volume and in a second landmark exhibition at the Hermitage-the public can rediscover eighty-nine important drawings by major artists of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.