Family of Germany’s last emperor ends 99-year legal dispute over who owns art treasures
The Hohenzollern family had been challenging the German state’s ownership of thousands of artworks and artefacts in museums since 1926
Thousands of cultural treasures from Germany’s former Hohenzollern imperial family will remain on permanent display in museums in Berlin and Brandenburg, the country’s new minister of state for culture, Wolfram Weimer, has announced..
After a dispute lasting almost 100 years, the descendants of the last German emperor have reached a landmark agreement with the federal government and with the states of Berlin and Brandenburg, he said.
“This agreement is a tremendous success for Germany as a cultural location and for the art-loving public,” Weimer said in Berlin.
“For a hundred years, there has been ongoing uncertainty about objects that are central to the art and collection history of Prussia and thus to German history as a whole.”
The treasures include a portrait of Elector Joachim I of Brandenburg by painter Lucas Cranach the Elder and a table service for the Breslau City Palace acquired by Emperor Frederick II..
According to the Tagesspiegel newspaper, the agreement covers a total of 27,000 items. Ownership rights and claims have been disputed since 1926.