Fuente : German Federal Gouvernment
http://www.bundesregierung.de/

Dürer's "John the Baptist" returns to Bremen

/noticias.info/ In the presence of Chancellor Gerhard Schröder, Estonian Prime Minister Juhan Parts officially returned an altarpiece painting by Albrecht Dürer that had been part of the Dürer collection at the Kunsthalle in Bremen until 1945. The painting is on view in an exhibition currently being shown at the museum, entitled "Albrecht Dürer: St. John Back from Tallinn - St. Onuphrius and Other Eremites".


The painting was officially returned in a ceremony held at the Kunsthalle on May 24. Dürer's depiction of John the Baptist is among the oldest items in the museum's collection. In 1943 it was evacuated to Karnzow Castle in Brandenburg, along with other valuable works, to save it from destruction by allied bombing. Listed as missing since 1945, it was rediscovered last year in a storeroom at the Tallinn Art Museum.

Thanks to an exemplary attitude shown by the Estonian government, representatives of the two countries were able to reach an agreement last November on returning the work of art.

On May 25 the painting was put on view again in Bremen, together with its counterpart, a depiction of St. Onuphrius. In the Kunsthalle collection since the mid-19th century, the two panels were originally part of an altar triptych painted by Dürer between 1503 and 1505. The centerpiece of the three-piece tableau, depicting Christ iconographically as "Salvator Mundi" or "Saviour of the World", has long been in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum in New York.

As a gesture of thanks, the Kunsthalle organized an exhibition of works by Dürer in the Estonian capital prior to the return of "John the Baptist" and was assisted in this by the German Foreign Office. The exhibition included both wings of the altar triptych as well as eighty prints from the Bremen museum's collection of copper engravings by Dürer.

25/05/2004 notas_de_prensa_archivo