Art auctions took root in Germany, Austria and Switzerland around the middle of the 19th century. At these events, highly valuable artworks found international buyers, fetching prices that could compete with auction results in Paris, London and Amsterdam. The foyer exhibition German Sales 1901 – 1929 will present the initial findings of the DFG-funded research and digitization project Art – Auctions – Provenances: The German Art Trade as Reflected in the Auction Catalogues from 1901 to 1929. The aim of this project – which sees the Kunstbibliothek Berlin, the Universitätsbibliothek Heidelberg and the Getty Research Institute working together – is to catalogue and digitize these auction catalogues, in order to make them available to art market and provenance researchers in a secure format. Additionally, data on auctioned works of visual art will be added to the Getty Provenance Index®.

Through a study of some 5,800 exhibition catalogues, it is possible to undertake the first ever quantitative analysis of the auction market in the German-speaking world during the first three decades of the 20th century. The outcomes of this research will be presented in the exhibition. Furthermore, an analysis of catalogues from auctions of Asian art reveal that auction catalogues contain more than just descriptions of works and information on their material value. The presentation is capped off with portraits of a number of auction houses that have shaped the auction market.