Antiquities and archeological material have been at risk for illicit excavation and smuggling. The Gallery condemns the looting of archeological sites and the trafficking of cultural property. Curators thoroughly research provenance prior to acquisition, making every effort to obtain reliable documentation that the object left its probable country of modern discovery prior to 1970 or was legally exported from the probable country of modern discovery after 1970. The Gallery makes acquisition decisions following diligent research and retains its right to make informed judgments about acquiring works of art. The treaty signed on November 14, 1970, at the UNESCO Convention on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export, and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property provides the Gallery with the 1970 benchmark date for collecting documentation.

Research is ongoing and antiquities and archaeological property in our collection with unconfirmed provenance will be added to the following list as they are found. These works of art also appear on the AAMD’s Object Registry.

The Nazi regime was responsible for the confiscation, destruction, displacement, and coerced sale of hundreds of thousands of art objects across continental Europe. Though some recovery and restitution occurred during the postwar period, thousands of artworks remain missing to this day. The Gallery seeks to document the ownership history for all works of art that were made in or before 1945 and whose known provenance suggests that they may have been in continental Europe during the Nazi period.

Objects in our collection whose ownership histories remain unconfirmed between the period 1933 and 1945 and are suspected to have been in Europe are listed below. Research is ongoing and objects with unconfirmed provenance will be added to this list as they are identified.