THE KING OF BERLIN

Clara Arnheim Cottages on the Seashore c.1930

Creative Commons CC BY-NC

M. K. Čiurlionis National Museum of Art

THE KING OF BERLIN

The King of Berlin is a long-term provenance research project to investigate the unknown biographies of the 1,683 predominantly Western European works of art that were acquired under dubious circumstances1 by the late Lithuanian art dealer, suspected spy and wartime resident of Berlin, Mykolas Žilinskas, a collection (hereafter known as the Žilinskas Collection) of considerable significance that today is owned by the publicly funded M. K. Čiurlionis National Museum of Art in the Lithuanian city of Kaunas. 

1 Among the impressive hoard of paintings, sculptures and graphic works that Mykolas Žilinskas acquired during his lifetime are more than 300 works of art by over 200 artists whose names are listed on the German Lost Art Database. Further to what may just be a curious coincidence is the fact that almost every work of art in the Žilinskas Collection was illegally smuggled out of the art dealer's luxury villa in West Berlin and into the Soviet Union between about 1974 and 1988 with what appears to have been the full support and cooperation of the KGB. Although the Soviet Union never signed the 1970 UNESCO Convention, the Republic of Lithuania has been a signatory since 1998, and has since May 2023 also been an official member of the Convention's Subsidiary Committee of the Meeting of States Parties.