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Plietzsch, Eduard

    Full Name: Plietzsch, Eduard

    Gender: male

    Date Born: 1886

    Date Died: 1961

    Home Country/ies: Germany

    Subject Area(s): Baroque, Dutch (culture or style), Dutch Golden Age, Netherlandish Renaissance-Baroque styles, Northern European, and painting (visual works)


    Overview

    Berlin art historian of Dutch Baroque painting. Plietzsch was trained by Wilhelm Bode, director general for all Prussian museums. During the Second World War, Plietzsch assisted the art history-turned-Nazi-art-dealer Kajetan Mühlmann in expertising works of looted art to be sent to the Fuhrermuseum and the art collection of Reichsmarschall Hermann Göring (1893-1946). Plietzsch’s chronology of the works of Gerard ter Borsch were superseded by the work of Sturla Gudlaugsson. Gudlaugsson criticized Plietzsch’s method and argued that along with the stylistic analysis different approaches are necessary to establish a valuable chronology for the oeuvre of Ter Borch. His autobiography (1955) mentioned his Nazi expertizing only as, “being active in The Hague in an official position regarding familiar Dutch paintings.”


    Selected Bibliography

    Die Frankenthaler Maler: Ein Beitrag zur Entwickelungsgeschichte der niederländischen Landschaftsmalerei. Beiträge zur Kunstgeschichte, neue Folge XXXVI. Leipzig: E. A. Seemann, 1910; Vermeer van Delft. Leipzig: K.W. Hiersemann, 1911; Die Frankenthaler Künstlerkolonie und Gillis van Coninxloo. Leipzig: E. A. Seemann, 1910; Gerard ter Borch. Vienna: Schroll, 1944; edited and revised, 7th edition: Bode, Wilhelm von. Die Meister der holländischen und flämischen Malterschulen. Leipzig: E. A. Seemann, 1953; [autobiography] “… heiter ist die Kunst.” Erlebnisse mit Künstlern und Kennern. Gütersloh: C. Bertelsmann, 1955; Holländische und flämische Maler des XVII. Jahrh. Leipzig: E.A. Seemann, 1960;


    Sources

    Haase, Günther. Kunstraub und Kunstschutz: Eine Dokumentation. Hildesheim: Georg Olms, 1991 pp. 184-188; “Mein lieber Ede–“: Künstlerpost von Max Pechstein an Eduard Plietzsch. Hamburg: Das Altonaer Museum in Hamburg, Norddeutsches Landesmuseum,1996; Plietzsch, Eduard. “… heiter ist die Kunst.” Erlebnisse mit Künstlern und Kennern. Gütersloh: C. Bertelsmann, 1955; Yeide, Nancy. Beyond the Dreams of Avarice: The Hermann Goering Collection. Dallas, TX: Laurel Publishing, 2009, p. 13.




    Citation

    "Plietzsch, Eduard." Dictionary of Art Historians (website). https://arthistorians.info/plietzsche/.


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