Gemälde und plastiken moderner Meister aus deutschen Museen. Auktion in Luzern.

4to.

Sewn (sm. def. at spine), original wr. (some very min. spotting on covers).

Legendary auction catalogue presenting 125 modern art works which had been defamed in the years before by the German National Socialists as degenerate and had been seized from German museums. A commission led by Hermann Göring estimated the minimum bids and selected the auction house Theodor Fischer in Lucerne for the auction. At the auction itself the auctioneer Th. Fisher could not always hide his contempt for certain "degenerate" works of art. Although the auction aroused the interest of the whole world, the results for the works of the ostracised artists were rather low. This because it had become known that Nazi Germany wanted to improve its currency status with the sale. This catalogue assembles 108 paintings and 17 sculptures by 39 artists: precursors of Expressionism (such as Ensor, Gauguin and Van Gogh), German Impressionists (Corinth, Liebermann and Mataré), French and foreign members of the École de Paris (Braque, Chagall, Derain, Matisse, Modigliani, Picasso, Vlaminck, etc.) and German-speaking Expressionists (Kokoschka, Klee, Nolde, etc). This copy with the often lacking "Schätzungsliste" or list of estimated prices and a "Freikarte-Persönliche Einladung" or personal invitation to the viewing of the auction.