Art: The Market (Germany)

The German market for art and antiques stands at more than $60 million a year, three times what it was before the war. Prices have doubled in the past two years. These startling statistics were underlined last week by the breakneck rush of business at the fourth annual Art and Antiques Fair at Munich’s Haus der Kunst, which ‘was for many years a U.S. officers’ club. 0f Gothic figures and paintings, one in four was imported from the U.S. It was a far cry from the days just after World War II, when starving German families were trading heirlooms for food, and antique treasures drained out of Germany. Last year, for the first time since the war, the flow was reversed as Germans bought back many of the things they had lost and more besides.

Yet some conservative dealers complained. Said an icy-eyed observer of the new German collectors: “The way the market stands today, there is simply not enough stuff available, so anything goes. Career girls and young couples invariably start with a ‘genuine’ baroque angel cum gilded wings. A stabilized bank account calls for a Biedermeier dining-room set. The first sign of real affluence is a Gothic Madonna—polychrome for beginners, and Riemenschneider brown for the sophisticated. Real collecting comes later.”