It is not the goal of the databank to provide a complete provenance through to its present location for every work. When known, the acquisition through the museum of origin, the loss, the storage and any changes in ownership during the National Socialist era to the first post-war owner will be recorded. For later periods only stages are systematically recorded, which will encompass a large number of the confiscated works.

For information on storing, selling or exchanges, records from the four key art dealers, which were entrusted with their “liquidation” (Bernhard A. Böhmer, Karl Buchholz und Hildebrand Gurlitt of the Federal Archives in Berlin and Ferdinand Möller in the Ferdinand Möller Archive in the BerlinischenGalerie) and data from the Harry Fischer list was used.