Meissen Porcelain from the Oppenheimer Collection at the Rijksmuseum

The Margarethe and Franz Oppenheimer Collection of Meissen porcelain is one of the most important in the world when it comes to the factory’s early output. It is a major cornerstone of the Rijks-museum’s international ceramics collection and of European cultural heritage in the Netherlands. It also bears witness to the collecting passion, the lives, and the persecution and flight of the Oppenheimers, and to the forced sale of their collection. In 2016, Margarethe and Franz Oppenheimer’s heirs submitted a claim to the Restitutions Committee, which advises the Minister of Education, Culture and Science (ocw) about Nazi looted art in the Netherlands. In 2019 the Committee concluded that the couple had been forced to sell their collection under threat of persecution during the war and recommended that the claim, which related to 107 object groups, should be granted