Lost Art

The Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute in Williamstown, Massachusetts maintains a photo and clippings file containing close to a million items that were used to study art in the early part of the 20th century. The Clark has recently digitized a sad selection of these images because they are the only surviving evidence that these paintings ever existed. The originals have all been lost, destroyed in Europe during World War II.

Gustav Klimt
Die Freundinnen
1916-17

Pompeo Batoni
Saint John the Baptist
ca. 1742

Caravaggio
Saint Matthew and the Angel
ca. 1602

Gustave Courbet
The Stone-Breakers
1849-50

Karl Joseph Begas
The Opera Singer Wilhelmine Schroeder-Devrient
1848

Luca Signorelli
School of Pan
ca. 1470

Pompeo Batoni
Saint Mary Magdalene
ca. 1742

Pier Maria Pennacchi
Dead Christ Supported by Two Angels
ca. 1500

Puvis de Chavannes
Fisherman's Family
1875

Domenico Beccafumi
Martyrdom of Saint Lucy
ca. 1520

Sebastiano del Piombo
Judith and Holofernes
ca. 1525

Luca Giordano
Judgment of Paris
ca. 1665

Caspar David Friedrich
Northern Lights
ca. 1830

Nicolas Poussin
Martyrdom of Saint Erasmus
ca. 1630