Founded in 1872, the Munich based Galerie Heinemann was one of the most important German art dealing companies until it got “aryanized” by the National Socialists in 1938.

In 1972, the Heinemann family gave the remaining business records of the gallery to the Deutsches Kunstarchiv at the Germanisches Nationalmuseum in Nuremberg. The catalogues were given to the Zentralinstiut für Kunstgeschichte in Munich.

The business archives contain a vast amount of material including card indexes, sales books, and invoice books which provide detailed information about all works of art the gallery had bought and sold. The documents reflect an important period in German collecting history and serve as a rich resource for provenance research and history of collecting.

Facts & Files was commissioned by the Deutsches Kunstarchiv to transcribe the information from the card indexes and books into a research database.

The database was presented to the public on July 29, 2010.