Lot 79: the Stroganov collection and the Lepke sale of 1931

Derived research dataset on the dispersal of the picture collection of Count Pavel Sergeyevich Stroganov (1823–1911), reconstructing what happened between the collection's inventory of 1864 and the present locations of its parts, with particular attention to the sale held in Berlin on 12–13 May 1931 by Rudolph Lepke's Kunst-Auctions-Haus under the title Sammlung Stroganoff. The deposit contains two linked tables. The first covers all 108 painting lots of Lepke catalogue no. 2043, with artist, German title, support, dimensions, and the price published in Die Weltkunst four days after the sale; 101 lots carry a published price and seven do not. The second records 48 identification links between entries in the Waagen–Meffre inventory of 1864 and present-day repositories, with current attribution where it differs from the name recorded in 1864. Twenty-four of the forty-eight have changed attribution, in most cases downwards. Supporting files list every source with stable identifiers and archived snapshot URLs, the persons and institutions appearing in the chain, and the record of a verification pass over the dataset's identification links. A caution applies to the price column and is stated in full in the README: the published figure must not be read as a sale price. At least two lots carry a figure and yet remained in Russia. The summary therefore records something other than completed sales, and the distinction can only be settled from a copy of the catalogue annotated by the selling agency, in which start prices and offered prices are marked separately. All 48 footnote-to-entry bindings underlying the second table were checked against the catalogue section of the source publication. One error was found and corrected; the record of that check is included. The dataset also documents a correction to published literature. A footnote in the standard Hermitage volume states that Rembrandt's Landscape with a Castle from the Stroganov collection was sold at the 1931 auction. The painting does not appear in the Lepke catalogue in any form; lot 71 is a different Rembrandt, catalogued with a Hermitage inventory reference. The Louvre, which holds the landscape, dates its sale to 1932 or shortly after and states that it took place outside the Stroganoff sale.