Fragments of Lives. Presenting Provenance in the National Museum

This presentation examines how the Rijksmuseum’s provenance research reflects broader shifts in Dutch memory culture around the Second World War. Where postwar narratives once emphasized national resistance and collective victimhood, recent decades have turned toward individual experience, moral ambiguity, and institutional accountability. It asks how a national museum can extend provenance research beyond technical due diligence to a narrative and ethical practice, and traces this shift through two case studies: the porcelain collection of Franz and Margarethe Oppenheimer, centered in the exhibition *A Fragile Past (*2020), and the recent presentation Jewish Art Ownership and the Second World War (2025-2026). Together these cases show how biographical storytelling repositions the museum as both a mirror of societal change and an active participant in shaping historical understanding.