# Moved for Safekeeping Is a Link in the Chain
> Nine evacuations in this archive: three objects never returned to the building they left, one came back unrecognised and title changed once, by a 1998 law.
> The Study - 2026-09-18
> Canonical HTML: https://iconotheca.com/study/moved-for-safekeeping-is-a-link-in-the-chain/
## Key points
- Nine records in this archive carry an evacuation, a store or a removal for safekeeping in their provenance, covering 1796 to 1955. In eight of them the owner never changed. In the ninth, Priam's Treasure, title changed in 1998 by a Russian federal law, fifty-three years after the crates left the Berlin Zoo flak tower.
- Three of the nine objects never came back to the building they left. The imperial regalia with Roger II's mantle went from Nuremberg to Regensburg in 1796 and to the Vienna treasury in 1800, and pieces were lost on the way. Priam's Treasure went from the flak tower to Moscow on 30 June 1945. Nefertiti left the Neues Museum in 1939 and returned to it in October 2009 after Wiesbaden, Dahlem, Charlottenburg and the Altes Museum.
- The evacuations that returned are among the best-dated links in their chains. The British Museum records the Corbridge lanx on loan from July 1940 to 16 September 1949. The Munich university library records its Waldseemuller gores in air-raid crate 340, to Burghausen in November 1942, Niederviehbach in February 1944 and back in September 1955. The Museo Naval's own cartography head records the de la Cosa chart sent to Valencia in November 1936 and home on 3 June 1939.
- The Munich gores went through the whole dispersal unrecognised. The library's catalogue says its nineteenth-century librarians never saw what was bound into a volume of geometry, and the sheet was identified as a previously unrecorded edition only in 2012.
- Hereford is the weakest-documented case. The cathedral's own archived page says the map was removed to safety and returned in 1946, and names no place. The 2006 UNESCO nomination and the Trust's site say nothing about the war at all.
## An evacuation is the link where custody moves and title stays put
## Berlin, 1939 to 1945: two objects left the same museums for the same tower
## The salt mine, the collecting point and a seventy-year way home
## Nuremberg to Vienna, 1796 to 1800: the evacuation that became the address
## Two cathedrals: a chair sent to Gloucester and a map sent somewhere
## Two private collections: a loan dated to the day and a cupboard at Chatsworth
## Spain, 1936 to 1939: the chart that followed a government
## The evacuation nobody noticed: air-raid crate number 340
## What the nine evacuations prove, in one table
## Why this archive is free to read
Moved for safekeeping is the provenance link that changes nothing on paper and everything in practice. Nine objects in this archive went into a crate, a tower, a mine, a crypt or a cupboard, and the owner's name stayed the same on every one of them, yet three came out in a different city for good, one came out unrecognised and one changed hands by statute half a century later. The holder's store list, loan register or evacuation inventory is the document that dates those years, and it is usually the only one. Read it as a link, grade it as a link and never let the word safekeeping stand in for a place and a date.
## Questions
**Does an evacuation change who owns an object?**
No. In eight of the nine cases in this archive the owner before, during and after the move was the same institution or family. The exception is Priam's Treasure, whose title passed to the Russian state by a federal law of 1998, not by the 1945 removal itself.
**Where was the Nefertiti bust during the Second World War?**
The Berlin museums' own page says it left the Neues Museum for secure storage in 1939 and was taken by American forces to the Wiesbaden Central Collecting Point after the war. Secondary accounts place it in the Zoo flak tower and then, from March 1945, in the Merkers salt mine, which held the Berlin museums' art alongside Reichsbank gold. It returned to West Berlin in 1956 and to the Neues Museum in October 2009.
**Why is the Coronation Mantle of Roger II in Vienna and not Nuremberg?**
Because the imperial regalia were evacuated from Nuremberg ahead of the French army in 1796, first to Regensburg and then to Vienna, where they were deposited in the imperial treasury in 1800. The Holy Roman Empire was dissolved in 1806 while they were there, and they passed to Austria. They went back to Nuremberg only once, from 1938 to 1946, on Hitler's order.
**Where did the Coronation Chair go in the Second World War?**
Westminster Abbey's own history says the chair was evacuated to Gloucester Cathedral, while the Stone of Scone was secretly buried in the Abbey. It was the chair's second recorded absence from the Abbey, after its use at Cromwell's installation in Westminster Hall in 1653.
**How did the Munich Waldseemuller gores survive the war?**
In air-raid protection crate number 340, bound inside a volume of two early geometry books. The university library's catalogue records the volume going to Burghausen in November 1942 and Niederviehbach in February 1944 and returning in September 1955. Nobody knew the gores were in it until 2012.
## Sources
- [1] Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Aegyptisches Museum und Papyrussammlung, The presentation of the bust of Nefertiti. Read in full 18 September 2026. Source for the 1924 Amarna Courtyard, the move to secure storage in 1939, the Wiesbaden Central Collecting Point, the official return to West Berlin in 1956, Dahlem, Charlottenburg in 1967, the Altes Museum in 2005 and the Neues Museum in 2009.
- [2] Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, 150 years since Heinrich Schliemann uncovered the Treasure of Priamos in Troy. Read in full 18 September 2026. Source for the 1881 gift to be preserved in its entirety, the 1941 move to the Prussian State Bank safe and the Zoo flak bunker, the Red Army's removal as spoils of war, the whereabouts unknown outside Russia until 1994 and the 1998 Duma resolution.
- [3] Historisches Lexikon Bayerns (Bayerische Staatsbibliothek), Reichskleinodien. Read in full 18 September 2026. Source for Nuremberg as the permanent home from 1424 to 1796, the 1796 flight to Regensburg and then Vienna, the deposit in the imperial treasury in 1800, the pieces lost in the flight, the 1806 dissolution, the 1938 removal to Nuremberg, the art bunkers under the castle, the handover to Austria at the start of 1946 and the 1954 redisplay.
- [4] Kunsthistorisches Museum Vienna, object database, Der Kroenungsmantel, Weltliche Schatzkammer WS XIII 14. Read in full 18 September 2026. Source for the inventory number, the Palermo royal court workshops, the Hijra year 528 and the date 1133/34.
- [5] Westminster Abbey, The Coronation Chair. Read in full 18 September 2026. Source for the evacuation to Gloucester Cathedral in the Second World War, the Stone being secretly buried in the Abbey, the 1653 use for Cromwell and the 1727 lions.
- [6] Chatsworth House, Tracing the past lives of the Devonshire Hunting Tapestries, A Stitch in Time part II. Read in full 18 September 2026. Source for Penrhos College's arrival, Francis Thompson putting the tapestries into storage, Duchess Evelyn Cavendish's letter of 25 July 1950, George Wingfield Digby's October 1948 assessment and the 1957 transfer in lieu of death duties.
- [7] Universitaetsbibliothek der LMU Muenchen, catalogue record for [Globensegmente], Cim. 107#2 (= 2 Math. 499#2), provenance note. Read in full 18 September 2026. Source for the unrecognised binding, air-raid crate number 340, Burghausen in November 1942, Niederviehbach in February 1944, the return in September 1955 and the interim storage.
- [8] The British Museum, Collection Online, lanx (The Corbridge Lanx), museum number 1993,0401.1. Read 18 September 2026 in the in-app browser after a 403 on the plain fetch. Source for the acquisition note (On loan to the British Museum July 1940 to 16 Sep 1949, and again since 1978), the purchase from Henry Percy, 11th Duke of Northumberland and the dimensions and weight.
- [9] Luisa Martin-Meras, La carta de Juan de la Cosa: interpretacion e historia, Monte Buciero 4 (Santona, 2000), pp. 71-85, by the then head of the cartography section of the Museo Naval. PDF read in full 18 September 2026 via Dialnet. Source for the May 1853 Walckenaer sale, lot 2904, Henry Stevens's 4,000-franc limit, the price of 4,321 francs and the November 1936 dispatch to Valencia on the Republican government's order with the return recorded in the museum's archives.
- [10] Luisa Martin-Meras Verdejo, Los dos robos de la carta de Juan de la Cosa, Revista de Historia Naval 165 (2024), pp. 87-112, Dialnet record. Abstract read 18 September 2026; the full text was not accessible, and the Barcelona, Girona, Geneva and 3 June 1939 stages are taken from the archive's record citing it.
- [11] Hereford Cathedral, History of the Chained Library, cathedral website page archived by the Internet Archive on 11 September 2011. Read in full 18 September 2026. Source for the sentence that the medieval manuscripts and Mappa Mundi were removed to safety during the Second World War and returned in 1946.
- [12] United States National Archives, The Text Message blog, The Origins and Operations of the Wiesbaden Central Collecting Point, 18 November 2013. Read in full 18 September 2026. Source for the Merkers mine holding German-owned art from the Berlin museums, the Reichsbank Frankfurt material including the Merkers property and the convoys to Wiesbaden from 20 August 1945.
- [13] Museum Wiesbaden, Monuments Men. Read in full 18 September 2026. Source for the building's use as the Central Collecting Point for art treasures from Berlin hidden in mines, including the bust of Nefertiti.
- [14] Victoria and Albert Museum, collections catalogue, The Devonshire Hunting Tapestries (Boar and Bear Hunt), T.204-1957. Read in full 18 September 2026. Source for the credit line accepted in lieu of tax on the estate of the 10th Duke of Devonshire, and the 1950 to 1966 restoration in Paris and Haarlem.
- [15] Wikimedia Commons, file page for Eisenhower, Bradley and Patton inspect looted art HD-SN-99-02758.JPEG, with the wikitext author Lt. Moore, U.S. Army, date 12 April 1945, National Archives 111-SC-204516 and the PD-USGov-Military-Army licence; LicenseShortName Public domain checked via the API 18 September 2026.