Obscured provenance
Sometimes the investigation into an art work's provenance can come to a standstill because a link was intentionally covered up during the war years. In 1944, Erhard Göpel, the buyer for the Führer Museum in Linz, had invoices for the purchase of paintings falsified a number of times by painting restorer J.C. Traas of The Hague. After the war, Traas himself explained that he had been ordered by Göpel to draw up invoices for paintings he had never seen. Why did Göpel need to protect himself with false invoices? Probably to be able to account for his 'acquisitions'. It is likely that the paintings came into his possession under suspicious circumstances. At any rate, the result is that we now have absolutely no starting point as far as who the previous owners were and how the paintings came into Göpel’s possession.
