Part of a collection which had found its way to Australia as a result of the horrific events leading up to World War II they were sold for very modest sums in a Sotheby's auction of Old Master paintings on April 14.
The provenance of the three works in the sale is was "with A S Drey, Munchen circa 1864.
"Acquired from the above by Hedwig Ullmann, Frankfurt-am-Main in 1927.
"Thence by descent to the present owners."
According to the catalogue Albert Ullmann died in 1912 and left behind his widow and their two sons who had to flee Germany for Italy during the 1939s due to Nazi persecution.
By decree in 1938, the Nazi regime required all Jews who resided within the Reich, or who were nationals of the Reich and held assets above a certain value, to register these assets.
Hedwig Ullmann and her two adult sons were forced to do so in 1938 in Milan and, as a result, lost substantial parts of their art collection.
In 1939, Hedwig and her sons fled Europe and settled in Melbourne, Australia.
Acording to the Sotheby's catalogue their paintings collection had included outstanding examples of works by Cranach, della Robbia, Courbet, Manet, Van Gogh, Leibl, Trübner, Thoma, Segantini, Liebermann, Uhde and Spitzweg, often acquired when these artists were still relatively unrecognised by the art world and critical community.
The works sold last month included a 44.3 by 60 cm Italian Landscape with Figures Entering a Fortified Waterside Town by Giovanni Migliani which was expected to make £15,000 to £20,000,
It sold for £18,750.
There was an oval portrait on canvas 56 by 46 cm by Johann Heinrich Tischbein the Elder (1722-1789). The sitter was a young girl said to be Helene Amelie Madeline Molz.(1773-1777)
Sotheby's catalogued the work as having been once the property of Anne Frank's uncle, L. Ricard & Robert Frank of Frankfurt.
It sold for £12,500 including buyers premium against estimate of £10,000 to £15,000 not including premium.
There was also an oil on panel 53 by 32 cm by a follower of Albrecht Altdorfer.
The works may not be hugely valuable pieces of art history but they appear to be of major interest as pieces of social history.
They could well have repaid research by a potential buyer and their purchase by an Australian collector or donor to an Australian museum, could have helped offset some of the past losses to the overseas market of much more substantial "Holocaust" finds here.
The absence of such collections in recent years may explain in part Sotheby's and Christie's departure from Australia.
The attic, like Anne Frank's, appeared to have become very bare.
One of the most valuable of the earlier finds was, Portrait of Hermine Gallia by Gustav Klimt, which was sold by Christie's in London for 20,000 guineas in 1973.
By great coincidence this portrait will be seen in Australia at the National Gallery of Victoria later this year in an exhibition on Viennese Secessionism.
It was loaned by the National Gallery in London which purchased it a few years after it appeared at Christie's..
Another work which may have come to Australia is a panel called St Helena Questions the Jews from a altarpiece now in the Stadel Museum in Frankfurt.
This was found in an Edgecliff Sydney antique shop by the Australian actor Gordon Chater, who purchased it for $200, and sold by Christie's in London for a six figure sum in pounds sterling when it was acquired by the Stadel.
