Self-portrait Lit from the Left

In the first weeks of 1946, Gotha lay in the Soviet occupation zone, and the ducal family feared that Soviet trophy brigades would seize the art in Friedenstein Castle. That winter they had this little panel taken quietly to Coburg, about 100 kilometres south, in the American zone. A former director of the Gotha museum arranged the move without the consent of the current director or the foundation, and it was described as temporary. The painting never went back. In the 1950s the family sold it to the Bavarian state collections in Munich. Gotha's museum still counts it among works illegally removed, while a German 30-year limit on reclaiming lost property ran out in 1976, when the two cities lay on opposite sides of the inner German border. The panel is barely bigger than a hand, a young man with his mouth half open and his eyes lost in shadow. From September to December 2026 it hangs in Gotha again, on loan, for the first time in 80 years.