The Provenance Research Training Program (PRTP) is a project of the European Shoah Legacy Institute (ESLI) created by the Czech Ministry of Foreign Affairs in furtherance of the Holocaust Era Assets Conference held in Prague in 2009 and the resulting Terezin Declaration endorsed by 47 countries. The program focuses on provenance research and related issues concerning Nazi-looted art, Judaica, and other cultural property. It provides advanced training to serve the international community of current and future experts engaged in dealing with issues concerning cultural plunder during the Third Reich, the Holocaust and World War II. Each year the program offers week-long workshops that provide an intensive historical overview of cultural plunder—its evolution and implementation; methodological training, including specialized research in public and private archives; a presentation and discussion of legal concepts and instrumentalities at national and international levels, including political, moral and ethical issues and restitution policies and principles. In addition to facilitating research and providing access to a vast array of information, the program will promote the establishment of international networks of provenance researchers that will bring together experts in all relevant fields and countries.

The next workshop of the Provenance Research Training Program will take place in Rome, Italy, in December 8-12, 2014, in conjunction with the Italian Presidency of the Council of the European Union. The Provenance Research Training Program provides advanced training in provenance research and related issues concerning Nazi-looted art, Judaica, and other cultural property. Intensive workshops repeated several times a year in different locations across Europe and the Americas provide advanced training for the international community of current and future experts engaged in dealing with issues concerning cultural plunder during the Third Reich, the Holocaust and World War II. Taught by internationally known specialists who have developed their expertise in provenance research and restitution matters since the late 1980’s, each workshop is articulated around research, history, and ethics. The workshop will focus on: Analytical and methodological tools that can serve to apprehend the complexity of the topics under study, to visualize patterns, and to compare these processes and their international impact; The impact of cultural plunder on collection management practices in museums and other cultural institutions; A core understanding of displacements of cultural objects in pre-war Europe, wartime plunder and its impact on collecting practices and the international art market, and postwar efforts to recover looted cultural assets; The ethical implications of cultural plunder during the Nazi era, current international policies, and art trade practices. To apply please go to the online application. The application deadline has been extended to October 1, 2014.