BERLIN.- This winter, the Bode-Museum brings a remarkable piece of Berlin’s art history back into public view. Opening 27 November 2025, the cabinet exhibition Back in Berlin: A Bust of the Virgin Mary and the Benoit Oppenheim Collection shines a light on a rare 16th-century Maria lactans—a Nursing Madonna—newly reacquired after nearly a century of displacement, persecution, and restitution.

The delicately carved bust, created in Upper Swabia during the early Renaissance, was once among the prized artworks owned by Benoit Oppenheim, a prominent Berlin banker who assembled one of the most refined private collections of medieval sculpture in the early 20th century. Installed in his grand villa in the Tiergarten district, the collection was celebrated in opulent catalogues and admired for its extraordinary concentration of quality. Yet by the 1920s, Oppenheim began dispersing the works he had so passionately assembled, and many ultimately slipped into private hands.

Among them was the Maria lactans, which resurfaced in 1928 in the collection of another influential Jewish banker, Jakob Goldschmidt. His holdings were forcibly liquidated under National Socialist persecution, culminating in a 1936 auction in which roughly 300 artworks were anonymously sold. The bust was purchased that year by Berlin’s State Museums and remained in the Bode-Museum until its provenance was fully uncovered and the work was restituted to Goldschmidt’s heirs in 2023.

Now, thanks to significant support from the Kaiser Friedrich Museum Association, the Cultural Foundation of the German Federal States, and the Friede Springer Foundation, the sculpture has been brought back to Berlin’s public collections—this time through ethical acquisition rather than the painful circumstances that once removed it.

The exhibition reunites the bust with other surviving works from Oppenheim’s original collection, offering visitors a rare glimpse into the taste and connoisseurship of Berlin collectors around 1900. These late medieval sculptures—expressive, elegant, and technically exquisite—were once displayed together in Oppenheim’s home and now come together again in the museum that preserves their legacy.

The Maria lactans itself carries an unusual history. Originally conceived as a reliquary, the work includes a spherical orb held by the Virgin, containing a compartment once sealed with rock crystal. While the exact relic it stored remains unknown, scholars believe it may have held Virgin’s Milk, a deeply venerated object throughout medieval Europe—making the sculpture not only a devotional work but also a vessel of sacred significance.

For the museum, the object represents both artistic excellence and a meaningful restitution story. “The Maria lactans is of outstanding quality and has a fascinating history,” says Antje Scherner, Director of the Sculpture Collection. “Bringing it home allows us to honour both the artwork and the collectors who shaped Berlin’s cultural landscape.”

Marion Ackermann, President of the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation, notes the broader resonance: “Restitution is a vital part of historical responsibility. Seeing this work return to Berlin in the right way is profoundly gratifying.”

Following the exhibition on the Oppenheim Collection, the Maria lactans will join the Bode-Museum’s permanent galleries—restored to the city that once lost it, and finally given the context and visibility it deserves.