Angelika Kauffmann’s Telemachus painting managed to survive a veritable odyssey until it reached Chur and the collection of the Art Museum Graubünden. Princes and national socialists owned Kauffmann’s Telemachus until the odyssey came to an end in the native country of the artist. This incredible story resembling a criminal case is part of the exhibition, in which the provenances of works from the Art Museum’s collection are addressed and presented to the public for the first time.

Provenance research is detective work. Its task is to investigate the history of works and to document the details of ownership and change of hands in a sequence as unbroken as possible. In the past two years the provenance reappraisal of a selection of works from the collection was carried out thanks to the financial support of the Bundesamt für Kultur BAK and the SWISSLOS/Kulturförderung Kanton Graubünden.