A 1938 postcard, which shows the entire Königsplatz in Munich. The Führerbau (leader’s building) and Verwaltungsbau (administration building), appear across the top portion of the card. The two smaller structures in between are the so-called honor temples, where Nazi party members who died in the putsch were entombed. The temples were removed in 1947 during de-Nazification.
The message on the back of the Königsberg postcard is from a German family visiting Munich in 1938, the year of the infamous Munich Agreement. They are sending the card to their daughter at a college in the US. The cancellation stamp shows a pair of grappling wrestlers and reads: “International Ringfight Tournament—Great Bavarian Prize 1938—Munich Circus Building.”
The furnishings in the author’s former office atop the Cloisters tower include his desk with a Bakelite top designed by Rorimer-Brooks Company in Cleveland, Ohio.
James Rorimer (in trench coat) with another monuments officer, possibly George Stout, next to a Dodge WC-56 Command car, c. 1944
James Rorimer waiting to be awarded the French Legion of Honor at Strasbourg, November 4, 1945
First draft page of Survival: The Salvage and Protection of Art in War. This manuscript page refers to the now-famous conversation between the author and Rose Valland featured in the movie, Monuments Men. In it, Valland revealed that she had kept meticulous notes about the location of every work of art stolen from the Jeu de Paume by the Nazis.
Louis Rorimer with his father, James, who is dressed for the festival for children of museum members at The Cloisters, 1954.
Katherine Rorimer on the porch of the family home in Ohio