[5] The Nothmanns purchased Kokoschka's Dresden-Neustadt V in the early twenties,[6] Cézanne's "Paysage" in 1926,[7] "Klosterhof mit Kreuzgang" (Monastery Courtyard with Cloister) by landscape painter Carl Blechens in 1930 [8][9] and Menzel's A Seated Woman Reading (Portrait of Emilie Fontane) by 1936,[10] as well as many other artworks.
[11][12] Because of the anti-Jewish Nuremberg Laws, Nothmann's husband Berthold had to resign his 40-year-old membership in the Verein Deutscher Hüttenleute (Union of German Metallurgists) in 1935, and in 1939 he filed an application for a visa to the United Kingdom.
In order to finance the trip and to be able to pay the Reich Flight Tax or the Jewish Property Levy and various other harassments, they were forced to sell works from the collection.
[4] Martha subsequently emigrated to America, living first in New York City and later in Los Angeles where she died on August 23, 1967, at the age of 93.
[19][20] Keller writes that the altered wording creates the false impression that the artworks from the Nothmann collection were sold only in exile.