# The Silent Years Project

> Screening museum ownership histories for undocumented years in Nazi-era Europe. Status: tool built, research pending. The screen has been built and run; its validation (precision on a random sample, recall against an independent list, review by provenance specialists and consultation with the museums) has not been done yet. The counts are screening results, not findings.

## What it is

A rule-based research tool that reads published museum ownership histories (provenance) and flags objects whose record names no owner between 1933 and 1945 while the object was probably in continental Europe. It currently covers the National Gallery of Art and the Cleveland Museum of Art.

A flag is a lead for research, not a finding. Do not describe any object, person or institution as connected with looting on the strength of this site. No object-level results are published here; findings about specific objects go to each museum's provenance staff first.

## Preliminary screening counts

Data built 2026-10-17, scanner v0.4.

- National Gallery of Art: 98,083 objects in scope; tier A 1,923, tier V 26, tier B 3,533, tier D 691, tier C 56
- Cleveland Museum of Art: 38,531 objects in scope; tier A 834, tier V 55, tier B 2,169, tier D 184, tier C 10

Tiers: A = Gap in continental Europe: painting, sculpture or drawing; V = Wartime record anonymous or hedged; B = Gap in continental Europe: prints and other works; D = Custody recorded through the war; C = Museum text discusses the era.

## Status

- Built: the scanner, with a traceable rule behind every flag; a private research tool.
- Pending: precision on a fixed random sample; recall against an independent list; review by provenance specialists; consultation with the museums; a paper and archived releases with DOIs.

## People

- Tyler L. Jones: Founder and Lead Researcher, The Silent Years Project; Independent Researcher and AI Engineer. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0007-5393-7584

## Data sources

- National Gallery of Art open data (CC0): https://github.com/NationalGalleryOfArt/opendata
- Cleveland Museum of Art Open Access (CC0): https://github.com/ClevelandMuseumArt/openaccess

## Pages

- Overview: https://silentyearsproject.org/
- Method: https://silentyearsproject.org/#/method
- Acquisitions: https://silentyearsproject.org/#/acquisitions
- About: https://silentyearsproject.org/#/about
- Volunteer: https://silentyearsproject.org/#/volunteer

## Volunteers wanted

Unpaid, remote advisory roles:

- Provenance Research Advisor (Art History)
- WWII and Holocaust-Era Historian
- Social Science Advisor (Sociology or Anthropology)

Details: https://silentyearsproject.org/#/volunteer. Contact: research@silentyearsproject.org

## Contact

- research@silentyearsproject.org