The Breslau lawyer and notary Dr. Ismar Littmann is one of the most important collectors of German Expressionist art. From the late 1910s onwards, he built up an outstanding collection of works by Mueller, Kollwitz, Nolde, Pechstein, Kanoldt, and Corinth. The global economic crisis of 1929 put an end to his passion for collecting; by then, he had amassed around 6,000 works. After the National Socialists came to power in January 1933, Littmann was disenfranchised as a Jewish lawyer and economically ruined. On September 23, 1934, he took his own life out of despair. His widow Käthe and their children were later fortunate enough to flee Germany. In 1935, large parts of Littmann's collection had to be sold at an auction held by Max Perl in Berlin under various consignor names in order to secure the family's livelihood and finance their escape. Among the works sold was Otto Dix's haunting, expressive landscape "Der Reiter" (The Rider). The auction gained notoriety: 64 works were confiscated by the Gestapo as "degenerate," many of them burned in the Kronprinzenpalais in 1936. However, some landscape works, including Nolde's famous painting "Buchsbaumgarten" (Boxwood Garden) and Dix's "Der Reiter," were spared. "Der Reiter" is sold for 13 RM.
It is not until 1978 that the work reappears at an auction in Braunschweig and later finds its way into an important Berlin collection. Today, the work can be offered free of restitution claims on the basis of a "fair and just solution."