Raue is representing the owner of Caspar David Friedrich's "Karlsruher Skizzenbuch" ('Karlsruhe Sketchbook') in a dispute over the registration of the sketchbook in Berlin's register of nationally valuable cultural assets.
The owner's family had kept the sketchbook in Baden-Württemberg for two hundred years before putting it up for auction at Grisebach in Berlin in November 2023. The sketchbook was sold to a prestigious Anglo-Saxon museum for 1.45 million euros plus buyer's premium, i.e. just over 1.8 million euros. Shortly before the auction, the Berlin Senate Department for Culture and Social Cohesion initiated proceedings to register the sketchbook as a national treasure, with the legal consequence that the work could not be exported abroad. In the end, the Senate Administration ordered the sketchbook to be registered.
The owner will take legal action against the registration of the "Karlsruhe Sketchbook". If the decision is upheld, the sketchbook can no longer be sold abroad. The owner will suffer great economic damage as a result of the decision. Unlike in the UK and France, German law does not oblige the state to buy cultural objects of national value to prevent their permanent export.