The Montblanc Arts Patronage Award, known in German also as the Montblanc Kulturpreis, has honoured private patronage of the arts since 1992. It is awarded annually in several countries at once; in 2004, alongside the German award, nine others went to patrons from China, France, Great Britain, Hong Kong, Italy, Japan, Korea, Spain and the United States.
The German prize for 2004 went to Klaus F. Naumann, an art dealer, expert and collector of East Asian art. He had made possible the conversion and refurbishment of the Museum of East Asian Art in Berlin, given the museum a large part of his own East Asian collection and enabled a Japanese tea room to be installed.
The award is of interest to collectors not least because Montblanc takes up the same theme in its Patron of Arts series, each issue of which is dedicated to a historical patron of the arts. The company itself keeps a complete list of the award winners since 1992; it is the most reliable source when a pen or a certificate is to be assigned to a particular award year.