The Musée d’Orsay holds 225 of the pieces and has engaged a team of researchers to examine their history and provenance so they can eventually be returned. Until such time as they are, they will be displayed on rotation, a dozen or so at a time, in an exhibition entitled Who Owns These Works? The rest remain in the museum’s permanent collection where they have been tagged with purple labels to distinguish them.
“By dedicating a room to these artworks, the museum hopes to both highlight the specific issues related to them and convey to the public the memory of this dark period,” said Musée d’Orsay president Annick Lemoine. “Behind each painting, each object, lie shattered lives, lives disrupted, even destroyed, by the violence of the Nazi regime.”
[Missing Credit]
PIERRE PUVIS DE CHAVANNES, b. 1824 in Lyon, d. 1898 in Paris
‘L’Histoire, La Vigilance’, ‘Le Recueillement’ (History, Vigilance and Meditation), 1886
This triptych was commissioned by the sculptor and writer Claude Vignon (1828-1888) for her Parisian townhouse. At the time, Puvis de Chavannes was famous for painting large-scale allegorical compositions, including one that remains a decorative feature inside the Panthéon to this day. In 1942, Claude Vignon’s heirs sold the three canvases to a German dealer who intended them for Hitler’s museum in Linz. However, the trio of paintings reportedly “did not find favour with Hitler”, and they were eventually acquired by the Munich museums. Since they were not looted, they cannot be the subject of a restitution claim, but they were repatriated to France in 1952.
[Missing Credit]
PAUL CÉZANNE (?) b. 1839 in Aix-en-Provence, d. 1906
‘La Montagne Sainte-Victoire’ (‘Sainte-Victoire Mountain’), around 1885-87
When this painting of Mont Sainte-Victoire, located near Aix-en-Provence, was part of a posthumous sale of the prestigious Georges Viau collection in 1942, the expert André Schoeller purchased it for 5,000,000 francs for the German dealer Hildebrand Gurlitt.
Given the style and subject of the work, which was one of Cézanne’s favourite vistas, it has been attributed to the French painter. But following its return to France, it was selected as an MNR (Musée National Récupération) by a curator at the Louvre who declared it to be a fake in order to prevent it from re-entering the art market. Recent studies, however, have shown that it could be an authentic Cézanne.
Edgar Degas' Le Souper au Bal (d’après Menzel) (The Supper at the Ball (after Menzel))[Missing Credit]
EDGAR DEGAS, 1834-1917, Paris
‘Le Souper au Bal (d’après Menzel)’ (‘The Supper at the Ball (after Menzel)’), around 1879
After admiring the German painter Adolph Menzel’s painting Das Ballsouper at an 1879 exhibition in Paris, Degas painted this reproduction. He kept it until his death, after which the work was acquired for 5,200 francs by the Jewish collector Fernand Ochsé in 1919. Between that time and Ochsé’s murder in Auschwitz in 1944, the painting was acquired by the Coutot collection and entrusted in 1941 to the Brame Gallery. It was then purchased by the Karlsruhe Museum for an exchange with the National Gallery in Berlin, where Menzel’s painting was housed. The exact history of the work between 1933 and 1945 remains incomplete, according to current research, and the piece was not repatriated to France until October 29, 1948.
[Missing Credit]
AUGUSTE RODIN, b. 1840 in Paris, d. 1917 in Meudon
‘Éternel Printemps’ (‘Eternal Spring’), 1884
This sculpture, created by Rodin in the mid-1880s, was commissioned by the Barbedienne publishing house in 1898. It was sold in 1940 by the founder Eugène Rudier to the Austrian dealer Friedrich Welz, who intended it for the Salzburg Museum. During the German retreat, the bronze was taken to safety in the offices of the Residence palace in Salzburg before being repatriated to France by a convoy from Salzburg to the headquarters of the Commission for the Recovery of Art. Its prior ownership is unknown, but no restitution claims were made upon its return to France after the Second World War.
[Missing Credit]
PIERRE AUGUSTE RENOIR, b. 1841 in Limoges, d. 1919 in Cagnes-sur-Mer
‘Madame Alphonse Daudet’, 1876
The young poet Julia Allard married the writer Alphonse Daudet in 1867. Renoir painted her portrait in 1876 and exhibited it the following year at the third Impressionist exhibition.
The painting was subsequently kept in the Daudets’ personal collection until Julia died in 1940, after which it was sold for 3,500,000 francs by the Renou et Colle gallery to the Cologne Museum, although its ownership was not clearly established before that date. It was repatriated to France in 1946.
