From Klimt to Chagall, 15 works of art could be returned to Jewish families looted by the Nazis

Allow families facing Nazi hell to find their most precious possessions, almost 90 years later.

A bill relating to the restitution of 15 works of art, including a painting by Gustav Klimt and another by Marc Chagall, to the heirs of Jewish families looted by the Nazis must be examined by the National Assembly on Tuesday.

Legally entered into the French national public collections by acquisition, these works come under the movable public domain protected by the principle of imprescriptibility and inalienability.

Their restitution therefore requires a law, unlike the works entrusted to the custody of national museums, “MNR”, returned by simple decree.

A Klimt lost in a forced sale

Among the 15 works is "Rosiers under the trees" by Gustav Klimt, kept at the Musée d'Orsay, and the only work by the Austrian painter belonging to the French national collections.

It was acquired in 1980 by the State from a merchant.

Extensive research has established that it belonged to the Austrian Eleonore Stiasny who sold it during a forced sale in Vienna in 1938, during the Anschluss, before being deported and murdered.

Eleven drawings and a waxwork kept at the Louvre Museum, the Orsay Museum and the Museum of the Château de Compiègne as well as a painting by Utrillo kept at the Utrillo-Valadon Museum ("Carrefour in Sannois") are also part of the restitutions envisaged. .

An amendment of January 13 added to this list a painting by Chagall, entitled "The Father", kept at the Center Pompidou and entered the national collections in 1988.

Among the 15 works is "Rosiers under the trees" by Gustav Klimt, kept at the Musée d'Orsay.

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The artist probably painted it in 1911 or 1912, would have given it up before the Second World War, then the painting would have circulated as far as Poland during the transfer of the Jews to the Lodz ghetto in 1940. It has been recognized property of David Cender, a Polish-Jewish musician and luthier, who immigrated to France in 1958. The beneficiaries were identified by the Commission for the Compensation of Victims of Spoliation (CIVS), created in 1999.

The bill was passed unanimously by the Cultural Affairs Committee.

If it is voted by Parliament, “it will be an important first step which leads to thinking about future restitutions and the possibility of a framework law”, estimates Fabienne Colboc (LREM), its rapporteur.

As for the restitution of works of art from Africa, a future framework law is difficult to establish because of the multiplicity of the criteria of spoliation such as their geographical scope and the period concerned (between 1933 and 1945).

100,000 works seized in France during the Second World War

“Many Jewish families, victims of anti-Semitic measures, were forced to sell their property from the end of 1933, in Germany.

In France, when the sale was organized by the Vichy regime, many archives remain but when it came to private sales, there are no traces, the works ended up on the art market. art", underlined David Zivie, head of the mission of research and restitution of spoliated cultural property of the Ministry of Culture, during a hearing by the senators.

This mission was created in 2019 to accelerate research and identify the provenance of spoliated works to facilitate their restitution.

Since 1990, research into these works has developed considerably, particularly after Jacques Chirac's speech in 1995, during the commemoration of the Vél d'Hiv roundup, which recognized France's participation in the extermination of the Jews by the Nazis, then the Washington agreement in 1998 when 44 countries committed to reparations and the restitution of property to Jewish families despoiled.

Read alsoRestitution of works looted by the Nazis: "France is struggling to come to terms with its past"

Some 100,000 works of art were seized in France during the Second World War, according to the Ministry of Culture.

60,000 goods - including works looted but also sold in France during the war by people who were not persecuted - were found in Germany at the Liberation and returned to France.

Among them, 45,000 were returned to their owners between 1945 and 1950. About 2,200 were selected and entrusted to the custody of national museums (“MNR” works) and the rest (about 13,000 objects) were sold by the administration of the Estates in the early 1950s. But this work still looks long and tedious.

Research into looted works that may belong to national collections is ongoing.