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A painting looted by the Nazis in Nice in 1944 desperately seeks its heirs

2022-01-20T17:56:48.593Z


Boats on a Rough Sea Near a Rocky Coast, an anonymous 17th-century painting, is on display at the Museum of Jewish Art and History.


A new step in a long journey.

Attributed to the Dutch school of the 17th century, the painting

Boats on a rough sea near a rocky coast,

looted by the Nazis in Nice in 1944, left the castle-museum of Dieppe where it had been kept and then exhibited since 1983. D First transferred to the Louvre, the establishment to which it is assigned, it will be handed over to the Museum of Jewish Art and History during the first quarter of 2022, in order to have greater visibility to continue the search for beneficiaries of the Jewish family in who it belongs to.

Read alsoWorks stolen by the Nazis returned to the heirs of a Jewish collector

The decision was announced on December 21 by the Dieppe museum.

It had been entrusted by the Louvre to our museum in 1983. But we knew that, like all the works inventoried under the label MNR (National Museums of Recovery), it could be returned to the family which had been spoliated.

This is the first time in my career that I have experienced such a moment.

With a certain emotion

”, confides to the

Parisian

Pierre Ickowicz, the director of the municipal structure.

Read alsoIn Belgium, return of a looted painting to a Jewish family in Germany

This oil on canvas, measuring 0.65 by 0.81 meters, is the work of an anonymous author from the Dutch school of the mid-17th century. It has been kept and then exhibited since 1983 at the Dieppe Museum in the hope of finding the heirs of the Bargeboer spouses, who owned it in 1944. Since 2010, this research has been carried out by the teams of Genealogists, mandated by the Ministry of Culture. But on January 2, the turn accelerated. The painting is temporarily transferred to the Louvre Museum, the assigning establishment, before being sent to the Museum of Art and History of Judaism. “

It's a painting that has a rather complicated history. The search is not over because the rights holders have not all been found yet. With us, it will have more visibility thanin Dieppe

“says the museum located in the Marais.

A long and tedious journey

This painting was stolen from Abraham Bargeboer and his wife Minna, residing at 53, boulevard Victor-Hugo in Nice in 1944, in order to reach the castle of Kögl in Upper Austria, the Länder bordering Germany.

Two years later, the painting was sent to the Central Collection Point in Munich, a repository used by Germany's Monuments, Fine Arts and Archives program after the end of World War II.

In 1947, a special convoy brought him back to France for the benefit of the headquarters of the Commission for artistic recovery.

Four years later, the painting joined the Department of Paintings of the Louvre Museum and was finally registered with the Mobilier national from 1959 to 1976, before joining the castle-museum of Dieppe from 1983 to January 2.

Read alsoThe Mobilier national gives up some of its treasures to support hospitals

In total, 100,000 works of art were looted by the Nazis during the Second World War, of which a large part (60,000) was returned by the Allies, estimates the report of the Matteoli mission. But today, France has around 2,000 works labeled MNR (National Museums Recovery) which are exhibited or kept in French museums while waiting for possible beneficiaries, a search for which the Commission for the compensation of victims of spoliation is responsible. (CIVS). “

The Bargeboers died at the time and had no children. It was therefore necessary to seek rights holders as far away as the United States. In total, there are about forty

"explains for the moment David Zivie to the

Parisian

, the head of the Mission for the search and restitution of cultural property looted between 1933 and 1945.

Source: lefigaro

All news articles on 2022-01-20

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