The bill concerns works of public collections including a klimt and a chagal that belonged before the Second World War to Jewish families.
Le Monde with AFP
The Unanimous National Assembly voted, Tuesday, January 25, a bill with a view to the return of 15 works of art, including an painting by Gustav Klimt and another of Marc Chagall, the beneficiaries of Jewish families spoliated by the Nazis.
Faced with these beneficiaries, present in the Tribune, the Minister of Culture, Roselyne Bachelot, greeted a “historic” text, validated under the applause by 97 votes. It must be adopted definitively by the Senate on February 15th.
The spoliation was “the negation of humanity [of these Jewish families], of their memory, of their memories,” said the Minister, in the unison of the speakers of all the political groups.
Among the 15 works is Rosiers under the trees of Gustav Klimt, preserved at the Musée d’Orsay, and only the painter of the Austrian painter belonging to the French national collections. It was acquired in 1980 by the state at a merchant. In-depth research made it possible to establish that it belonged to the Austrian Eleonore Stiany which gave it upon forced sale in Vienna in 1938, during the Anschluss, before being deported and murdered.
Eleven drawings and wax preserved at the Louvre Museum at the Musée d’Orsay and the Castle Museum of Compiegne and a table of Utrillo preserved at the UTRILLO-VALADON Museum (“Carrefour in Sannois”) are also part of planned refunds.
An chagall table, entitled the father, kept at the Pompidou Center and entered the national collections in 1988, has been added. It was recognized by David Cender, Musician and Polish Luthier Jewish, immigrant in France in 1958.
100,000 works seized in France during the war
For 13 of the 15 works, the beneficiaries were identified by the Commission for the compensation of the victims of spoliation (CIVS), created in 1999.
“This is the first time since the post-war period that the government hires a text allowing the restitution of public collections” that have been “spoiled during the Second World War or acquired under troubled conditions during the Occupation due to anti-Semitic persecutions, “in Roselyne Bachelot.
Some 100,000 works of art would have been seized in France during the war of 1939-1945, according to the Ministry of Culture. 60,000 properties were found in Germany in liberation and returned to France. Of them, 45,000 were returned to their owners between 1945 and 1950.
about 2 200 have been selected and entrusted to the custody of the national museums (“MNR works” that can be returned by simple administrative decision) and the rest (about 13,000 objects) has been sold by the administration of the domains at the beginning 1950s. Many spoiled works are thus returned to the art market.
From left to right, parliamentarians welcomed a “fair action” with these refunds, that it would have to “accelerate”. The minister has advocated a future “framework law” to allow it, while pointing “the complexity of the files”.