Rachida Dati, Minister of Culture, welcomes the return, on May 16, 2024, of two works of art belonging to the so-called «National Museums Recovery» (MNR), to the rights holders of Grégoire Schusterman, and welcomes the joint action of the services of the Ministry of Culture, the Musée d'Orsay, the Musée Renoir in Cagnes-sur-Mer, the Musée de Dieppe and the Commission pour la restitution des biens et l'indemnisation des victimes de spoliations antisemities (CIVS), who worked there, in connection with the representatives of the legitimate owners.
These two paintings were stolen from Grégoire Schusterman, who was forced to sell them during the Occupation:
- Auguste Renoir, Cariatides (MNR 198) ;
- Alfred Sisley, The Barges (MNR 206).
These works were placed under the responsibility of the Musée d'Orsay and had been deposited, for the first, at the Musée Renoir in Cagnes-sur-Mer and, for the second, at the Musée de Dieppe.
Recorded in the inventory of «artistic recovery», these paintings were part of the property called «National Museums Recovery» (MNR), generically designating the 2,200 works selected in the early 1950s from works found in Germany at the end of the Second World War, brought back to France and not returned; the 13,000 or so unselected works were sold by the administration of the Domains. The MNR works, many of which were looted from Jewish families, were entrusted to the custody of the national museums in the early 1950s and may, in the event of proven looting, be returned to their rightful owners.
Recent research has made it possible to understand that Grégoire Schusterman, art dealer installed avenue Kléber in Paris, of Russian nationality, Jewish, had been forced to terminate his professional activities and to flee Paris in March 1941 to escape the anti-Semitic persecutions of the Occupier and the Vichy regime; he had to finance his flight to the southern zone and to ensure his livelihood, separate from several paintings, including the Renoir and the Sisley. These works were then, again in 1941, exchanged on the Parisian art market and bought by a German art dealer who shipped them to Germany where they were found after the war.
Seized by the family, and after study of the file by the Mission of research and restitution of cultural property stolen between 1933 and 194 from the Ministry of Culture, the Commission for the restitution of property and compensation of victims of antisemitic dispossession (CIVS), placed with the Prime Minister, considered, at the end of its meeting of 17 November 2023, that the sale of these two works constituted a forced sale, spoliatory, and recommended their restitution to the successors of Grégoire Schusterman. The Prime Minister then decided on the restitution on April 11, 2024.
This restitution is part of the continuation of the research work on the provenance of the MNR works, in order to identify their pre-war owners, to determine whether they were spoliated and, in this case, to return the works to their rightful owners. This renewed political commitment has led to an increase in the number of restitution of MNR works, particularly over the past ten years. A total of 188 MNR and related works and objects have been restored since 1950, of which 80 have been restored for twelve years, of which 52 have been returned as part of proactive research by the administration and museums.
To these results, it is also appropriate to add the 15 works of the national or territorial public collections whose exit from the public domain was made possible by the law of 21 February 2022 on the restitution or delivery of certain cultural property to rights holders of their owners victims of anti-Semitic persecution.
Finally, the law of 22 July 2023 on the restitution of cultural property that has been the subject of dispossession in the context of anti-Semitic persecution perpetrated between 1933 and 1945, adopted unanimously by Parliament, defined the framework for the restitution of stolen works belonging to the public domain of the State and local authorities. The law created an administrative framework allowing to derogate from the principle of inalienability and to return the stolen property by avoiding the multiplication of specific laws called «species».
The Ministry of Culture and the museums and libraries concerned continue their efforts, in connection with the Commission for the Restitution of Property and the Compensation of Victims of Anti-Semitic Dispossession, to identify, both among the MNR objects and in the public collections, the cultural property plundered and their owners, and to make possible new restitutions, in reparation of spoliations.
The records of the restored works are available on the Rose Valland base: