FLASH NEWS
Musée d'Orsay opens a room for works looted by the Nazis
2026-05-05 22:27:45 / JETË
The Musée d'Orsay in Paris has opened a new exhibition space dedicated to works of art found in Germany after the end of World War II, some of which were looted during the Nazi period, with the aim of preserving and transmitting historical memory.
In this new hall, titled "To Whom Do These Works Belong?", paintings by well-known artists such as Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Edgar Degas, and Eugene Boudin, as well as lesser-known painters, are exhibited.
"Behind this simple question lies an often painful issue, related to memory, investigation and hope for justice," declared the museum's president, Annick Lemoine, during the presentation of the hall.
The Musée d'Orsay still preserves 225 of the approximately 2,200 works entrusted to French museums under the Musées Nationaux Récupération (MNR) program.
These are works that have not been claimed by their owners, among over 100,000 cultural objects declared as looted by Jews or purchased in France during the occupation.
About 60,000 of them were found after the war and returned to their owners, while another portion was sold by the state in the early 1950s.
"More than 80 years after the end of the war, identifying the owners becomes increasingly difficult," explains senior curator for sculpture, François Blanchetière.
However, the process of tracing the origin of works continues, particularly thanks to the internet and artificial intelligence, with around 30 cases currently under review in France.
"It is real investigative work, often very complex," emphasizes expert Inès Rotermund-Reynard.
This is illustrated by the research to determine the origin of Degas's painting "Souper au bal," purchased by a Jewish collector who was then deported to Auschwitz, before the work was resold under unknown circumstances and ended up in a German museum.
In early April, the New York State Supreme Court ordered the return of an Amedeo Modigliani painting, looted during the war from a British Jewish art dealer, to its sole heir, a French farmer living in the Dordogne.
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