PARIS.- “To whom do these works belong?” A simple question that has given rise to sometimes painful research calling upon memory, investigation and hopes of justice. The Musée d’Orsay has now devoted a room on its permanent itinerary to a group of works designated as MNR: “Musées Nationaux Récupération ” [National Museums Recovery]. Some of these works, found in Germany and Austria at the end of the Second World War, were entrusted to national museums’ custody in the early 1950s. The works do not belong to public collections: they have been placed under their protection and, if they were spoliated, can be restituted to their rightful owners’ legal successors.
Eighty years after the Second World War, marked by the horror of the Shoah and the systematic policy of spoliation of Jewish property carried out by the Nazis and the Vichy regime, the question of the provenance of works conserved in public collections has never been more topical. It has become a fundamental priority focus for museums.
In 2023, the Musée d’Orsay stepped up its commitment by recruiting Ines Rotermund-Reynard, a specialist in provenance research.
Her expertise sheds light on acquisition projects as well as contributing to re examination of the history of works already conserved. Special attention is being paid to the period from 1933 to 1945, which was marked by the sheer number of spoliations targeting Jewish owners, the forced sales many of them had to resign themselves to in order to escape persecution, and an art market more active than ever before.
Today, by devoting a room to these works, the Museum wants to highlight the specific issues connected to them as well as share the memory of those dark days with its visitors. As behind each painting and each object there are often stories of shattered careers and lives disrupted or even destroyed by the Nazi regime’s violence.
The MNRs form a heterogeneous group, due as much to their nature as to the complexity of their histories. For many of them, details of their provenance remain sketchy. Hence, this new room aims to be a venue where as many works are exhibited as questions about them are raised, and where the research underway is in evidence, along with its uncertainties and advances.
In this regard, and thanks to the decisive support of our American friends (American Friends Musées d’Orsay et de l’Orangerie AFMO), to whom I am sincerely grateful, the Musée d’Orsay recently launched a public contract on provenance research, the aim being to mobilise specialists over the next four years, tasked with reopening files and exploring archives afresh, in France, Germany and elsewhere.
The goal is clear enough: improve knowledge and encourage further restitutions whenever possible or, alternatively, ascertain the history of works that we can finally confirm were not spoliated. --- Annick Lemoine, President of the Public Establishment of the Musée d’Orsay and the Musée de l’Orangerie, Valéry Giscard d’Estaing
A room for memory and research
SPOLIATIONS AND RECOVERIES
Level 0, end of the Nave, Room 10b
Permanent collection
From 1933 onwards, Germany’s Jewish population was increasingly marginalised and persecuted by the Nazi regime. During the Second World War, this policy led to its systematic deportation and extermination.
In occupied France, the Vichy regime implemented Aryanisation, arrest and internment measures, so making itself complicit in the ongoing genocide. This anti-Semitic policy was accompanied by spoliation (pillage, confiscation and forced sale) property belonging to Jews.
At the end of the conflict, over 100,000 items of cultural property were declared spoliated. Some 60,000 works were recovered in Germany and Austria because they had been spoliated or purchased in France under the Occupation. Many of them had been sold on the art market, which was particularly dynamic during the period in question. Three quarters of them have been restituted but 15,000 are still without identified owners. Most of these works were sold by the State in the early 1950s, except for around 2,200 of them, which were selected to be entrusted to the national museums’ custody: these are the MNRs (“National Museums Recovery” works). The museums conserve them and are duty-bound to shed light on their provenance in order to restitute them whenever possible.
PROVENANCE RESEARCH AND RESTITUTIONS
Over the last thirty years, 15 MNR works conserved at the Musée d’Orsay have been restituted. 225 others are still conserved at the Museum, usually because their provenance remains uncertain as current research stands, and in a few case because it has been established that they were not stolen or spoliated and are therefore not restitutable. Under the impetus of the Ministry of Culture (Mission for the Research and Restitution of Cultural Property Spoliated between 1933 and 1945, M2RS), in cooperation with the Commission for the Restitution of Property and Compensation for Victims of Anti-Semitic Spoliation (CIVS), the Musée d’Orsay is committed to a proactive provenance research policy in order to shed light on its collections and continue with restitutions. This initiative is largely based on recruitment of independent provenance research specialists, made possible thanks to the generous support of the American Friends Musées d’Orsay et de l’Orangerie (AFMO).
The opening of this room on the permanent itinerary enables rotating exhibition of a group of MNRs with a view to providing a glimpse of the investigative work underway. A selection of 13 works is currently on exhibition there, highlighting the legacy’s complexity and the issues involved in it. Suspended between past and present, each of them testifies to ongoing provenance research, revealing the diversity of situations, both as regards quality and background. Others are on display in the Museum and are now identifiable by their special (purple) labels, or are on long-term loan to many other French museums.
Over the course of time, the “To whom do these works belong?” room is set to evolve and present visitors with the discoveries resulting from this research, some of which will enable further restitutions. Hence, it constitutes a space of memory, transparency and active research, at the heart of contemporary issues connected with the history of collections.
What is an MNR?
CHRONOLOGY
SPOLIATIONS, RECOVERIES AND RESTITUTIONS
January 1933: Adolf Hitler is appointed Chancellor of Germany.
Faced with increasing persecution, many German Jews are forced to sell works in order to finance their exile.
1 September 1939: Outbreak of the Second World War.
22 June 1940: French defeat, signature of the armistice; beginning of the Occupation and the Vichy regime.
Summer 1940: The Nazis start looting collections belonging to French Jews.
In October, the Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg (ERR, Nazi taskforce responsible for looting cultural goods) set itself up at the Jeu de Paume Museum, a transit point for spoliated works. Art curator Rose Valland takes notes in secret.
Autumn 1940: Reopening of the Hôtel Drouot, where Paris’ main auctions are held.
Numerous spoliated items flood into the art market, which experiences significant growth under the Occupation.
Various dealers make purchases for German museums and Nazi dignitaries’ collections.
1940-1944: Gradual implementation of a policy of discrimination against and persecution and deportation of French Jews; 80,000 are murdered, mainly in the extermination camps.
8 May 1945: End of the Second World War in Europe.
1945-1950: “Artistic Recovery” operations carried out by the Allies find 60,000 works in the Reich’s territories, thanks in particular to Rose Valland’s notes.
Around 45,000 are restituted but 15, 000 remain with no identified owners. 2,200 MNRs are selected from them and entrusted to the national museums’ custody; the other works are sold. 1950-1993: Between 1950 and 1954, 46 MNR works are restituted, and then only 4 more until 1993.
Since 1994: Access to new archives, action by spoliated families and a moral and political awakening on the part of the State relaunch the work on the MNRs.
There was renewed interest in these works in 1995, following publications and investigations informing the general public of French museums’ conservation of works found in Germany with no known owners. The 1998 Washington Conference marked a turning point: forty-four States committed to shedding light on the provenance of works conserved in their institutions and to seeking just and equitable solutions to the questions raised by the spoliations of artworks during the Nazi period. Provenance research developed as a result, highlighting the fact that certain sales, made under duress, should be regarded as spoliations.
THE MNRS AT THE MUSÉE D’ORSAY
The MNR works of artists born between 1820 and 1870 are currently assigned to the Musée d’Orsay, pursuant to the Decree of 27 January 1976. They are either physically conserved at the Musée d’Orsay or on long-term loan to regional museums. Some of them are not on permanent exhibition but can be seen upon simple request to the Museum. All the information known to date can be consulted on two of the Ministry of Culture’s databases:
The Rose-Valland base (pop.culture.gouv.fr) strictly devoted to MNRs and providing information on the history and provenance of works. The Orsay base (musee-orsay.fr), regularly updated, for anything concerning the bibliography and exhibitions of these works.
The list of the Musée d’Orsay’s MNRs contains 225 works, comprising:
• 142 paintings (MNR)
• 21 sculptures (RFR and RS)*
• 62 drawings and pastels (REC)*
15 MNR works are currently exhibited in the Musée d’Orsay’s rooms: 10 paintings and 5 sculptures.
15 MNR works conserved at the Musée d’Orsay have been restituted since 1994; the Museum is committed to a proactive provenance research policy in close cooperation with the Ministry of Culture. In 2024, the most recent restitution was of two works returned to Grégoire Schusterman’s legal successors: Alfred Sisley’s Les Péniches [Barges at Billancourt] and Auguste Renoir’s Cariatides [Caryatids], both identified as having been spoliated and sold under duress during the Nazi Occupation.
These days, restitutions no longer only concern MNRs, but any work in the Museum’s collections when it has been established that it was a victim of anti-Semitic spoliation in Europe between 1933 and 1945.
* THE DIFFERENT APPELLATIONS OF MNR WORKS
As they do not belong to national public collections, MNR works are not included in museums’ inventories but in special provisional inventories. Strictly speaking, the initials MNR (“Musées Nationaux Récupération” – National Museums Recovery) only concern the paintings currently conserved at the Louvre Museum and the Musée d’Orsay, but for ease of reference we so designate all the works from the “Artistic Recovery”.
The other initials used are “RFR” for sculptures conserved at the Louvre and Orsay, “REC” for drawings and “OAR” for art objects. For works managed by the National Museum of Modern Art, equivalent initials are “R P”, “R S”, “R D” and “R OA”. Works conserved at the National Ceramics Museum in Sèvres have the initials “MCSR” and the only work entrusted to the Malmaison Museum has been given the number “MMR 1”.
