PARIS.- Two still lifes from the 17th century, looted during the occupation nazi in France and exhibited in the Louvre for decades due to the impossibility of finding their owners, have just been returned to the heirs of a family juda, who in turn have donated them back to the museo.
The operation is: “a call to never forget, a commitment to transmit memory and a constant reminder that we must act,” commented the president-director of the Louvre, Laurence Des Cars, in a statement.
A good part of the 48 legal heirs of those two works gathered on Tuesday around the two paintings: Still life with ham de Floris van Schooten y Delicacies, fruits and glass on a table by Peter Binoit, probably painted in 1630 and 1620 respectively.
The works will be exhibited to the public starting Wednesday, Marion, one of the rights holders, told AFP, who preferred to remain anonymous. That person assured that he was the: “point of contact for all the efforts that finally allowed us to reach this conclusion, thanks to a lot of effort.”
The exhibition presents, along with the paintings, numerous historical documents about the history of their ancestors.
“It is a duty of memory towards his family, plundered and persecuted, whose history is an example for current generations,” Marion emphasizes.
Genealoga
The two paintings were present for a long time in the Nordic painting rooms of the Louvre under the status of “recovered” works (MNR in official terminology), but their provenance was unknown.
The heirs of the Javal family, of which five members were deported and murdered in Auschwitz, could recently be found thanks to the efforts of researchers from the Ministry of Culture, the National Archives and the Commission for the Compensation of Victims of Plunder ( CIVS) with the help of genealogists, which allowed the State to return the paintings to them.
“The investigations made it possible to understand that the two paintings (…) actually belonged to Mathilde Javal, whose mansion located at number 5 boulevard de la Tour-Maubourg, in the 7th arrondissement (of Paris) was occupied and emptied in 1944 “, the ministry said in a statement.
The paintings, as well as the rest of the rich family’s belongings, ended up in Germany.
Carta
Mathilde Javal, daughter of Emile and Marie-Anna Javal, and sister of Alice and Jeanne, officially requested the restitution of her family’s works of art at the end of the war, in 1945, as evidenced by a letter that allowed the thread to be followed. of history, according to the Louvre, and which is presented in the exhibition.
But the still lifes could not be returned upon his return from Germany, officially due to errors in the spelling of the name Javal.
The address of Mathilde, the last occupant of the building, also sowed confusion in the identification search, according to the Louvre museum.
Through a 2015 agreement with the Ministry of Culture (general directorate of heritage), the Gnalogistes de France organization agreed to carry out free of charge the necessary investigations for the identification of the living heirs of six identified owners of “recovered” works (MNR), including the Javals.
Between 1940 and 1945, approximately 100,000 cultural objects were looted in France, mainly from Jewish families, by the Nazi regime and the Vichy government or sold under duress.
Many of them were transferred to Germany. At the end of the Second World War, approximately 60,000 works were returned to France, of which 45,000 were returned to their owners by the Artistic Recovery Commission, whose activity ceased in 1949.
Of the remaining 15,000 works, 13,000 were sold by the State, while about 2,200 were entrusted to the custody of national museums. They constitute the so-called recovered works and do not belong to national collections.
The Louvre museum is responsible for 1,610 MNR works, of which 791 are paintings.
FUENTE: AFP
