Uncovering Lost Histories in Partnership with the Louvre

I n 2020 the Louvre launched a plan for researching the provenance of the almost 14,000 works of art acquired by the museum between 1933 and 1945. It is looking to establish if any might have been looted, mainly from Jewish families, in the Nazi era. In 2022 Sotheby’s established a three-year partnership to collaborate with the museum and help to reunite collectors with any spoliated works. The project started with painting and sculptures, but now, attention is turning to decorative arts, antiquities and works on paper.

A year into the partnership, Olivier Gabet, Director of the Decorative Arts Department at the Louvre, discusses recent discoveries made by his department and the challenges it faces when trying to identify an object’s history.

Olivier Gabet: We’ve researched the provenance of 1,162 works of art that troubled us – including acquisitions, bequests and donations – but most have turned out to be fine. More problematic works included two Renaissance maiolica pieces from the collection of Alfred Pringsheim, the father-in-law of the famous author Thomas Mann. Pringsheim was forced to sell the works by the Nazis in 1939. They were bought for the museum by the French art dealer Maurice Stora, who sold them to Carle Dreyfus, the then-curator of the decorative arts department at the Louvre. Although no requests have been made for restitution by the heirs, the history of the works are now public.

The Louvre began the project a few years ago but it gained momentum with the arrival of Laurence des Cars, the president and director of the Louvre, in 2021. Paintings and sculptures were the initial priority, but more recently we have widened our research to other fields. Our decorative arts archivist Marie-Cécile Bardoz is now working on the project almost full time.

It gives us a remarkable opportunity to take high resolution images of the collection, an essential starting point for the study of the works and sharing information. For example, we are preparing a catalogue raisonné of a group of around 150 tapestries. The collection provides insight into the history of the craft and the growing interest in the textile works between 1880 and 1940, particularly from Jewish collectors. The funding from Sotheby’s will allow us to photograph the tapestries properly and remove the linings of some of them to look for possible marks of ownership.

One of the priorities is to extend research into 2,350 works that entered the collection in the 1950s–70s, which might have problematic provenances. We’re also looking at donations made by great connoisseurs who acquired works in the 1940s. For example, we would like to create a catalogue raisonné of the Grog-Carven collection [one of the largest single-owner collections of paintings and decorative objects ever donated to the Louvre], which was on long-term loan to the museum from 1973 and donated permanently in 1989, to shed more light on its origins.

_{Cover image: The Louvre Pyramid. Photo: Musée du Louvre/Nicolas Guiraud}