The Louvre’s Fears of Opening Pandora’s Box on Nazi History
By Thea Reddington
The Louvre has a murky history with Nazi plundering. It not only benefited from but facilitated the flourishing art market during the Nazi occupation, a market largely created by the looting of Jewish collectors. In attempts to make this right, Musée du Louvre director Jean-Luc Martinez has followed President Macron’s instructions to ensure that art currently residing in French museums that was plundered by the Nazis is returned to the Jewish families from whom they were taken. This initiative is visible in the appointment of art historian Emmanuelle Polak at the beginning of 2020, an expert in Nazi plunder who has been employed to oversee the restitution of artworks within the Louvre. She began her employment with quite the statement, providing every curator with a copy of the 1941 French law that ordered the ‘aryanisation’ of any company owned by Jews, this importantly included art galleries. This move was likely an attempt to illustrate to Louvre staff the scale of the injustice of Nazi looting and how the museum still has a role to play in righting this wrong. However, many staff members were wary of the initiative to uncover the dark history, likening it to opening Pandora’s box.
Image courtesy of Musée du Louvre/ Olivier Ouadah
The operation of restitution instigated by the Louvre is again in the headlines as they begin to comb through the entirety of their exhibitions to catalogue and display online, this was spurred on by fears there could be works of Nazi origin within the collection. So far 485,000 object records are now available online, yet Martinez claims the development of the website and the accessibility of the works to the public is still, ‘‘evolving and putting it online is only the first step.’’
The Louvre’s sudden attempts to right this wrong follows a recent high-profile case of the Dorville family. Jewish lawyer and prolific art collector Armand Isaac Dorville fled from his home in Paris during the Nazi occupation of France, leaving behind a plethora of works by the likes of Manet and Renoir. The lawyer’s works were seized by the Nazis and swiftly sold only a couple of days later in Nice. Polack has recently unearthed that 10 of these works were in fact bought by the Louvre itself at said auction and now reside within the museum.
Solider retrieving Nazi plundered art. Image courtesy of Getty Images.
Dorville’s great niece Francine is on a mission to reclaim these works and explained to La Croix that knowing the Louvre played a part in the looting of Jewish belongings, ‘’makes it all the more bitter.’’ The Dorville family has recently been repatriated by the German culture ministry when many of his pieces were found amongst the 1000s in the Munich apartment of Hildebrand Gurlitt, Hitler’s personal art collector. Now all eyes are on the Louvre to see when they will follow in Germany’s footsteps and repatriate the plundered artworks.
Three artworks being returned to Francine Khan, grandniece of Armand Dorville. Image courtesy of DPA.
Bibliography
Bremner, Charles. ‘Louvre calls in expert to hunt for looted Nazi Art,’ The Times, January 14, 2020. https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/louvre-calls-in-expert-to-hunt-for-looted-nazi-art-2nkzvdnm0.
Machemer, Theresa. ‘Art Historian Identifies Ten Nazi-Looted Paintings in the Louvre’s Collections,’ Smithsonian Magazine, January 23, 2020. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/art-historian-identifies-rightful-heir-ten-nazi-looted-paintings-louvre-180974038/#:~:text=Now%2C%20reports%20Philippe%20Dagen%20for,his%20great%2Dniece%20and%20heir.
Noce, Vincent. ‘Louvre probes its collection for Nazi and colonial loot in massive provenance research project,’ The Art Newspaper, March 26, 2021. https://www.theartnewspaper.com/news/louvre-provenance-research-collection-website.