France will return some Louvre and Orsay works to their rightful owners

The French Minister of Culture, Roselyne Bachelot, announced on May 28 that France will return twelve works held in three museums in France (the Louvre, the Museée d’Orsay and the Château de Compiègne) to the heirs of Armand Dorville, a French collector whose assets were sold after his death in 1941: however, his rightful heirs could not immediately collect the proceeds because they were discriminated against as Jews by the collaborationist Vichy government.

Dorville was a Jewish lawyer who died in July 1941, and who lived in an area of France that was under the control of the Vichy government. His executor, in agreement with his heirs, put his collection and furniture up for sale in Nice on June 24, 1942. During the sale the national museums also purchased works, the twelve that will now be returned, for the sum of 270,000 francs. However, the family, of Jewish descent, was unable to collect the proceeds of the sale, and some of the women in the Dorville family (a sister of Armand Dorville, two nieces and two daughters of his nieces) were deported to Germany and died in Auschwitz. The survivors were only able to have the proceeds of the sale recognized in 1947. The sale therefore did not take place violently, nor were the assets seized by the government as was often the case in such cases, but the Dorville family, according to the French state, nevertheless suffered an injury for which the return of the works is necessary.

The decision to return the works was made by the Commission for the Indemnification of Victims of Spoliation (CIVS) and is based, the French Ministry of Culture explained, on the “particular circumstances of the sale, in particular the temporary freezing of the sums owed to the heirs of Armand Dorville and the tragic fate of many of them”: these are circumstances that “justify in equity a measure of reparation, even if the sale was not deemed to be the result of spoliation.”

The works to be returned are four watercolors by Henry-Bonaventure Monnier (Paris, 1799 - 1877), a watercolor by Jean-Louis Forain (Reims, 1852 - Paris, 1931), five drawings by Constantine Guys (Flessinga, 1805 - Paris, 1892), a watercolor by Camille Roqueplan (Mallemort, 1803 - Paris, 1855), and a wax sculpture by Pierre-Jules Mène (Paris, 1810 - 1879).

Pictured is one of the returned works: Henry Bonaventure Monnier, Une soirée chez Madame X

France will return some Louvre and Orsay works to their rightful owners

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