Restitution of Two Paintings stolen During the Second World War to the Beneficiaries of Grégoire Schusterman

These works were placed under the responsibility of the Musée d'Orsay and had been deposited, for the first, at the Musée Renoir in Cagnes-sur-Mer and, for the second, at the Musée de Dieppe.

Recorded in the inventory of «artistic recovery», these paintings were part of the property called «National Museums Recovery» (MNR), generically designating the 2,200 works selected in the early 1950s from works found in Germany at the end of the Second World War, brought back to France and not returned; the 13,000 or so unselected works were sold by the administration of the Domains. The MNR works, many of which were looted from Jewish families, were entrusted to the custody of the national museums in the early 1950s and may, in the event of proven looting, be returned to their rightful owners.

Recent research has made it possible to understand that Grégoire Schusterman, art dealer installed avenue Kléber in Paris, of Russian nationality, Jewish, had been forced to terminate his professional activities and to flee Paris in March 1941 to escape the anti-Semitic persecutions of the Occupier and the Vichy regime; he had to finance his flight to the southern zone and to ensure his livelihood, separate from several paintings, including the Renoir and the Sisley. These works were then, again in 1941, exchanged on the Parisian art market and bought by a German art dealer who shipped them to Germany where they were found after the war.

Main Image :Sisley’s Barges (1870)