Family donates two 17th-century paintings looted by Nazis back to the Louvre

Two 17th-century paintings looted by the Nazis after the war and kept in Paris’ Louvre were eventually returned to their Jewish owners, who donated them back to the museum.

Many of the 48 descendants of the Javal family gathered at the Louvre on Tuesday to see Floris Van Schouten’s “Still-Life with Ham” and Peter Binoit’s “Food, Fruit and Glass on a Table,” which were rehung with objects detailing the family’s experience under the Nazis.

One of them, Marion, who did not want to give her full name, said: “It is a duty of memory towards my family, which was robbed and persecuted, to have its history speak to current generations.”

Five members of the family were deported from France during the war and murdered at Auschwitz, while other members fought in the Resistance or went into hiding.

The paintings were for decades part of the Louvre’s Nordic painting collection, which was put on hold as part of the “National Museum Recuperation” program for stolen artworks whose owners are unknown.

The government called in genealogy experts in 2015 to examine some of the items in these collections – part of a wider campaign to trace the rightful owners of some of the items in French museums.

Experts found that the paintings were taken from a mansion owned by Mathilde Javal in central Paris, which was seized and evacuated by the Nazis in 1944.

According to the Louvre, he requested reparations after the war, but the process was hampered by some simple errors in the spelling of his name and address.

The case is “a constant reminder of the commitment to transmitting memory and the need for action”, museum director Laurence des Cars told AFP.

Around 100,000 cultural objects were looted or forcibly sold in France during the Nazi occupation of 1940-45, most of them from Jewish families – many of whom were transferred to Germany.

Approximately 60,000 works were returned to France after the war, of which 45,000 were returned to their owners by a special commission, which operated until 1949.

Of the remaining 15,000, approximately 13,000 were sold by the state and 2,200 were handed over to museums.

The Louvre owns 1,610 of these artworks, including 791 paintings.