Four works stolen in France by the Nazis during World War II have been returned to the beneficiaries of their Jewish owner, the Ministry of Culture announced on Wednesday.
These watercolors and drawings by 19th century French artists were stolen, along with hundreds of other works, in 1940 from Moses Levi de Benzion, an Egyptian Jewish businessman.
He had assembled this large collection in his home in France, where he died during the war in 1943.
A watercolor,
Paysage
, by Georges Michel, a drawing by Paul Delaroche entitled
Portrait de femme
and another drawing, of the same title, by Auguste Hesse, were in the custody of the Louvre.
A watercolor by Jules-Jacques Veyrassat,
Marée basse à Grandcamp
was kept by the Musée d'Orsay.
These four works, like all property looted during World War II and then found and entrusted in France to the care of national museums while awaiting their return, are called “National Museums Recovery” (MNR).
169 works returned since 1951
The restitution of Jewish property stolen by the Nazis is a long-term job. Under the former Prime Minister Edouard Philippe, a mission of the Ministry of Culture was created on April 17, 2018 in order to investigate to find the owners or their beneficiaries, before they make the request. Until these four new restitutions, only 169 works had been returned since 1951, out of some 2,200 “MNR” works, deposited in around a hundred museums and registered in the “artistic recovery” inventory.
On November 3, the Ministry of Culture presented to the Council of Ministers a bill on the restitution of certain cultural property acquired in the public domain during the Second World War to the beneficiaries of their owner, victims of anti-Semitic persecution.
This law, which has yet to be debated in parliament, concerns 14 works from public collections.
World
Canvas stolen from Jewish collector by Nazis to be returned to descendants
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