Gustave Courbet,The Bathers, 1858, Oil on canvas, Musée d’Orsay, Paris. Photo: René Lewandowski

JERUSALEM.- The Israel Museum, Jerusalem, presents Looking for Owners: Custody, Research, and Restitution of Art Stolen in France during World War II, an exhibition tracing the story of works of art looted by Nazi forces in France during the Second World War. Organized by the French Ministry of Culture and Communication, the French Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs, the Direction des musées de France and the Réunion des musées nationaux, in collaboration with The Israel Museum, this landmark exhibition draws from the collection of works of art in France known as Musées Nationaux Récupération (MNR).

On view through June 3, 2008, Looking for Owners brings together more than fifty paintings to explore the complex history behind the MNR holdings, with specific focus on the progress over the last ten years in tracing rightful ownership. The exhibition features the work of major European artists, including Eugène Delacroix, Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, Claude Monet, and Georges Seurat.

Approximately 60,000 objects that were taken from France and brought to Germany during World War II, either through looting or commercial transactions, were repatriated to France after the war. Of these, 2,000 objects that could not be restituted due to a lack of clear ownership history or because they had not been looted, were given in custody to the French National Museums. Today they are stored or exhibited in museums throughout France, including the Louvre, Musée d'Orsay, and Centre Georges-Pompidou, and the French government continues active provenance research and restitution efforts. To help illuminate this ongoing process, the Mattéoli Commission, formed in 1997 by then-Prime Minister Alain Juppé to study the matter of Jewish property restitution in France, recommended an exhibition of MNR works at the Israel Museum at the appropriate time.
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