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FRANCE HAS RETURNED three paintings by the Flemish master Joachim Patinir to the descendants of a Jewish family who were forced to sell them as they fled the Nazis.
The Bromberg family fled to Paris from Germany in late 1938 and were forced to sell the 16th-century Triptych of the Crucifixion depicting Christ on the cross the following year, along with several other paintings so they could get to the United States via Switzerland.
The paintings were formally handed over to the descendants of Herta and Henry Bromberg at the Louvre Museum by French Culture Minister Francoise Nyssen.
It is the second time in two years that the French state has returned despoiled art to the family.
In 2016 it handed over another 16th-century painting, Portrait of a Man, by one of the followers of Antwerp artist Joos van Cleve.
The Patinir paintings had languished for nearly seven decades unclaimed in the French state collections after they were recovered in Munich after World War II.
Knock-down price
The triptych had been bought at a knock-down price after the German occupation of Paris and was destined for Hitler’s Fuhrermuseum in his home town of Linz in Austria, where he wanted to build “the ideal museum”.
Patinir is regarded as the father of landscape painting, and developed the panoramic style that became a hallmark of the northern Renaissance.
More than 30 looted paintings have been put on display at the Louvre since December to raise public awareness of the issue.
France has stepped up its efforts to returned art looted during World War II to its rightful owners, using geneological experts to trace families.
“It is no longer acceptable to wait for descendants to turn up and ask for the restitution of their family’s art for them to be given their due,” said former culture minister Audrey Azoulay, who now heads UNESCO.
It is thought that up to 100,000 works of art, and millions of books, were stolen from French Jews or Jews who had fled to France before the German occupation.
The Allies found around 60,000 of the missing artworks after the war, and France has been returning works to families since the 1960s — although only 30 were given back up to 1994.
Since then there has been a more concerted effort with a commission of experts, historians and archivists dedicated to resolving the problem since 2013.
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Good
“Forced” to sell them to get money, they were paid for them why are they getting them back. I sold items during the down turn to get money along with numerous other Irish people, do we have a right to claim them back now.
They were in a privileged position that they had the paintings to sell, what about poor Jews that had nothing. That’s crazy.
@Eoin Doe: I’m not sure a downturn in the economy can be compared to escaping the Holocaust. The French state rightly doesn’t want to profit in any way from the horrors of Naziism
@KalEll: It goes without saying that i’m not comparing the Holocaust with our economic down turn. I’m making the point that I made a decision to sell something that I wouldn’t have had I not been in a difficult situation and I’m lucky I had it to sell. They sold their paintings and went on to lead a normal life which is great, should their family have the paintings returned “NO”
By that rational any Jew fleeing Europe should be reimbursed the cost incurred by fleeing etc. It’s another case of wishing to be seen to acting in a particular way. Should the family’s of Irish people who sold belongings to go to America during the famine be reimbursed by the state?
@Eoin Doe: I think you’re missing the point. The French state would have continued to profit from the paintings that only came to their possession because of the Third Reich. It’s hard to see how there would be a similar case in the examples you give.
@Eoin Doe: I think there is a stark difference between them being forced to sell in 1939 and you being forced to sell during the downturn when one considers the consequences of not selling.
@Eoin Doe: they sold the paintings to evade the Nazis they lost their homes money everything they only sold them and for next to nothing to flee they more than entitled to them back they didn’t sell them for profit but to survive and most.these art works wernt sold but taken by the Nazis , the atrocities are a stain on mankinds history and anything in a small way to even touch on repairing that should be welcomed
About time. A lot of French collaborated with IRA/SF-supported Hitler’s Nazis.
@Adam Reid: no in ww1 while we had.our rising they did if you Google Ireland’s plan in event of Germany invading england plan was to allow British troops and government take charge and occupy Ireland rather than allow the nazis invade us like we allways do expect everyone else do the dirty work
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If the Nazis hadn’t minded them, they would have been lost in the bombing of German cities.
@Paul Culligan: Yeah they were good like that. Who’s minded your brain while you’re on the Internet?
@Paul Culligan: Silly statement of the week
What a great story but yet the BRAVE Journal will not report on the remarks by the Polish Prime Minister re Jews and collaboration – is this Journal self censorship? is it afraid of Polish legal action? If this is indeed the case than shame on the Journal.
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