Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media restitutes Nazi-looted art—Grütters: “We must render this injustice visible”

To­day at the Fed­er­al Chan­cellery, Moni­ka Grüt­ters, Fed­er­al Gov­ern­ment Com­mis­sion­er for Cul­ture and the Me­dia, re­turned three works of art to the de­scen­dants of Ar­mand Dorville. The works had been iden­ti­fied as Nazi-con­fis­cat­ed prop­er­ty. The wa­ter­col­or “Wom­an in an Evening Gown” and the oil paint­ing “Por­trait of a Wom­an” by Jean-Louis Forain come from Cor­nelius Gurlitt’s art hoard. The draw­ing “Ama­zon with Rear­ing Horse” by Con­stantin Guys was most re­cent­ly held in a pri­vate col­lec­tion.

The own­er of this work, who wish­es to re­main anony­mous, made it avail­able for prove­nance re­search in the wake of the dis­cov­ery of the Gurlitt art trove in 2013, and promised to deal with it and re­turn it in ac­cor­dance with the Wash­ing­ton Prin­ci­ples of 1998. Be­cause the work had once be­longed to Hilde­brand Gurlitt’s art col­lec­tion, it was in­clud­ed in the Ger­man Lost Art Foun­da­tion’s Gurlitt Prove­nance Re­search project fund­ed by the Fed­er­al Gov­ern­ment Com­mis­sion­er for Cul­ture and the Me­dia. The project re­searchers iden­ti­fied the draw­ing and the two oth­er art­works as prop­er­ty con­fis­cat­ed as a re­sult of Nazi per­se­cu­tion.

In a state­ment, Moni­ka Grüt­ters said: “In aware­ness of Ger­many’s on­go­ing his­toric re­spon­si­bil­i­ty, the Ger­man gov­ern­ment is work­ing and tak­ing ac­tion to crit­i­cal­ly ex­am­ine the crimes against hu­man­i­ty per­pe­trat­ed by the Nazis and keep alive the mem­o­ry of vic­tims. We rec­og­nize this re­spon­si­bil­i­ty and are mak­ing ev­ery ef­fort to fight an­ti-Semitism, racism and dis­crim­i­na­tion. In this re­spect, this resti­tu­tion is an­oth­er step to­wards to deal­ing with Nazi art theft in Ger­many.”

The de­scen­dants of Dorville, a French art col­lec­tor who died in 1941, had the art­works sold at auc­tion in Nice in 1942. Al­though they man­aged to put the works to auc­tion, they were de­prived of the pro­ceeds that they des­per­ate­ly need­ed dur­ing the pe­ri­od of their per­se­cu­tion. The auc­tion was brought un­der the con­trol of the Vichy gov­ern­ment by an of­fi­cial re­ceiv­er; a num­ber of fam­i­ly mem­bers were mur­dered by the Nazis.
“The fate be­hind to­day’s re­turn vivid­ly il­lus­trates how per­fid­i­ous the Nazis were in or­ga­niz­ing the theft of art­works,” Grüt­ters con­tin­ued. “It is not pos­si­ble to make up for the mis­ery and in­jus­tice suf­fered by the Dorville fam­i­ly un­der Nazi per­se­cu­tion, but we can and must ren­der it vis­i­ble. I re­gard the re­turn of these art­works as an im­por­tant and sig­nif­i­cant ges­ture that makes a small con­tri­bu­tion to­wards his­tor­i­cal jus­tice. Ev­ery resti­tu­tion counts—as do all oth­er just and fair so­lu­tions in ac­cor­dance with the Wash­ing­ton Prin­ci­ples.”

Dr. Mar­cel Brül­hart, rep­re­sen­ta­tive of the can­ton of Bern in the um­brel­la foun­da­tion Kun­st­mu­se­um Bern—Zen­trum Paul Klee, said: “Af­ter care­ful con­sid­er­a­tion, Kun­st­mu­se­um Bern de­cid­ed to ac­cept the in­her­i­tance of Cor­nelius Gurlitt in or­der to make a con­tri­bu­tion to in­ves­ti­gat­ing Nazi art theft and to mit­i­gat­ing the in­jus­tice that took place. We there­fore wel­come ev­ery re­turn of an art­work to the right­ful heirs fol­low­ing ex­ten­sive re­search work. What mat­ters above all, how­ev­er, is not the num­ber of resti­tu­tions, but the hon­est and com­mit­ted ef­fort to clar­i­fy the ori­gin of all works from the Gurlitt art trove.”

Kun­st­mu­se­um Bern is Cor­nelius Gurlitt’s sole heir and there­fore heir to the Gurlitt art trove. In an agree­ment of Novem­ber 24, 2014, be­tween the Fed­er­al Re­pub­lic of Ger­many, the Free State of Bavaria and the Stiftung Kun­st­mu­se­um Bern, it was agreed that the prove­nances of the art­works in the col­lec­tion—which num­ber over 1,500—would be re­searched and the Ger­man gov­ern­ment would re­turn Nazi-loot­ed prop­er­ty to vic­tims or their de­scen­dants. Fol­low­ing to­day’s re­turn, 13 works iden­ti­fied as Nazi-loot­ed prop­er­ty from the Gurlitt art trove have now been resti­tut­ed to the right­ful own­ers.

The de­scen­dants of Ar­mand Dorville are rep­re­sent­ed by the Paris-based ge­neal­o­gy of­fice ADD As­so­ciés.

The firm’s part­ners, An­toine Djik­pa and An­toine De­labre, said: “As rep­re­sen­ta­tives of the de­scen­dants of Ar­mand Dorville, we thank the Fed­er­al Gov­ern­ment Com­mis­sion­er for Cul­ture and the Me­dia, Moni­ka Grüt­ters, and her col­leagues for the way in which this sen­si­tive is­sue has been han­dled, and for her com­mit­ment to re­mem­brance and jus­tice.”