After 84 years of wandering, a work by Claude Monet, confiscated by the Nazis in 1940, was returned to the descendants of a Jewish family robbed during the Second World War.
A late but symbolic restitution. A pastel made by the impressionist master Claude Monet in 1865, “Bord de Mer”, was returned to the descendants of the Parlagi family on Wednesday October 9. According to Reuters, the work was stolen by the Nazis in 1940 from Adalbert and Hilda Parlagi, a Jewish man forced to flee his Viennese home after the annexation of Austria by Adolf Hitler’s Germany. .
The FBI, along with the Commission for Looted Art in Europe, a Britain-based nonprofit, located the painting in the United States, at an art gallery in Houston, Texas, before returning it to the family. The pastel had been acquired by a couple who were unaware of its theft by the Nazis.
Furthermore, the restitution of “Bord de Mer” is the culmination of several years of intense research. After the war, Adalbert Parlagi searched in vain for the work until his death in 1981. His son himself continued this quest, without success, until his own death in 2012.
Thousands of stolen works of art
If the 18 x 28 centimeter pastel representing a scene from the Normandy coast in France has found its owners, this is not the case for many paintings. During both World Wars, thousands of works of art were stolen or confiscated by Nazi authorities from Jewish families across Europe.
According to the co-chair of the commission for looted works of art in Europe, Anne Webber, 90% of these works and other goods stolen by the Nazis are still untraceable.
For its part, the French government continues to collaborate with international organizations and experts to identify works still in circulation. Each restitution, even late, constitutes an essential act of justice and memory for the families who are victims of these dispossessions.
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