Grégoire Schusterman (1889-1976) was an art dealer whose gallery on Avenue Kléber in Paris was closed in 1940 in the context of the application of anti-Semitic laws put in place by the Vichy government. Forced to flee Paris due to Nazi persecution, he had to sell some of his works of art to finance his escape. After the war, he resumed his business but continued with reduced means. Grégoire Schusterman died in Paris in 1976. In 2022, one of his beneficiaries contacted the CIVS (Commission for the Restitution of Property and Compensation for Victims of Anti-Semitic Spoliation). After studying the file by the Mission for the Research and Restitution of Cultural Property Looted Between 1933 and 1945 of the Ministry of Culture, the CIVS considered, in the fall of 2023, that the sale of these two paintings constituted a forced, dispossessing sale, and recommended their restitution to the beneficiaries of Grégoire Schusterman. The Prime Minister then validated the restitution on April 11, 2024. This took place during the ceremony organized on May 16, 2024 at the Musée d’Orsay.
Which two works have been restored?
Caryatidsby Auguste Renoir (1841-1919) : this painting was found in Germany at the Liberation, entrusted to the custody of the Louvre then of the Musée d’Orsay and deposited at the Musée Renoir in Cagnes-sur-Mer. It is an oil on canvas, measuring 130 cm x 41 cm, representing female figures in feigned architectural niches, illustrating the ambiguity between painting and sculpture that Renoir liked to explore. This painting was inventoried in the national collections under the number MNR 198 (for Musées nationaux Récupération).
The Bargesd’Alfred Sisley (1839-1899) : it is also an oil on canvas, 50 cm x 61 cm. Chis painting depicts a peaceful scene of barges on the water, typical of the artist’s impressionist style. Inventoried under the number MNR 715, it had also been entrusted to the custody of the Louvre after its return from Germany; passed under the responsibility of the Musée d’Orsay, it was deposited at the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Narbonne.
