Israel Museum Mounts Exhibitions Seeking Rightful Owners of Nazi Loot UPDATED

Having belatedly posted information last summer about the art and Judaica in its possession that was looted during World War II, the Israel Museum, Jerusalem, will mount two Nazi-loot related exhibitions, Feb. 19 through June 3.

Orphaned Art: Looted Art from the Holocaust in the Israel Museum will display more than 50 paintings, drawings, prints, and books, as well as selected Jewish ceremonial objects, drawn from the more than 1,200 heirless and unclaimed works deposited at the Israel Museum's predecessor, the Bezalel National Museum, by the Jewish Restitution Successor Organization. The show will be accompanied by a catalogue. The illustrated online catalogue of all of the JRSO works held by the Israel Museum is here.

The museum describes "Orphaned Art" as reflecting "the arduous task of relocating rightful owners and returning treasures to their owners or legitimate heirs." The implication is that this wider exposure may help to alert the families of some of these orphans.

The press release notes:

Beginning as early as 1950, individuals have come forward to claim JRSO works, with the most recent claims honored in 2006 and 2007.

The concurrent companion exhibition, Looking for Owners: Custody, Research, and Restitution of Art Stolen in France During World War II, performs a similar function for works looted by the Nazis in France---the Musées Nationaux Récupération (MNR) collection of some 2,000 works, held in custody by the French National Museums.

With more than 50 paintings, "Looking for Owners" includes works by such major artists as Delacroix, Ingres, Monet and Seurat. Organized by the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Ministry of Culture and Communication, it highlights "the progress over the last ten years in tracing rightful ownership," according to the press release.

The release also says you can access France's online MNR catalogue at the French Culture Ministry's website: http://www.culture.gouv.fr. But as of last night, both that link and another link that should bring up MNR's online catalogue (http://www.culture.fr/documentation/mnr/pres.htm) were broken. (UPDATE: The links now work. Use the second one, because navigation from the main Ministry page is convoluted.)

James Snyder, director of the Israel Museum, noted that "there has been much misunderstanding about the history of works taken during World War II and the efforts relating to their recovery following the war."

One such "misunderstanding" may be why it's taken so many years for the Israel Museum and the French National Museums to mount these overdue, high-profile exhibitions of unclaimed art. The "Orphaned Art" show came only after pressure on the Israel Museum from a new Israel-based restitution group that wanted to sell works for which rightful owners could not be found, distributing proceeds to needy Holocaust survivors.

And as the Israel Museum notes in its press release:

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.

Was an "appropriate time" more than a decade after the commission made this recommendation?