The Louvre Museum must return 258 works to the Fondation des Artistes

The affair has raised eyebrows among heritage curators. The Louvre Museum must return 258 objects from the legacy of Adèle de Rothschild (1843-1922) to the Fondation des artistes, a private organization recognized as being of public utility that distributes scholarships and manages a retirement home , whose headquarters are located at the Hôtel Salomon de Rothschild, rue Berryer, in the ^8th arrondissement of Paris. "A violation of the heritage code," protest some Louvre employees. "A just return of things," objects Laurence Maynier, director of the Foundation, recalling that the inclusion of these works in the Louvre's inventory had been undue.

The story began in 2019, when the Fondation des Artistes offered the Parisian museum a cross-inventory of the works from Adèle de Rothschild's legacy. Before her death in 1922, the Baroness had bequeathed her private mansion and all its contents to the State, to be used for the creation of a foundation with the mission of supporting living artists. Some sets of works have joined the collections of the Louvre, the Cluny Museum, the Bibliothèque nationale de France, and the Musée des arts décoratifs in Paris. The donor had imposed only one restriction: to keep her cabinet of curiosities intact in her private mansion.

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