The Louvre Museum is putting 31 paintings on permanent display in an effort to find the rightful owners of works of art looted by Nazis during World War II. A working group set up by the Culture Ministry is in charge of tracing back the origins of the art and identifying owners. But it’s a long and laborious task: only some 50 pieces have been returned since 1951.
More than 2,000 objects remain unclaimed, including 296 paintings stored at the Louvre.
The Louvre initiative is the latest effort by French authorities to find heirs of families who lost their artwork.
Other more famous looted works had already been on display in the museum, but visitors did not necessarily know they had been stolen by the Nazis. In museums, pieces of art retrieved by the French authorities are identified with the label “MNR,” French initials for National Museums Recovery