For the establishment of an institute for provenance research

Published in The Art Newspaper in 2019.

On 28 November 2017, President Emmanuel Macron, during a visit to the University of Ouagadougou, stated his intention to create, within five years, the conditions for temporary or permanent restitutions of African heritage to Africa. By insisting that « fallait tout faire » (everything had to be done) so that this cultural heritage could return to Africa, President Macron departed from a French legal tradition based on the inalienability and imprescriptibility of the national collections. He justified this departure by arguing that such a return would remedy the multiple consequences of colonialism. This statement of intent marks a new stage in the law governing the restitution of cultural property.

Since the appointment, on 7 March 2018, of Bénédicte Savoy, a member of the Collège de France, and Felwine Sarr, a Senegalese writer and academic, tasked by the French President with examining the conditions for the restitution of African works to Africa, many African and European figures have questioned how this mandate can be successfully carried out. By way of example, Sindika Dokolo, a Congolese businessman and collector, has said that he takes as a model the mechanism for the restitution of Jewish cultural property looted by the Nazis. While the parallel between the restitution of cultural property looted during the Second World War and the restitution of cultural property removed under colonisation follows a certain logic, in that it points to a path to follow and also a way to move beyond a toxic relationship with the past, the practical handling of claims and restitution requests by French curators and by the cultural administration since the end of the Second World War has been the subject of sustained criticism.

In this context, President Macron’s speech appears to be a genuine opportunity to review the methodology developed in the aftermath of the war and to move closer to the guiding principles adopted at the Washington Conference, which now seem partly forgotten. Adopted by 44 countries in December 1998, those principles encourage provenance research, seek to facilitate the filing of claims by applicants, and promote the implementation of just and fair solutions.

As a lawyer specialising in the restitution of looted works of art since my first case in 1995, I have had the opportunity to follow the evolution of the handling of restitution of looted Jewish property in France and internationally. Several observations have imposed themselves on me.

Although it lies at the heart of the debate on restitution of looted works of art, provenance research is far too often set aside. In March 2013, Aurélie Filippetti, then Minister of Culture, launched a proactive policy of provenance research on looted works, but she faced an administration entrenched in a posture of protecting the national collections. Moreover, although a National Scientific Commission on Collections has existed in France since 2011, it has never been mobilised, and French curators are for the most part opposed to restitutions of cultural property and to deaccessioning.

Finally, nearly twenty years after the Washington Conference, attitudes have not changed, and the situation appears even more complex than it was at the time.

While research has been carried out on works recovered and placed on deposit in national museums under the designation Musées Nationaux Récupération (MNR), the report entitled « Biens culturels spoliés pendant la Seconde Guerre mondiale : une ambition pour rechercher retrouver, restituer et expliquer » (Cultural property looted during the Second World War: an ambition to research, recover, restitute and explain), delivered by David Zivie on 19 March, highlights « l’existence d’obstacles tant techniques que juridiques » (the existence of obstacles that are both technical and legal) linked to « l’organisation peu optimale dont s’est doté l’Etat » (the suboptimal organisation adopted by the State), with « des forces peu nombreuses et dispersées » (few and dispersed resources), and concludes that « ce que l’on peut reprocher à l’organisation actuelle, c’est précisément un relatif manque d’organisation et une trop faible ambition » (what can be criticised in the current arrangement is precisely a relative lack of organisation and an ambition that is too limited).

The report also states that French museums are lagging behind what many have undertaken in Germany, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, Canada, or the United States. By way of example, the Swiss Federal Office of Culture published, in June 2016, a guide for museums intended to make provenance research a core discipline of museum work. Thus, while the issue of restitution appears to be evolving towards greater integration of provenance research in most European countries, in France it is strangely relegated to the background.

A simple visit to the MNR rooms of the Louvre is sufficient to observe this: the labels say nothing about provenance, they are almost identical for each work displayed, and the word « juif » (“Jewish”) does not appear in any presentation.

Faced with this situation, and given what is at stake in the restitution of African cultural property to Africa, President Macron’s speech constitutes a remarkable opening for the establishment of provenance research as a true discipline. It seems to me more than desirable that a research institute be created. In the form of a transdisciplinary laboratory, such an institute would make it possible to expand provenance research beyond art history and conservation, and also to take account of history, sociology and law. Openness to other disciplines is all the more crucial because it would allow us to acquire more precise knowledge about cultural property. The cultural object is a receptacle that carries meaning. It is both the memory and the imprint of the culture from which it comes. Accordingly, before any restitution, attention should be paid to the place and role of the object within the civilisation that created it. The cultural object has roots, and it is these roots that must be recognised. The restitution request made by Ethiopia to England in 2007, concerning an Orthodox tablet looted by British troops in 1868, is, in this respect, an interesting example, since its public display at Westminster Abbey was experienced by Ethiopia as sacrilegious.

Reflection on the return of African heritage cannot take place without dialogue. The Cameroonian philosopher Achille Mbembe invites Africa and Europe, in this regard, to reflect together on possibilities for restitution and reparation.The fundamental challenge of the restitution of African cultural property today is the search for a just and fair response. To achieve this, the establishment of a methodology based on a scientific approach to objects is indispensable.

Let us seize the opportunity offered to restore objects to their role as vectors of dialogue and culture, in order to drive out the demons of colonisation.

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