A Nazi-Looted Painting Recovered by the Monuments Men During World War II Is Going on Sale

In an iconic 1945 photograph, four American soldiers stand on the steps of a German castle while holding three precious paintings. The soldiers were part of the Allies’ Monuments, Fine Arts, and Archives program—also known as the Monuments Men—which recovered and protected cultural property during and after World War II. Now, one of the rescued paintings in that snapshot, a portrait of a woman in an opulent gown, is going to auction.

The French painter Nicolas de Largillierre created Portrait de femme à mi-corps while working as an artist in the court of Louis XIV, who ruled France between 1643 and 1715. According to a statement from Christie’s, which will sell the artwork later this month, the Nazis stole the piece from the bank vault of Baron Philippe de Rothschild in Arcachon, France, in 1940.

The portrait was one of hundreds of thousands of artworks that Adolf Hitler’s armies confiscated during World War II. They brought the piece to Paris’ Jeu de Paume museum before moving it to Germany’s Neuschwanstein Castle, where it was found by the Monuments Men at the war’s end.

At the upcoming auction, which will be held on November 21, Christie’s expects the portrait to go for between $55,000 and $88,000.

“The Monuments Men photographs taught the world about the Nazi spoliation,” as Marc Porter, chairman of Christie’s Americas, tells the New York Times’ Nina Siegal. “This is not the story of a restitution of a work that’s enormously valuable, but it has the depth of the story and the history.”

During the war, the French art historian Rose Valland, who was part of the resistance, kept a secret record of stolen artworks. As a curator at the Jeu de Paume, which the Nazis used as a warehouse for their plunder, Valland was able to make copies of German inventories and archives, keeping track of pieces’ whereabouts.

When Paris was liberated in 1944, Valland shared her records with United States Army Captain James Rorimer, the art curator who led the Monuments Men. Per Artnet’s Sarah Cascone, Valland had logged 29 Nazi shipments to Neuschwanstein Castle, sending the soldiers to Bavaria. As Robert Edsel, co-author of The Monuments Men, tells the Times, Rorimer’s team had to hurry.

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“It was a race to get to Germany and to get to these locations before these most hard-core Nazis [started] destroying not only the art but also the records of the theft,” he says.

The photograph of Portrait de femme’s rescue graces the cover of Edsel’s book, which inspired a 2014 movie directed by George Clooney. In the image, Rorimer stands behind the three other soldiers holding a pen and notebook.

Valland earned many honors for her service, including the French Médaille de la Résistance and the U.S. Presidential Medal of Freedom, and Portrait de femme was returned to its original owners in 1946.

Sonja Anderson | READ MORE

Sonja Anderson is a writer and reporter based in New York City.