French painting stolen during World War I returns home

From News on the Wall: French painting stolen during World War I returns home
A famous painting by French Realist Jules Breton was returned by U.S. officials to France's US ambassador, François Delattre, on Thursaday. The painting, called “A Fisherman's Daughter/Mender of Nets” (Une Fille de Pecheur/Raccommodeuses de Filets) had been stolen by a German soldier during World War I.

The beautiful work of art, now insured for 140,000 euros, was handed by US officials to the French ambassador in a solemn repatriation ceremony at the French embassy in Washington. Commissioned by the northern French city of Douai in 1875, the painting hung in the local museum until September 15, 1918, when an unknown German soldier cut it out of its frame, while German forces were retreating from Douai. The German army took A Fisherman's Daughter and other 180 works to Belgium, and when the Belgium government wanted to return it to France in 1919, the painting just went missing.

Painted at the height of Breton’s career, the work of art shows a barefoot young woman wearing a white headscarf and looking as if her thoughts are elsewhere while mending a fishing net. Most of Breton’s works are displayed at the Musee d'Orsay in Paris, as well as the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and other museums in France.

The searches have begun in the 1920s. After A Fisherman's Daughter was put up for sale in a Zurich art gallery, in the US, back again in Europe in the Dutch city of Maastricht, then in Cologne (Germany), the last holder of the painting (Daphne Alazraki Fine Art gallery in New York), was alerted by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement investigators and returned the painting to Douai museum for free.

French Ambassador François Delattre said in a written statement: “Returning a painting to a museum is a significant contribution to the celebration of our cultural heritage and a gift to all future visitors who will enjoy the work of art, but it is also yet another symbol of Franco-American cooperation”. He sees this return “as a gesture of friendship by the United States toward the French Republic”.