[SPOLIATION et RESTITUTION] Un accord d'indemnisation signé pour un tableau de Gustave Caillebotte

Armand Dorville’s heirs and a private collector have reached an agreement regarding a painting by Caillebotte sold during World War II

The heirs of Armand Isaac Dorville and a private collector reached an agreement this spring, completing the compensation of a painting from the French Impressionist, Gustave Caillebotte (1848-1894).

La Seine à Argenteuil, bateaux au mouillage was painted by Gustave Caillebotte in 1883 and then acquired in the 1920s or 1930s by Armand Isaac Dorville, renowned lawyer at the Paris Court of Appeal. The current owner, who purchased it in 2010, was alerted to the provenance of the painting at the end of 2023.

As a passionate art collector, Armand Dorville had assembled a large collection of almost 450 paintings, drawings and sculptures of artists from the late 19th and early 20th centuries. He regularly loaned his artworks to Parisian museums for exhibitions.

With the beginning of the war, Armand Dorville fled to the south-west of France to take refuge in the free zone, taking most of his collection with him. He died shortly afterwards and, childless upon his death, he had appointed his sisters, brothers and nieces as his legal successors and bequeathed several works to Parisian museums. At the time of his death, threats to Jews were increasing. To prevent the Dorville estate from being plundered or “Aryanised” and to raise funds to ensure Armand Dorville family’s escape, the executor of the will urgently organized the sale of the collection in Nice, in the grand hall of the Savoy Hotel.

The inevitable happened however and on the first day of the sale, the estate was put under the control of a provisional administrator, appointed by the Commissariat-General for Jewish Affairs in application of anti-Semitic laws introduced by the Vichy regime and the occupying authorities.

In June 1942, the entire collection went up for public auction, under the watchful eyes of collectors from all over France. By the end of the four-day auction, nearly 450 works had gone under the auctioneer’s hammer, including “La Seine à Argenteuil, bateaux au mouillage”, by Gustave Caillebotte, which was sold under lot number 231.

The appointment of a provisional administrator made Armand Dorville’s heirs unable to receive the proceeds of the sale, which could have ensured their survival, until after the end of the war. After several unsuccessful attempts to escape to Spain and Switzerland, Armand Dorville’s sister Valentine, her two daughters, and two granddaughters, aged two and four, were denounced as Jewish and arrested in Megève by the French police in March 1944. All five were deported to Auschwitz camp and murdered.

Nearly 80 years after the end of World War II, the heirs of the Dorville family continue their fight for justice and remembrance. As representative for the Dorville heirs, probate genealogy firm ADD Associés and its provenance research department are working to locate and recover these artworks, now held in various public and private collections dispersed across the world.

In January 2020, the German Minister of Culture led the way by acknowledging the spoliation inflicted to the Dorville family and returned three paintings from the Gurlitt collection to Armand Dorville’s descendants. Since then, nearly 25 works were returned or compensated, including twelve works from France’s public collections, as well as several drawings and paintings held in private collections and international museums. In 2021 and 2024, the Alte Nationalgalerie in Berlin and the Clemens Sels in Neuss restituted and then bought back paintings by Camille Pissaro and Edouard Vuillard. In January 2024, the Ackland Art Museum became the first American museum to return a work from the Dorville’s collection.

Since the 1942 auction, the painting La Seine à Argenteuil, bateaux au mouillage changed hands several times, before being acquired by its current owner. The latter became aware of its provenance when put in touch with Maître Corinne Hershkovitch, legal counsel to Armand Dorville’s heirs.

With due regard to the Caillebotte painting’s history during the Second world war and circumstances surrounding the 1942 sale, a compensation agreement has been found.

On behalf of Armand Dorville’s heirs, ADD Associés would like to warmly thank the private collector, who wishes to remain anonymous, and their counsel, Tim Maxwell (Wedlake Bell LLP) who facilitated the negotiations, as well as its own counsel, Maître Corinne Hershkovitch.