18/9/23 - Sale of Domains - The sale, which is online only, closes tomorrow at 11am. So it’s very late to be talking about it, but we didn’t find out about it until yesterday, Sunday, and we didn’t get a full reply (obviously as much as possible) from the Domaines [1], until the end of the day, when we are currently out of town. We are therefore unable to publish this news item until very late, probably far too late to prevent the sale, but you never know.
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- 1. Félix Ziem (1821-1911)
Venice. The Reception of the Doge on the Pier
Oil on panel - 38 x 60 cm
Painting belonging to a prefecture sold by the Domaines on 19 September 2023
Photo: Domaines - See the image in its page
We have already, on several occasions, denounced certain of the State’s sales, most recently regarding the Grignon furniture. Our aim here is not to criticise the Domaines, who seem to have done their job since they asked for the opinion of the Ministère de la Culture, as is the rule [Correction (19/9/23): contrary to what we had written, because we had misunderstood the response from the Domaines, for the paintings, which is logical, it is not the Mobilier national that is contacted but the direction des patrimoines et de l’architecture]. Nor will we question the latter, as we have not had the time to question it, and do not know what investigations it has carried out on this subject. But once again the case seems highly questionable, whichever way you look at it.
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- 2. Félix Ziem (1821-1911)
The Feast of the Assumption in the Basin. Venice
Oil on panel - 66.5 x 72 cm
Painting belonging to a prefecture sold by the Domaines on 19 September 2023
Photo: Domaines - See the image in its page
The sale involved three nineteenth-century paintings, two by Félix Ziem and one by Eugène Isabey. Although Ziem is not one of our favourite artists, he is still highly regarded, and there is even a museum dedicated to him in Martigues. Others, such as the Petit Palais in Paris, hold several of his works. What’s more, from the photos, these paintings appear to be of high quality (ill. 1 and 2).
The second is even more interesting. It is the work of a Romantic artist, mainly a seascape painter, whose pictures are sought after by museums and collectors. The one for sale (ill. 3) is a Venetian scene (like one of the two Ziems) depicting the doge’s galley. The poor photograph we are able to publish suggests a fine painting, particularly in its treatment of the sky. In any case, this is a work that might be of interest to a museum.
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- 3. Eugène Isabey (1803-1886)
The Galley of the Doge of Venice
Oil on canvas - 84 x 125 cm
Painting belonging to a prefecture sold by the Domaines on 19 September 2023
Photo: Domaines - See the image in its page
So how can the State put works of art it owns up for sale? Les Domaines told us that these three paintings came from a prefecture, without telling us which one and without being able to specify where it got them from. There are only three possibilities:
– either - and we hope this is not the case - they are works from a museum that has long-term loaned them and forgotten about them, which does happen... We can only hope that all the research has been done and that this hypothesis has been ruled out... But we have seen worse..;
– either the works were acquired by the prefecture (or given to it, but by whom or how?) and were part of its private domain, in which case they can be sold,
– or they are works acquired by or donated to the Prefecture, which were part of its public domain; they can then only be sold after declassification of the public domain; has this taken place?
Let’s rule out the first case, which would be totally illegal, and assume that all the research has been done. But the other two cases would not be much less scandalous: why does the State, which owns three works likely to be of interest to museums, sell them rather than offer them to public collections? How can the Ministry of Culture neglect to ask for these three works to be assigned to museums when at least Isabey’s painting would be of interest to a provincial museum that we interviewed?
But that’s not all: while the Ministry of Culture is constantly putting obstacles in the way of dealers and museums by demanding a history that goes back almost to the creation of the work (we’ll come back to this madness in a later article), the State is selling paintings without saying where they come from (even the fact that they belong to a prefecture is not mentioned) and without communicating the history of the acquisition by this same prefecture! We’re making a mockery of a provenance when it’s actually problematic.
All this is hardly glorious. From now on, we will endeavour to systematically and frequently look at sales by the Domaines. They are an excellent indicator of how interested the State is in its heritage.