The President of the Friends of the Louvre at the heart of several controversies

La Tribune de l’Art talks about museums and historic monuments from the point of view of art history. We are deliberately distancing ourselves from the other controversies that can arise in this field, but sometimes one of them takes on such importance that it is impossible for us to ignore it. Thus the Louis-Antoine Prat affair, as we might call it, is everywhere, everyone is talking about it, and we are being asked to take a stand. We’re not in the habit of backing down when faced with an obstacle, so we’re going to write everything we can about it here.

There are really three issues: the drawing by Claude Lorrain, the drawing by Victor Hugo, and the collection of short stories written by the president of the Société des Amis du Louvre.

The Claude Lorrain drawing

1. Claude Gellée, called le Lorrain (1600-1682)
Landscape with a Large Tree
Pen and brown ink, brown wash,
black chalk - 30 x 39.5 cm
Véronique and Louis-Antoine Prat Collection
Photo: Dorotheum

See the image in its page

We have been aware of this affair for several weeks and we wanted to talk about it but the Château de Chantilly, whom we had contacted, not wishing to get angry with the Louvre for reasons we can understand, had asked us to wait as it could have caused them problems. We obviously didn’t want to harm a museum with a remarkable policy, so we agreed that we would wait until Xavier Salmon - still head of the Louvre’s Department of Graphic Arts - had left before telling the full story. Now that it is in the news, we’ll describe it in detail, as La Tribune de l’Art readers know that we don’t write anything that isn’t duly backed up by reliable information.

On 4 April 2023, a drawing was to go on sale at the Dorotheum in Vienna as "attributed to Claude Lorrain" (ill. 1). At the Château de Chantilly, one of its curators, who had been on a training course at the Albertina, had been informed by this museum, which had suggested that he study it carefully, as it was likely to be a work by Claude, with a very modest estimate of 15 000 to 20 000 euros. This might be of interest to the Musée Condé, which is preparing an exhibition devoted to this artist from 2 March to 19 May 2024.
His research convinced him that it was indeed a sheet by Claude Lorrain, which is now universally accepted. With the support of loyal patrons who make an ambitious acquisition policy possible, the Musée Condé could therefore hope to win this poorly allocated lot for a reasonable sum. There was no risk of it giving rise to an "error of substance", not only because the sale was in Austria, but also because "attributed to" could mean that it was in fact the work of the French painter.

In order to be sure of winning, the museum had asked a friendly dealer to bid on its behalf: thus, if the bidding had gone higher than the museum could afford, it would have been able to acquire the work a little later, while waiting for the patrons to raise the money (one of them was already ready to…