Provenance of artworks: when the French Museums Service organises opacity

Gustave Courbet’s painting, The Desperate Man, was sold in a private sale in France, and its buyer, Qatar Museums, did not apply for — and therefore did not obtain — an export certificate. This fact is established, and the Ministry of Culture cannot be blamed for allowing a national treasure to leave the country, even if one must question the curious agreement that followed (see our news item of 14/10/25).

But this affair reignites the question of the lack of transparency (to say the least) of the French Museums Service regarding the export of works of art. Contrary to what some claim, we are obviously not campaigning for everything to be bought by museums. National treasures are not the majority, and even among them, some can be sold abroad without difficulty. For example, indisputably, the Guido Reni, David with the Head of Goliath (see the news item of 5/6/25), should have been subject to an export ban if there were not already a very large number of Guido Reni paintings in French museums, including two other versions of the same work. There is no issue with it potentially being exported. Similarly (see the news item of 6/10/25), Rubens’ Crucifixion, while we would like to see it join the public heritage, is not rare or exceptional enough in our public collections to warrant a refusal of an export certificate. François Boucher’s Still Life is an important painting, unique in its subject. It would be wonderful if a museum in our country could acquire it. Should it be classified as a national treasure? Not necessarily: we simply hope that a museum will be able to pre-empt it at auction. In short, we are not obsessed with export bans, except when the work, quite clearly, demands it.

But knowledge of exported works of art, far beyond the question of national treasures, is essential for another reason: tracking their history.

Let us recall that the French Ministry of Culture requires almost all museums to spend a great deal of time working on the provenance of their collections, even to the point of hiring people dedicated to this task, and literally harasses dealers to provide the most precise origin possible for each work they offer. This same ministry, which has the word “provenance” on its lips as if it were the alpha and omega of art history, deliberately conceals not only the provenance of objects exported from France but also their very nature. We thus lose a precious history for works that end up abroad, sometimes without even knowing that they have left our country or come from it.

Even beyond objects whose price exceeds the thresholds for national treasures, sellers should be required, for those sold abroad with artistic and heritage value [1], to inform the ministry of the transaction. This would make it possible to document their history and, in some cases, to bring to light previously unknown works.

Do as I say, not as I do: once again, this motto is being implemented by the French state, which nevertheless claims to be exemplary in the field of the provenance of works of art.