French Museum’s ‘Wanted’ Poster Campaign for Stolen Art Leads to Return of Missing 17th-Century Dutch Painting

Thanks to an inventive “Wanted” campaign by the Musée des Beaux-Arts d’Orléans in France, aimed at tracking down hundreds of WWII-era looted artworks, one painting has just been found, the museum’s director told ARTnews.

A 17th-century painting by Dutch artist Willem Cornelisz Duyster, titled Un Buveur (The Drinker) and stolen in 1940 from the Orléans museum, was located last month at an auction house in Switzerland and is on its way back home to the French museum, Le Journal de l’Art reported earlier.

After being presented with the evidence of the theft, “the possessor of the work immediately agreed to restitute it at no cost,” said Olivia Voisin, the museum’s director. The painting is currently being held in customs at the French border. Voisin said the museum was able to find the missing painting thanks to a recent campaign that uses a bit of humor to spread awareness about some 350 artworks that were plundered from the Musée Paul Fourché, an annex of the Beaux-Arts museum, after the city was attacked by Nazis in June 1940. It is believed people on both sides of the conflict took advantage of the opportunity to ransack the museum.

The poster campaign features the words “WANTED” written in chunky, all caps in American Old Western font, across a selection of black-and-white images of the museum’s lost artworks. These have been shared on social media, the museum website, and other news platforms, and are bolstered by a two-year-old digital catalog of the stolen works.

So far, it seems to be working. One local from Orléans, who saw the “Wanted” posters, decided to spend his free time searching for the missing paintings. “He wanted to help us, and that was the goal of the campaign: that these searches are shared or collective,” said Voisin.

While randomly sifting through online auctions, the unnamed Orléans resident came across Un Buveur in a catalog for an October 17 sale at the Gloggner auction house in Lucerne. It was estimated to be worth about $3,400 and thought to be a study of the original. It depicts a jolly scene of a seated man, dressed in contemporary garb and holding out an empty glass; he raises his other arm and appears to be caught in midsentence.

The museum was tipped off about the curious painting and contacted the auction house, which immediately cooperated and “was very transparent throughout,” said Voisin, noting that attitudes have changed in that regard. After she presented the painting’s holder with an image of the original superimposed on a digital image of their painting, they saw it was a perfect match. He had purchased it from a London auction house in the 1990s.

“He immediately proposed to restitute the painting,” she said. “It was pretty natural for him to return it, because he felt that he had been able to enjoy it for 35 years, and it was time for it to go home.”

The painting is considered one of Duyster’s finest, and in many ways represents the museum’s stolen collection, which once held several similar Dutch paintings from the 17th century showing scenes of revelry. However, the painting appears to be damaged by several layers of overpainting and cleaning attempts. If in good condition, Voisin estimated it to be worth between €25,000 and €30,000 ($28,000 to $33,600).

The Orléans museum has been trying for years to recover the artworks lost during World War II, with little luck. To date, 424 paintings are still missing from its collection, counting additional paintings that have gone missing or were stolen at different periods. They include works by Édouard Manet, Hans Holbein the Younger, Anthony van Dyck, Lorenzo Costa, and one attributed to Raphael’s Renaissance workshop. Since the creation of the digital catalog and the “Wanted” poster campaign, four paintings, including Un Buveur, have been returned over the past few years.