The prestigious Met (Metropolitan Museum of Art) in New York, the Glencairn Museum in Pennsylvania, and the Worcester Art Museum in Massachusetts would have done well without such publicity. These three North American museums are the target of a complaint for concealment of the theft of stained glass windows from Rouen Cathedral and we learned this Friday, January 26 from the Rouen public prosecutor’s office that an investigation for “concealment of the theft of cultural/relevant cultural property of the movable public domain” had been opened against X.
The very young Parisian association “Lumière sur le patrimoine” is at the origin of this complaint. She wants six medieval stained glass windows returned to France, pieces of the “Seven Sleepers of Ephesus” stained glass window. This affair highlights the often mysterious disappearances of these major religious works.
“It’s stolen from the State, and the State, for me, is all French people”
Passionate about cathedrals, Philippe Machicote, the president of “Light on Heritage”, consults a Bulletin of the National Society of Antiquaries of France. In this document, archaeologist Jean Lafond describes having stored stained glass windows from Rouen Cathedral in a box at the beginning of the last century, as part of an inventory. “In 1931, the same Jean Lafond opened the box on the occasion of an exhibition of ancient art that the city of Rouen wanted to hold and when opening the box, he noticed, completely stunned, that there were stones in place of stained glass windows”relate Philippe Machicote.
Philippe Machicote, president of the “Lumière sur le patrimoine” association, in January 2024. © Radio France – Aurore Richard
For the association manager, a theft was committed, and then concealment of theft since, according to the archives, missing stained glass windows from Rouen Cathedral were sold on the Parisian art market to collectors in the capital. A little later, they were sold to an American collector and when the latter died, they were bequeathed to American museums.
The president of “Light on Heritage” refers to the inalienable and imprescriptible character of stained glass since 1790, when cathedrals became state property. His association is demanding the restitution of these works to France: “It’s stolen from the State, and the State, for me, is all the French. We want to repatriate what belongs to everyone. Egypt is taking a lot of actions to recover what we have stolen on its territory, I don’t see why France wouldn’t do it.”.
A first complaint concerning Notre-Dame de Paris
Philippe Machicote has already filed a complaint, dismissed, for the theft of stained glass windows from Notre-Dame de Paris, pieces which had been removed in 1862 before disappearing. According to the architectural historian, Mathieu Lours, we must understand that since the end of the Middle Ages, a master glassmaker has been paid in part by recovering old materials. “When we had a medieval stained glass window to restore, and in particular at Notre-Dame de Paris, the practice was generally to substitute damaged pieces or pieces which were judged to have been brought back later with a facsimile. The workshop could therefore sometimes take old pieces which were almost legally put back on the private market”he explains.
This was the case until 1862, the year when cathedrals were protected, in their entirety, as historical monuments. In Rouen, the disappearance of the stained glass windows took place after this law but the archives, like the work The stained glass windows of Upper Normandy at CNRS Editions, do not list them as stolen. The accused American museums also talk about pieces “disappeared”notably in the Met catalog, English and French Medieval Stainet Glass in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Artpublished in 2003.
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2024-01-28 07:41:15
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