A Work Returned To The Stern Foundation

Concordia University unveiled an Orientalist painting by the French artist Emile Lecomte-Vernet (1821-1900), Aimee, a Young Egyptian. Previously owned by the collector and gallery owner Max Stern, this work was part of a forced sale in Germany in 1937.

The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts (MMFA) and the administrators of the Stern estate have agreed to display this work in the galleries of nineteenth-century European art, located in the Jean-Noël Desmarais Pavilion.

There are long-standing ties between the MMFA, Concordia University and the Stern Foundation. As a tribute to Max and Iris Stern and in celebration of the centenary of Mr. Stern's birth, the MMFA presented the exhibition A Dealer for "Living Art": Selected Works from the Max and Iris Stern Donation to Montreal from September 1, 2004, to January 23, 2005. The exhibition travelled to three other Canadian museums and was accompanied by a catalogue produced jointly by the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts and the Leonard & Bina Ellen Gallery (Concordia University). At the same time, the Museum inaugurated the Max and Iris Stern Sculpture Garden. Located along the perimeter of the Michal and Renata Hornstein Pavilion, this project is part of an agreement between the Museum and the administrators of the Stern estate to create the garden and acquire pieces of sculpture.

The MMFA cannot overstate the great generosity of Dr. Stern and his wife, who donated forty-eight works to the Museum, including a Van Dongen and an Arp, along with seven works acquired through the fund set up by Dr. Stern.
The restitution of spoliated works is a particularly sensitive topic, one to which the MMFA gives all the importance it deserves. The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts has committed itself, along with other museums in Canada and elsewhere, to helping with the task of locating works of art plundered during World War II. Information about provenance research is available on the Museum's Web site (www.mmfa.qc.ca).

Like other museums, the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts is currently keeping close watch on developments between the heirs of the art collector and dealer Jacques Goudstikker and the Dutch government. The MMFA's collection includes The Deification of Aeneas by Charles Le Brun, a work that had belonged to Mr. Goudstikker, which was acquired by the Museum from a New York gallery owner in 1953. Since 2003, exchanges have taken place between the Museum, the Dutch government and representatives of Mr. Goudstikker's heirs. At the moment, the Museum is waiting for more information from the Dutch government. Since each case of spoliation is unique and complex, in-depth, meticulous research is needed, which often takes years of effort.

In 1999, the MMFA returned a work of suspect provenance to the Hungarian government. The painting in question, Giorgio Vasari's Marriage Feast at Cana, is today on display in Budapest's Museum of Fine Arts.

Although no claim on any item in our collection has been made to date, we continue to believe that transparency is the key to restoring a form of justice, but also to shedding more light on the history of art. -- www.mmfa.qc.ca