Rose Valland

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Memorial plaque at the Galerie nationale du Jeu de Paume

Rose Valland (actually Rosa Antonia Valland , born November 1, 1898 in Saint-Étienne-de-Saint-Geoirs , † September 18, 1980 in Ris-Orangis ) was an art historian , French resistance fighter , officer in the French army and one of the most decorated women in the french history.

During and after the Second World War, it made a significant contribution to the rescue and return of works of art stolen by the Nazis .

Youth and education

Rose Valland was born on November 1, 1898 in Saint-Étienne-de-Saint-Geoirs, a village with 2000 inhabitants on the plain of the Bièvre in the French department of Isère , under the name of Rosa Antonia Valland as the only daughter of the wheelwright and farrier François Valland and Rosa Maria Viardin was born. In 1914 she entered the École normal d'institutrices de Grenoble (an educational institution for teachers), which she left in 1918. Very talented in drawing and encouraged by her teachers, she went to the École nationale des beaux-arts in Lyon, where she received numerous prizes.

After graduation, she was accepted at the École nationale supérieure des beaux-arts in Paris in 1922 . At the same time she attended the École du Louvre and did her doctorate on the development of Italian art up to Giotto . After meeting Gabriel Millet , she devoted herself entirely to art history. She took courses at the École pratique des hautes études , where she wrote a thesis entitled Les fresques du XIIe siècle de la crypte d'Apullée en Vénétie , followed by studies at the Collège de France and the Institut d'art et d'archéologie from the Sorbonne , where she obtained three degrees in "History of Modern Art", "Medieval Archeology" and "Greek Archeology", which together with her doctorate at the École du Louvrem Louvre special training ( license spéciale ) in "Art history and archeology" certified. She traveled to Italy and probably also to Germany, whose language she spoke without ever having learned it in school.

In 1932 Rose Valland became a volunteer as an attachée bénévole at the Galerie du Jeu de Paume , a museum for foreign painting and sculpture in the Tuileries Gardens in Paris. She was supposed to be looking at the catalog of the museum's collections there. Then she worked on the realization of about fifteen international exhibitions and their catalogs. She wrote numerous articles in art magazines and newspapers. She worked on a voluntary basis and without a title until 1941.

German occupation

Territories occupied by Germany in France (colored) 1940–1944, (green: Italian zone)

When France declared war in 1939, Rose Valland became curator of the Musée du Jeu de Paume .

During the German occupation , a systematic plundering of the works of museums and private collections began in France under the “Special Staff of Fine Arts” of the “ Institute for Research on the Jewish Question ” of the “ Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg for the Occupied Territories ” (ERR) under Alfred Rosenberg those who belonged to deported or fled Jews. The Musée du Jeu de Paume served as the central depot before the works were distributed to various locations and to high-ranking personalities in Germany.

During the National Socialist looting, Rose Valland began to secretly register as much as possible the works that passed through the Musée du Jeu de Paume. For four years she kept an eye on these movements and carefully kept records of where the works came from, where they were transported, for which Nazi dignitaries they were intended, etc. She also used discarded notes from the museum's rubbish bins and listened to the conversations of the National Socialist officials. She risked her life by providing information to the resistance . She also informed the Resistance about the trains that were supposed to transport the stolen pictures. For example, sabotage prevented the last ERR trains from reaching Germany with looted goods in the summer of 1944. The Musée du Jeu de Paume was visited by high National Socialist dignitaries, and Rose Valland was even there once when Reich Marshal Hermann Göring personally selected stolen paintings for his own collection on one of his numerous visits.

From the autumn of 1944 she informed the Americans in order to avoid the bombing of the sites of the most important factories that had been brought to Germany and to simplify their recovery. Among the first Americans to come to Paris after the surrender was Lieutenant James Rorimer of the US Army's Arts Protection Division , the Monuments, Fine Arts, and Archives Section . Rose Valland and Rorimer immediately set about solving the art theft and searched the offices of the ERR and the homes of the art thieves. Rorimer described the work of Rose Valland in his book Survival.

Post-war period and repatriation of the works

As a result of the liberation of Paris by the allied troops, Rose Valland worked as a member of the Commission de récupération artistique ("Commission for the return of art [works]"). She went to the French-occupied zone and became a member of the 1st French Army ( officier Beaux-arts ). In 1947 she received a central post in the commission in Germany and worked in all zones of occupation, including the Soviet zone. She took part in the Nuremberg trials as a witness. She contributed to the repatriation of the stolen works, but also helped to rebuild the German museums.

After her return to France in 1953, she became “Head of the Service for the Protection of Works of Art” ( chef du service de protection des œuvres d'art ). In 1955 Rose Valland was appointed curator of the national museums.

Age

In 1961 she published her experiences in the book Le Front de l'art (reissued in 1997). The 1964 film The Train by John Frankenheimer is based on this book. The Rose Valland-inspired personality of Ms. Villard is played there by Suzanne Flon . Rose Valland retired in 1968 but continued to work on returning the works to the French archives.

Rose Valland died in 1980 at the age of 81 in relative loneliness in Ris-Orangis in the Arrondissement of Évry , about 23 kilometers south of Paris.

Honors

Rose Valland was buried in her birthplace of Saint-Étienne-de-Saint-Geoirs, where a college bears her name. On April 25, 2005, the French Minister of Culture, Renaud Donnedieu de Vabres, unveiled a plaque for her on the facade of the Galerie nationale du Jeu de Paume .

Rose Valland has received numerous awards for her work. The French government made her a member of the Legion of Honor , awarded her the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres and the Médaille de la Résistance . She was awarded the Medal of Freedom by the United States . In 1972, the Federal Republic of Germany awarded her the Federal Cross of Merit, First Class .

Representation in the film

In February 2014, the film Monuments Men, directed by George Clooney , based on the book by Robert M. Edsel, was released . The film characters are based on the real Monuments Men , but were renamed out of artistic freedom. The character of Claire Simone , played by Cate Blanchett , is based on Rose Valland.

Works

  • Le Front de l'art 1939-1945 . éditions Plon, 1961. (New edition: Réunion des musées nationaux . 1997. )

See also

literature

Technical literature:

  • Emmanuelle Polack ; Philippe Dagen : Les carnets de Rose Valland: Le pillage des collections privées d'œuvres d'art en France durant la Seconde Guerre Mondiale . Fage Éditions, 2011
  • Sophie Coeuré: La Mémoire spoliée. Les archives des Français, butin de guerre nazi puis soviétique . Payot, Paris 2007, ISBN 978-2-228-90148-2 .
  • Michel Rayssac: L'exode des musées. Histoire des œuvres d'art sous l'occupation . Payot, Paris 2007, ISBN 978-2-228-90172-7 .
  • Corinne Bouchoux: Rose Valland. Resistance au musée . Gesture, La Crèche 2006, ISBN 2-84561-236-2 .
  • Anja Heuss : art and cultural property theft. A comparative study on the occupation policy of the National Socialists in France and the Soviet Union . Winter, Heidelberg 2000, ISBN 3-8253-0994-0 .
  • Lynn H. Nicholas: The Rape of Europa. The fate of European works of art in the Third Reich . Droemer Knaur, Munich 1997, ISBN 3-426-77260-4 .
  • James Rorimer : Survival . Abelard, New York 1950.

Fiction literature:

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ James Rorimer: Survival. The Salvage and Protection of Art in War. New York 1950.
  2. ↑ Stefanie Peter: "Monuments Men". The hunters of the stolen Nazi treasures , cicero.de, accessed on September 10, 2013.
  3. ↑ Tanja Bernsau: That too is Hollywood - artistic freedom in naming the protagonists , accessed on January 19, 2014.
personal data
SURNAME Valland, rose
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Valland, Rosa Antonia (real name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French art historian and resistance fighter
DATE OF BIRTH November 1, 1898
PLACE OF BIRTH Saint-Etienne-de-Saint-Geoirs
DATE OF DEATH September 18, 1980
Place of death Ris-Orangis near Paris