A Renoir and a Sisley, returned to the heirs of a Jewish gallery owner, on sale in Paris in October

A painting by Auguste Renoir and one by Alfred Sisley, returned in May to the heirs of a Jewish gallery owner, Grégoire Schusterman, who was looted during the Nazi Occupation, will be auctioned at Sotheby’s in Paris on October 18, the auction house announced. The first, THE Caryatids by Renoir, depicts two nude women in an art deco style, painted in 1909 and acquired at auction by the gallery owner Grégoire Schusterman in 1939. It is estimated at 1 to 1.5 million euros, according to Sotheby’s.

The second painting, titled The Bargeswas painted in 1870 by the French-born British painter Alfred Sisley and depicts a Normandy port with barges moored. It is estimated at €800,000 to €1.2 million.

After World War II, The Caryatids were recovered by the Allies at Thalhausen Castle in Bavaria and The Barges in the Rhineland. Repatriated to France, the paintings were selected in 1950 from among the last 15,000 works returned from Germany and not returned and became “National Museums Recovery” (MNR) works. In 1950, The Barges et The Caryatids were entrusted to the custody of the Louvre Museum, then, in 1986, to the Musée d’Orsay. Sisley’s work was deposited at the Dieppe Museum in 1954 and Renoir’s was successively kept at the Masséna Museum, then at the Jules-Chéret Museum of Fine Arts in Nice and, from 1995, at the Renoir Museum in Cagnes-sur-Mer. The two paintings were returned to the gallery owner’s heirs on May 16 during an official ceremony at the Ministry of Culture.

The two works, which the rights holders wished to put up for sale in this anniversary year of the Impressionist movement, will also be exhibited to the public before the sale from October 12 at Sotheby’s.