Page "Musée du Louvre" Paragraph 28

The Louvre is involved in controversies that surround cultural property seized under Napoleon I, as well as during World War II by the Nazis.

After Nazi occupation, 61, 233 articles on more than 150, 000 seized artworks returned to France and were assigned to the Office des Biens Privés.

In 1949, it entrusted 2130 remaining unclaimed pieces ( including 1001 paintings ) to the Direction des Musées de France in order to keep them under appropriate conditions of conservation until their restitution and meanwhile classified them as MNRs ( Musees Nationaux Recuperation or, in English, the National Museums of Recovered Artwork ).

Some 10 % to 35 % of the pieces are believed to come from Jewish spoliations and until the identification of their rightful owners, which declined at the end of the 1960s, they are registered indefinitely on separate inventories from the museum's collections.