Editing Louvre (section)

== Controversy ==
The Louvre is involved in controversies that surround cultural property [[Napoleonic looting of art|seized]] under Napoleon I, as well as during World War II [[Nazi plunder|by the Nazis]].<ref>{{Cite news |title=Napoleon plundered Europe's art to bring prestige home to France |url=https://www.csmonitor.com/Books/Book-Reviews/2021/0812/Napoleon-plundered-Europe-s-art-to-bring-prestige-home-to-France#:~:text=This%20is%20a%20gripping%20tale,an%20interest%20in%20art%20history. |access-date=2024-05-15 |work=Christian Science Monitor |issn=0882-7729}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news |last=Riding |first=Alan |date=1994-10-25 |title=Art Looted by Nazis Goes on Show in Paris, Seeking Its Owners |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1994/10/25/arts/art-looted-by-nazis-goes-on-show-in-paris-seeking-its-owners.html |access-date=2024-05-15 |work=The New York Times |language=en-US |issn=0362-4331}}</ref> In the early 2010s, workers' rights in the construction of Louvre Abu Dhabi were also a point of controversy for the museum.<ref>{{Cite web |date=2017-11-08 |title=The Louvre Abu Dhabi's Unlovely Back Story {{!}} Human Rights Watch |url=https://www.hrw.org/news/2017/11/08/louvre-abu-dhabis-unlovely-back-story |access-date=2024-05-15 |language=en}}</ref>

=== Napoleonic looting ===
Napoleon's campaigns acquired Italian pieces by treaties, as war reparations, and Northern European pieces as spoils, as well as some antiquities excavated in Egypt, though the vast majority of the latter were seized as war reparations by the British army and are now part of collections of the [[British Museum]]. On the other hand, the [[Dendera zodiac]] is, like the [[Rosetta Stone]], claimed by Egypt even though it was acquired in 1821, before the Egyptian Anti-export legislation of 1835. The Louvre administration has thus argued in favor of retaining this item despite requests by Egypt for its return. The museum participates too in arbitration sessions held via [[UNESCO]]'s Committee for Promoting the Return of Cultural Property to Its Countries of Origin.<ref>Merryman, abstract</ref> The museum consequently returned in 2009 five Egyptian fragments of frescoes (30&nbsp;cm x 15&nbsp;cm each) whose existence of the tomb of origin had only been brought to the authorities attention in 2008, eight to five years after their good-faith acquisition by the museum from two private collections and after the necessary respect of the procedure of ''déclassement'' from French public collections before the Commission scientifique nationale des collections des musées de France.<ref>{{cite web |date=9 October 2009 |title=Le Louvre se dit "satisfait" de la restitution des fresques égyptiennes Culture |url=http://tempsreel.nouvelobs.com/actualite/culture/20091009.OBS4116/le-louvre-se-dit-satisfait-de-la-restitution-des-fresques-egyptiennes.html |access-date=21 August 2011 |publisher=Tempsreel.nouvelobs.com}}</ref>

=== Nazi looting ===
[[Federico Gentili Di Giuseppe|During]] [[German occupation of France during World War II|Nazi occupation]], thousands of artworks were stolen.<ref>{{Cite news |last=Breeden |first=Aurelien |date=8 February 2018 |title=Art Looted by Nazis Gets a New Space at the Louvre. But Is It Really Home? |language=en-US |work=The New York Times |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/08/world/europe/louvre-nazi-looted-art.html |access-date=9 December 2022 |issn=0362-4331}}</ref> But after the war, 61,233 articles of more than 150,000 seized artworks returned to France and were assigned to the Office des Biens Privés.<ref>[https://collections.louvre.fr/en/album/1 National Museums Recovery, MNR works at the musée du Louvre], website louvre.fr.</ref> In 1949, it entrusted 2,130 unclaimed pieces (including 1,001 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 (Musées 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<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.culture.gouv.fr/documentation/mnr/Matteoli/RM-musees-nationaux.pdf |title=Rapport Matteoli, Le pillage de l'art en France pendant l'occupation et la situation des 2000 oeuvres confiées aux Musées nationaux, pp. 50, 60, 69 |access-date=21 August 2011}}</ref> 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.<ref>[https://collections.louvre.fr/en/album/1 National Museum Recovery, MNR works at the musée du Louvre], website collections.louvre.fr.</ref>

They were exhibited in 1946 and shown all together to the public during four years (1950–1954) in order to allow rightful claimants to identify their properties, then stored or displayed, according to their interest, in several French museums including the Louvre. From 1951 to 1965, about 37 pieces were restituted. Since November 1996, the partly illustrated catalogue of 1947–1949 has been accessible online and completed. In 1997, Prime Minister [[Alain Juppé]] initiated the Mattéoli Commission, headed by [[Jean Mattéoli]], to investigate the matter and according to the government, the Louvre is in charge of 678&nbsp;pieces of artwork still unclaimed by their rightful owners.<ref>Rickman, p.&nbsp;294</ref> During the late 1990s, the comparison of the American war archives, which had not been done before, with the French and German ones as well as two court cases which finally settled some of the heirs' rights ([[Federico Gentili Di Giuseppe|Gentili di Giuseppe]] and Rosenberg families) allowed more accurate investigations. Since 1996, the restitutions, according sometimes to less formal criteria, concerned 47 more pieces (26 paintings, with 6 from the Louvre including a then displayed Tiepolo), until the last claims of French owners and their heirs ended again in 2006.{{citation needed|date=August 2020}}

According to [[Serge Klarsfeld]], since the now complete and constant publicity which the artworks got in 1996, the majority of the French Jewish community is nevertheless in favour of the return to the normal French civil rule of ''prescription acquisitive'' of any unclaimed good after another long period of time and consequently to their ultimate integration into the common French heritage instead of their transfer to foreign institutions like during World War II.{{Citation needed|date=August 2020}}

=== Construction of Louvre Abu Dhabi ===
In 2011, over 130 international artists urged a boycott of the new Guggenheim museum as well as Louvre Abu Dhabi, citing reports, since 2009, of abuses of foreign construction workers on Saadiyat Island, including the arbitrary withholding of wages, unsafe working conditions, and failure of companies to pay or reimburse the steep recruitment fees being charged to laborers.<ref name="boycott">{{cite news| title=Abu Dhabi Guggenheim Faces Protest| url=https://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/17/arts/design/guggenheim-threatened-with-boycott-over-abu-dhabi-project.html |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20220103/https://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/17/arts/design/guggenheim-threatened-with-boycott-over-abu-dhabi-project.html |archive-date=3 January 2022 |url-access=subscription |url-status=live| author=Nicolai Ouroussoff| date=16 March 2011| work=The New York Times| access-date=21 October 2011}}{{cbignore}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://english.aljazeera.net/video/middleeast/2011/04/20114342518230176.html|title=Artists urge Guggenheim boycott|date=3 April 2011|publisher=Al Jazeera}}</ref> According to ''[[Architectural Record]]'', Abu Dhabi has comprehensive labor laws to protect the workers, but they are not conscientiously implemented or enforced.<ref name=Fixsen>Fixsen, Anna. [http://archrecord.construction.com/news/2014/09/140922-Frank-Gehry-Works-to-Improve-Worker-Conditions-on-Abu-Dhabi-Site.asp :What Is Frank Gehry Doing About Labor Conditions in Abu Dhabi?"], ''[[Architectural Record]]'', 25 September 2014</ref> In 2010, the Guggenheim Foundation placed on its website a joint statement with Abu Dhabi's Tourism Development and Investment Company (TDIC) recognizing the following workers' rights issues, among others: health and safety of the workers; their access to their passports and other documents that the employers have been retaining to guaranty that they stay on the job; using a general contractor that agrees to obey the labor laws; maintaining an independent site monitor; and ending the system that has been generally used in the Persian Gulf region of requiring workers to reimburse recruitment fees.<ref>{{cite web |url-status=dead |url=http://www.guggenheim.org/abu-dhabi/about/joint-statement-on-workers-rights |title=Joint Statement on Workers' Rights |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140703224025/http://www.guggenheim.org/abu-dhabi/about/joint-statement-on-workers-rights |archive-date=3 July 2014 |website=Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation |date=22 September 2010 |access-date=8 October 2014}}</ref>

In 2013, ''[[The Observer]]'' reported that conditions for the workers at the Louvre and New York University construction sites on Saadiyat amounted to "modern-day slavery".<ref name=Carrick>Carrick, Glenn and David Batty. [https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/dec/22/abu-dhabi-happiness-island-misery "In Abu Dhabi, they call it Happiness Island. But for the migrant workers, it is a place of misery"], ''The Observer'', 22 December 2013, accessed 30 June 2014; Batty, David. [https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/dec/22/abu-dhabi-migrant-workers-conditions-shame-west "Conditions for Abu Dhabi's migrant workers 'shame the west{{'"}}], ''The Observer'', 22 December 2013, accessed 1 December 2014; Batty, David. [https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/dec/22/uae-migrant-workers-exploitation-emirate-criticised "Campaigners criticise UAE for failing to tackle exploitation of migrant workers"], ''The Observer'', 22 December 2013, accessed 30 June 2014</ref><ref>Rosenbaum, Lee. [http://www.artsjournal.com/culturegrrl/2013/12/guardian-expose-substandard-conditions-reportedly-persist-for-some-abu-dhabi-construction-workers-plus-guggenheims-tdics-reactions.html "''Guardian'' Exposé: Substandard Conditions Reportedly Persist for Some Abu Dhabi Construction Workers (plus Guggenheim's, TDIC's reactions) updated"], CultureGrrl, ArtsJournal.com, 24 December 2013</ref> In 2014, the Guggenheim's Director, [[Richard Armstrong (museum director)|Richard Armstrong]], said that he believed that living conditions for the workers at the Louvre project were now good and that "many fewer" of them were having their passports confiscated. He stated that the main issue then remaining was the recruitment fees charged to workers by agents who recruit them.<ref>Rosenbaum, Lee. [http://www.artsjournal.com/culturegrrl/2014/04/satellite-museums-panel-my-interchange-with-guggenheims-richard-armstrong-on-abu-dhabi-human-rights-concerns.html {{"'}}Satellite Museums' Panel: My Interchange with Guggenheim's Richard Armstrong on Abu Dhabi Human-Rights Concerns"], CultureGrrl, ArtsJournal.com, 24 April 2014</ref><ref name=Kaminer>Kaminer, Ariel and Sean O'Driscoll. [https://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/19/nyregion/workers-at-nyus-abu-dhabi-site-face-harsh-conditions.html?_r=0 "Workers at N.Y.U.'s Abu Dhabi Site Faced Harsh Conditions"], ''The New York Times'', 18 May 2014</ref> Later in 2014, the Guggenheim's architect, Gehry, commented that working with the Abu Dhabi officials to implement the law to improve the labor conditions at the museum's site is "a moral responsibility."<ref name=Fixsen/> He encouraged the TDIC to build additional worker housing and proposed that the contractor cover the cost of the recruitment fees. In 2012, TDIC engaged [[PricewaterhouseCoopers]] as an independent monitor required to issue reports every quarter. Labor lawyer Scott Horton told ''Architectural Record'' that he hoped the Guggenheim project will influence the treatment of workers on other Saadiyat sites and will "serve as a model for doing things right."<ref name=Fixsen/><ref>Rosenbaum, Lee. [http://www.artsjournal.com/culturegrrl/2016/02/guggenheim-abu-dhabi-still-stalled-as-monitoring-report-is-issued-on-saadiyat-island-labor-conditions.html "Guggenheim Abu Dhabi Still Stalled, as Monitoring Report Is Issued on Saadiyat Island Labor Conditions"], CultureGrrl, ArtsJournal.com, 4 February 2016</ref>