Galerie Nationale Du Jeu de Paume - History

History

The rectangular-shaped building was constructed in 1861 during the reign of Napoleon III. It originally housed real tennis courts; the name of this game in French is jeu de paume.

It was used from 1940 to 1944 to store Jewish cultural property looted by the Nazi regime's Reichsleiter Rosenberg Taskforce in France (see Rose Valland). These works included masterpieces from the collections of French Jewish families like the Rothschilds, the David-Weills, and the Bernheims. Hermann Göring commanded that the loot would first be divided between Adolf Hitler and himself. For this reason, from the end of 1940 to the end of 1942 he traveled twenty times to Paris. At Jeu de Paume, art dealer Bruno Lohse staged 20 expositions of the newly looted art objects, especially for Göring, from which Göring selected at least 594 pieces for his own collection. Some of the art was destined for the Führermuseum in Linz, while the Nazis attempted to sell so-called 'degenerate art' (modern art "unworthy" in the eyes of the Nazis) on the international art market. Unsold art (including works by Pablo Picasso and Salvador Dalí) were destroyed on a bonfire in the grounds of the Jeu de Paume on the night of 27 July 1942. French Resistance curator Rose Valland, who was working at the museum, kept a secret list of all the works passing through, and after the Nazi defeat in 1945, most of these works were thereby returned to their rightful owners.