A complaint filed for concealment of stained glass windows from Rouen Cathedral

Will three American museums, including the prestigious Met (Metropolitan Museum of Art) in New York, have to return 13th century stained glass windows from Rouen Cathedral? A French association, Lumière sur le patrimoine, filed a complaint with the Rouen public prosecutor at the end of 2023 for “concealment of theft” concerning six panels. Five are from the canopy of the Legend of the Seven Sleepers of Ephesus (now on display at the Glencairn Museum in Bryn Athyn, Pennsylvania, the Met, and the Worcester Art Museum, Massachusetts). The last one, Saint Peter Preaching, from the Nave Chapel, is in the Glencairn Museum.

The fight, revealed by Ouest France, is led by Philippe Machicote, president of the association, who relies on the testimony of the archaeologist and art historian, Jean Laffont. “This story is known, including to the Metropolitan, which mentions it in two catalogs on its collections of medieval art and on the collection of Raymond Pitcairn,” he notes.

Laffont (1888-1975) wrote an article published in 1972 in the bulletin of the Société nationale des antiquaires de France. He mentions panels that he had inventoried in 1911 on behalf of the historic monuments commission. Stored following work carried out in the 19th century, these fragments were in boxes. “That year, the deposit was still rich in remarkable pieces from the 13th, 14th and 16th centuries,” he says. I got the stained glass windows placed in new boxes. I thought I had saved them but, when we opened the boxes in 1931, for an exhibition of ancient religious art, we found little more than tattered panels, simple debris, a few borders and… stones,” continues -he.

Five of the six panels, transported in the greatest secrecy, and replaced by stones, were sold on the Parisian art market in the 1920s. A last one was acquired by the MET in 1980. They are now at within sight of visitors to the three American museums. “It is imperative that they be returned to France, since the cathedrals are the property of the State,” continues Philippe Machicote. These stained glass windows, public collections, are inalienable.”

Without waiting for a formal restitution, the Worcester Art Museum indicated, in the Boston Globe, that "if it received information (on the panel acquired at public sale in 1921) or a complaint, it would study it carefully » and according to the ethical rules in practice at the museum. “We take this very seriously,” the museum continues. The New York MET has not yet reacted. But its director Max Hollein indicated, in 2023, that the museum would put itself in working order to study the origin of its collections. Four people, along with a committee of 18 curators, have since been tasked with “reconsidering the museum’s responsibilities” over the 1.5 million art objects it conserves. With the obvious aim of restoring what can or should be restored. “We do not want to have in our collections any object that came to us illegally, and there are cases where we are not the right owners,” admitted Max Hollein.

The Rouen public prosecutor's office has two months to render its decision on Lumière's complaint on heritage. “Whatever it is, I will not give up” indicates to Le Figaro, Philippe Machicote, who is attacking the Ministry of Culture to take up the matter. With an element of risk: Machicote had launched a first request for restitution for medieval stained glass windows from Notre Dame de Paris, deposited during the major works of the 19th century. His complaint was dismissed.