Murder, theft and coercion near the Louvre

An astonishingly outspoken book has shaken the French art business.

Rory O'Keeffe investigates Le Destin de Suzanne The Americans say, 'You can't fight City Hall'. The French hint, 'Le pouvoir n'a pas l'habitude de l'impertinence'. They know you can wind up in the salt mines or even suffer a fatal disease if you get in the way of the Power. The Power is the State, and the State confers immunity on its functionaries. Under the pretence of an independent judiciary, le pouvoir protects its own. A 'little judge' (as a juge d'instruc- tion is sneeringly referred to) who persists in trying to establish the truth about dubious deals by guardians of le patrimoine is obstructed; evidence is withheld, and ultimately the silly fellow is banished to where he can meditate on his folly and mourn the end of his career. Patrimony is in the hands of the curators of the Louvre, itself virtually a sovereign state in which the high priests of Art (a religion far above the heads of the common citizens) feel them- selves to be beyond the law.

Mark Hunter, an American living in Paris, shows what happens when le pouvoir is challenged by a determined 'little judge'. He has written a book about the Canson affair * — a tale of insane cruelty, sleaze, blackmail, extortion and death — that has floodlit the murky corridors of French power. The book has opened a can of worms that the culture commissars in the Louvre would like to keep sealed. Widely reviewed in all the Paris papers, it is a model of investigative journalism and as compelling a read as any of the best- selling fiction in the new American legal genre.

The central character is the newly appointed director of the Louvre, Pierre Rosenberg. Rosenberg, as could be witnessed by those who watched television during the opening of the exhibition at the Royal Academy to mark the 400th anniver- sary of Poussin's birth, is, since the defrocking of Anthony Blunt, the acknowl- edged world expert on that painter. He made his name with his famous 'eye'. He once bought at auction for $400 a Poussin (pre-empting the picture for the Louvre) which was later sold for $1.5 million. Much later. It took 17 years for the elderly widow who owned it to convince the courts that she had been fraudulently deprived, and when she did get it back, an export permit was refused, effectively preventing the sale of the picture at its proper price. That is, until the Canson case broke in 1988, when

it was pointed out to the Louvre that it wouldn't look too good if they appeared to be exploiting two old ladies at much the same time.

The Vichy law of 1941 forbade the exportation of art made before the year 1900, unless it had a permit issued by the Museums of France. It also allowed the Louvre to prevent the sale of a picture at • auction, to commandeer it and practically The Gentleman from Seville' by Murillo to dictate the price of it. Thus, dealers, auctioneers and private owners were at the mercy of Rosenberg and his curators. In effect, they said, 'If we let you have a per- mit for this picture, you will have to give us that one.' (Partly to minimise the possible misuse of power, recent legislation now ensures that if the Louvre cannot match the vendor's price an export permit has to be issued within three years.) If a picture wanted by the Louvre curators turned up in an American museum, and it was found to have been smuggled out of France, the response would be, 'Unless you let us have it, you will never get another export permit, nor will you be allowed to participate in exchanges for exhibitions.' This happened to the Cleveland Museum over a Poussin, but that's a different, though also contro- versial, story, well described in Hunter's book.

This story is of an old woman, Suzanne de Canson, heiress to a papermaking fortune, a heritage which included some valuable pictures. She was locked in a room in circumstances so awful they turn the stomach to read about: no light in the tiny cell, no toilet facilities, the deranged creature reduced to eating her own excre- ment, her cries ignored, and finally her death by starvation. Joelle Pesnel, the

woman from the 'Little Chicago' district of Toulon responsible for this 'sequestration',

had inveigled her way into Mme de Canson's confidence, in collaboration with the old woman's lawyer. Three wills were forged, creating a false Swiss provenance.

The pictures were smuggled to Switzerland and a Murillo, The Gentleman from Seville', found its way to Christie's in London, who put it in their catalogue for a sale in July 1985. Under extraordinary pressure, Christie's were then presented with the choice of withdrawing it and sell- ing it to the Louvre at a nominal price or doing no more business with France.

But the art world is tribal and the boys look after their own. Knowing which side their bread was buttered, most of the art gurus and museum directors in America wrote a letter supporting Rosenberg and countered any suggestion that the Louvre might be capable of impropriety. The story is too complicated to detail here, but essen- tial evidence was withheld and the case against Rosenberg 'for receiving stolen goods' was finally stopped 'at the highest level'. The 'little judge', Jean-Pierre Bernard, turned against by his superiors and the supine press, and accused amongst other things of anti-Semitism, was sent to Lille. When his successor, Benjamin Rajbaut, summoned Jack Lang, the Minis- ter of Culture, the council of ministers refused to allow Rosenberg to be interro- gated. Rajbaut, too, got the message.

The case against Rosenberg (`the hottest man in art', as an American magazine

called him, and a 'marchand-manque' as

others see him), was quietly dropped. Case closed. But a nasty smell lingers. All this is documented in Hunter's book. Lawyers have checked in detail that he is safe from prosecution for defamation, but were I in Mark Hunter's shoes I'd be inclined to watch my back.

Rosenberg has the top job at the Louvre; he is untouchable. His photograph is to be seen everywhere, his image intensified by the red scarf which he throws over his left shoulder, winter and summer, indoors or out, in dinner jacket or overcoat, like an

old ham about to step onto the boards. He is always on French TV when an art subject comes up, and his video on Poussin is dis- played in most of the bookshops in France.

He is not a man to hide his lamp under a bushel. But his need for self-aggrandise- ment will not be advanced by Mark Hunter's book, and although it will revive interest in his methods, it is unlikely to add lustre to his new post as director of the citadel of French culture.

*Le Destin de Suzanne: La Veritable Affaire Canson, Fayard, FF130, pp. 471