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Disputed Provenance in Paris & Palm Beach

A battle is raging between the French state and the Ford family.

Both parties have somehow managed to acquire and dispute ownership of a 1921 Kees van Dongen portrait of the Nobel prize winning author Anatole France.

Van Dongen donated the work to the French state for an auction to help defend France against a run on the Franc in 1926.

But the portrait never sold and the government returned the work to van Dongen for his own exhibition six years later, who then sold it to an art collector.

The art collector sold it to the Ford family and France’s heritage department recently spotted it at an auction house.

So, nearly a hundred years later, the French government believes the work is about to be returned.

Little is known of the arrangement between van Dongen and the French authorities so we can only speculate on their relationship over the years – but the Dutch French artist died in Monte Carlo in May 1968.