French Family Wins 20-Year Battle With Louvre

It took 20 years in the French courts, but a Paris family finally got a fair price--$1.4 million--for a painting it sold to the Louvre museum in 1968 for a mere $366.

The painting, a 17th-Century work entitled “Olympos and Marysas” by the French classical master Nicolas Poussin, sold at auction here Monday night for $1.4 million.

A last-minute effort by the Louvre to block foreign sale of the painting by declaring it a “national monument” fizzled, and the Olympian scene depicting two gods playing music among frolicking nymphs was purchased by an anonymous Swiss bidder.

The sale ended two decades of courtroom feuding between the mighty Louvre, repository of France’s greatest art treasures, and the family of the original owner, mining engineer Jean Saint-Arroman.

Saint-Arroman died two years ago before the French Supreme Court, in a landmark decision, ruled that the national museum, supported by public funds, could not use its vast resources and expertise to outsmart a French citizen.

“It was a victory for the little guy, a victory of a clay pot over an iron pot,” said Saint-Arroman attorney Jean-Louis Delvolve, quoting a French proverb.

The saga began in 1968 when Saint-Arroman decided to sell the family heirloom.

He was shocked when French auctioneer Maurice Rheims declared that the painting was not a Poussin.

But he was even more shocked two weeks later when the Louvre blocked the sale of the painting to a London gallery for $366--and then exercised its right as a national museum to pick up the old artwork for the identical price.

Louvre officials then announced that they had come up with “a rare discovery, akin to a shooting star” by recognizing the Poussin and saving it from the grasp of the British.

In the auction audience Monday night was Suzanne Saint-Arroman, 78, the widow of the engineer who battled art experts at the Louvre.

Basking in the family victory, she said she had no hard feelings about the museum. “They were simply trying to get a good price,” she said.