French art historian and collector of old drawings Louis-Antoine Prat, president of the Friends of the Louvre group, has been accused of slandering a respected art dealer with anti-Semitic stereotypes that he published in a new book.
Prat’s news The aisles of the living room, a reference to the Paris drawing fair, comes from a collection published by El Viso in September. The story draws an unflattering comparison between a “pure-hearted” drawing collector and an art dealer named Nicky Schwarz who is “driven by greed.” The latter is characterized by his poor personal hygiene, his “disgusting” appearance and his manipulative behavior towards collectors and journalists.
The story also contains passages interpreted as homophobic and misogynistic, concerning an “effeminate young man” groped by Schwarz during the opening night of the Salon du Dessin and “single ladies cursed by age”.
The book includes a disclaimer that any similarities between a work of fiction and real people, living or dead, are purely coincidental. But details of the fictional Nicky Schwarz’s clothing and published catalogs have led art experts to identify him with a leading Paris-based specialist and dealer in antique drawings, Nicolas Schwed.
“It’s very easy for anyone in the field to identify Nicolas Schwed in this story,” says George Goldner, former head of the drawings departments at the J. Paul Getty Museum and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Journalist Carole Blumenfeld says that Prat himself told her privately that the character of Nicky Schwarz was indeed Schwed.
Academic and author Claudine Sagaert has studied anti-Semitic stereotypes in 19th and early 20th century French literature. In a 2013 anthropology article, she noted how demeaning depictions of Jewish people’s physical appearance were commonly associated with immoral character traits, such as greed and dishonesty.
The language used in Prat’s story “is borrowed from the old anti-Semitic tradition” of French literature, comments collector and patron Pierre Morin. “Maybe the author isn’t even aware of it. » Parisian art dealer Hubert Duchemin condemns the “freely slanderous and nauseating” passages in the book.
“This vocabulary is definitely part of the language defining hatred of Jews around 1900 and beyond,” explains Schwed, who adds: “This is not the role of any museum representative, and in particular the president of the Friends of the Louvre, to slander art dealers. Morin and Duchemin point out that Schwed is considered a professional rival by Prat, a passionate collector of master drawings.
Prat’s perceived attack on Schwed is “totally inappropriate,” Goldner says. “The author, with whom I have no personal problems, has exceeded the limits of decency. He must also be aware that he has a responsibility to preserve the reputation of the Louvre and its Friends.
Prat did not respond to a request for comment but said The world He said he was “horrified by the accusation of anti-Semitism”, affirming that a “cabal” wanted to jeopardize his re-election as president of the Friends of the Louvre next June. “It’s grotesque,” he protested. “I have a number of Jewish friends.”
Former Louvre director Pierre Rosenberg, who oversaw an exhibition of the Prat collection at the museum in 1995, came to his defense, saying: “I can testify that he is not an anti-Semite. » Prat’s editor at El Viso, Nicolas Neumann, affirms that he “did not see an ounce of anti-Semitism in his text”.
The controversy pushed art historians Jean-Christophe Baudequin and Alexandre Gady, director of the Musée du Grand Siècle, to withdraw their contributions from an upcoming book of tributes to Prat.
The current director of the Louvre, Laurence des Cars, refused to comment, saying she could not interfere with the independent association Friends of the Louvre. However, a spokesperson says Des Cars “disapproves of Prat’s outpourings of all kinds” and “is always saddened by anything that affects the reputation of the Louvre.”
