Eastern Europe. As recalled in the report published in October 2025, most of the deposits of major French institutions are made in the diplomatic network (embassies, consulates, French institutes), in this case 70% for Eastern Europe. The countries concerned cover the former Eastern Bloc including the Russian Federation, an area where borders and regimes have changed significantly over the past century. The CRDOA mentions in the introduction “an improvement in ascertainments abroad” for several years, including in Eastern Europe. The verification mentioned in the report concerns the National Center for Plastic Arts (CNAP), the Manufacture nationale de Sèvres, the Mobilier national and the national museums under the supervision of the Ministry of Culture. In theory, institutions and museums produce an inventory of deposits each year. In practice, for deposits abroad, it is the embassies which do it: they transmit the annual status reports to the Ministry of Europe and Foreign Affairs which has a dedicated mission to analyze them. The report notes that unlike the CNAP or Sèvres, national museums do not rely on annual status reports for their verification, “ not deeming them sufficiently satisfactory”while these museums no longer send missions abroad for proofing.
Legal vagueness and historical legacy
If the overall proofing rate is 90% in Eastern Europe, that of localized deposits is 40%, due to very old proofings that have never been updated. The report emphasizes two points to explain the shortcomings of proofing in this region, the first being the legal vagueness of the notion of deposit. Several foreign institutions “consider deposits as donations”especially deposits dating back several decades or even a century. This “problem of nomenclature” is reflected in the terms used by museums, especially when it comes to reciprocal deposits: long-term deposits, exchanges of donations, cross-deposits. The report cites the example of pieces from the former National Archaeological Museum at the end of the 19th century, deposited in European museums, as part of scientific cooperation. More recently, the Guimet Museum of Asian Art was confronted with this problem, for deposits in Russian museums (Hermitage) made in 1935. Guimet demanded the return of these deposits without success, because the Russian museums declared these pieces as national collections since they were registered as “donations” in the inventory. To facilitate relations with foreign institutions, the Ministry of Culture is providing a framework note on deposits of works of art.
The other element which explains the difficulties of proofing is local history, which the report calls “ a turbulent historical context ». From the October Revolution of 1917 to the dismantling of the USSR in 1991, certain diplomatic posts closed then reopened without proof being possible in the meantime. In Lithuania, the French consulate in Kaunas closed in 1940; part of the works on deposit was undoubtedly taken to Vilnius to the embassy which also closed. In 1991, the embassy reopened but the works were nowhere to be found. Likewise at the consulate in Saint Petersburg (Russia), 345 items from the National Furniture are still sought because they had been deposited in 1890 and were undoubtedly looted in 1917. Finally, in Poland, several deposits at the French legation in Warsaw are considered lost since the fire of 1944 during the insurrection. There are few archives documenting these pieces, so the report remains pessimistic about the possibility of locating them, despite registration in police databases and monitoring of the art market by museums and institutions.
