Diane Esmond and Nazi Art Plunder
 
In the spring of 1940 Diane Esmond escaped from the German advance upon Paris with her parents (Edward and Valentine Esmond) and her 19-month-old son Victor Wallis. They traveled by car through Spain and Portugal and sailed from Lisbon to New York, where they took up residence. The German occupying forces lost no time in requisitioning the dwellings and possessions of displaced Jews. The Paris homes of Diane Esmond and of her parents were plundered, and a large number of paintings and drawings by Diane were confiscated and stored at the Jeu de Paume, part of the Louvre Museum. A list of the paintings drawn up by the Nazi official Dr. Tomforde documents that the confiscated works numbered 47. Thirty of them are marked as destroyed (“vernichtet”), but a few survived. According to a document by the Archive des Affaires Étrangères (Archives of the Office of Foreign Affairs), dated July 22, 1946, fourteen of them were restored to the artist shortly after the war. Only four of these, however, have so far been located. Diane Esmond made lengthy return visits to France beginning in 1946, settling there permanently in the mid-1950s. A 2020 article by Marc Masurovsky summarizes known details about the seized paintings:
plundered-art.blogspot.com

Clown, 1935, 82 x 122 cm, oils on canvas