dépôt / déposé

11:42 Feb 26, 2014 

Yes, it's in Bourg-en-Bresse. I often leave out such details for reasons of customer confidentiality, then find that others do some research and post the details anyway! But I still really appreciate all the comments and suggestions. I've opted for "entrusted by" as I think this gives the meaning in a suitably broad way, though there may well be a better and more "official" English-language equivalent. Those consulting this page in future can have a look through the discussions and decide for themselves. Sincere thanks to everyone who answered and/or commented, much appreciated as always.

20:40 Feb 14, 2014 

Not really acquired but the state took possession of everything after the French revolution, as otherwise, it would have lost all its patrimony-national heritage. It did not belong to the state-requisitioned, sequestrated from among the looting

19:42 Feb 14, 2014 

the text tells us that it was acquired by the Louvre (sometime before 1872), was given an accession number and, unless it was deaccessioned, it still (legally) belongs to the Louvre; but has been exhibited at Brou in Bourg-en-Bresse since 1872. That's my minimalist reading of it.

18:43 Feb 14, 2014 

Yes, exactly, it sounds like a permanent loan. But let's wait and see what the asker says.

18:26 Feb 14, 2014 

is that it *still* belongs to the Louvre and is just "on loan" to B-e-B, to be displayed at Brou (a really, really beautiful place, btw).

The Louvre has probably got stuff "on loan" to provincial museums all over France --in practice, on permanent loan, since warehouse space in the Paris area is kinda expensive.

17:55 Feb 14, 2014 

I think the painting originally belonged to the Louvre, which deposited it at the Brou monastery in Bourg-en-Bresse. But I'd be grateful if the asker would confirm this.

17:33 Feb 14, 2014 

My point about the "warehouses" of the Louvre (and the Met, and every other large museum) is that they are necessary to store the "overflow" of objects which the institution acquires --as gifts, or as a result of archeological digs, or whatever-- which are judged to be "second rate," meaning that they are not "first rate" and deserving of taking up the limited public exhibition space available in the museum itself. That's a judgement call.

I remember first going to the Louvre in 1967 and seeing the *vast* number of glass cases *filled* with Greek pots --hundreds and hundreds of them, it seemed. I had no idea so many Greek pots had even survived. When I went back on a visit in the mid-80s, there were no longer these huge cases full of pots, only a few dozen (at most) to be seen, in individual plastic boxes on pedestals. Tastes in exhibition practice change (not always for the best), and the exhibition of such massive quantities of objects definitely became passé. Where did all the pots go? Into the Louvre's warehouses, out of public view.

Loaning "secondary" works out to provincial museums is a practical (and good) alternative to warehousing.

17:12 Feb 14, 2014 

Don't forget that this was after the French revolution when palaces were pillaged-it led to the beginning of conservation/restoration philosophy when the French realised they were losing such a great patrimony through pillaging and started the process of cataloguing-there wouldn't have been warehouses then

15:54 Feb 14, 2014 

I'm still thinking that the description we have here follows the standard formula for works of art:

Title
Date
Material
Location

The Inv.[entaire] number is [1]872.7 (i.e., the seventh item acquired that year); and the present location is not in the public exhibition areas of the Louvre, but in the "dépôt" of the Louvre, i.e., not on public display there.

15:43 Feb 14, 2014 

Could you confirm where this painting is?

15:16 Feb 14, 2014 

I understood it to mean as Christopher said-acquired & then registered as it would have to be