How Gustave Courbet's 'Le Désespéré' came to be owned by Qatar

The emirate purchased the painting for around €50 million about a decade ago from a French family and has agreed to loan it to the Musée d'Orsay for five years.

By Roxana Azimi

Lacking the necessary funds and eager to save face, French museums now juggle legal arrangements that are nothing short of acrobatic. Such is the case with the shared ownership of Gustave Courbet's Le Désespéré ("The Desperate Man") between the Musée d'Orsay and Qatar, a revelation that took everyone by surprise on October 13, during a tribute ceremony for Sylvain Amic, the museum's former president, who died suddenly in August.

While the assembly thought they were gathering to honor a beloved museum figure, they were stunned to learn that the standout painting from the 2007 Courbet exhibition belongs to Qatar. And while the Gulf emirate does not have a French export certificate for the painting, it agreed to loan the painting to Musée d'Orsay for five years before it departs for Doha in 2030, where it will be displayed in the future Art Mill Museum, a major modern and contemporary art museum designed by Chilean architect Alejandro Aravena. "We were there to honor a museum man's memory and ended up forced to applaud Qatar. We felt taken hostage," said one guest.

Since then, the controversy has continued to grow, fueled by the total opacity of both the French Culture Ministry and Qatar, which have refused to disclose the exact terms and duration of the agreement that is said to provide for the rotation of the work between the two museums. The silence has led to all kinds of speculation, starting with the most worrying: that Le Désespéré might never return to France once sent to Qatar. Criticism has mounted against what many see as a legal sleight of hand. On paper, such an iconic painting should have been classified as a national treasure, which would have given the government 30 months to raise the funds to purchase it.

https://www.lemonde.fr/en/culture/article/2025/10/21/how-gustave-courbet-s-le-desespere-came-to-be-owned-by-qatar_6746645_30.html

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