France's Musée des Beaux-Arts d'Orléans has turned a long-running recovery effort into a public campaign, launching a "Wanted" initiative to help trace 424 artworks believed to have been looted during World War II.
Among the missing works is a painting attributed to Jean Siméon Chardin, depicting the engraver and art critic Charles-Nicolas Cochin the Younger. The museum says the collection also includes pieces linked to major names such as Raphael's workshop, Édouard Manet, Lorenzo Costa, Hans Holbein the Younger, and Anthony van Dyck.
The campaign uses bold black-and-white visuals and a Western-style design to spotlight the lost paintings across the museum's digital channels. According to museum director Olivia Voisin, the goal is both to keep this history visible and to invite the public to take part in the search.
The museum's records show that the losses date back to June 1940, when the city of Orléans was attacked and an annex of the fine arts museum was ransacked. Since then, the institution has worked to rebuild a complete inventory of the missing works, creating a tool that can be used by collectors, auction professionals, and art specialists.
Voisin says the renewed effort has already shown results, with three paintings returned over the past two years. By making the search more accessible and engaging, the museum hopes to reconnect lost heritage with the present and inspire broader awareness of cultural preservation. In the future, such campaigns may help museums combine memory, technology, and public participation to recover more of the world's dispersed art.
