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The figure of the "Violinist" was entered in the list of acquisitions of the Centre national des arts plastiques (CNAP) on 16 March 1897 under the invertar number 3.674 and with the location "Opéra-Comique". There it adorned the staircase together with the figure "Manon or Opéra-Comique" by his former pupil Antonin Merciés (1845-1916). Falguière's sculpture was dismantled during the renovation of the theatre in 1932 and deposited in the CNAP's marble depot; the Opéra-Comique location entry was deleted from the inventory. In 1936, the sculpture was moved to Angers in the west of France. There are a few newspaper notes and photos of the work from Angers, taken shortly after its arrival. After that, its trace is lost.

The first entry about it in the Alte Nationalgalerie dates back to 1981, when it was included in the inventory of the Alte Nationalgalerie under inventory number B II 95 and labelled "owner cannot be determined". At that time, it had already been in the museum's care for some time, as we know from file notes. The features documented in the historical photographs from Angers confirm the identity of the work once exhibited at the Opéra-Comique.

Alexandre Falguière was trained in Paris under A.-E. Carrièr-Belleuse and J. L. Chenillion, moving in 1854 to the class of F. Jouffroy at the Ecole des Beaux Arts, whose successor he was to become in 1883. Represented almost annually at the Paris Salon exhibition and endowed with purchases by the French state, Falguière developed into one of the most popular and busiest French sculptors in the 1870s. His broad oeuvre includes portrait busts, monuments and numerous small sculptures. It also includes architectural sculptures such as his figure "Le Drama Lyrique", designed around 1898 for the new Opéra-Comique, whose design study and original plaster model are kept in the Musée des Augustins in Toulouse.

For several years, there has been a close exchange between the staff of the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin (Alte Nationalgalerie, Zentralarchiv) and their colleagues at the CNAP and the Opéra-Comique in Paris, who have been researching the case together.

As the collections of the CNAP - just like the public collections and museums with the status of "Musée de France" - are inalienable and inviolable, the work cannot have come to Berlin through sale. At the time of the inventory, the Alte Nationalgalerie was located in the territory of the GDR. A transfer from France to the GDR after the division of Europe seems very unlikely. Both parties have therefore come to the conclusion that the "Violinist" was most likely brought to Berlin in connection with the Second World War and is still owned by the CNAP.

"As the work was never owned by the SPK, it was not necessary to transfer ownership before it was returned," says Hermann Parzinger, President of the SPK. "In cooperation with our French partners, we were thus able to successfully resolve another case of "third-party ownership"."

The CNAP plans to return the statue to the Opéra-Comique following its restoration in France. "I am delighted that together we have succeeded in establishing the provenance of Falguière's work and that this research will make it possible to return the statue to its original location," says Yvette Deseyve, Deputy Director of the Alte Nationalgalerie and curator responsible for sculpture.
Alexandre Falguière (1831-1900)

Le Drama Lyrique/The Violinist, (design 1898), realised in marble 1899, 198 x 97 x 65 cm

Press photo: https://www.preussischer-kulturbesitz.de/newsroom/presse/pressebilder.html