News from Bayeux

14/7/23 - Acquisitions and renovations - Bayeux, Museums - Le Parisien informed us in an article dated 11 July that Nicole Paolini, a resident of Bayeux who died in March at the age of 86 and had no children, had bequeathed assets worth an estimated 2 million euros to the Musée Baron Gérard, the municipal museum in Bayeux (ill. 1). The article goes on to say that "Once all the assets have been sold, the money raised should be enough to pay off the loan taken out by the town a few years ago to restore the museum. Loïc Jamin, the deputy mayor with special responsibility for museums, adds that "we will also be able to purchase new works".

1. A room in the Musée Baron Gérard
Photo: Didier Rykner

See the image in its page

Initially, we were a little put off by the fact that the bequest would be used to repay a loan that was around ten years old. Generally speaking, a donor or legatee to a museum does not make this generous gesture to pay for expenditure that has already been incurred and approved by a town council. However, this is often the case, and it poses a real problem. The principle of non-allocation of revenue in French public accounting is responsible for this type of frequent abuse. We criticised one example in a news item published in 2014 about a restored painting by the City of Paris [1]. It often happens that donations made to museums or to a town’s heritage are paid into the municipal budget (which is the rule) without the money being used for the purpose initially intended by the recipient. Rather than adding to the funding provided by the town hall, it simply replaces it.

We spoke to Loïc Jamin and then to Antoine Verney, the head curator of the Bayeux Museums. They convinced us that it was indeed the wish of the donor, who had contacted the museum at the time of the works, that this money should help the town to finance the renovation. Ten years on, however, it is regrettable that the money has not been earmarked entirely for…