Forgotten in French Customs for Decades, a Chagall Finds New Home in Museum Near Swiss Border

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Earlier this week, French customs near the Swiss border gifted an artwork by Marc Chagall to a nearby museum in France, after it had been languishing in bureaucratic purgatory, forgotten on a warehouse shelf for over 20 years, reported ICI Besançon.

In 2006, French authorities stopped a truck carrying artworks from France into Switzerland, and seized an etching by Chagall, along with a 1959 drawing by modern sculptor and painter Ossip Zadkine, because they lacked required certificates for removing them from the country. The two people transporting the works were arrested and fined for hiding the artworks, according to the Times of London. Afterwards, both artworks were effectively forgotten for nearly 20 years due to the “weight of bureaucracy,” per one source speaking to the Times.

That oversight has now been rectified. On Monday, the eastern Franche-Comté region’s customs office donated the 1924 Chagall etching, titled “L’Acrobate au violon” [Acrobat with Violin], to the Musée des Beaux-Arts et d’Archéologie de Besançon.

Besançon Museum of Fine Arts Showcasing its 1st work by Marc Chagall

“The Acrobat with the Violin” (1924), seized in 2006 following an attempt to illegally export it to Switzerland, was donated to the museum by the Franche-Comté Regional Customs Office. pic.twitter.com/RcWgGZTfcm — La Gazette Drouot – International (@Gazette_Inter)July 21, 2026

The Chagall depicts the Russian-French artist’s characteristic, often surreal motifs. At its center is a man lithely balancing atop a violin, beside a floating, upside-down chicken. A goat-like animal stands on its front legs in the foreground, as its body bends back into the air, and it appears to be playing the violin. A small Jewish Star of David can be seen on the man’s right pant leg.

“You can clearly recognize Chagall in this somewhat dreamlike style, this dream world that is very detached from reality,” said Maël Vandewalle, curator at the Besançon museum, who also helped authenticate the artwork. Issued as an edition of 150, the Chagall etching is estimated to be worth only a few thousand euros, but it is the first and only piece by Chagall to enter the Besançon museum collection, where it will go on view in September. “The customs service has really honored us,” said Ludovic Fagaut, the town mayor.

Chagall’s highest auction record is for a 1928 painting, Les Amoureux [The Lovers], that sold at Sotheby’s in New York for $28.45 million in 2017. As for the Zadkine drawing, which also touches on a musical theme, with a depiction of a man playing a guitar, it was given to the Musée Zadkine in Paris.