Research has focussed on works in the European painting and sculpture collection created before 1946 and acquired from 1933 onwards, for which information on provenance is incomplete for the period 1933-1945. Information on provenance posted on the site has been culled from the Museum's object files and other Museum records, such as annual reports, minutes of committee meetings, and bequest and donor files. References to auction sales, exhibition histories and bibliographic citations have been verified where possible.
Sculpture forms a separate category.
The list on the site will be updated regularly in the coming months, in groups of about fifteen works. Like many other fine art museums in North America and Europe, the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts has committed itself to helping with efforts to locate artworks plundered during World War II, by providing information on its European paintings and sculptures for which provenance is incomplete for the years 1933 to 1945. The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts thus hopes to have taken a major step in the direction of greater transparency, indeed of justice, and towards a more precise knowledge of the history of its collections.