National Museum of Western Art
In order to defray some of the ongoing costs associated with managing the collection, in 2019 it was reported that the Bern Museum of Fine Art had agreed to sell the Manet painting, "Marine, Temps d'Orage" ("Ships at Sea in Stormy Weather") to Tokyo's National Museum of Western Art, for US $4 million. This painting was previously owned by Japanese industrialist Kōjirō Matsukata before the second world war, who left the painting in Europe under the safe keeping of Kôsaburô Hioki, a retired Japanese navy officer. Hioki subsequently sold a number of paintings from the collection, including "Marine, Temps d'Orage", in order to raise funds to safeguard the others; Hildebrand Gurlitt had acquired it in Paris in the 1940s. The Tokyo National Museum of Western Art was "thrilled to announce the purchase of [the painting]"... since it was part of the focus of "a great effort to reunite the collection" originally belonging to Matsukata, under a single roof.