PARIS — At first, it is unclear why curators at the Louvre chose to squeeze the 31 paintings into two small rooms. Dutch landscapes sit next to German portraits. Depictions of feasts, Roman ruins, a small child with a goat seem to collide.

What ties these pieces together is not style, school or subject, but a singular history. All were looted or bought by German occupiers during World War II, then recovered and brought back to France when the conflict ended.

While France has returned tens of thousands of looted artworks and other objects to their rightful owners, many remain orphaned, including these paintings, which until recently hung in the museum’s regular exhibition spaces, with only a small bit of explanatory text on their descriptive plaques.

“It seemed to us that if we didn’t create a permanent space, we were operating as we used to in the past,” said Sébastien Allard, director of the paintings department at the Louvre, which opened a dedicated space for looted works in December. Although museums are often suspected of wanting to keep the pieces, Mr. Allard said, “our goal is clearly to return everything that we can.”