Rose Antonia Maria Valland (1 November 1898 – 18 September 1980) was a French art curator, member of the French Resistance, captain in the French military, and one of the most decorated women in French history. She secretly recorded details of the Nazi plundering of National French and private Jewish-owned art from France. Working with the French Resistance, she saved thousands of works of art.

Valland was born in Saint-Étienne-de-Saint-Geoirs, Isère, the daughter of a blacksmith. Like many gifted pupils from humble backgrounds, she received a scholarship to an école normale, a teacher school. She graduated in 1918, with the plan of becoming an art teacher. She studied art at the École nationale des beaux-arts de Lyon, graduating in 1922. Valland then topped the competitive exam for art teacher training and underwent two years of training at the École nationale supérieure des beaux-arts in Paris, graduating in 1925. She then began to study art history at the École du Louvre and the University of Paris. She also worked as a high school drawing teacher. She graduated in 1933 with a special diploma from the École du Louvre, and engaged in graduate studies at the Collège de France. In 1932, Valland became a volunteer assistant curator at the Jeu de Paume Museum.

In 1941, during World War II, Valland was put in paid service and became the overseer of the Jeu de Paume Museum at the time of the German occupation of France. Through the Sonderstab Bildende Kunst (Special Staff for Pictorial Art) of the Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg für die besetzten Gebiete (The Reich Leader Rosenberg Institute for the Occupied Territories), or ERR, the Germans began the systematic looting of artworks from museums and private art collections throughout France. They used the Jeu de Paume Museum as their central storage and sorting depot pending distribution to various persons and places in Germany.

While the Nazi plundering was being carried out, Rose Valland began secretly recording as much as possible of the more than 20,000 pieces of art brought to the Jeu de Paume Museum. Valland kept secret from the Germans the fact that she understood German. In fact, she never formally studied the language, but her partner who knew and spoke the language, helped her understand German.

Valland would converse with truck drivers employed by the Germans, and she was thus able to learn about artwork being ransacked and taken directly to the railway stations. Valland regularly informed Jacques Jaujard, the Director of the Musėes Nationaux, about the status of Nazi art looting. In addition, for four years she kept track of where and to whom in Germany the artworks were shipped and risked her life to provide information to the French Resistance about railroad shipments of art so that they would not mistakenly blow up the trains loaded with France's priceless treasures. The museum was visited by high-ranking Nazi officials, and Valland was there when Reichsmarschall Hermann Göring came on 3 May 1941 to personally select some of the stolen paintings for his own private collection.

On 1 August 1944, a few weeks before the Liberation of Paris on 25 August 1944, Valland learned that Kurt von Behr, the head of the ERR in France, was planning to remove to Germany as much artwork as he could, including many of the modern paintings which they had hitherto neglected. Valland learned that the trucks which had collected the artworks were heading to the Aubervilliers train station on the outskirts of Paris. By the 2 August 1944, 148 crates of paintings containing in total 967 paintings, including works by Braque, Cézanne, Degas, Dufy, Gauguin, Modigliani, Picasso, Toulouse-Lautrec and Utrillo had been loaded on five goods wagons waiting to be hooked up to another 48 goods wagons containing confiscated furniture and personal possessions of deported citizens. Fortunately, these other goods wagons had not yet been loaded which meant the train never left the station on schedule.

Valland was able to give Jaujard a copy of the Nazi shipment order, which listed the train and goods wagon numbers, the contents of each crate and the destination of each goods wagon (either to Kogl Castle at Sankt Georgen im Attergau in Austria or the Nikolsburg depository in Moravia.) This information Jaujard passed on to the Resistance. By 10 August, the train was ready to depart, but by then the French railway workers were on strike. However, two days later the tracks were cleared and being delayed by higher priority trains carrying fleeing Germans and their personal possessions. The train which had the designation 40044 departed, hauling a total of 53 wagons. The overloaded train reached Le Bourget before it suffered a mechanical breakdown. By the time the Germans had fixed the problem 48 hours later, the French Resistance had derailed two trains which blocked the tracks up ahead leaving the train stranded at Aulnay-sous-Bois.

Following the arrival of the Second Armored Division of the French Army in Paris, a small detachment under the command of lieutenant André Rosenberg (the son of exiled art dealer Paul Rosenberg) was sent on 27 August to check out and secure the train. After ejecting some old German soldiers who were escorting the shipment, they opened up some of the crates and found many paintings which Rosenberg had last seen hanging on the walls of his family's apartment in Paris. Finding two crates pillaged and an entire collection of silvers missing, it was arranged for 36 crates to be sent to the Louvre for safekeeping. However, to Valland's frustration, it was another two months before the remainder of the crates were removed from the train and transferred to a secure location.