ENGLISH VERSION Paul Wescher. I furti d'arte. Napoleone e la nascita del Louvre. Einaudi, 1988

Translation by Francesco Mazzaferro
CLICK HERE FOR ITALIAN VERSION

Paul Wescher

I furti d'arte. Napoleone e la nascita del Louvre. [Art Thefts. Napoleon and the Birth of the Louvre]

Einaudi, 1988

Venezia, 1797: The Horses of Saint Mark removed from the facade and transported to France
Etching by an anonymous engraver

[1] The work came out in Germany in 1976, two years after the death of the author, who had consistently devoted more than a decade to it.

[2] Much has been said and much has been written about this book. Without any doubt, for example, a few inaccuracies and some imprecision emerge here and there, also determined by the amount of data to be monitored. But the work has certainly the merit of framing within a comprehensive view an extraordinary and unrepeatable occurrence: the seizure of works of art made in Europe (but also in Egypt) by the French between 1794 and 1814. Since these actions were related to war events, some facts have certainly not been always clear and sometimes encroached onto certainly non-crystalline and morally reprehensible behaviours. Again, compared to pillaging and theft in previous eras, the French, and Napoleon in particular, wanted (with a gesture of great political value) that the requisitions of works of art be covered in the terms of the armistice and of the peace treaties. The paintings, sculptures, and treasures passed into the hands of the French nation not for theft or plunder (and, in this sense, the title “Kunsttraub unter Napoleon”- “Art theft under Napoleon” is not fully appropriate) but in accordance with international law agreements. The other great merit of this work is to have been quoted repeatedly in all following works, which would develop this or that specific aspect. It is therefore a volume that has opened new avenues, which were walked through later on by other scholars, with greater richness of means.

[3] Wescher introduces to us more than one character tied to those extraordinary events. But one character in particular stands out from the others: Dominique-Vivant Denon, or the man who was appointed in November 1802 as the director of the Central Museum of the Arts (the Louvre), then simply called Napoleon Museum. The Museum remained named like this until 1817, i.e. until after the fall of Napoleon himself. Denon was the man who personally selected works of art for seizure to the benefit of the Louvre, or other provincial museums of new creation in France, in the course of his travels. He was the man who organized the material, once it arrived in France. In short, he was Mr. Louvre. On him, the reference work is today: Dominique- Vivant Denon. L' oeil de Napoléon (Napoleon’s eye), a catalogue (edited by Anne - Marie Dupuy) of the exhibition held at the Louvre from 20 October 1999 to 17 January 2000. In conjunction with the publication of the catalogue, also Denon’s fundamental administrative correspondence in the years 1802-1815 was published. It consists of over 4,000 letters, now fortunately available on the Internet on the site www.napoleonica.org.

Dominique Vivant-Denon
Portrait by Robert Levèfre (1808)

[4] The historical reconstruction of the events culminated in the return of most art pieces to the States of origin. Between 1814 (minimally) and 1815, the Napoleon Museum was dismantled (although - to be repeated - several treasures remained there, either intentionally or because they were forgotten). Also on this, however, it is Wescher’s merit to have caught what remained of that experience (without developing the consequences in the book, because this was an additional argument with respect to the purpose of the volume). The author writes on p. 154: "The great Napoleon Museum, however, did not end with the material spreading of his masterpieces. His inspiring example survived him for long time, contributing decisively to the formation of all the European museums. The Louvre, the national museum of France, had shown for the first time that art works of the past, even if collected by princes, actually belonged to their people, and it was this principle (with the exception of the British Royal Collection) to inspire the great public museums in 1800." And a little further on (p. 155): "The return of stolen art works had then, in itself, a remarkable and unexpected effect .... It helped creating the consciousness of a national artistic heritage, awareness that did not exist yet in 1700."

[5] Regarding the events related to the requisitions of art works in the Netherlands and in today's Austria and Germany, the restitution of those pieces, the effects following those events, not only from an artistic point of view, but also for political propaganda purposes, linked to the conflicts in 1870, 1914-1918 and 1939-1945, it is best today to consult the excellent work by Bénédicte Savoy, Patrimoine annexé. Les biens culturels saisis par la France en Allemagne autour de 1800 (The Annexed Heritage: Cultural Property seized by France in Germany around 1800) §01377§. An opera of similar breath is unfortunately missing in Italy. Mind you, there are valuable works devoted to the phenomenon of art requisitions in this or that region of our country (especially in the territories of the Papal States, which were without doubt the most affected). Just to mention a few: Daniela Camurri: L’arte perduta. Le requisizioni di opere d’arte a Bologna in età napoleonica (1796-1815) (The lost art. The requisitions of art in Bologna in the Napoleonic era) (1796-1815); B. Cleri, C. Giardini: L’arte conquistata. Spoliazioni napoleoniche dalle chiese della legazione di Urbino e Pesaro (The Art conquered. Napoleonic pillage in the churches of the legation of Urbino and Pesaro) (Modena, Artioli, 2003); Cristina Galassi, Il tesoro perduto. Le requisizioni napoleoniche a Perugia e la fortuna della “scuola” umbra in Francia tra 1797 e 1815. (The Lost Treasure. The Napoleonic requisitions in Perugia and the fortune of the "Umbrian school" in France between 1797 and 1815; Napoleone e il Piemonte. Capolavori ritrovati (Napoleon and Piedmont. Masterpieces recovered); Chiara Pasquinelli, I Furti d’Arte in Toscana durante gli anni del dominio francese (Art Thefts in Tuscany during the years of French rule); Gabriele Paolini, "Simulacri spiranti, imagin vive”. Il recupero delle opere d’arte toscane nel 1815 (Spirant simulacra, live imagines. The recovery of art works in Tuscany in 1815). Very interesting too is the issue 111 (November 2013) of the online magazine Engramma, dedicated to the French requisitions in Venice. But the impression, as I said, is that a work with a comprehensive overview and a synthesis capacity equal to that of Savoy is still missing.

[6] A step in this direction was taken with the publication in 2009 of Veronica Gabrielli, Patrimoni contesi. Gli Stati italiani e il recupero delle opere d’arte trafugate in Francia. Storia e fonti (1814-1818) (Heritage disputed. The Italian States and the recovery of art works in France. History and sources, 1814-1818).

[7] Hereafter is published the text of the review, signed by Francesco Frangi, appeared in the Sunday Insert of the Italian daily Il Sole 24 Ore on 8 January 1989. The article is included in Biblioteca Multimediale del Sole 24 Ore – Cd Rom Domenica 1983-2003 Vent’anni di idee (The Multimedia Library of Il Sole 24 Ore - Cd Rom Sunday 1983-2003 Twenty years of ideas).

DOMENICA – Rivoluzione. La pittura

On the Ashes of Kings

The biggest plunder of history

by Francesco Frangi

The Abbot Gregoire was among the first ones to realise the forthcoming disaster. In August of 1894, in front of the packed auditorium of the National Assembly in Paris, the abbot-deputy took the podium to discuss his "Reports on the destruction wrought by the vandalism and the means to prevent it." The orator touched high levels of rhetoric, trying to resurrect in the audience the basic concept of the inseparability between republican virtues and appreciation for the arts.

The enemy against which Gregoire railed was not a particular faction of the Assembly but a widespread, almost universal, attitude. Overwhelmed and boosted by the wind of the insurrection, Parisian revolutionaries had started in 1792 to rage (encountering only timid opposition) against the monuments of the city and against the great artistic heritage of the clergy (nationalized since '90) and of the nobility. It was the probably inevitable flipside of the explosion of anticlerical and anti-monarchist hatred, which had fuelled the fire of revolution. In the main Paris streets, the monuments celebrated nothing but the ancient and recent kings, calling against themselves the iconoclastic fury of the bourgeoisie. Among the first monuments to suffer the consequences, was the largest equestrian statue of Henry IV, who towered near the Pont Neuf, a superb effort by Pietro Tacca and Pietro Francavilla. Demolished, the monument was brought in a foundry to draw bronze for cannons. The most disastrous event occurred, however, when the exasperation of the antimonarchic ideals brought to target even the biblical Romanesque and Gothic Kings that adorned the great cathedrals. The 28 statues that watched over the three main portals of Notre Dame were detached with a pickaxe and thrown into the void. The same fate befell the Abbey of Saint Denis. In Saint Germain des Prés, the tombs of the Merovingian kings were destroyed and the church became an arsenal. Shortly after, the architect Varin was instructed to "clean up" the interior of Notre Dame, which was deprived of 90 statues and saw 24 of his 25 tombstones broken. Those were the years 1793-1794, when permanent auctions were held in the Place de la Concorde, through which the amazing furniture seized in the mansions abandoned by the "emigrés" (the nobles who fled abroad) was dispersed. The Prince of Wales did not hesitate to send his French butler to buy exquisite furniture, which can still be seen at Windsor and Buckingham Palace.

The words of Abbot Gregoire were therefore providential and - although addressed an attitude which had become by then almost a universal norm - managed to lay the groundwork for a decisive turnaround. However, a full reversal could be realised only with the advent of Napoleon and indeed took the form of a faithful reflection of the turning point in the historical-politician scenario impressed by the future emperor. The transition from the revolutionary struggle to the imperialist ideal radically changed the attitude towards art and the destructive intentions toward the own treasures gave way to the desire to conquer those of the subject nations. It happened that even those who ignore the events of history can easily reconstruct the events of the Napoleonic campaigns just by observing the change of the origin of hundreds of works that, year after year, until 1814, came to the Louvre by the various centres where Bonaparte had established his seat.

The volume by Paul Wescher recently published by Einaudi publishers“I furti d’arte. Napoleone e la nascita del Louvre” (Art thief. Napoleon and the birth of the Louvre) finds its most brilliant pages just around the complex and amazing story of huge expropriations forcefully implemented by Napoleon, and the subsequent birth of the National Museum in Paris, then obviously called the Napoleon Museum (despite some mistakes, for example, when a confusion exists between a French general and the Brescia-based collector Lechi, former owner of the Sposalizio della Vergine – the Marriage of the Virgin - by Raphael, now in Brera)"

It is known that the Napoleonic operation, which probably caused the greatest displacement of art works ever in history, found a continuous stimulus and at the same time a legal cover in the introduction of ad-hoc clauses on the seizure of works of art, in the terms of peace and on those for the contributions and the costs of war. Napoleon’s programmatic meticulousness and his incessant diligence, well documented by Wescher, were perhaps less well known, however. Wescher dedicated the last few years on this work topic, before disappearing in 1974. Napoleon honoured this commitment, helped of course by special committees not only during the military campaigns in Italy but also in Germany, Spain and Vienna. It is surprising to know that, just two days after being entered in Bologna, on 21 June 1796, he wrote to the Directory informing that the paintings of Modena had already left and that the cityoen Berthelemy was taking care to choose those of Bologna: "He plans to take about fifty ones, including the Saint Cecilia, who is said to be Raphael's masterpiece."

At the origin of this desire for possession there was, without any doubt, the great dream of building up a unsurpassable (and in fact unsurpassed) public museum, that would eternally celebrate his endeavours in Paris. A dream that Bonaparte had entrusted to a large and eclectic connoisseur: Dominique Vivant Denon, general superintendent of the Napoleon Museum since 1802 and the only museum director in the world who could honour his tenure with the ability to choose the most valuable paintings around Europe. Among them, the cultivated Denon got to possess (and order in smarter catalogues) some of the masterpieces that still can be seen at the Louvre, like the Nozze di Cana (The Wedding at Cana) by Veronese or the Incoronazione di Spine (Crowning with Thorns) by Titian, removed from the church of Santa Maria delle Grazie in Milan. But also another immense group of works, of even greater value, such as those by Raphael, including the Deposizione Borghese and the Madonna di Foligno, by Correggio, the Deposition by Caravaggio, the paintings of Van Eyck. Paintings thanks to which, during some very agitated years (the same years during which the British brought to London the Parthenon Marbles), Napoleon’s dream found its triumphant accomplishment.

With the military defeat, came the time of refunds (partial, of course, but conspicuous ones). On 24 October 1815, 41 wagons pulled by horses carried back to Italy the 200 works agreed for compensation. Among them there were not the Italian primitives that still shine in the first room of the Louvre: Commissioner Alessandri unfortunately chose the tables of semi-precious stones of the Duke of Tuscany. Dominique Denon meanwhile, saw how his own unique creation was crumbling in his hands. He could do nothing anymore but use his erudition in dictating to Napoleon the list of books to take with them into exile.