Translation by Francesco Mazzaferro
Savoy, Bénédicte
Patrimoine annexé. Les biens culturels saisis par la France en Allemagne autour de 1800
[German Heritage seized by France around 1800]
[German Heritage seized by France around 1800]
Éditions de la Maison des sciences de l’homme, 2003
Isbn 2-7351-0988-7
[1] Text of the back cover:
"Between 1794 and 1811, the first revolutionary and later imperial France confiscated thousands of works of art and rare books in Europe, occupied by its army. This appropriation policy was legitimized by a bold doctrine according to which "art and science" works, as fruits of the genius of liberty, should better stay in the land of freedom. Officially intended to promote public education and advancement of arts, these objects distributed in the French national collections, but also in the imperial palaces, were mostly returned to their rightful owners after the fall of the Empire. This study describes the terms and effects of seizures made by France in the German area. It outlines the major actors, often prestigious names, involved in operations on both sides of the Rhine: Vivant Denon, Jacob Grimm, the Humboldt brothers. It displays the crucial role that this appropriation policy played for Germanic States in establishing a proper awareness of their own heritage in the early nineteenth century. Finally, it examines the fate reserved in France to the works confiscated in German collections.
The second volume is devoted to the spectacular exhibition of works confiscated by Vivant Denon in northern German collections, held at the Louvre, in 1807-1808. Relying primarily on the summary records that accompanied the exhibition, on the minutes prepared during seizures (most are published here for the first time) and the lists of objects returned, this catalogue offers a new and ample illustrated reconstruction of this unprecedented event in the history of German museums, and the evolution of taste in Europe.˝
[2] We shall say it right away, so we can immediately get it over. When reading this book (or rather, these two volumes), we have a strong feeling of being faced with an exceptional work, a work that, while not dealing with the requisitions occurred in our own country, would deserve to be translated into Italian as exemplary demonstration of how to conduct a research of this kind. This is not only the history of art works between 1794 and 1815, it is not only a list of those works (to be clear, a list submitted in an exemplary manner in which not only paintings and sculptures are mentioned, but also books, manuscripts, scientific instruments and archaeological curiosities, with a top notch iconographic and bibliographic apparatus), but it is above all a work with a European scope, that aims at investigating the changes of taste and cultural debates, as well as new methods of use of art works 'on both sides of the Rhine, before and after the phenomenon of requisitions. The best thing is to let the author speak, quoting part of his introduction, starting from the point where he clarifies his views about the previous work published on the same subject (pp. 2-3):
" ... Limited by the exclusive use of French sources, they generally evacuated the European dimension of the problem, in particular the question of the impact of confiscations on the public opinion and on policies strengthening cultural heritage in the different target regions. It is precisely “the in–between dimension” that creates the whole interest of this episode: the relationship between France and the States affected; the gap between the idea of nation being developed by French around 1800 and the idea of cosmopolitanism still dominating the views of others; the diverse views which, outside of France, every country had developed on its own cultural heritage and the heterogeneity of museum practices deriving from that; the mobilisation or no, by the public opinion, as a response to French spoliation; or finally the phenomena of consecration and de- consecration affecting works transferred to Paris. This episode is inseparable, in fact, from the creation of a “sense of heritage” in Europe in the early nineteenth century and, more broadly, of what is called the "awakening of national consciousness".
One gets the impression that the same shortcomings are also shared by the (sometimes valuable) works published in Italy in recent years, on art spoliation in confined areas of the national territory. For a list of such works, see the notes in Paul Wescher, I furti d’arte. Napoleone e la nascita del Louvre, (Theft of art. Napoleon and the Birth of the Louvre).
[3] The events related to requisitions in the Germanic area lend themselves particularly to this type of investigation. Savoy explains (p. 3):
"The choice of Germany as the surveyed land to study French art conquests is not exclusively motivated by the lack of synthetic studies on the subject. Germany, or rather Germanic area with its multiplicity of states, including Austria, and its multiplicity of prince-owned galleries and libraries... is the only European cultural space having suffered all the waves of confiscations held since the year II: under the 1794 Convention, the cities of the Rhine region were the first ones, together with the United Provinces, to suffer the effects of the doctrine of "patrimoine libéré” (freed heritage). Under the Directory, while the famous Italian campaign was in full swing, the left bank of the Rhine was again victim of seizures ordered by the Republic. Under the Consulate in 1800 and 1801, it was Bavaria to be tapped. Under the Empire, confiscation first affected the northern states (Prussia, Brunswick, Hesse and Mecklenburg-Schwerin in 1806 and 1807) and Vienna (1809)... In total , the Germanic territories… therefore are a privileged field of observation to assess the evolution of both practices and supporting justifications by the French and the attitude of enlightened circles on the dismantling of local collections. In 1815, moreover, the mobilization of Germans in favour of the recovery from Paris of looted objects Paris played, more than elsewhere, a central role in the debate on the national cause (which, in the absence of political unity, crystallized on cultural issues). During the nineteenth century, finally, until the Second World War, it is still in the Franco-German context that the case of seizures motivated historiographical manipulation of the hardest nationalist tones. ˝
[4] It is also worth quoting what was said about the second volume, to understand the wealth of documentation provided. Let us quote for one last time the author (p. 7):
"The second volume offers a reasoned and richly illustrated catalogues of works with German origin exhibited for nearly six months in Paris in 1807 and 1808. Two centuries after the events, the volume includes an intersection of archives, art catalogues and other material inventories stored on either side of the Rhine ... to allow a precise identification of the works presented at the Parisian public, to nominate their original collections and the French institutions where they were filed after the 1807-1808 exposure, and to identify possible conservation treatment they may have received in Paris, finally mentioning the exact date of their return and their present location. "
[5] Other reviews available on the Internet:
Natalie Petiteau, « Bénédicte Savoy, Patrimoine annexé. Les biens culturels saisis par la France en Allemagne autour de 1800, Paris, Éditions de la Maison des Sciences de l’Homme, 2003, 2 volumes. », Revue d'histoire du XIXe siècle [En ligne], 29 | 2004, mis en ligne le 29 juin 2005, consulté le 09 janvier 2014. URL : http://rh19.revues.org/706
Philip Dwyer. Review of Savoy, Bénédicte, Patrimoine annexé: Les siasies de bien culturels pratiqués par la France en Allemagne autour de 1800. H-German, H-Net Reviews. October, 2005. http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=11160
Michel Espagne: Rezension zu: Savoy, Bénédicte: Patrimoine annexé. Les siasies de bien culturels pratiqués par la France en Allemagne autour de 1800. Paris 2003, in: H-Soz-u-Kult, 10.09.2004, <http://hsozkult.geschichte.hu-berlin.de/rezensionen/id=4556>
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