Background After the
French Revolution, the new government had to decide whether or how to nationalise artworks from churches, the fleeing nobility of the
ancien régime, and the royal collections. In some cases,
French iconoclasts destroyed artworks, particularly those that represented royalty or feudalism. Other works were put up for public auction to replenish the Republic's empty coffers and were bought and transported to other European collections. With the intervention of abbot
Henri Gregoire in 1794, the French revolutionary government moved to stop the vandalism and destruction of artworks by claiming them as a source of national heritage. All around France, works were placed in storage or for display in museums, like the
Louvre, and enormous inventories of the confiscated works were attempted. Regional French museums resisted attempts at centralised control of their collections, but the newly instituted
French Directory created commissions to encourage compliance. In many cases, this saved works of medieval or Gothic art from destruction, often through the intervention of experts like architect
Alexandre Lenoir, abbot Nicolas Bergeat, and artist
Louis Joseph Watteau. From the start of the 18th century, the French people had clamoured for more public exhibitions, creating a need for new artworks and their display. And the increased collections needed new institutions to manage them. The
Musée des Monuments Français, whose collection would later be transferred to the Louvre, and the
Museum of Fine Arts of Lyon are two prominent examples of art museums. Science museums were also founded, including the
Conservatoire national des arts et métiers and the
''Muséum national d'histoire naturelle''. working at the room of Diana at the
Louvre, by Benjamin Zix, 1811 The previously disorganised Louvre collection was cataloged and structured through the work of scholars
Ennio Quirino Visconti and Alexandre Lenoir. In November 1802,
First Consul Napoleon Bonaparte appointed
Vivant Denon director of the Louvre, the museums of
Versailles, and the royal castle collections due to his successes in the
Egyptian campaign. Denon, known as "Napoleon's eye", continued to travel with French military expeditions to Italy, Germany, Austria, and Spain to select artworks for France. He also improved the Louvre's layout and lighting to encourage holistic comparisons of the plundered artworks, reflecting new ideas in museology and countering the objections that the artworks lacked meaningful context in France. Denon "deployed flattery and duplicity" to gain further acquisitions, even against Napoleon's wishes. As a result of the Chaptal Decree in 1801, works of greater merit were selected for the Louvre, while less important works were distributed among new French provincial museums like those in Lyon or
Marseille, and then to smaller museums like those in
Reims,
Tours, or
Arles. At the same time, some Italian fine arts academies were transformed into public museums like the
Pinacoteca di Brera in Milan. The influx of paintings also coincided with renewed interest in art restoration methods, under the influence of restorers
Robert Picault and
François-Toussaint Hacquin. Many of the works had never been cleaned and needed repair from transportation. Some paintings were restored or altered, such as Raphael's
Madonna of Foligno, which was
transferred from its original panel to a canvas support in . In 1798, the Louvre actually exhibited a painting by
Pietro Perugino that was only half restored to demonstrate the repairs to the public. These new
cultural preservation methods were then used to justify the seizure and alterations of foreign cultural objects. The French Army's removal of murals and frescoes was related to French conservators' tradition of transferring paintings onto new supports. They saw the
detachment of wall paintings as no different than moving a wooden altarpiece from its place. Some of the radical treatments were difficult to execute successfully. In 1800, French officials tried to remove the
Deposition, by
Daniele da Volterra, from the Orsini chapel of
Rome's
Trinità dei Monti church. The
stacco a massello technique—which removed part of the mural's plaster support—undermined the walls of the chapel, and the removal had to be halted to prevent the chapel from caving in. The mural itself had to be extensively restored by
Pietro Palmaroli and was never sent to Paris.
Justifications for seizures The French government planned to increase museum collections through the confiscation of foreign artworks as a show of national strength. Its appropriations were at first indiscriminate, but by 1794, the French government developed structured programs for art acquisition through its wars. With its "savant" system, exemplified by the
Commission des Sciences et des Arts, experts would select which works should be taken—the system tried to reconcile imperial tribute with the French values of encyclopedism and public education. Its work was supported by peace treaties designed to legitimise their acquisitions: some treaty clauses required the delivery of artworks, and others imposed art acquisitions as tribute from foreign nobility. In European history, the plundering of artworks had been a common, accepted way for conquerors to exhibit power over their new subjects. In the late 18th century, however, the increased national control of artworks led to regulations that restricted the movement and sale of artworks; and the ideals of
enlightened monarchs discouraged treating art as mere plunder. and Laocoön group, French
aquatint, 1797 Still, the French justified their seizures by appealing to the
right of conquest and republican ideals of artistic appreciation, as well as the advancement of scientific knowledge and the "scientific cosmopolitanism" of the
Republic of Letters. Nord
Jacques-Luc Barbier-Walbonne, a Hussar lieutenant, proclaimed before the National Assembly that the works had remained "soiled too long by slavery", and that "these immortal works are no longer on foreign soil. They are brought to the homeland of arts and genius, to the homeland of liberty and sacred equality: the French Republic." Bishop Henri Gregoire said before the Convention in 1794: "If our victorious armies have entered Italy, the removal of the
Apollo Belvedere and the
Farnese Hercules should be the most brilliant conquest. It is Greece that decorated Rome: why should the masterpieces of the Greek republic decorate a country of slaves? The French Republic should be their final resting place." This rhetoric contrasted the republican values of revolutionary France against the European monarchies that relied on serfdom, feudalism, and exploitative colonialism to argue that other countries were incapable of properly caring for their own culture (Although, the French Republic still held
Haiti as a slave colony at this time.). 's tracts on the ethics of art display, 1815
Quatremère de Quincy, a student of
Johann Joachim Winckelmann and others like him, believed artworks should not be removed from their original context. Beginning in 1796, Quatremère argued against art appropriation. To rediscover the art of the past, he said it would be necessary to "turn to the ruins of
Provence, investigate the ruins of Arles, Orange, and restore the beautiful amphitheater of
Nîmes", instead of looting Rome. Although Quatremère supported centralised cultural knowledge, he believed that uprooting art from its original context as French officials were doing would hopelessly compromise its authentic meaning, creating new meanings instead. Quatremère's views were in the minority in France, but the conquered nations made appeals along similar lines. In occupied
Belgium, there were popular protests against art expropriation, and the Central and Superior Administration of Belgium tried to block French acquisitions. The administration argued that Belgians shouldn't be treated as conquered subjects but "children of the Republic". In
Florence, the director of the
Uffizi argued that the galleries' collection was already owned by the people of
Tuscany, rather than the Grand Duke who signed a treaty with the French. These appeals were sometimes supported by French officials. For example,
Charles Nicolas Lacretelle argued that taking Italian art in excess would push Italians to support
Habsburg rule.
The Low Countries and the Rhineland During and after their successful war against the
First Coalition (1792–97), the French armies destroyed monuments, supported iconoclasm, and held art auctions of confiscated property in the Low Countries of northwestern Europe. French armies began claiming property from within the newly formed
Batavian Republic, including from the collection of the
House of Orange at
The Hague. Their efforts were led by Hussar lieutenant Nord Jacques-Luc Barbier-Walbonne, under the advice of artist and collector
Jean-Baptiste Wicar. In 1794, three paintings by
Peter Paul Rubens, along with around 5,000 books from the University of Leuven, were sent from
Antwerp to Paris, and the first shipment arrived in that September. The Louvre received around 200 Flemish old-master paintings: they included 55 paintings by Rubens and 18 by
Rembrandt, as well as the
Proserpina sarcophagus and several marble columns from Aachen Cathedral. Despite the
anti-clericalism of France at the time, Flemish artwork with religious subjects were welcomed by Parisian authorities. In early 1795, France conquered Holland, and one of the "savant" commissions—comprising botanist
André Thouin, geologist Barthélemy Faujas de St-Fond, antiquarian Michel Le Blond, and architect
Charles de Wailly—accessed the collection of
Stadholder William V, who had fled. However, the status of the Batavian Republic as a "
sister republic" of France made acquisitions difficult to justify. In March 1795, French officials exempted all Batavian private property from seizure, except for the Stadholder's, because he had been so unpopular. With the Stadholder's collection designated as private property and eligible for appropriation, four shipments of natural history artifacts (minerals, stuffed animals, books, etc.) and 24 paintings were sent to Paris in the late spring of 1795. As Thouin described the selection works both as tribute and as a way to enforce cultural dependence upon France: The commission process set a pattern for the systematic appropriations to come, and the French use of experts explains how they could select important Old Master artworks and discern them from copies and pieces made by artists' workshops. The first French exhibitions of the Low Country artworks took place in 1799, and included 56 works by Rubens, 18 by Rembrandt,
Jan van Eyck's
Ghent Altarpiece, and 12 portraits by
Hans Holbein the Younger. From 1801 on, the French officials in charge of the new Belgian art institutions tried to resist any further export of the artworks.
Italy In Italy, the practice of using special commissions to select art for appropriation was expanded and made more systematic. The librarians of the
Bibliothèque Nationale had compiled extensive lists of the Italian books they desired. The commission included scientists
Claude Louis Berthollet,
Pierre Claude François Daunou, and
Gaspard Monge; and artists
Jacques-Pierre Tinet, Jean-Baptiste Wicar,
Andrea Appiani, and Jean-Baptiste Moitte. In
Lombardy, the
Veneto, and
Emilia-Romagna, commission members had the authority to select and acquire works at their own discretion. On May 7, 1796, the French Directorate ordered Napoleon to transfer goods from the occupied territories in Italy to France: Napoleon himself had close ties to Italy, which inspired both his imperial ambitions and his appreciation for its art. French rule was also more welcomed than it had been in the Low Countries, especially among Italian intellectuals, which gave the appropriations some popular support. Regions that were either favourable to French rule—such as those that eventually formed the
Cisalpine Republic,—or were geographically hard to reach, had fewer works of art taken from them. Regions that actively fought the French, such as
Parma and
Venice, had the transfer of artworks written as a condition of their surrender. The French armies also dissolved monasteries and convents as they went, often taking artworks that had been abandoned or sold in haste. , with signatures From the spring of 1796, the first Napoleonic campaign in Italy removed art objects of all kinds, which were sanctioned in provisions of the
Treaty of Leoben, the
Armistice of Cherasco, the
Armistice of Bologna, and the
Treaty of Tolentino, culminating with clauses in the 1797
Treaty of Campo Formio that transferred artworks from the Austria and the former
Venetian Republic. Over 110 artworks were brought to France in 1796 alone. The early appropriations were organised by Jean-Baptiste Wicar. Drawing on his experience of cataloging the art collections of Italian duchies, Wicar selected which paintings would be sent to Paris from 1797 to 1800. His work was continued later by Vivant Denon. Local nobles, like
Giovanni Battista Sommariva, used the opportunity of the tumult to enrich their own personal collections. During the occupations, Napoleonic officials continued to plunder artwork beyond that agreed to in the treaties—the commission had permission to amend the agreed number of artworks. Resistance to these appropriations was decentralised, or sometimes nonexistent, because Italy did not yet exist as a single nation.
Kingdom of Sardinia With the Armistice of Cherasco in May 1796, more than 67 Italian and Flemish artworks fell to France.
Turin was made a part of French territory, and the negotiations were particularly cordial. Fewer works were taken from
Sardinia (which was ruled by the
House of Savoy from Turin at the time), although French attention turned to the documents, the codices of the Regal Archive, and Flemish paintings in the
Galleria Sabauda.
Austrian Lombardy '', which was cut apart by French soldiers The French entered
Milan in 1796, as part of the
first Italian campaign of Napoleon in Lombardy. In May 1796, while there was still fighting at
Castello Sforzesco, Tinet traveled to the
Biblioteca Ambrosiana as a member of the French commission. There, Tinet took
Raphael's preparatory drawings for
The School of Athens fresco at the
Vatican; 12 drawings and the
Codex Atlanticus of
Leonardo da Vinci; the precious manuscripts of the
Bucolics of the Virgin, with illuminations by
Simone Martini; and five landscapes of Jan Brueghel for
Carlo Borromeo that had been placed in the Ambrosiana of Milan in 1673.
The Coronation of Thorns, by a follower of
Titian between 1542 and 1543, commissioned by the monks of the Church of Santa Maria delle Graces, was sent to the Louvre. Many works were also taken from the
Pinacoteca di Brera and the cathedral of
Mantua. From the Mantuan church of Santa Trinità, three Rubens works,
The Baptism of Christ,
The Gonzaga Trinity, and the
Transfiguration were taken to Paris. The
Codex Atlanticus was eventually returned, in pieces, to the Biblioteca Ambrosiana. In fact, many folios of the Codex are stored in
Nantes and
Basel, while all the other notebooks and writings of Leonardo are at the
National Library of France, in Paris.
Modena The armistice between Napoleon and the
Duke of Modena was signed in May 1796, in Milan by San Romano Federico d'Este, representative of Duke
Ercole III. France demanded 20 paintings from the
Este Collection and a monetary sum triple that of the Parma armistice. The first shipment was sent by
Giuseppe Maria Soli, director of the . On 14 October 1796, Napoleon entered
Modena with two new commissioners,
Pierre-Anselme Garrau and
Antoine Christophe Saliceti, to sift through Modena's galleries of medals, and the ducal palace for collections of cameos and engraved semi-precious stones. On 17 October, after taking many manuscripts and antique books from the ducal library, they shipped 1213 items: 900 bronze imperial Roman coins, 124 coins from Roman colonies, 10 silver coins, 31 shaped medals, 44 coins from the Greek cities, and 103 Papal coins. All were sent to the
Bibliothèque nationale of Paris, where they still reside. In February 1797, Napoleon's wife
Joséphine took up residence at the
Ducal Palace of Modena and wished to see the collection of cameos and precious stones. She took around 200 of them, in addition to those taken by her husband. French officials also sent 1300 drawings found in the Este collections to the Louvre, as well as 16 agate cameos, 51 precious stones, and many crystal vases.
Parma, Piacenza, and Guastalla , which is currently a French embassy With the armistice of 9 May 1796, the
Duke of Parma, Piacenza, and Guastalla was forced to send 20 paintings, later reduced to 16, selected by French officials. In Piacenza, the officials chose two canvases from the
Cathedral of Parma—
The Funeral of the Virgin and
The Apostles at the Tomb of the Virgin, by Ludovico Carracci—to be sent to the Louvre. In 1803, by order of the administrator
Moreau de Saint Mery, the carvings and decorations of the
Palazzo Farnese, as well as the painting
The Spanish Coronation, were removed. Two paintings were taken from the
duomo, those by
Giovanni Lanfranco of saints Alessio and Corrado. Ettore Rota published tables of all the art taken: 55 works from the Duke of Parma, Piacenza, and Guastalla, and 8 bronze objects of Veleja, of which 30 works and the 8 bronzes were eventually returned.
Saint Corrado by Lanfranco and
The Spanish Coronation remain in France, where they are on display. The remaining works are missing. In Parma, after the 1803 orders and the creation of the French
Taro department in 1808, more precious objects were stripped from the Ducal archaeological museum, such as
Tabula Alimentaria Traianea and . One department prefect complained, after the departure of Vivant Denon, that "there remains nothing to serve as models for the schools of painting in Parma."
Venetian Republic The French search for Venetian artworks was led by Monge, Berthollet, artist
Jean-Simon Berthélemy, and Tinet, who had previously been in Modena. After the defeat of the Venetian Republic, there were several revolts against the occupying French armies. The resulting reprisals and confiscations were particularly harsh. Gold and silver works from the
Zecca of Venice and the
Basilica di San Marco were melted down and sent to France or used to pay soldiers' salaries. Religious orders were abolished, and some 70 churches were demolished. Around 30,000 works of art were sold or went missing. The
Bucintoro, the Venetian state barge, was taken apart along with all its sculptures, much of which was then burned on the island of
San Giorgio Maggiore to extract their gold leaf; the
Arsenal of Venice was dismantled, and the most beautiful arms, armour, and firearms were sent to France, with the rest (including more than 5,000 cannons) being melted down. The weapons shipped to France were mostly placed in the collection of the
''Musée de l'Armée'', including a bronze cannon made to celebrate an alliance between the Republic of Venice and
Denmark–Norway. '', taken from the Benedictine refectory on the island San Giorgio Maggiore, now in the Louvre
The Wedding at Cana, by
Paolo Veronese, was cut in two and sent to the Louvre (where it remains). The
San Zeno Altarpiece, by
Andrea Mantegna, was cut apart and sent as well. Its platforms remain in the Louvre while the principal panel was returned to Verona, thus destroying the work's integrity. Giovanni Battista Gazola's renowned collection of
fossils from Mount Bolca was confiscated in May 1797 and deposited in the
Museum of Natural History in Paris that September. Gazola was retrospectively compensated with an annuity from 1797 and a pension from 1803. He created a second collection of fossils, which were also confiscated and brought to Paris in 1806. In April 1797, the French removed the
Lion of Saint Mark and famous bronze
Horses of Saint Mark. When Napoleon decided to commemorate his victories of
1805 and
1807, he ordered the construction of the
Arc de Triomphe du Carrousel and that the horses be placed on top as its only ornamentation.
Rome and the Papal States After the Armistice of Bologna, the
Papal States sent over 500 manuscripts and 100 artworks to France on the condition that the French Army would not occupy Rome. The
Pope had to pay the costs of transporting the manuscripts and artworks to Paris. Commission member Jacques-Pierre Tinet took the Raphael altarpieces ceded by the armistice, but also an additional 31 paintings, a number of which were by Raphael and Perugino. Tensions ran high between the French and the Romans. In August 1796, Roman rioters attacked French commissioners to protest the appropriations, and a French legate was assassinated. The Pope himself worked to undermine the clauses of the peace treaty and to delay the actual shipment of the works. When the French government sent him an ultimatum on September 8, 1797, the Pope declared the treaty and Armistice of Bologna null and void. When the Papal armies were defeated, Roman emissaries agreed to the harsher conditions of the Treaty of Tolentino. French officials seized art collections in
Ravenna,
Rimini,
Pesaro,
Ancona, and
Perugia. After French general
Mathurin-Léonard Duphot was accidentally shot and killed outside the French embassy in December 1797, French armies occupied Rome, exiled
Pope Pius VI, and established the short-lived
Roman Republic. Although the public was assured that their monuments wouldn't be taken, French officials began systematically sacking the city after compiling an inventory of the Vatican's treasures. Officials opened the Pope's rooms and fused Vatican medals of gold and silver for easier transportation. They tried to devise a way to remove the frescoes in the Vatican's
Raphael Rooms. The artworks were chosen by Joseph de la Porte du Theil, a French intellectual who knew the Vatican library well. He took, among other things, the Fons Regina, the library of
Queen Cristina of Sweden. Seizures also took place in the
Vatican Library, the
Biblioteca Estense of Modena, the libraries of
Bologna,
Monza,
Pavia, and
Brera. The private library of Pope Pius VI was seized by Pierre Claude François Daunou after it was put up for sale. General Pommereul planned to remove
Trajan's Column from Rome and send it to France, probably in pieces. This proposal was not acted on, however, due to the cost of transportation and the administrative obstacles created by the
Church to slow the process. For their anti-French advocacy, cardinals
Giuseppe Albani and
Romoaldo Braschi-Onesti had their collections seized, from the
Villa Albani and the
Palazzo Braschi, respectively. In May, Daunou wrote that the classical sculptures from Villa Albani filled over 280 crates, all to be sent to Paris. Swiss sculptor Heinrich Keller described the chaotic scene in Rome: In 1809, collections of marbles were sold to Napoleon by
Prince Camillo Borghese, who was under significant financial strain due to the heavy taxation imposed by the French. The prince didn't receive the promised sum, but was paid in land requisitioned from the Church and with mineral rights in
Lazio. (Following the Congress of Vienna, the prince had to return all such compensation to their legitimate owners.)
Tuscany '' by
Giotto from Pisa, now at the Louvre From March 1799, after Florence was occupied by the French armies, Jean-Baptiste Wicar chose which paintings would be taken from the
Palazzo Pitti and sent to Paris. In total, 63 paintings and 25 pieces of
pietre dure were taken from Florence. In 1803, the ''
Venus de' Medici'' was exported to France at the express order of Napoleon. The later looting of the
Grand Duchy of Tuscany was led out by the director of the Louvre himself, Vivant Denon. Through the summer and winter of 1811, after the
Kingdom of Etruria had been annexed by the French Empire, Denon took artworks from dissolved churches and convents in
Genoa,
Massa,
Carrara,
Pisa,
Volterra, and Florence. In
Arezzo, Denon took
The Annunciation of the Virgin, by
Giorgio Vasari, from the Church of Santa Maria Novella d'Arezzo. His choice of these "primitive" Italian artworks was odd for the time: the work of the "primitive", or Gothic Italian, artists of was widely disliked. In Florence, Denon searched the convent of Saint Catherine, the churches of
Santa Maria Maddalena dei Pazzi and
Santo Spirito, and the
Accademia di Belle Arti di Firenze, and sent back works to the Louvre, such as
Fra Filippo Lippi's
Barbadori Altarpiece from Santo Spirito,
Cimabue's
Maestà, and
Michelangelo's unfinished sculptures for the
tomb of Pope Julius II were sent to the Louvre..
Naples '' created by France as a
sister republic In January 1799 and after the occupation of Naples, General
Jean-Étienne Championnet began seizing and shipping artwork in the
Kingdom of Naples. In a missive he sent on February 25, he said: Paintings, sculpture, books, and gold were all taken by the French during the rule of the short-lived
Repubblica Napoletana. The previous year, fearing the worst, King
Ferdinand I of the Two Sicilies had transferred 14 masterpieces to
Palermo, but the French soldiers plundered many works from nearby collections like the
Gallerie di Capodimonte and the
Palace of Capodimonte.
The catalog of Canova As a papal diplomat, sculptor
Antonio Canova made a list of Italian paintings that were sent to France. Below is the list, as reported by French sources, which also notes how many works were subsequently repatriated or lost. Canova was primarily concerned with figurative works and sculptures, omitting minor or merely decorative artworks.
Victory celebrations of 1798 , in front of the École militaire'', after the first Italian campaign on July 27 and 28, 1798 On 27 and 28 July 1798, there was a grand celebration of French military victories, which coincided with the arrival in Paris of a third convoy carrying artworks from Rome and Venice. The triumphal parade was planned months ahead of time. As seen in commemorative prints, its motto was,
La Grèce les ceda; Rome les a perdus; leur sort changea deux fois, il ne changera plus (Greece has fallen; Rome is lost; their luck changed twice, it won't change again). The procession contained the Horses of Saint Mark, the
Apollo Belvedere, the ''Venus de' Medici
, the Discobolus, the Laocoön group, and sixty other works, among which were nine Raphaels, two Correggios, collections of antiques and minerals, exotic animals, and Vatican manuscripts. Popular attention was also drawn to the exotic animals and the Black Madonna of the Basilica della Santa Casa'', believed to be the work of
Saint Luke.
Egypt and Syria After Italy, the French Army began its campaign in
Ottoman Egypt and
Ottoman Syria (both under rule by the
Ottoman Empire at the time). The army brought a contingent of 167 scholars with it, including Denon, Monge, and mathematician
Joseph Fourier.
Their scientific expedition undertook excavations and scientific studies to study Egypt's pyramids, temples, and Pharaonic statues, like the
tomb of Amenhotep III. Looting from the area was not considered a violation of international norms by Europeans, due to the influence of
orientalism and European countries' tense relations with the Ottoman Empire. Most of objects taken by the French Army were lost to the British, including the sarcophagus of
Nectanebo II and the
Rosetta Stone, after the
Battle of the Nile in 1798, and were sent to the
British Museum instead. The French scholars' studies culminated in the ''
Mémoires sur l'Égypte and the monumental Description de l'Égypte'' encyclopedia, which was finished in 1822.
Central Europe Following the
Treaty of Lunéville between France and the
Holy Roman Empire in 1801, manuscripts, codices, and paintings began to flow from northern and central Europe into Paris. In
Bavaria, the works were selected by a Parisian professor, Neveu. Neveu delivered a list of the confiscated artworks to the Bavarian government, which later allowed them to make requisition requests. However, the Holy Roman Empire's imperial collections remained mostly untouched. With the
Peace of Pressburg in December 1805 and the
Battle of Jena–Auerstedt shortly after, Denon and his aides
Count Daru and
Stendhal began to systematically appropriate art from regions of the Holy Roman Empire,
Westphalia, and
Prussia. With
Berlin,
Charlottenburg, and
Sanssouci combed through, Denon went on to relieve the
gallery of Cassel of 48 paintings. En route, the paintings were directed to
Mainz, where the Empress Joséphine saw them and convinced Napoleon to have them sent to
Malmaison as a gift to her. In the end, Denon selected over 299 paintings to take from the Cassel collection. Additionally, nearly 78 paintings were taken from the
Duke of Brunswick, and Stendhall collected over 500 illuminated manuscripts and the famous art collection of the deceased
Cardinal Mazarin. In all, over a thousand paintings were taken from German and Austrian cities, including Berlin,
Vienna,
Nuremberg, and
Potsdam—400 art objects came from Vienna alone. As in Italy, many works were melted down for easy transport and sale, and two large auctions were held in 1804 and 1811 to fund further French military expeditions.
Spain from
Vittoria'', 1865 During and after the
Peninsular War, hundreds of artworks were seized from
Spain, continuing until the
first abdication of Napoleon in 1814. Denon again selected works, including some by
Bartolomé Esteban Murillo,
Francisco de Zurbarán, and
Diego Velázquez, to send to Paris for display. With
Joseph Bonaparte enthroned in Spain, most of the works came from the Spanish royal collection and were stored at the
Prado in Madrid, although the Spanish administration was able to delay their shipment until 1813. From
El Escorial palace, General
Horace Sébastiani and
Marshal Jean-de-Dieu Soult claimed many Spanish paintings, particularly Murillos, while General
Jean Barthélemy Darmagnac claimed mostly Dutch works from the collection. Soult took so many Spanish paintings for himself that his collection eventually made up a significant portion of the Louvre's "
Spanish gallery" after his death. In 1812, French control of Spain began to collapse following the
Battle of Salamanca. King Joseph tried to flee, and his first attempt at flight included an enormous baggage train of looted objects from the Spanish royal collection. After the
Battle of Vitoria in 1813, Joseph abandoned the artworks and fled with his army. British troops captured almost 250 of the abandoned paintings, and held a public auction to disperse some of the captured art. The
Duke of Wellington himself sent around 165 to England. The Duke apparently offered to return the paintings to King
Ferdinand VII after the wars. Ferdinand declined the offer and in gratitude allowed the Duke keep the paintings, most of which are now on display at
Apsley House.
Restitutions Initial negotiations cartoon showing Napoleon's troops looting in Rome During the
First Restoration of the
Bourbon dynasty in France under
Louis XVIII (1814–15), the nations of the
Sixth Coalition did not initially stipulate the return of artworks from France. They were to be treated as "inalienable property of the Crown." On 8 May 1814, however, Louis declared that works not yet hung in French museums would be returned, which led to the return of many of the Spanish works. Manuscripts were returned to Austria and Prussia by the end of 1814, and Prussia recovered all its statues, as well as 10 paintings by
Lucas Cranach, and 3 by
Antonio da Correggio. The Duke of Brunswick recovered 85 paintings, 174 Limoges porcelains, and 980
majolica vases. However most of the works remained in France. After Napoleon's
second abdication in June 1815, followed by another restoration of Louis XVIII, the return of art became a part of negotiations, although the lack of historical precedent made it a messy affair. Some nations did not wait for agreements from the Congress of Vienna, in order to act. In July 1815, the Prussians began to force restitutions. King
Frederick William III of Prussia ordered diplomat von Ribbentropp, art expert Jacobi, and reserve officer Eberhardt de Groote to deal with the returns. On 8 July, they demanded Denon return all the Prussian treasures; but he refused, claiming that the returns weren't authorised by Louis XVIII. Von Ribbentropp then threatened to have Prussian soldiers seize the works and imprison and extradite Denon to Prussia. By 13 July, all the key Prussian works were out of the Louvre and packed up for travel. When the Dutch consul arrived at the Louvre to make similar requests, Denon denied him access and wrote to
Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord and the Congress of Vienna: , depicting Ptolemy II and Arsinoe II, now in the
Hermitage Museum French museum officials tried to hold onto any objects they had seized, arguing that keeping the artworks in France was a gesture of generosity towards their countries of origin and a tribute to their cultural or scientific importance. In 1815, for example, the French National Museum of Natural History refused the return of artifacts to the
Netherlands, claiming that such would necessarily break up the museum's complete collections. The natural historians offered to select and send an "equivalent" collection instead. In the end, with the aid of the Prussians, the delegates from the Low Countries grew so impatient that they took their works back by force. On 20 September 1815, Austria, the United Kingdom, and Prussia agreed that the remaining artworks should be returned, and affirmed that there was no principle of conquest that would permit France to retain its spoils. Exceptionally, Napoleon's Egyptian spoils which had been ceded to the UK a few years earlier were not part of the negotiations.
Russian Emperor Alexander I of Russia was not part of this agreement, and preferred to compromise with the French government, having just acquired for the
Hermitage Museum 38 artworks sold by descendants of Joséphine de Beauharnais to discharge her debts. The tsar had also received a gift from her shortly before her death in 1814—the
Gonzaga Cameo from the Vatican. After the Vienna agreement was completed, the occupying forces of Paris continued to remove and send artworks to Spain, the Netherlands, Belgium, Austria, and some Italian cities. French representatives protested the returns and argued that they were illegal, as they lacked the force of treaty. Writing about a shipment of paintings to Milan, Stendhal said, "The allies took 150 paintings. I hope to be authorised to observe that
we have taken them through the Treaty of Tolentino. The allies took our paintings without a treaty." On the repatriation of
Giulio Romano's '''' to Genoa, Denon maintained that the work "was offered as tribute to the French government from the city council of Genoa" and that transportation would endanger the work, due to its fragility. , In comparison to the other nations, the Italian cities were disorganised and without the support of a national army or diplomatic corps to make official requests. Antonio Canova was sent by the Vatican on a diplomatic mission to the peace conference for the second
Treaty of Paris in August 1815. Canova sent letters asking
Wilhelm von Humboldt and
Lord Castlereagh to support the return of Italian artworks and annul the conditions of the Treaty of Tolentino. In September, Canova also met with Louis XVIII, and that audience lessened French resistance to the repatriations. By October, Austria, Prussia, and Britain had agreed to support Canova's efforts, which led to the return of many statues and other sculptures. The Vatican manuscripts were restored by Marino Marini, the nephew of a Vatican librarian, as well as lead type that had been seized from the
Congregation for the Evangelisation of Peoples. British public opinion was generally against the French, and the Duke of Wellington wrote to Lord Castlereagh to intervene on behalf of the Low Countries. Not satisfied, he sent his troops to join the Prussians in the Louvre to remove the Flemish and Dutch paintings from the walls. As the
Courier described it in October 1815:
Treaty agreements and shipments The conditions of the 1815 Treaty of Paris, signed in November required that any artworks to be returned had to be properly identified and returned to the nations they originated from. These conditions made it difficult to determine where some of the paintings should be sent. For example, some Flemish paintings were mistakenly returned to the Netherlands, rather than Belgium. The treaty also required effort on the part of the conquered nations for their art to be returned. The situation was only partially resolved when the British offered to finance the costs of repatriating some artworks to Italy, with the offer of 200,000 lire to Pope Pius VII. For various reasons, including lack of money, knowledge of the theft, or appreciation for the value of the works taken, the restored allied governments did not always pursue the return of the appropriated paintings. The Austrian governor of Lombardy did not request the Lombardic artworks taken from churches, such as
The Crowning with Thorns by Titian. Ferdinand VII of Spain refused the return of several old master paintings when they were offered by the Duke of Wellington. They were taken to
London instead. The Tuscan government, under the Hapsburg-Lorraines, did not request works such as the
Saint Francis Receiving the Stigmata by
Giotto,
Maestà by Cimabue, or the
Coronation of the Virgin by
Fra Angelico. The ceiling paintings of the ducal palace in Venice were never requested, although Titian's
Martyrdom of Saint Peter was. Canova never asked for 23 paintings dispersed throughout the French provincial museums, as a gesture of good will. The Horses of Saint Mark were returned to Venice (not
Constantinople, from where they were originally taken by the Venetians) in 1815, after it took workers over a week to remove them from the
Arc de Triomphe du Carrousel; the streets around the
Arc were blocked by Austrian dragoons to prevent any interference with the removal. The Lion of Saint Mark was dropped and broke while it was being removed from the
Esplanade des Invalides before being returned to its original piazza. On 24 October 1815, during negotiations of the treaty, a convoy of 41 carriages was organised that, escorted by Prussian soldiers, traveled to Milan. From there, the artworks were distributed to their legitimate owners throughout Europe. In November, French general Athenase Lavallée reported that Spain had received 248 paintings, Austria 325, and Prussia 258 bronzes. ==Legacy==