Napoleon's Early Art Thefts in Italy

At the Vienna Congress, constituted in 1814 while Napoleon was in exile on the island of Elba, the question of what to do about the plundered art turned into a particularly hot issue.

The central powers such as Austria and Prussia obviously demanded that all the works be returned. France, which by now had been restored to the Bourbons, argued that returning all of the works would destabilise the restoration process. The English, who had suffered no plundering themselves, but who had on the contrary gained quite a few works through more or less dubious ways, sided with France.

Eventually it was decided that only the works in store were to be returned, excluding then the works already on public display. The conference, however, was temporarily discontinued by Napoleon’s return from exile and when the Battle of Waterloo three months later again brought large foreign armies to France, Blücher, the Prussian commander in chief, saw no reason why he shouldn’t invade the Louvre and bring back the stolen property. Talleyrand, the French foreign minister, and Denon, the director of the Louvre, protested heavily but to no avail. On 11 July 1815, 300 Prussian troops forced their way into the Louvre where Blücher’s commissioners set out to recover most of the lost Prussian property. The Prussians didn’t limit their recovery of lost treasures to those of Prussian origin though. A few works of indisputably French ownership were also carried away, and Blücher sought out David’s painting Bonaparte crossing the Alps at St. Bernard for himself.

When the European powers returned to the tables of diplomacy, it was the turn of the remaining states with outstanding treasures to force their claims through.

The Pope had sent Canova, the most prominent of contemporary Italian sculptors, to present his claims and with the assistance of the English he managed to get the French to agree to return all of the treasures requisitioned from the Papal territories. On 2 October 1815 he could begin the hard work of packing the paintings, sculptures and documents in the Louvre into boxes. Disoriented, Denon, reduced to a mere spectator of this most heinous of crimes that brought his lifework to ruins, resigned from his post the following day. Still, he was free to seek consolation in the vast private collection he had managed to scrape together during his years in office.

The Pope later showed his gratitude towards the English diplomat Hamilton by presenting him with a work by Titian. Canova wasn’t forgotten either; he would receive the title of Marchese di Ischia and a substantial life-long annual payment, the latter of which he offered in support of schools of art.

On 23 and 24 October 41 wagons left Paris, 16 headed for Austrian territory (including parts of Northern Italy), 12 for Rome and eight for Turin. Several thousand pieces of art were never retrieved though, and the Louvre, even by today’s standards, is still one of Europe’s most splendid museums.