Napoleonic looting of art

Napoleon showing off the Apollo Belvedere and Laocoön group, French aquatint, 1797

After the French Revolution, the new government had to make decisions about whether to or how to nationalize artworks from churchs, the fled nobility of the Ancien Régime, and the royal collections.[7] Most were placed for storage or display in the Louvre. After the Louvre's public re-opening in 1793, however, the French government developed plans to increase its collection through the confiscation of foreign artworks as a show of national strength.[7] From the start of the 18th century on, the French people had clamored for increased public art exhibitions, creating a need for new displays and new artworks.[8]^:677 The French art appropriations after 1793 were at first indiscriminate looting, but by around 1794, the French government had developed structured programs for the acquisition of art during the Republic's wars.[9] Those programs were supported through the design of peace treaties to legitimate these acquisitions: some treaty articles required the delivery of works of art, and others imposed taxes to nobility as tribute.

As the French army conquered territories in the War of the First Coalition, their artworks were taken to French museums, particularly the Louvre where Napoleon had wished in 1795 to create the Musee des Monuments Francais.[9] Earlier in European history, the plundering of artworks was a common, and accepted, means for conquerors to express power over their new subjects.[2]^:115–116 Beginning in the late 18th century, however, the increased national control of artworks created regulations and precedents that restricted the movement and sale of artworks; and the ideals of enlightened monarchs discouraged treating art objects as subject to plundering.[2]^:116

Still, the French justified the looting of artworks by appealing to the right of conquest and republican ideals of artistic appreciation.[2]^:124 One petition of French artists maintained that the works would serve as inspiration for the progress of republican art and to educate the French public as they did when Romans brought Greek art to Rome. A lieutenant of the Hussars believed that the works had remained "soiled too long by slavery" and said, "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." A French general, François-René-Jean de Pommereul, argued, "The statues that the French have taken from the degenerate Roman Church to adorn the great Museum of Paris, to distinguish the most noble trophies, the triumph of liberty over tyranny, of philosophy over superstition."[6]^:439 The 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."[10][2]^:119

One of Quatremère de Quincy tracts on the ethics of art display, 1815

Some such as Quatremère de Quincy, student of Winckelmann and adherent to custom of the Grand Tour, believed artworks should not be removed from their original context. Beginning in 1796, Quatremère argued against the rhetoric of the Napoleonic administration. 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 Nimes," instead of looting Rome. Even though Quatremère supported the centralization of cultural knowledge,[2]^:128 he believed that uprooting art from its context of creation and its final location, as French officials were doing at the time, hopelessly compromises its authentic meaning and creates a new one, alien to its original purpose.[5]

These ideals stood in opposition to the perceived growing need to use art and cultural objects to exalt republican ideals and French national identity,[2]^:117 as well as the use of natural history collections for the advance of scientific knowledge.[11]^:20 French citizens used the "scientific cosmopolitanism" of the Republic of Letters to justify their acquisitions. The "savant" system, whereby experts would select the works of interest to be taken, was adopted to reconcile imperial tribute with the stated French values of encyclopedism and public knowledge.[11]^:21,27

Quatremère's views were in the minority of French society, 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 worked to block French acquisitions. In some cases, the administration argued that Belgians shouldn't be treated as a conquered subjects but "children of the Republic".[2]^:125 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 had signed a treaty with the French. In some cases, these causes were actually supported by French officials. For example, Charles Nicolas Lacretelle argued that taking Italian art in excess would push Italians to support Hapsburg rule.[2]^:127

The influx of paintings to the Louvre also coincided with a renewed interest in art restoration methods under the influence of chemist and restorer Robert Picault. Those new cultural preservation methods were then used to justify the seizure and alterations of foreign cultural objects.[2]^:117 Some paintings that arrived in Paris were restored or altered, like Raphael's Madonna of Foligno, which was transferred from its original panel to a canvas support in c. 1800. The French army's risky removal of murals and frescoes was closely associated with French conservators' tradition of transferring paintings onto new supports. The detachment of wall paintings was viewed as similar to moving a wooden altarpiece from its place, although it's hard to separate this enthusiasm from Napoleon and Vivant Denon's desire to acquire more art.[5] These radical treatments were difficult to execute successfully. In 1800, French officials tried to remove the Deposition by Daniele da Volterra in the Orsini chapel of Rome's Trinità dei Monti. The stacco a massello technique used undermined the walls of the chapel, and the removal had to be halted to prevent the chapel from caving in.[5] The mural itself had to be extensively restored by Pietro Palmaroli and was never sent to Paris, although others murals from the church were.

Vivant Denon working at the room of Diana at the Louvre, Benjamin Zix, 1811

After 1800, the collection for the Louvre became more organized under the directorship of Dominique-Vivant Denon, who traveled personally during the war campaigns to Egypt, Italy, Germany, Austria, and Span to select artworks for France.[12]^:183 Denon, known as "Napoleon's eye",[13]^:33 adjusted the layout of the Louvre to encourage holistic comparisons of the plundered artworks, reflecting new ideas in museology and countering the objections that the artworks lacked a meaningful context in France.[2]^:133 Denon was supported by a commission of specialists and "deployed flattery and duplicity" to support further acquisitions, even against Napoleon's wishes.[2]^:132 As a result of the Chaptal Decree in 1801, works of greater merit were selected for the Louvre, while the less important ones were distributed among the French provincial museums (e.g., Reims, Arles, Tours).[8]^:679

After the War of the First Coalition, the French armies began claiming property from within the newly formed Batavian Republic, [2]^:125 including from the collection of the Orange family at The Hague. In 1794, three Rubens paintings along with around 5,000 books from the University of Louvain were sent from Antwerp to Paris.[6]^:440 The first one arrived in September 1794.[8]^:678 The Louvre received around 200 Flemish old master paintings, among which were 55 Rubens and 18 Rembrandts,[14] as well as the Proserpina sarcophagus and several marble columns from the Aachen Cathedral.[6]^:443

In early 1795, one of the "savant" commissions comprising botanist André Thouin, geologist Barthélemy Faujas de St-Fond, antiquarian Michel Le Blond, and architect Charles de Wailly reached the collection of Stadholder William V, who had fled.[11]^:21–22 However, the status of the Batavian Republic as a "sister republic" to France made the acquisition difficult to justify. In March 1795, French officials exempted all Batavian private property from seizure, except for the Stadholder's, relying on his public unpopularity.[11]^:24 With the collection designated as private property and eligible for appropriation, four shipments of natural history artifacts (minerals, stuffed animals, books, etc) and 24 paintings were shipped to Paris in the late spring of 1795.[11]^:23

These works were selected by a special commission of artists and scholars appointed by the French government in 1794 and were claimed both as tributes and for their political effect. As Thouin described:

This tribute by a vanquished power will contribute much to perpetuate the glory of the victors, and make the nieghboring powers tributary of France by forcing its subjects to draw on France for useful knowledge. It is undoubtedly the least expensive tribute to extract from the conquered, the most dignifying for the great people who impose it, the most fruitful for the goodness of humanity, a goal which any good government should never lose sight of.[11]^:26

The commission's process was used to design the systematic appropriations that were to come.[9] The first exhibitions of the Low Country artworks took place in 1799, and included 56 Rubens, 18 Rembrandts, Van Eyck's Ghent Altarpiece, and 12 portraits by Hans Holbein the Younger.[12]^:180

Seizing the Italian Relics caricature, George Cruikshank, 1815

In Italy, the system of a special commission used in the Netherlands and Belgium was expanded. In Lombardy, the Veneto, and Emilia-Romagna, the commission members had the authority to select and acquire works at their own discretion.[9] The policy of transferring to France the goods of the Italian occupied territories came from a specific order of the Directorate, sent to Napoleon on May 7, 1796:

General citizen, the executive directorate is convinced that the glory of art and that of the army under your orders are inseparable. Italy owes art the greater part of its riches and its fame, but the time of French rule has come, to consolidate and beautify the kingdom of liberty. The national museum should hold all celebrated artistic monuments, and you will not fail to enrich it with what awaits it from the armed conquest of Italy and those that the future still holds. This glorious campaign, as well as allowing the Republic to offer peace to its enemies, should repair the devastating vandalisms by adding to the splendor of military victories the enchantment of consoling and beneficial art.[15]

Regions that were either favorable to French rule, like those that eventually formed the Cisalpine Republic,[16]^:408 or geographically hard to reach had less artwork taken from them. Regions that actively fought the French, like Parma and Venice, had the transfer of artworks written as conditions of their surrender.[9] The French armies also dissolved monasteries and convents as they went, often taking the artworks that were abandoned or sold in haste as a result.[12]^:180

Last page, with signatures, of the 1797 Treaty of Campo Formio

The first Napoleonic campaign in Italy carried away art objects of all kinds, from spring 1796 due to provisions in the Treaty of Leoben, the Armistice of Cherasco, the Treaty of Tolentino, and the Armistice of Bologna, and ending with articles in the Treaty of Campo Formio that transferred artworks from the Austrian Empire and (then dissolved) Venetian Republic in 1797. Over 110 artworks were brought to France in 1796 alone. Napoleonic officials continued to plunder artwork, beyond those agreed in the treaties, during the occupations—the commission had permission to amend the agreed number of artworks.[9] Resistance to these appropriations was decentralized, or sometimes nonexistent, because Italy did not exist as a single nation yet.[16]^:409

The armistice between Napoleon and the Duke of Modena was made on the 17th of May 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.[6]^:440 The first shipment was curated by Giuseppe Maria Soli, director of the Accademia Atestina di Belle Art. The paintings were seized from the apartment of the Duke D'Este and sent to Milan in 1796 with commissioners Tinet and Bethemly. After they arrived in France, they were judged mediocre by Charles-François Lebrun and Napoleon declared the armistice broken due to the violation of its clauses.

On October 14th, 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.[17] On October 17th, 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 Bibliotheque Nationale of Paris, where they are now.[18]

In February of 1797, Napoleon's wife Josephine took 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,[19] as well as 16 agate cameos, 51 precious stones, and many crystal vases.[20] On October 20, they took the bust of Lucio Vero and Marcus Aurelius, a drawing of the Trajan Column, and another with the busts of the emperors. The second shipment of paintings left on October 25th, when Tinet, Moitte, and Berthelmy chose 28 paintings to send to Paris, together with 554 other drawings and four albums, for a total of 800 drawings.

Exterior of the Palazzo Farnese, which is currently a French embassy

With the armistice of May 9th, 1796, the Dukes of Parma and Piacenza were forced to send 20 paintings,[6]^:440 reduced to 16, selected by French officials. In Piacenza, they 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 sent to the Louvre. In 1803, by order of the minister Moreau de Saint Mery, the carvings and decorations of the Palazzo Farnese, as well as a painting The Spanish Coronation, were removed. Two paintings from the Duomo by Giovanni Lanfranco of Saint Alessio and Saint Corrado were taken. 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.[21] Saint Corrado by Lanfranco and The Spanish Coronation remain in France, where they are on display. The remaining works are missing.

In Parma, after 1803 and the creation of the Taro department, more precious objects were stripped from the Ducal archaeological museum, like Tabula Alimentaria Traianea and Lex Rubria de Gallia Cisalpina. 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."[2]^:134

Saint Francis of Assisi Receiving the Stigmata by Giotto from Pisa, now at the Louvre

Maestà of Cimabue. Originally in the Church of Saint Francis and now stored at the Louvre, Paris

In 1803, the Venus de' Medici was exported to France at the express order of Napoleon.[22] The later looting of the Grand Duchy of Tuscany was lead 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 Massa, Carrara, Pisa, then Volterra, and finally Florence.[12]^:185 In Arezzo, Denon took The Annunciation of the Virgin by Giorgio Vasari from the Church of Santa Maria Novella d'Arezzo. For each, he noted which works should be sent to Paris. In Pisa, Denon selected nine paintings and a low-relief, all of which remain in France today.

In Florence, Denon searched the convent of Saint Catherine, the church Santa Maria Maddalena de' Pazzi, the church Santo Spirito, and the Accademia delle Belle Arti di Firenze and sent works from there to the Louvre. Fra Filippo Lippi's Barbadori Altarpiece was sent to the Louvre from the Santo Spirito,[23] and Michelangelo's unfinished sculptures for the tomb of Pope Julius II.[12]^:185

The French search for artworks was lead by Monge, Berthollet, Berthelemy, and Tinet, who had previously been in Modena. Works of gold and silver from the Zecca of Venice and Basilica di San Marco were melted down and sent to France or used to pay soldiers' salaries.[24] Religious orders were abolished and around 70 churches were demolished. Around 30,000 works of art were sold or went missing.[25]

The Bucintoro, the Venetian state ship, was taken apart along with all its sculptures, which were burned on the island San Giorgio Maggiore to extract their gold leaf. The Arsenal of Venice was dismantled, and the most beautiful arms, armor, and firearms were sent to France and the rest (including more than 5,000 cannons) were melted down.[26][27] The weapons shipped to France were mostly placed in the collection of the Musee de l'Armee, including a bronze cannon made by La Serenissima to celebrate an alliance between the kingdoms of Denmark and Norway and the Republic of Venice.

The Wedding at Cana, taken from the Benedictine refectory on the island San Giorgio Maggiore, now in the Louvre

The Wedding at Cana by Veronese was cut in two and sent to the Louvre (where it remains). San Zeno Alterpiece by Mantegna was cut apart and sent as well. Its platforms today remain in the Louvre, while the principal panel was returned to Verona, breaking the work's integrity. The Gazola 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.[28] He created a second collection of fossils, which were also confiscated and brought to Paris in 1806.[29]

In April 1797, the French removed the lion 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.[6]^:441 The Lion of Saint Mark and the horses were returned to Venice, although the lion statue broke before it could be returned to its place in the piazza.

The exterior of the Biblioteca Ambrosiana, 2010

Diagram from da Vinci's Codex Atlanticus

The French entered Milan in 1796 as part of the first Italian campaign of Napoleon. In May 1796, there was still fighting at Castello Sforzesco, commissioner Tinet had just been to the Biblioteca Ambrosiana, where he had taken the preparatory drawings of Raphael for the School of Athens at the Vatican; 12 drawings and the Codex Atlanticus of Leonardo da Vinci; the precious manscripts 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.[30]

The Coronation of Thorns, by a follower of Titian between 1542 and 1543 and contracted by the monks of the Church of Santa Maria delle Graces, was sent to the Louvre. The Codex Atlanticus was eventually returned,[31] in pieces, to the library. In fact, many folios of the Codex are stored in Nantes and Basilea, while all the other notebooks and writings of Leonardo are at the national library of France, in Paris.[32] Many works were also taken from the Pinacoteca di Brera.

With the Armistice of Cherasco, 100 Italian and Flemish artworks fell to France. Turin was admitted to French territory, and the negotiations were particularly cordial.[33]^:133 As a result, fewer works were taken from Sardegna, although French attention turned to the documents, the codices of the Regal Archive, and Flemish paintings in the Galleria Sabauda.

Allegory of the Repubblica Napoletana created by Napoleon as a client state

In 1799, General Jean-Étienne Championnet implemented the same policy in the Kingdom of Naples as a result of a missive sent on February 25th, 1799:

I announce to you with pleasure that we have found the riches we had thought lost. In addition to the Gessi of Ercolano that are at Portici, there are for you two equestrian statues of Nonius, father and son, in marble; the Venus Callipyge will not go alone to Paris, because we have found in the porcelain manufactory, the superb Agrippina that awaits death; the life-size marble statues of Caligula, of Marcus Aurelius, and a beautiful Mercury in bronze and ancient marble busts of great merit, among which one of Homer. The convoy will leave in a few days.[34]

The looting was not limited to paintings and sculpture but also took from patron libraries and goldsmiths. The brief institution of the Repubblica Napoletana in 1799 did immense damage to Neapolitan culture. Fearing the worse, the previous year, Ferdinand I of the Two Sicilies had just transferred 14 masterpieces to Palermo. The French soldiers plundered many works: 1783 paintings were taken (several from the Gallerie di Capodimonte and the Palace of Capodimonte), of which 329 were from the Farnese collection and the rest were from Bourbon acquisitions. 30 were destined for the Republic, while the others were sold, particularly in Rome.

The French Army arriving in Rome in 1798

After the armistice, the Papal State sent over 500 manuscripts and 100 artworks to France on the condition that the French army would not occupy Rome.[9] The artworks were chosen by Joseph de la Porte du Theil, a French intellectual that knew the Vatican library well. He took, among others, the Fons Regina, the library of Queen Cristina of Switzerland. The Pope had to pay the costs of transporting the manuscripts and artworks to Paris. Seizures also took place in the Vatican Library, the Biblioteca Estense of Modena, those of Bologna, Monza, Pavia, and Brera and the Biblioteca Ambrosiana of Milan. The Treaty of Tolentino added works from the treasuries of Ravenna, Rimini, Perugia, Loreto, and Pesaro.[6]^:441 Perugia was particularly badly hit. Commission member Jacques-Pierre Tinet took the Raphael altarpieces ceded through the Treaty of Bologna but also an additional 31 paintings, a number by Raphael and Perugino.[9] In the Vatican, the Napoleonic officials opened the rooms of the Pope, looting both for themselves and Napoleon, and fused Vatican medals of gold and silver for easier transportation. The private library of Pope Pius VI was seized by Pierre Daunou, a French official, after it was put up for sale.[6]^:445 In August 1796, Roman rioters attacked French commissioners to protest the appropriations.[6]^:441 The Swiss sculptor Heinrich Keller described the chaotic scene in Rome:

"The destruction here is awful; the most beautiful pictures are sold for a song. The holier the subject, the cheaper the picture. Yesterday I went to the Capitol and received the oddest impression. Marc Antony is standing in a ktichen dressed with a heavy wooden neckpiece and gloves; the Dying Gaul is packed in straw and sack cloth to this toes, and the beautiful Venus de' Medici is buried to her bosom in hay, while Flora is standing in the lower corridors all nailed in a wooden crate."[12]^:180

The French armies occupied Rome in 1798 after the assassination of General Duphot, exiling Pius VI and establishing the short-lived Roman Republic. Afterwards, Napoleonic officials were particularly interested in removing the frescoes in the Vatican's Raphael Rooms. General Pommereul also planned to remove the Trajan Column from Rome and send it to France, probably in pieces.[35] Pommereul's assistant, Daunou, wrote the proposal on April 15th, 1798: "We will send an obelisk," referring to the column. This proposal was blocked by the cost of transporting it and the administrative obstacles created by the Church to slow the process.[5] Daunou later wrote in May that the classical sculptures from Villa Albani filled over 280 crates, all to be sent to Paris.[12]^:180

In 1809, collections of marbles were sold to Napoleon by Camillo, the Borghese prince, who was under significant financial strain due to the heavy taxation imposed by the French. The prince didn't received the promised sum, but was paid in land requisitioned from the Church and mineral rights in Lazio. (Following the Congress of Vienna, he had to return all these to their legitimate owners.)[36]

As a papal diplomat, the sculptor Antonio Canova made a list of Italian paintings that were sent to France.[37] Below is the list, as reported by French sources, which also marks how many works were lost or repatriated. Canova was primarily concerned with figurative works and sculptures, leaving out the minor or decorative arts.[38]

Carts of artwork stolen by Napoleon enter Paris after the first Italian campaign

In the ninth and tenth day of Thermidor in Year 6 after the French Revolution (27th and 28th July, 1798), there was a grand celebration of Napoleonic military victory,[6]^:437 for the arrival a third convoy carrying artworks from Rome and Venice.[2]^:124 The event is represented in a print kept at the National Library of Paris.[39] It shows the first convoy of confiscated goods from the Italian campaign arriving at Champs de Mars in front of the Ecole Militaire of Paris, after it had traveled from the quay by the Jardin des Plantes.[2]

The triumphal parade was planned months ahead of time. For the occasion, the trees had been pruned and the students of the Ecole Polythecnique were called to participate in the festivities. In the prints, the Horses of Saint Mark are shown on a towed wagon with six horses, preceded by one with a cage of lions and followed by one with four camels. In front, a panel declares "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).[6]^:438 The procession contained the Apollo Belvedere, the Venus de' Medici, the Discobolus, Laocoön group, and sixty other works among which are nine Raphaels, two Correggios, collections of minerals and antiques, exotic animals, and even manuscripts from the Vatican dating from 900 AD.[40] Popular attention was drawn by the exotic animals and the Basilica della Santa Casa, which was believed to be the work of Saint Luke.[41]

After Italy, the Napoleonic army began its campaign in Egypt and Syria. The army brought a contingent of 167 scholars with it, including Vivant Denon and mathematician Jean Fourier. This scientific expedition undertook excavations and scientific studies.[6]^:442 Looting from the area was not even considered a violation of international norms by Europeans, due to the influence of orientalism and European countries' tense international relations with the Ottoman Empire.[2]^:124 Most of objects taken by the French army were lost to the British, including the sarcophagus of Nectanebo II and Rosetta Stone, after the Battle of the Nile in 1798, and were sent to the British Museum instead.[42] The French scholars' studies culminated in the Mémoires sur l'Égypte and the monumental Description de l'Égypte encyclopedia, which was finished in 1822.

Following the Treaty of Lunéville between the French Republic and the Holy Roman Empire in 1801, manuscripts and codices began to flow from northern and central Europe to Paris.[6]^:442 By 1806, Vivant Denon and his aides Daru and Stendhal began to systematically appropriate art from those regions, with the gallery of Cassel early on being relieved of 48 paintings. Enroute, the paintings were directed to Mainz, where the Empress Josephine saw them and convinced Napoleon to have them sent to Malmaison as a gift to her.[6]^:444 In the end, Denon selected over 299 paintings to take from the Cassel collection.[12]^:184 Nearly 78 paintings were taken from the Duke of Brunswick, as well as illuminated manuscripts and the famous art collection of the deceased Cardinal Mazarin.[6]^:442

In all, over a thousand paintings were taken from German and Austrian cities, including Berlin, Vienna, Nuremberg, and Potsdam—400 objects came from Vienna alone [43]. 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 military action.[6]^:445

Thieves robbing ready furnished lodgings, Scene Madrid, c. 1808

During and after the Peninsular War, hundreds of artworks were seized from Spain up until the first abdication of Napoleon in 1814.[6]^:443 Paintings by Bartolomé Esteban Murillo, Francisco de Zurbarán, and Diego Velázquez were all sent to Paris for display.[44] Most of the works were from the Spanish royal collection and were assembled at the Prado in Madrid, although the Spanish administration was successfully able to delay their shipment until 1813.[12]^:186 The French looting was conducted under the command of Jean-de-Dieu Soult and officers like Horace Sébastiani, Jean Joseph Dessolles, and Armand de Caulaincourt.

The Gonzaga Cameo, depicting Ptolemy II and Arsinoe II, now in the Hermitage Museum

During the First Restoration, the allied nations did not initially stipulate the return of artworks from France. They were to be treated as "inalienable property of the Crown."[43] On May 8th of 1814, however, Louis XVIII declared that works not yet hung in French museums would be returned, which returned many of the Spanish works.[6]^:446 Manuscripts were also returned to Austria and Prussia by the end of 1814, and Prussia recovered all its statues, 10 Carnachs, and 3 Correggios. The Duke of Brunswich recovered 85 paintings, 174 Limoges porcelains, and 980 majolica vases.[6]^:449 But most of the works remained unreturned. After Napoleon's second surrender at Waterloo and the beginning of the Second Restoration, the return of art became a part of the negotiations, although the lack of historical precedent made them a messy affair.[42][2]^:137[14][45]

The nations did not wait for finalized agreements from the Congress of Vienna to act. In July 1815, the Prussians began to force restitutions. Frederick William III of Prussia ordered von Ribbentropp, Jacobi, and Eberhardt de Groote to deal with the returns.[6]^:450 On July 7th, they demanded Vivant Denon return all the Prussian treasures, but Denon opposed the order because it lacked specific authorization from then-king Louis XVIII. Von Ribbentropp threatened to have Prussian soldiers seize the works and imprison and extradite Denon to Prussia. By July 13, all the key Prussian works were out of the Louvre and packed up for travel.[46]

When the Dutch consul arrived at the Louvre to make similar requests, Denon also denied them access and wrote to Charles-Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord and the Congress of Viena:

"If we give up all the requests of the Netherlands and Belgium, we deny to the museum one of the most important assets, the Flemmings ... Russia is not against, Austria has just received everything, and practically also Prussia. There is only England, that has nothing to ask from the museum, but that has since stolen the Elgin Marbles from the Parthenon, and now thinks to make competition with the Louvre, and wishes to loot this museum to collect the crumbs."[47]

The French wished to hold onto any objects they had seized and argued that keeping the artworks in France was a gesture of generosity towards their countries of origin and even a tribute to the cultural or scientific importance of those objects. For example, the French National Museum of Natural History denied the return of artifacts to the Netherlands in 1815, by claiming that it would necessarily break up the museum's complete collections. The natural historians offered to select and send an "equivalent" collection instead.[11]^:28–29 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.[12]^:186

On September 20, 1815, Austria, England, 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. The Russian tsar Alexander I of Russia was not part of this agreement, and preferred to make a compromise with the French government,[6]^:451 having just acquired for the Hermitage 38 artworks sold by descendants of Josephine Bonaparte to resolve her debts. He had also received a gift from her shortly before her death in 1814—the Gonzaga Cameo from the Vatican.[48] After the Vienna agreement was complete, the occupying forces of Paris continued to remove and send artworks to the Spain, Netherlands, Belgium, Austria, and some Italian cities.

The French resented the returns and argued that they illegal, since they didn't have the force of treaty. Writing about a shipment of paintings to Milan, Stendhal said, "The allies took 150 paintings. I hope to be authorized to observe that we have taken them through the Treaty of Tolentino. The allies took our paintings without a treaty."[49] On the repatriation of Giulio Romano's The Stoning of Saint Stephen to Genoa, Vivant Denon maintained that the work "was offered as tribute to the French government from the city council of Genoa" and that transportation would risk the fragility of the work.[50]

Self-portrait of Antonio Canova, c. 1792

In comparison to the other nations, the Italian cities were disorganized and without the support of a national army or diplomatic corp to make official requests. Unlike the confiscated artworks in the Netherlands, Belgium, and the Rhenish countries, Napoleon had legalized all the transfers of artwork through treaties in Italy. The sculptor Antonio Canova had been sent on a diplomatic mission by the Vatican to the peace conference for the second Treaty of Paris in August 1815.[6]^:455 Canova sent letters asking for Wilhelm von Humboldt and Robert Stewart, Viscount 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 their audience together eased French resistance to the repatriations.[42] By October, Austria, Prussia, and England agreed to support his efforts, which returned many statues and 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 Evangelization of Peoples.[6]^:455

As was written in the London Courier on October 15th, 1815, the public opinion of the allied countries was raised against the French:

"The disbanded officers of the army resort to Paris; and going about out of uniform, influence the populace. As the foreign troops withdraw, the insolence of the Parisians increases. They clamour loudly for the removal of the articles of Art. And why? By what right? The right of conquest? Then have the not twice lost them? Do they persist in enforcing that right? Then why do not now the Allies plunder France of every article worth removing which she possessed before Buonaparte's time? They are entitled to do this by the example of Buonaparte's practice, now so eagerly sanctioned by the Parisians.[6]^:446

As the Lord Liverpool said to the English representatives in Paris: "The reasonable part of the world are for general restoration to the original possessors, but they say with truth that we have a better title to such objects; and they blame the policy of leaving the tropies of the French victories in Paris... It is most desirable, in point of policy, to remove them if possible from France, as whilst in that country they must necessarily have the effect of keeping up the remembrance of their former conquests and of cherishing the military spirit and vanity of the nation."[6]^:447 The Courier wrote on October 4, 1815: "The Duke of Wellington came to the diplomatic conferences with a note in his hand, by which he expressly required all works of Art should be restored to their respective owners. This excited great attention, and the Belgians, who have immense claims to make, had been hitherto obstinately refused, did not wait to be told that they could begin to take back what was theirs. ... The brave Belgians are even now on the way to returning their Potters and their Rubens."[6]^:448

The conditions under the 1815 Treaty of Paris required that any artworks to be returned had to be properly identified and returned to the nation they originated from. These conditions made it difficult to determine where some of the paintings should be sent. For example, some Flemish paintings where mistakenly returned to the Netherlands, rather than Belgium.[8]^:681 The treaty also required effort from 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,[42] with the offer of 200,000 lire to Pope Pius VII.[12]^:186

For various reasons, including lack of money, knowledge of the theft, or appreciation for the value of the taken works,[12]^:186 the restored governments did not always pursue the return of the appropriated paintings. The governor of Vienna did not request the Lombardic artworks taken from churches, like 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.[51] The Tuscan government, under the Hapsburg-Lorraines, did not request works like the Saint Francis Receiving the Stigmata by Giotto, Maesta by Cimabue, or the Coronation of the Virgin by Beato Angelico. Parma, under the ex-wife of Napoleon Maria Luigia, compromised and left half of its works in France. The Papal government did not ask for everything, especially paintings held by French provincial museums, like many taken from Perugia, to not disturb the re-Catholicization of a French countryside that was recovering from Jacobinism.

The Horses of Saint Mark were returned to Venice (not Constantinople, where they were originally taken by the Venetians), but it took workers over a week to remove them from the Arc de Triomphe du Carrousel. The streets around the Arc were kept blocked by Austrian dragoons to prevent any interference with the removal.[42] The Lion of Saint Mark was dropped and broke while it was being removed from a fountain.[6]^:452,456 On October 24, 1815, after the negotiations, a convoy of 41 carriages was organized that, escorted by Prussian soldiers, traveled to Milan. From there, the artworks were distributed to their legitimate owners across the peninsula. Around half of the works taken remained in France.[43]

• Belvedere Apollo
• Capitoline Venus
• Venus Italica
• The Laocoon group
• Head of Jove
• Horses of Saint Mark
• Venus de' Medici
• Amazzone Mattei
• The sarcophagus slab of Guidarello Guidarelli
• Transfiguration of Raphael Sanzio
• Portrait of Tommaso Inghirami by Raphael Sanzio
• Portrait of Leo X by Raphael Sanzio
• Madonna della seggiola by Raphael Sanzio
• Ecstasy of Saint Cecilia by Raphael Sanzio
• Portrait of the Cardinal Bibbiena by Raphael Sanzio
• Visitation by Raphael Sanzio
• Assumption of the Virgin
• Saint John the Baptist with the Saints Francesco Giralamo, Sebastian, and Anthony of Padua by Perugino
• Crucifixion of Saint Peter by Guido Reni
• Massacre of the Innocents by Guido Reni
• Fortune with a crown by Guido Reni
• Madonna with the Long Neck by Parmigianino
• Lamentation over the Dead Christ by Correggio
• The Cathedral of Saint Peter by Guercino
• Marriage of the Virgin by Giulio Cesare Procaccini
• Madonna with Child and the Saints Luigi Gonzaga and Stanislao Kostka by Giuseppe Maria Crespi
• Marie al sepolcro by Bartolomeo Schedoni
• Ecce Homo by Ludovico Cigoli
• Bringing Christ to the Tomb by Cavalier D'Arpino
• Lamentation of the Dead Christ with the Saints Francis, Claire, John the Evangelist, Marie Magdalene, and Angels by Annibale Carracci
• Mars and Venus by Antonio Canova
• Madonna with Child and Saint Christopher and Saint George by Defendente Ferrari, returned to the Caselle Torinese
• Young Dutch Man at a Window by Gerard Dou, returned to the Galleria Sabauda

• The Peasant and the Nest Robber by Peter Brueghel the Elder
• The Peasant Dance by Brueghel the Elder

• Immaculate Conception by Murillo. Taken in 1813 and exchanged in 1941 for Velázquez's Portrait of Mariana of Austria