The Louvre, The World's Premier Showplace of Antiquity

"If our victorious armies penetrate into Italy, then the seizure of the Apollo Belvedere and the Farnese Hercules would be the most brilliant conquest."
"It is Greece that decorated Rome: but should the masterpieces of the Greek republics adorn a country of slaves?"
"The French Republic ought to be their ultimate resting place."
Abbe Gregoire, Catholic priest, revolutionist, 1794

"Belvedere of the Vatican where, for three centuries, it won the admiration of the Universe."
"Thereupon a hero, guided by victory, came to remove it and to place it forever beside the banks of the Seine."
Louvre label for the Apollo Belvedere

The Louvre, that repository of some of the world's most priceless art treasures, a treasure-house extraordinaire, the pride of Paris and the wonder of the world where an assemblage of the world's most renowned painters' and sculptures' masterworks hang  and sit resplendently on gallery walls and pedestals where visitors view each in awe of the transcendent artistry of genius that depicted the sacred art of Christianity. The building itself absent additions, is a masterpiece of Renaissance architecture that borrows from Greek and Roman architecture, the ultimate in sublime classical design structure.

Can a whisper of shame blemish that grand structure, its administration, its heritage value, its remarkable collections, its reputation as the leading museum of antiquity and art gallery of universal distinction in the world? Yes, evidently it can, for there are such whispers, well grounded in history.
In the 1790s, the Louvre was already assuming its imperious role as the depository of the world's most elegant, famous and priceless artefacts. It employed a very special art-collection agency to do its bidding.

Over 13,000 works of art in revolutionary France were taken into possession on behalf of the Republic, from the ownership estates of 93 French aristocrats. Labels on those pieces of timeless art reflect the temper of the times: saisie revolutionnaire ... revolutionary confiscation. Looting, in another vernacular of the culture of the pillage of righteous victory. Just as the French army overran Europe, looting everywhere, returning with treasures from abroad to be placed where the Republic thought it belonged; the galleries of the Louvre.

Immaculate Conception of the Venerables, Bartolomé Esteban Murillo, 1678

As Napoleon's army marched across Europe, advanced into Egypt and the Levant, grand seizures were the order of the times. A novel way to acquire art treasures, but one well recognized over the centuries as conquering armies brought home confiscated loot from the vanquished enemy. "Liberty commands us to confiscate the remains of [Rome's] splendour. It is for us that time has preserved them ... Only we can appreciate them", wrote neoclassical painter, Jean-Baptiste Wicar.

The Grande Armee of Napoleon Bonaparte looted at will in Veneto, in Venice, in Rome, where the Apollo Belvedere, the Laocoon, the Capitoline Brutus and more were to become the property of France since though artists of Italian heritage may have created these works, Italy clearly didn't deserve to hold them in perpetuity as proud symbols of its artistic heritage.

When, in 1815, Napoleon found his defeat at Waterloo, over 5,000 paintings, sculptures and objets d'art sized since 1794, were soon restored to their rightful owners. Still, some of that priceless art was considered to be too fragile to be returned though needless to say this had not been a consideration when they were taken originally to be transferred to French ownership. Veronese's The Wedding Feast at Cana, Giotto's Saint Francis Receiving the Stigmata and Fra Angelico's Coronation of the Virgin remained in the Louvre.

The Tiber, part of the Papal collection confiscated by Napoleon in 1797, was considered too big to move in 1815, and thus remains in the Louvre

There was great reluctance from the Republic to return the Laocoon, the Apollo Belvedere and Raphael's Transfiguration to the Vatican, since it considered that technically through the 1797 Treaty of Tolentino negotiating the surrender to France of the Papal States, they had been 'legally' acquired, leading the pope to send the sculptor Antonio Canova, aided by English and Austrian soldiers to retrieve them.

At the Louvre's 1817 reopening, the bitter sight of galleries with empty spaces, stung. The French novelist Stendhal, claimed the Italians "stole from us what we had won by treaty".

The Wedding Feast at Cana by Paolo Veronese, 1563, plundered by Napoleon’s troops from the church of San Giorgio Maggiore in Venice in 1797, remains in the Louvre in Paris.