Napoleon’s Legacy The Development of National Museums in Europe 1794-1830 International conference 31 January - 2 February 2008 Universiteit van Amsterdam Napoleon’s Legacy The Development of National Museums in Europe 1794-1830 International conference Organized by the Huizinga Research Institute of Cultural History (Amsterdam) and the Institute for Museum Research (Berlin). Thursday, 31 January - Saturday, 2 February 2008 Agnietenkapel, Oudezijds Voorburgwal 231 and University Library (Doelenzaal), Singel 425, Universiteit van Amsterdam The French Revolution and the subsequent Napoleonic Wars had a major impact on European museums. Between 1794 and 1813 enormous quantities of artworks, natural specimens, scientific objects, books and manuscripts from collections in the conquered areas in Germany, the Netherlands, Italy, Austria and Spain were transported to Paris by the French armies. During a relatively short period of 15 years the general public had the opportunity to admire an overview of what, for the first time in history, might be labelled ‘European heritage’, exhibited in the Louvre and the Musée d’histoire naturelle. These outstanding French museums made a great impression on the visitors and (museum) officials from abroad but at the same time evoked criticism and strengthened the need for the countries which had been robbed of their artistic and scientific treasures to create their own national museums. In this atmosphere it was only logical that after Napoleon’s final defeat at Waterloo (1815) the Allied Powers reclaimed their artistic and scientific collections. When some of the confiscated objects returned to their places of origin, their arrival back home formed an extra stimulus for the (re)institution of public museums, in Berlin, Brussels, The Hague, Madrid, Vienna, Rome, Milan and Parma, for example. The conference Napoleon’s Legacy. The Development of National Museums in Europe, 1794-1830 focuses on this enormous shift in the European ‘museum landscape’. The central question is: how did various European countries in this period, stimulated by these confiscations and subsequent restitutions, design and disseminate the image of a ‘national culture’ through their museums. By employing an international comparative approach in studying this process it will be possible to examine national variations against the background of international patterns. This museological turning point will be addressed on three levels: the ‘looting’ process, the Paris museums, and restitution and after (see program). PROGRAM Thursday, 31 January (Agnietenkapel) Chair: Debora Meijers 17.00 Opening by FLORIS COHEN , chairman of the Huizinga Institute 17.15 ROBERT SCHELLER (professor emeritus Universiteit van Amsterdam): Keynote lecture, The age of confusion 17.45 Introduction by ELLINOOR BERGVELT and LIESKE TIBBE 18.15 Welcome drinks Friday, 1 February (Doelenzaal) 09.00 Arrival/registration Chair: Donna Mehos Discussion: Elsa van Wezel 1. The ‘Looting’ Process a. Criteria for Selection 09.30 DEBORA MEIJERS (Universiteit van Amsterdam) The Dutch way of developing a national art museum: How crucial were the French confiscations of 1795? 10.00 MARIA DE LOS SANTOS GARCÍA FELGUERA (Universidad Complutense Madrid) The looting of Spanish art and the first ideas about the creation of a public museum in Madrid before the arrival of Napoleon’s army . b. Protest or Acceptance? 10.30 FLORENCE PIETERS (Universiteit van Amsterdam) The looting of natural history collections in the Netherlands . 11.00 Coffee/tea break 2. French Museums (Paris and its Satellites) a. Conservation, restoration and modes of display 12.00 FRANS GRIJZENHOUT (Universiteit van Amsterdam) A new experience: visiting the conservation studio . 12.30 Discussion 13.00 Lunch Chair: Renée Kistemaker Discussion: Lieske Tibbe b. National/international reception 14.30 ANDREW MCCLELLAN (Tufts University, Medford) Nationalism and nostalgia in British reactions to the Musée Napoléon . 15.00 HEIDRUN THATE (Paris) The creation of French satellite-museums in Mainz, Geneva and Brussels . 15.30 Coffee/tea break 16.00 MIRJAM HOIJTINK (Universiteit van Amsterdam) Collecting Egypt in 19th-century Europe: a matter of national distinction . 16.30 Discussion (until 17.00) Saturday, 2 February Doelenzaal/13.00 Agnietenkapel 09.30 Arrival/Registration Chair: Frans Grijzenhout Discussion: Ellinoor Bergvelt 3. Restitution and after 10.00 GIUSEPPE BERTINI (Università degli Studi di Parma) Works of art from Parma in Paris during Napoleon’s time and their restitution. 10.30 ANNIE JOURDAN (Universiteit van Amsterdam) A national tragedy in Restoration France: the return of the foreign works of art to their countries of origin . 11.00 Coffee/tea break 11.30 MONICA PRETI -HAMARD (Musée du Louvre, Paris) “La destruction du musée est devenue un monument historique”: The restitution of the works of art seen by the Louvre’s employees (1815- 1816). 12.00 DONNA MEHOS (Amsterdam) Transforming natural treasures into national heritage: retrieving naturalia from the Paris museums 12.30 Discussion 13.00 Lunch Chair: Mirjam Hoijtink Discussion: Debora Meijers 14.00 ELSA VAN WEZEL (Institute for Museum Research, Berlin) Denon’s Louvre and Schinkel’s Altes Museum: war trophy museum versus peace memorial. 14.30 ADRIAN VON BUTTLAR (Technische Universität, Berlin) The museum and the city – Schinkel’s and Klenze’s contributions to the autonomy of civil culture. 15.00 Discussion 15.30 Coffee/tea break Closing Chair: Ellinoor Bergvelt 16.00 BÉNÉDICTE SAVOY (Technische Universität Berlin) Displaced works of art c. 1800 and today’s discussions about restitutions . 16.30 Concluding remarks by BERNARD GRAF , director of the Institute for Museum Research, Berlin 16.45 Drinks (until 18.00) For more information contact Sanja Zivojnovic: 0031 (0)20 525 3503; [email protected] . SUMMARIES and PERSONALIA ● Ellinoor Bergvelt: Introduction to the conference program ELLINOOR BERGVELT is associate professor at the Department of Cultural history of Europe, University of Amsterdam, and a specialist on collections and museums, and interior design. Her present research concerns British (national) museums and galleries in the 19 th century. She is a member of the organizing team for this conference, and is one of the coordinators of the research project National Museums and National Identity, Europe and the United States, c.1760-1918. SELECTED PUBLICATIONS : - Pantheon der Gouden Eeuw. Van Nationale Konst-Gallerij tot Rijksmuseum van Schilderijen (1798-1896) , Zwolle 1998 [Ph.D. study University of Amsterdam, 1998] - Co-editor of De wereld binnen handbereik , Amsterdam 1992 (2 Vol.) (Exh. cat. Amsterdams Historisch Museum, Amsterdam) - ‘De Britse Parlementaire Enquête uit 1853. De “modernisering” van de National Gallery in Londen’, in: Kabinetten, galerijen en musea. Het verzamelen en presenteren van naturalia en kunst van 1500 tot heden , Ellinoor Bergvelt, Debora J. Meijers, Mieke Rijnders (eds.), Zwolle 2005, [Ch. 12], 319-342 ● Giuseppe Bertini: Works of art from Parma in Paris during Napoleon’s time and their restitution In Northern Italy the small duchy of Parma and Piacenza held a relevant position in the world of the arts thanks to the presence of a high number of paintings by Correggio, one of the most admired artists of all times, and to the artistic patronage of the first rulers, the Farnese. The French selected 53 paintings for the Paris museum in three different stages. In 1796 under a clause of the truce signed with duke Ferdinand of Bourbon 15 paintings were sent to France. Particularly painful for Parma was the loss of “La Madonna di San Gerolamo” by Correggio, which the duke tried to avert by offering a large sum of money. In 1803 thirty paintings were sent to Paris to represent the “second choice” masters and in 1811 Vivant Denon requested eight additional paintings, so that the primitive school should be represented in the Paris museum. The recovery for Parma of the works of art in 1815 was executed by the diplomat Giuseppe Poggi, under the protection of the Austrian emperor, father of the new ruler of the duchy, Maria Luisa d’Asburgo. He was assisted by a young artist, the engraver Paolo Toschi, resident in Paris at that time. Only a fraction of the paintings were returned (30), but the precious Correggios were among them. The pictures returned were retained in the reorganized Galleria dell’Accademia: pictures taken from Piacenza and from churches of Parma were not put back in their original locations. GIUSEPPE BERTINI taught Museology and History of Collections with a contract at Parma University. He is at present an independent scholar. SELECTED PUBLICATIONS : - La Galleria del Duca di Parma. Storia di una collezione , Bologna 1987 - Le nozze di Alessandro Farnese. Feste alle corti di Lisbona e Bruxelles , Milano 1997 - L’appartamento del Duca Ferdinando a Colorno dipinto da Antonio Bresciani , Colorno 2000 ● Adrian von Buttlar: The museum and the city – Schinkel´s and Klenze´s contributions to the autonomy of civil culture The growing civil autonomy of the arts becomes obvious in the process of independence, by which collections and galleries in Germany already during the eighteenth century were defined beyond courtly representation and step by step physically dissociated from the structure of palace and castle. The Museum Fridericianum in Kassel (1764), influenced by modern French and English ideas, may be regarded as one of the first autonomous cultural Institutions primarily addressed to the public – a role expressed