Enfilade

This fall at the Prado (as noted by Nina Siegal in The New York Times) . . .

Bénédicte Savoy | Returning Looted Heritage: 1815, The Dismantling of the Louvre and the Rebirth of Museums in Europe
La recuperación del patrimonio saqueado: 1815, el desmantelamiento del Louvre y el renacimiento de los museos en Europa
Online and in-person, Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid, 7, 14, 21, and 28 November 2024

Bénédicte Savoy (Photograph by Maurice Weiss).

Between 1794 and 1811, successive French governments seized “works of art and science” from different states of Europe. This policy of appropriation, made legitimate by the belief that works of art, the natural by-product of freedom, should be returned to the land of liberty (i.e., France), gave rise to a major flow of cultural objects (paintings, sculptures, manuscripts, exquisite incunabula, etc.) from the countries involved towards France.

The vast majority of these objects, grouped together in the Louvre and the Bibliothèque nationale in Paris, were claimed by and returned to their rightful owners after the fall of the Empire (1814–1815). The restitution of 1815, a major historical and cultural event in Europe, mobilized the European intelligentsia and had a major impact on the cultural geography of the continent. The passions unleashed at the time fueled the European historiography of disentailment and confiscations during the 19th century. Most of the arguments exchanged then continue even now to structure the contemporary debate on restitutions. The lectures seek to identify the transnational concerns and consequences of this important event. Lectures will be given in French with simultaneous Spanish translation.

7 November — Reclaiming Cultural Heritage
The first lecture delves into the concept of restitution, especially from the point of view of those persons who traveled to Paris in 1815 with the intention of demanding the return of the plundered treasures. We shall study the relationship between post-conflict gestures of restitution and processes of reclaiming the objects of value. Among the key ideas to be discussed are the following: What steps are taken to actually reclaim the works of art? Who takes the initiative? In what circumstances? What resistance strategies are carried out by the possessing institutions?

14 November — The Interplay of Law and Morality
This lecture examines the complex relationship between legal principles and moral considerations as evidenced in the 1815 restitution debates. These discussions have profoundly influenced contemporary perspectives on repatriating looted assets. We contrast the legalists, who argue from a legal standpoint against the repossession of goods by Napoleon’s adversaries, with the moralists, who champion the rights of nations to their heritage and advocate for cultural justice. The enduring tension and the relevance of these two-century-old arguments will be critically analysed.

21 November — The Dilemma of Universality
In 1814 and 1815 European intellectuals praised the Louvre’s model for its intellectual, emotional, and historical significance while acknowledging the ethical dilemma it posed: the presence of these treasures in the museums in Paris was possible only because of their absence from other cities. This session explores the paradox of the universal museum concept and the ensuing debate over whether cultural assets should be centralized or dispersed to foster cultural development. The dismantling of the Louvre and the debates it sparked offer insights into museum discourse that echo through subsequent decades.

28 November — Paths to Reconnection
Following the upheaval of 1815, within a drastically transformed geopolitical landscape, there ensued diverse approaches to cultural reappropriation. They varied from nation to nation, community to community, spilling over even to academies and universities. The return of artworks to their places of origin opened up then, as it continues to do now, the possibility of finding a multitude of destinations beyond that of museums, including their reinstatement in original locations such as churches. This lecture will address how societies navigate the post-conflict recovery of their heritage and the time it takes to determine the rightful place for these works of art.

Devoted to the study of the processes of restitution of cultural property to countries looted by France during the Napoleonic period, the 12th Cátedra del Prado is led by Bénédicte Savoy, professor for Modern Art History at the Technische Universität Berlin. Between 2016 and 2021 Savoy also held a professorship at the Collège de France in Paris, where she taught the cultural history of artistic heritage in Europe from the 18th century to the 20th century. Her research focuses on museum history, Franco-German cultural transfer, Nazi looted art, and research on postcolonial provenance. In 2018 Professor Savoy wrote the report On the Restitution of African Cultural Heritage together with Senegalese scholar Felwine Sarr. This report was commissioned by Emmanuel Macron, President of France. She has received numerous awards for her research, academic activities, and teaching, including the 2016 Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Prize of the German Research Foundation and, most recently, the Berlin Science Prize. She is a member of the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities, a Knight of the French Legion of Honor and a member of various other institutions, advisory boards, and committees. Her most recent publications include the book Africa’s Struggle for Its Art: History of a Postcolonial Defeat, which has been translated into several languages, and the joint publication Atlas der Abwesenheit: Kameruns Kulturerbe in Deutschland (Atlas of Absence: Cameroon’s Cultural Heritage in Germany).