Smarthistory is public art history
Is Smarthistory reliable?
Board of Advisors and Board of Trustees
Smarthistory partners
Content editors and contributors
A Smarthistory timeline
Contribute an essay to Smarthistory
At Smarthistory, the Center for Public Art History, we believe art has the power to transform lives and to build understanding across cultures. We believe that the brilliant histories of art belong to everyone, no matter their background.
With 503 contributors from 201 colleges, universities, museums, and research centers, Smarthistory is the most-visited art history resource in the world.
Histories of Art
Overview of Prehistoric
Overview of Africa
Overview of Americas to 1900
North America to 1500
North America 1500 – 1900
South America to 1500
South America 1500 – 1900
Overview of Asia
Hinduism and Buddhism
Overview of Ancient Mediterranean
Nabataean
Medieval Europe & Byzantine
Overview of Medieval Europe + Byzantium
A beginner's guide
Judaism and art
The medieval book
Early Christian
Carolingian
Ottonian
The Islamic World
Overview of the Islamic World
Early Period
Medieval Period
Later period
Europe 1300-1800
Overview of Europe 1300 – 1800
Italy: 14th century
Northern Europe: 15th century
Spain: 15th and 16th century
Baroque: 17th century
Rococo: early to mid 18th century
Neoclassicism: late 18th century
British: 18th century
Overview of Europe: 19th century
Early Photography
Symbolism / Art Nouveau
The Peredvizhniki
Overview of Oceania
Modernisms 1900-1980
Overview of Modernisms 1900 – 1980
Fauvism + Expressionism
Cubism + Early Abstraction
Dada + Surrealism
German art between the wars
Latin American modernism
American art to WWII
Postwar American art
Postwar European art
Conceptual + Performance art
Post Minimalism
Global vanguard
Art since 1980
Overview of art since 1980
Cold War Germany and after
Art in the AIDS era
Post-Cultural Revolution China
Apartheid-era South Africa
Young British Artists and art as commodity
Pictures Generation and postmodern photography
Revisiting histories
Mapping and migration
Figuration, the body, and representation
Public memory and the politics of place
Landscape and ecology
Assemblage and materiality
Spirituality and transcendence
Looking at art
Approaches to art history
Understanding religion in art
Understanding museums
For the very beginner
Featured | Art that brings U.S. history to life
Courses in art history & history
Expanding the Renaissance – shifting the conversation
Seeing America – a portal to American history and art
ARCHES – At-Risk Cultural Heritage Education Series
Short courses – spend an hour — learn a lot!
Across cultures – An interconnected world is not as recent as we think.
Teaching with images – For K-12 teachers
Syllabi / AP & A-level courses
A history of photography
Creating + conserving
Smarthistory books
Overview – More titles coming soon!
AP® Art History (vol. 1) – nos. 1 – 47
AP® Art History (vol. 2) – nos. 48-98
AP® Art History (vol. 3) – nos. 99 – 152
AP® Art History (vol. 4) – nos. 153 – 191
Ancient Near Eastern art
Ancient Egyptian Art
Ancient Aegean Art
Ancient Greek Art
Ancient Etruscan art
Ancient Roman art
Guide to Italian art in the 1300s
Virtual visits – museums & sites
Overview – art by location
Donate – Help Smarthistory continue to make a difference
Contribute an essay – Help make art history relevant and engaging
We created Smarthistory to provide students around the world with the highest-quality educational resources for art and cultural heritage—for free.
Browse this content
Why art matters
Why art matters (why look at art?)
Must art be beautiful? Picasso's Old Guitarist
How art can help you analyze
The Power to Look
Alejandro Cesarco, What does looking mean?
What work of art inspired you?
Elements of Art
Shape and Form
Surface and Depth
Balance, symmetry, and emphasis
Proportion and scale
Pattern, repetition and rhythm, variety and unity
Describing what you see
Introduction to art historical analysis
How to do visual (formal) analysis
Art historical analysis with Goya's Third of May, 1808
Describing what you see: sculpture
An introduction to art history
What is art history and where is it going?
Art history and world art history
Ever wondered… why people become art historians?
Ever wondered…why study art of the past?
Art and empathy
A brief history of the representation of the body in Western painting
A brief history of the representation of the body in Western sculpture
The language of art history
Naturalism, realism, abstraction and idealization
Contrapposto explained
Foreshortening explained
Chiaroscuro explained
Linear perspective explained
Atmospheric perspective explained
Classical orders of architecture explained
Methods of art history
An introduction to iconographic analysis
Brief histories of art and culture
Common questions about dates
What maps tell us
A brief history of the cultures of Asia
A brief history of Western culture
About chronological periods in the Islamic world
Africa historical overview: to 1600
Africa historical overview: from the 1600s to the present
Questions in art history
What is cultural heritage?
Where are the women artists?
Why are there so few female artists?
Must art be beautiful?
Is there a difference between art and craft?
What's the point of realism?
What made art valuable: then and now?
What does it mean to be an "old master" and to make a "masterpiece"?
Current issues in art history
Why you don't like art history
Cultural heritage "in crisis"
How Climate Changes Art
The $150,000 Banana
Art about Migration
What does art tell us about gender?
Should Art Be Publicly Funded?
Why Do Corporations Buy Art?
What does resistance look like?
The Art Market and taxes
The Case for Copying
The case for nudity
Behind the Banksy Stunt
Tools for understanding museums
The case for museums
A brief history of the art museum
Museums and politics: the Louvre, Paris
Art Museums and (Art) Objects
Artists in and against the Museum
The changing social functions of art museums
Looking at Art Museums
Local art appropriation in France—a study of the loot in the Louvre Museum
Remake the Met
How museums shape meaning
An interview with Fred Wilson about the conventions of museums and race
Tools for understanding religion in art
The five major world religions
A brief history of religion in art
Christianity, an introduction
The Christian Bible
A new pictorial language: the image in Early Medieval art
The life of Christ in medieval and Renaissance art
The lives of Christ and the Virgin in Byzantine art
Who's who? How to recognize saints…
Architecture and liturgy
The audacity of Christian art
The problem with Christ
Christ is not like a snail: Signs and symbols
Putting God in his place: here, everywhere, and nowhere
Time and eternity: Yesterday, today, and always
This world and the next: Christ on earth; Christ in heaven
So near and yet so far: visions and thresholds
Unspeakable images: when words fail
Introduction to Islam
The Five Pillars of Islam
Islamic pilgrimages and sacred spaces
The Kaaba
Stories of the modern pilgrimage
The complex geometry of Islamic design
Introduction to mosque architecture
Hinduism and Buddhism, an introduction
Discovering Sacred Texts: Hinduism
Sacred texts in Hinduism
Hindu deities
Beliefs made visible: Hindu art in South Asia
Varanasi: sacred city
Introduction to Buddhism
The historical Buddha
The Buddha and Buddhist sacred texts
The stupa
Images of Enlightenment: Aniconic vs. Iconic Depictions of the Buddha in India
Four Buddhas at the American Museum of Natural History
Buddhist meditation and chant
Bodh Gaya: center of the Buddhist world
Bodh Gaya: The Site of the Buddha's Enlightenment
Beliefs made visible: Buddhist art in South Asia
Bodhisattvas, an introduction
Buddhist Monasteries
Judaism, an introduction
Jewish history to the middle ages
Jewish history 1750 to WW II
Jewish history in the post-war period
Ancient Near Eastern and ancient Egyptian art
Ancient Greek and Roman art
Medieval and Byzantine art
Baroque and Rococo
Introduction to Twentieth-Century Art
Introduction to Contemporary Art
by Cynthia Prieur
The Louvre Museum opened its doors on August 10, 1793 as the Muséum Français, allowing the French public unfettered access to the new national art collection. Paintings, bronze sculptures, marble tables and statues, porcelain, and other "curiosities" had been organized, labelled, and displayed in the galleries for visitors to enjoy. The exhibition opened to critical acclaim, but by today's standards, the methods used by the French government to assemble the Muséum Français' collection in Paris would be considered unethical.
"At the Louis XV plaza and the Hotel de Ville, the people themselves did justice to the bronze kings themselves, by toppling them to the ground." From Antoine Tournon, Révolutions de Paris, dédiées à la Nation (1792) (Bibliothèque nationale de France)
At the end of the 18th century works of art that represented the social status, politics, and excess wealth of the ancien régime (the political system in France before the Revolution of 1789) became highly contentious objects. They were considered by many to be painful reminders of the class inequalities in France during the reign of the monarchy. For centuries, the power structure in France had favored the upper classes by furnishing them with authority and property rights, which the lower classes were prevented from holding. The monarchy placed limits on the type of property a person could own according to their social status, enforcing a rigid social hierarchy. In setting out to build a modern French state, the leaders of the Revolution attempted to implement social, political, and legal reforms to make all citizens equal under the law. They sought an end to property and fiscal inequality. The ambitious leaders of the Revolution made property reform a cornerstone of their political platform by attempting to separate the ability to own property from class, essentially upending the social order.
After the revolution, one of the ways the French government tried to end the privileges enjoyed by the clergy and nobility (known as the first and second estates) was to seize their assets, property, and art collections. The fate of their land titles and monetary assets is far too complex to explore in this essay, but a portion of it was used to finance government expenses. However, the confiscated art collections were an entirely different matter. Some of the members of state agencies such as the Committee of Public Safety felt that these objects should be rejected and destroyed in order to make way for works of art that better represented the ideals of the Republic. This was at odds with other committees that wanted to preserve national monuments and works of art produced for the ancien régime, arguing that some of these objects were inextricably linked to the identity of France and were of national cultural importance. Out of this, the idea of national cultural patrimony developed and confiscated works of art that were once emblems of the clergy, nobility, and monarchy were reclassified as communal property and repurposed for the aims of the Revolution (liberté, egalité, fraternité). This was justified in the eyes of government officials because it returned the objects to their "rightful" owners: the free French people.
Art collections of religious orders
The first step was taken in August 1789, when a decree was passed by the National Assembly suppressing religious orders (including churches, monasteries, and abbeys). This meant that these religious institutions—which had considerable wealth and power—were essentially dissolved, and their property became state property. The clergy had been heavily criticized for their close ties with the monarchy, and more significantly, the enormous power and influence that they wielded. Religious institutions collected tithes, were exempt from taxes, and maintained considerable landholdings, while the lower classes struggled to survive. Anticlerical rhetoric grew and the Assembly announced that they would dissolve communally owned ecclesiastical property—ending the privileges held by the church. By 1790, the state actively began to seize church revenue and property, including works of art, some of which were sold while others were kept due to their cultural and artistic value.
Sculpture and architectural fragments confiscated from French religious institutions displayed at the Museum of French Monuments (Paris) which was open between 1793–1816. Hubert Robert, A Hall in the Museum of French Monuments, 1800, oil on canvas, 38.5 x 46.0 cm (Kunsthalle, Bremen)
While the state-sanctioned art confiscations were ideologically and financially motivated, they also posed a problem. The National Assembly (the first Revolutionary government) was now faced with the burden of protecting the newly claimed French cultural patrimony since looting and vandalism had become commonplace. Works of art, monuments, and buildings commissioned by the ancien régime were attacked, effaced, and sometimes destroyed by the public in order to "obliterate the past in pursuit of a regenerated society."[1]
It became clear that the leaders of the Revolution needed to organize a committee to sort, assemble, and protect the recently nationalized art collections. Appointed in 1790, the Commission des monuments (sometimes called the College des Quatre-Nations) was a committee of learned antiquarians, artists, and scientists, who were tasked with determining which objects should be sold, kept, or destroyed. They developed guidelines for determining the value and significance of each work of art—making a distinction between objects that were worthy of being kept for their aesthetic and historical importance and those that were deemed unworthy and could be destroyed (such as commemorative monuments, sculptures, and royal tombs). Objects of artistic and historical importance were kept and placed in temporary storage depots, including the Petits-Augustins and the Hôtel de Nesle, awaiting the establishment of museums in Paris and the regional cities.
Portrait of Louis-Joseph de Bourbon, Prince of Condé who fled France and was a leader of the counter-revolutionary movement, 1802, 145 x 107 cm (Musée Condé, Chantilly)
Art collections of the émigrés
As the momentum of the Revolution continued to build, many aristocrats, clerics, commoners (bourgeoisie and wage-laborers), and deportees emigrated to other European countries. Some émigrés were counterrevolutionaries who sought foreign help in attempting to quell the Revolution and to reinstate the Bourbon monarchy. Others simply fled in search of safety, expecting their exile to be temporary. Seeking to punish the émigrés, particularly the counterrevolutionaries, who had taken action against the Revolution, their property was seized and transferred to the state in November 1791.
The confiscation of their property was deemed necessary for the government to finance the French army's wages to defend against counterrevolutionary armies. The punitive measures taken against the émigrés were enshrined in law. Citizenship was essential in any claim regarding property ownership, but required residence in France. Thus, the state was not legally obliged to honor the ownership claims of émigrés, since they no longer lived on French soil. More significantly, property ownership had played a definitive role in determining the division of the social classes during the ancien régime, allowing the clergy and nobility to dominate the working classes in the third estate. The confiscation of the property of the clergy and the émigrés was intended to shift the power of land and property ownership to the new Republican government, who would then, theoretically, redistribute it more equitably among French citizens.
The confiscations were also intended to inflict personal pain on the émigrés, particularly those who were members of the aristocracy. Many of them had left behind family homes, heirlooms, and significant art collections. In some cases, their property had been in their families for centuries and its value was not just financial—it was part of their personal identity and it indicated their social status. Their inheritances were casualties of war, and not unlike the property of the clergy, their art collections fell under the purview of the Commission temporaire des arts (1793), which had taken over from the Commission des monuments in dealing with the confiscated works of art.
Art collections of the monarchy and the Royal Academies
The appropriation of the royal collection, which had been built over the centuries through tactical acquisitions made by French monarchs and important political figures, such as Jean-Baptiste Colbert (a statesman) and religious figures like Cardinal Mazarin, was far more straightforward. Shortly after the fall of the monarchy on August 10, 1792, the royal art collection became public domain, and its fate was tied to the new national museum. It would account for three-quarters of the Muséum Français' collection. The following year, the royal art academies were suppressed (these were institutions which supported and controlled French cultural production—including painting, sculpture, and architecture. To the revolutionaries, the members of the academies had taken part in discriminatory admission policies based on class—promoting the interests of a privileged few at the expense of others. Furthermore, the outdated methods of teaching required that students rely heavily on their instructor for guidance and inspiration. Opponents of the royal art academies pointed out that it was better for students to have access to a national art collection containing a variety of works. Students could then copy and draw inspiration from a wide range of objects. The administration hoped that this would revitalize the French style of art.
A national museum for all
In the early years of the National Convention's administration, it was determined that the confiscated works of art, under the purview of the Commission temporaire des arts, would be sent to museums across the country. The finest pieces would be kept and exhibited in Paris in a dedicated national museum, which was expected to eclipse all other European museum collections in terms of quality and breadth.
A plan to create a national museum in Paris that would house the royal library and the art collection had already been established by the monarchy in the 1780s. Under the direction of the king's director general of royal buildings, Charles-Claude de Flahaut (the comte d'Angiviller), the Louvre Palace, a former royal residence, was chosen for the project. Over several years, a team of architects, artists, and art connoisseurs drew up plans to refurbish and convert the palace into a museum. They also worked to enhance the Crown's art collection through new acquisitions. Unfortunately, the project experienced many delays due to a shortage of financing from the king, as well as disagreements about the necessary gallery renovations.
Hubert Robert, The Grande Galerie between 1801 and 1805, oil on canvas, 37 × 46 cm. (Louvre)
With the outbreak of the French Revolution, d'Angiviller joined the émigrés in 1791, and the project was abandoned. It would not be resumed until August 1792, when the monarchy was abolished, and the National Convention announced plans to appropriate and complete the museum. A commission was appointed to oversee the preparations for the opening of the new museum. The group assumed responsibility for all national property and was tasked with the selection of objects for the collection. They began by sending orders for the transfer of works of art from the royal residences and the depots, which contained works of art from the suppressed ecclesiastical institutions. The museum administration faced the herculean tasks of making arrangements for the works of art to be exhibited in the galleries and organizing minor repairs in time for the grand opening. Nevertheless, they successfully opened the doors to the public in 1793.
Michelangelo's sculptures of the slaves for the Tomb of Pope Julius II came to the Louvre from the collection of King Francis I. Michelangelo, Dying Slave, 1513–15, marble, 2.09 m high (Musée du Louvre, Paris)
The museum project became a political symbol of the state, illustrating to the French public the stability and power of the new regime. Known today as the Louvre, it was given the name Muséum Français, highlighting its new function as the museum of the people, accessible to all citizens. Moreover, the museum galleries were intended to be a space where the public could be educated about history, culture, and the arts. The collection also provided source material for French artists to copy, which the government administration hoped would encourage the production of high-quality works of art.
The works of art in the collection had been pried away from their private and privileged settings, and reinvented as the nation's cultural patrimony. The gallery displays stripped away the original context and function of religious and royal objects, allowing them to be studied and admired solely for their artistic and historical merit. As objects of curiosity devoid of their associated rituals, the works of art appropriated from the clergy, nobility, monarchy, and the royal art academies became symbols of the repudiated past.
Building the Muséum Français' collection through art confiscations irrevocably changed the purpose of the institution. What began merely as a repository for the royal art collection was transformed into a political institution, whose administration actively participated in looting works of art from the first and second estates, appropriating them for a new purpose. The local art confiscations in France would eventually lead to the development of retention policies in the 19th century, which ensured that many of these objects were never returned to their former owners. Many still reside in the Louvre Museum today, an everlasting legacy of the French Revolution.
[1] Andrew McClellan, "Alexandre Lenoir and The Museum of French Monuments," Inventing the Louvre: Art, Politics, and the Origins of the Modern Museum in Eighteenth-Century Paris (Berkeley, Los Angeles, and London: University of California Press, 1994), p. 155.
1789-1791: The Revolution from Carleton University
History of the Louvre
Museums and Politics: the Louvre
Claude Perrault, East façade of the Louvre
Hannah Callaway, "Revolutionizing Property: The Confiscation of Émigré Wealth in Paris and the Problem of Property in the French Revolution" (Ph.D. dissertation, Harvard University, 2015)
La Commission temporaire des arts. Instruction sur la manière d'inventorier et de conserver, dans toute l'étendue de la République, tous les objets qui peuvent servir aux arts, aux sciences et à l'enseignement (Paris: L'imprimerie nationale, 1794)
James Connelly, "The Grand Gallery of the Louvre and the Museum Project: Architectural Problems," Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians 31, no. 2 (May 1972): pp. 120–122
Eugène Despois, Le vandalisme Révolutionnaire fondations littéraires, scientifiques et artistiques de la convention (Paris: Germer Baillière, 1868)
Marc Furcy-Raynaud, Les tableaux et objets d'art saisis chez les émigrés et condamnés et envoyés au Muséum central (Paris: Daupeley-Gouverneur, 1913)
Cecil Gould, "The Louvre as a Public Museum." In Trophy of Conquest: The Musée Napoléon and the Creation of the Louvre (London: Faber and Faber, 1965)
Abbé Gregoire, Rapport sur les destructions opérées par le vandalisme, et sur les moyens de la réprimer (Paris: Imprimerie nationale, 1794)
Emmet Kennedy, "Vandalism and Conservation," A Cultural History of the French Revolution (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1989)
Anatole de Montaiglon and Jules Renouvier, Histoire de l'art pendant la Revolution 1789–1804: suivie d'une étude sur J.-B. Greuze (Genève: Slatkine Reprints, 1996)
Andrew McClellan, Inventing the Louvre: Art, Politics, and the Origins of the Modern Museum in Eighteenth-Century Paris (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1994)
Édouard Pommier, "Le génie des arts et le génie de la liberté: régénération, destruction, conservation," L'art de la liberté: doctrines et débats de la Révolution française (Paris: Gallimard, 1991)
Dominique Poulot, "Le musée révolutionnaire, un musée vandale?," Une histoire des musées de France XVIIIe- XXe siècle (Paris : La Découverte, 2008)
Daniel Sherman, "Museums in Formation, 1791–1850," in Worthy Monuments: Art Museums and the Politics of Culture in Nineteenth-Century France (London and Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1989)
Henri Stein, État des objets d'art placés dans les monuments religieux et civils de Paris au début de la Révolution Française (Paris: Charavay Frères, 1890)
Jules Tardif, Monuments Historiques: Cartons des Rois. Inventaires et Documents publiés par ordre de l'Empereur sous la direction de M. le Marquis de Laborde (Paris: J. Claye, 1866)
"Beaux-Arts sur le Muséum des arts de Paris: Coup-d'œil sur le local et la disposition des tableaux," La décade philosophique, littéraire et politique par une société de Républicains 4 (Paris, 1794), pp. 211-217.
Cite this page as: Cynthia Prieur, "Local art appropriation in France—a study of the loot in the Louvre Museum," in Smarthistory, September 8, 2020, accessed January 18, 2022, https://smarthistory.org/loot-louvre/.
Browse Smarthistory images for teaching & learning!
Receive occasional emails about new Smarthistory content.
Join our teaching webinar about
Rachel Ruysch's Fruit and Insects
1:00–1:30 pm eastern on 1/26/2022
Reframe your class!
See all upcoming webinars Close
Smarthistory is a nonprofit organization
At Smarthistory we believe art has the power to transform lives and to build understanding across cultures. We believe that the brilliant histories of art belong to everyone, no matter their background. Smarthistory's free, award-winning digital content unlocks the expertise of hundreds of leading scholars, making the history of art accessible and engaging to more people, in more places, than any other provider.
About Smarthistory
Smarthistory's blog
Contribute an essay
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons
Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License
· © 2022 Smarthistory · Powered by · Designed with the Customizr theme ·