Gregory Curtis by Disarmed: The Story of the Venus De Milo Page B

Schiller, perhaps forgetting for the moment his revered Winckelmann, said that no mere mortal could describe “this celestial mixture of accessibility and severity, benevolence and gravity, majesty and mildness.” Veneration for the Apollo Belvedere was a sign of sophistication and educated taste. Copies were everywhere—in royal courts, in museums, and on rich estates. In 1819 the French writerStendhal made a single remark in dismissing the United States as a cultural desert: “Can one find anywhere in that so prosperous and rich America a single copy, in marble, of the Apollo Belvedere?” The plaque on the statue in the Musée Napoléon, which the emperor himself had attached to the base, described it as “the most sublime statue that time has preserved for us.” For three centuries it had been the pride of the Vatican until “heroes, guided by Victory, came to take it away and set it forever by the banks of the Seine.”
    This gloating boast almost proved accurate, since Denon’s Musée Napoléon very nearly survived the emperor’s fall. After Napoleon’s first abdication, in 1814, the treaty that placed Louis XVIII on the throne specifically ceded ownership of all stolen art in the museum to France. The European powers againstNapoleon thought Louis was so weak that his hold on the throne was tentative at best. Leaving the artworks in France was a simple, if expensive, way to avoid creating resentment in France against the new regime.
    But after Napoleon escaped from Elba, returned for the Hundred Days, and was defeated at Waterloo, the allies were not in such an accommodating mood. Now they wanted their artworks back. As English, German, andAustrian troops occupied Paris, some of them were detailed to the Louvre to remove paintings and statues. Denon was distraught. He did what he could to fight the confiscations, but in the end he was powerless. Paintings by Van Dyck, Rembrandt,Raphael,Titian,Tintoretto, Veronese,Caravaggio, and many other masters were all carted away. An armed squadron seized theApollo Belvedere and returned it to the Vatican. Today it stands in the Octagonal Court of the Pio-Clementine Museum in the Vatican. TheLaocoön is nearby.
    In all, the allies reclaimed more than five thousand works, including 2,065 paintings, 130 statues in stone, 150 bas-reliefs, 289 bronzes, and many vases, drawings, miniatures, enamels, wooden sculptures, and other diverse objets d’art. Afterward, as Louis XVIII toured the Louvre to observe what remained, he remarked calmly, “We are still rich.” But that was not the general view. A popular woodcut from the time shows a French artist crying into his handkerchief in front of the Louvre as a troop of soldiers with muskets wheel the Apollo Belvedere away.
Artist, lover
    U PON TAKING the throne, Louis XVIII left Denon in his post for the moment, but he installed the comte de Forbin immediately below him in the administration of the museum. As the king was beginning his tour of the Louvre, he said, “Monsieur Denon and you, Monsieur de Forbin, who know this temple,show me and explain to me these marvels.” Denon understood as well as anyone the subtleties in the apparently casual comments of a king. That Louis would address him and Forbin as equals meant that Denon’s days as director of the museum were numbered. He resigned and devoted the remaining years of his life to writing a history of art. In 1816 Louis XVIII elevated Louis-Nicolas-Philippe-Auguste, comte de Forbin, to the office of director.
    We have encountered Forbin before, dining with Vice-consul Brest at his home on Melos in 1817. Now, as head of the Louvre, he would be the one to receive the Venus de Milo at the museum, oversee any restoration, and direct its placement and display. Forbin had a reputation as a playboy and a dilettante, but he turned out to be an effective executive. He inherited the Louvre at a critical moment, when its newly acquired collections had been stripped and its finances