Thefts of Art by Napoleon Bonaparte

Portrait of Napoleon, Jacques Louis David, oil on canvas, 1812

The Triumphal Quadriga of Four Horses

Cavalli di San Marco.

Historians postulate that these four horses were designed as if they were pulling a chariot during the reign of Roman Emperor Septimus Severus between 193 and 211 A.D.  They appear today to remain as cast, about 97% copper with a gilding of mercury to make them shine.  They were located in Constantinople, the eastern capital of the Roman empire, until raiding crusaders in 1204 A.D. attacked and took the horses to Venice and installed them on top of the Cathedral of San Marco in its main square.

Cathedral of San Marco, Venice, Italy

This lovely installation was interrupted once again by the political leader from France, Napoleon Bonaparte, who ran that Republic from 1796 to 1815. Raised in Corsica, which became a part of the French Empire when Napoleon was a student at the École Militaire in Paris, Napoleon rose through the ranks and was noted for his unlimited military aggression.  He arrived in Venice in 1797 and decided he wanted the horses to be placed on top of the Arc de Triomphe in Paris.  His soldiers took them off the Cathedral and drove them to Paris in a horse-drawn carriage which arrived 10 months later. When Napoleon was finally defeated,  Captain William John Dumaresq, a well-trained civil engineer, was ordered to organize the return of the horses to Venice in 1815.  They were put on the Cathedral balcony until 1980 when copies were made. The originals were placed inside the church due to air and water pollution, and the copies were installed outside on the balcony.  Today the horses reside in full splendor in both locations for visitors to enjoy.

Visual Simulation of the Arc de Triomphe with horses, Paris, France

Not far from the Cathedral of San Marco is another church, the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore, accompanied by a monastery commissioned by the Monks of the Order of Saint Benedict in 982 A.D.  The buildings were designed by the architect, Andrea Palladio, with a long dining hall in which an Italian artist, Paolo Veronese, was asked to paint a large canvas measuring 22 by 32 feet along the western wall of the interior.  He painted a mural with forty figures in a colorful balanced composition depicting a scene from the Gospel of John in the Bible. Known as The Wedding Feast in Cana, it was an event where Jesus allegedly converted water into wine to accommodate the large crowd.    Veronese was paid 324 ducats and given sleeping accommodations in the monastery for 15 months.  He was painting in 1562- 1563 with the likes of Leonardo da Vinci, Raphael and Michelangelo who all used ideal proportions to reflect human figures in bright oil paints.  Details reveal that the audience in the painting included Jesus, the Virgin Mary, the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, and some archbishops from the churches nearby.   Paolo is also depicted in a white dress suit in proximity to the bride, groom, and musicians playing the violin.

Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore, Venice, Italy

The Wedding Feast at Cana, Paolo Veronese.  1562-1563. Oil on canvas

Self- Portrait of Paolo Veronese, 1558- 1563.  Oil on canvas

 Detail of Veronese with violin, The Wedding Feast of Cana

Once again Napoleon liked this work of art and had his soldiers remove it from the wall of the dining hall by rolling it up for transportation again on a horse- drawn carriage to be installed upon arrival in Paris in the Louvre Museum in September of 1798.  It stayed there until Napoleon’s defeat, when the curator of the Louvre, Vivant Denon, refused to let it return to Italy, claiming it was too fragile to travel again.   It was only removed from the Louvre wall during the occupation of Paris by the Hitler forces in 1940-1945 when it was rolled up with the Mona Lisa by DaVinci and moved around the French countryside to keep them from being seized by Nazi forces.    In 1989 restoration specialists repaired various cracks on the canvas as it was hanging in the Louvre. The curatorial staff allowed a digital copy to be made in 2007 for installation in the San Giorgio monastery where it resides today for all visitors to enjoy.

All the details of these art thefts have been carefully noted in two publications by Martin Henig and Cynthia Saltzman.  They explain how the ego of Napoleon moved artworks 524 miles in horse- drawn carriages to manifest the brilliance of his military might and conquests.

Sources Consulted:

1.Martin Henig, A History of  Roman Art, Phaidon Press, 1983.

2.Cynthia Saltzman, Plunder: Napoleon’s Theft of Veronese’s Feast, Farrar, Straus, Giroux Publishers,  2021.

Header graphic photo credit-Prethika Kumar.