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Authenticité et intégrité de l’objet

The Art Requisitions by the French under Napoléon and the Detachment of Frescoes in Rome, with an Emphasis on Raphael

Cathleen Hoeniger

Résumés


La restauration des peintures italiennes du Louvre, après les spoliations napoléoniennes, a reçu une attention considérable. Cependant, la volonté simultanée des Français de détacher les fresques à Rome a peu été étudiée, alors même que le désir de s’approprier les peintures de Raphaël les avait conduit à projeter l'extraction de ses fresques au Vatican. Le transfert des retables de Raphaël à Paris et le détachement de fresques par les disciples proches de Raphaël et de Michel-Ange à Rome sont mis en parallèle dans ce texte, et éclairés à la lumière des innovations scientifiques et technologiques. La détermination des Français, peu expérimentés, à prendre des risques substantiels contraste avec le conservatisme prudent de restaurateurs italiens. Un accent particulier sera mis sur la participation de Palmaroli dans le détachement et la restauration de la célèbre Déposition de Daniele da Volterra.

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1During the turbulent years of the French Wars on the continent beginning in 1794, and the French Occupation of large parts of the Italian peninsula under Napoléon from 1798-1814, innumerable works of art and culture were taken from captive cities to embellish the museums of Paris. Many panel and canvas paintings by Raphael were among the trophies of war. Although they were particularly anxious to acquire works by Raphael, the French were partial to several other Italian painters, especially Correggio, Titian, Veronese, the Caracci, and Domenichino.

Fig. 1 The Departure of the Third Convoy of Art Works for France, 1797

Fig. 1 The Departure of the Third Convoy of Art Works for France, 1797

Engraving, attrib. Joseph-Charles Marin and Jean Jérôme Baugean

© The Trustees of the British Museum

  • 1  Blumer, M.-L., “Catalogue des peintures transportées d'Italie en France de 1796 à 1814”, Bulletin (...)
  • 2  On the stature of Raphael in France: Rosenberg, M., Raphael and France: The Artist as Paradigm and (...)

2A number of scholars have considered how the established taste for Raphael led the French to search out paintings not only by Raphael, but also by his teachers and close followers1. Their ardent pursuit of Raphael, who had been the favourite of the old regime with their royal taste and academic values, might seem surprising in the midst of the overtly anti-aristocratic and anti-clerical politics characterizing the years following the French Revolution. Yet the status accorded to Raphael’s paintings meant they were among the greatest treasures of Italy, and their monetary value was virtually without parallel for modern works of art. The attributes of high culture had been securely attached to the art of Raphael since as early as 1510, when the artist gained what were among the most important European artistic commissions of the century, from Pope Julius II and his circle in Rome. Following his premature death in 1520, Raphael’s reputation arguably rose still higher, when his painting style became established as the best among the moderns in the academies of art and the emerging critical literature2. His art was set up on a pinnacle to be copied and emulated because of the characteristics identified in his “maniera”: the style of his most lauded paintings in Rome was described as classically-inspired in the most knowledgeable sense, and as a harmonious synthesis of a variety of excellent models. Because Raphael had achieved a fame of cult proportions, his works were not primarily exemplars of the taste of the privileged few, but rather they were marvels beyond compare. The highly-educated artists and scientists, who were appointed by the French government to facilitate the requisitions of art in Italy, naturally were drawn to select the most famous treasures first.

  • 3  Émile-Mâle, G., “Appendix”, to Deoclecio Redig de Campos, “La Madonna di Foligno di Raffaello: Not (...)
  • 4  Émile-Mâle, G., “Jean-Baptiste Pierre Lebrun (1748-1813): Son rôle dans l’histoire de la restaurat (...)
  • 5  “Rapport a l’Institut National sur la restauration du Tableau de Raphael connu sous le nom de La V (...)

3The fate of the sixteen paintings by Raphael that were taken to Paris is a subject that has been examined to a considerable extent in the literature. Of particular importance for this essay is the scientific and documentary research published by Gilberte Émile-Mâle on Raphael’s Roman altarpieces, the Madonna di Foligno and the Transfiguration3. Detailed examinations of the condition of these very large paintings were performed on-site in Italy by the French commissioners, and again when the paintings were unpacked at the Louvre under the supervision of the curator, Jean-Baptiste-Pierre Lebrun4. The evidence of how experts deliberated at length over restoration approaches demonstrates how much care was taken in Paris, and how hesitant many were to embark upon the difficult and potentially dangerous method of transferring the paint layers to new supports. As is well known, the paint layers of the Madonna di Foligno were transferred from the original wood to a new canvas support, prepared with a new ground layer in 1800-015. However, the Transfiguration, which was painted on cherry wood, remained on its original panel.

Fig. 2 Raphael, Madonna di Foligno, 1511, Pinacoteca, Vatican

Fig. 2 Raphael, Madonna di Foligno, 1511, Pinacoteca, Vatican

Engraving from “Galerie du Musée Napoléon” c. 1804-15

© The Trustees of the British Museum

Fig. 3 Raphael, Transfiguration, 1518-20, Pinacoteca, Vatican

Fig. 3 Raphael, Transfiguration, 1518-20, Pinacoteca, Vatican

Photo. Cathleen Hoeniger

  • 6  Steinmann, E., “Die Plünderung Roms durch Bonaparte”, Internationale Monatsschrift für Wissenschaf (...)

4Although the practice of transfer at the Louvre in the years before and after the French Revolution has attracted considerable interest among conservators and art historians, the concurrent enthusiasm for the detachment of wall paintings has received little attention. Indeed, it is rare to find mention in the scholarly literature that the French, at the same time as transfers were being carried out in Paris, became avidly interested in the detachment of murals in Italy. In the process of accumulating treasures from the Italian peninsula, the deputies working for Napoléon hoped to detach and render portable many wall paintings. In fact, the goal was expressed of removing whole walls with frescoes by Raphael in the Vatican Palace!6

Fig. 4 Raphael, School of Athens, c. 1510, Stanza della Seganatura, Vatican Palace, Rome

Fig. 4 Raphael, School of Athens, c. 1510, Stanza della Seganatura, Vatican Palace, Rome

Photo. Cathleen Hoeniger

  • 7  I have been inspired by: Bergeon, S., “Contribution à l’histoire de la restauration des peintures (...)

5Few scholars have drawn comparisons between the two structural procedures of transfer and detachment, even though active experimentation with both techniques took place in roughly the same decades of the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries7. It will be timely, therefore, to investigate some of the parallels between these two methods of painting restoration. By placing a focus on the French in Paris and Rome during the Napoleonic Era, quite specific connections can be discerned, and a circle can be drawn to encompass the individuals involved – Napoléon’s deputies, the curators and commissioners, and the skilful restorers. Furthermore, it is essential to set the French fascination with transfer and detachment against the background of intellectual and industrial developments in France. In this essay, therefore, the interest in new restoration techniques will be directly associated with the scientific and technological spirit of the era, which was the age of French Enlightenment thinkers in the arts and sciences, and a period of reform within the mechanical arts or trades as the movement towards industrialization was beginning. For the French in Italy, it was a time of war and the resulting chaos, when many of the normal rules of Western civilization were set aside to facilitate the rapid accumulation of wealth and power, and to enable the experience of triumph for France.

6The experimentation in Paris with new restoration techniques including the transfer procedure took place in an atmosphere of remarkable scientific activity. France was the Western leader in science during the period 1750-1850, when several paintings by Raphael were transferred from panel to canvas. Moreover, the interest in the transfer technique was closely connected to a more widespread preoccupation with the mechanical arts, initially stimulated by the Enlightenment philosophers and scientists of Diderot’s circle, as well as by the beginnings of industrialization. In a parallel way in Rome, techniques for detaching frescoes were refined by architects and engineers with an aptitude for the mechanical arts.

  • 8  Schaible, V., “Die Gemäldeübertragung: Studien zur Geschichte einer ‘klassischen Restauriermethode (...)

7The influence of the rise of the mechanical arts in France on the method of transfer can be seen as early as Robert Picault’s infamous transfer of Raphael’s St. Michael Vanquishing Satan in 1751, which followed closely upon his supposedly successful transfer of Andrea del Sarto’s Charity. At this time, the King’s administration at the Bâtiments was striving to regulate the practice of painting restoration. Under the influence of a system of the division-of-labour traditionally practiced in Italy, structural and pictorial treatments were being assigned to specialists in these spheres. The move to regulate painting restoration took place during the early stages of industrialization, when similar exercises of reorganizing work tasks were being undertaken on a larger scale in budding industries. When the demand for the products resulting from certain of the craft industries expanded, to increase the volume of output the sequence of tasks performed to achieve production was systematized. Developments in the sciences also had a direct influence on painting restoration, as can be seen in the practice of the transfer technique. In fact, writers on the history of restoration have wanted to draw a direct link between the rise of an empirical approach in both chemistry and physics in about 1800 and the advent of “modern” conservation8.

Fig. 5 Raphael, St. Michael Vanquishing Satan, 1518, Louvre, Paris

Fig. 5 Raphael, St. Michael Vanquishing Satan, 1518, Louvre, Paris

Engraving from “Galerie du Musée Napoléon” c. 1804-15

© The Trustees of the British Museum

8Experts summoned by the French king to assess the St. Michael during the 1740s had recognized that the damage to the paint surface stemmed primarily from the wood panel, which was heavily channelled with worm holes, resulting in a destabilized ground. The degraded panel would have caused lesions to form in the paint layers, which would have been visible on close inspection. Instead of considering methods of strengthening the panel, the king’s advisors recommended a total removal of the original support using the technique of transfer. Confident that a new foundation would solve the problem of flaking paint, they also advocated the replacement of the old gesso ground with a new, soft and even preparation.

  • 9  Picault is described as the inventor of the technique in : Anon., Beaux Arts: Tableaux du Roi, pl (...)
  • 10  Marot, P.,  [“Recherches sur les origines de la transposition de la peinture en France”, Les Annal (...)

9Yet, part of the credit for such an adventurous and unwise decision must go to the restorer, Robert Picault, who promised miracles. As is well known, this French “chemist” claimed to have invented a new method of transferring paintings from panel to canvas, though he actually seems to have learned the technique from the Italians, who had developed the method in the years 1710-30 in Naples and Rome9. Transfers had been performed in Brussels and Paris in the 1740s and 1750s, by an Italian experimenter, Cavalier Francesco Maria Riario, and by the Belgian restorer, Frédéric Dumesnil10.

10 It is readily understandable that in this period of entrepreneurship, new methods of art preservation caught the attention of the French king and his public because interesting scientific and technological procedures were involved. Indeed, Picault’s secret way of “saving” fragile paintings appeared to be akin to chemistry because he used a chemical “fluid,” heated over fire to form a steam, to release the paint layers from the wood. The king’s experts left the most potently symbolic of all royal pictures, Raphael’s St. Michael, unsupervised in Picault’s care in 1750, in part because there were few alternatives. They were deeply afraid of losing the painting altogether, since the flaking was increasing, and it was not known, as yet, how to fumigate or otherwise consolidate the panel. The king’s advisors were also inclined to trust Picault because his work had been highly praised by prominent intellectuals close to Diderot.

  • 11  Wilson, A. M., Diderot: The Testing Years, 1713-1759, New York, Oxford University Press, 1957, p. (...)

11One of the signets of this age of science and technology was Diderot’s massive Encyclopédie, or Dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts, et des metiers, which appeared first in 1751 with ten volumes of text and two of plates, but was expanded by 1766 to encompass seventeen volumes of articles and eleven of impressive illustrations. It was Diderot’s conviction that a dictionary should not only be a reference tool, but should have “the character of changing the general way of thinking”11. One of his principle aims was to alter the hierarchical relationship between the liberal and the mechanical arts by celebrating the craft industries. In order to establish that the workshop practices of the crafts deserved respect, Diderot documented their methods in a rigorous way. In step with the process of industrialization taking root, he stressed that workshop secrets be brought out into the open to be tested, improved upon, and then codified to yield cooperative uniformity and progress within the trades.

  • 12  Father Berthier, Mémoires de Trévoux, or Mémoires pour l’Histoire des Sciences & des beaux Arts, T (...)
  • 13  Émile-Mâle, G., “La première transposition au Louvre en 1750: La Charité d’Andrea del Sarto”, Revu (...)

12The optimistic faith at this time in the transfer specialist, Picault, can be directly connected to Diderot and the Encyclopédie through an intermediary link with Jesuit intellectuals.  Specifically, the Jesuit intellectual, Father Berthier, at the same time as he was writing a systematic evaluation of Diderot’s Encyclopédie in his journal, the Mémoires de Trévoux, in the early months of 1751, presented a glowing review of Picault’s transfer of Andrea del Sarto’s Charity. Berthier attempted to explain Picault’s method, though he did not know what the secret chemical ingredients were, and praised Picault’s “stroke of genius that astounds and demands admiration”12. Yet, as is well know, Picault’s use of a nitric acid steam to weaken the adhesion of the gesso ground and loosen the bond between the panel and the paint layers, caused damage to acid-sensitive pigments. Also, his new ground, which included a heated, coniferous resin, darkened the tonality of the painting within a few years13.

13Fifteen years after Picault’s transfer of the St. Michael, the paint layers were flaking once more, and either a transfer or a relining was performed by the more cautious Jean-Louis Hacquin in 1776. Three decades later in 1797, Hacquin’s work came under the scrutiny of Jean-Baptiste-Pierre Lebrun, the curator in charge of restoration at the Louvre. Lebrun argued that the return of flaking on the St. Michael was caused by the glue in Hacquin’s ground, which had undermined the chemical stability of the paint layers. He also criticized Hacquin for using brown resins in the ground that caused tonal distortions. In a startlingly modern way, Lebrun used scientific knowledge to assess condition, and expressed chagrin over the loss of the enamel appearance of the original surface, caused when pressure was applied to fix the new canvas to the back of the paint layers. Clearly, by 1800 some French experts were showing more sensitivity to the physical and aesthetic features of the painting as a whole.

14Ironically, in the very same years, Napoléon’s deputies were removing hundreds of paintings from their sites on the Italian peninsula, even if this involved damaging invaluable panels, such as Titian’s Martyrdom of St. Peter the Dominican in Venice, which apparently was taken away in pieces. Similarly, the French strove to have mural paintings detached to render them portable.

Fig. 6 Titian, Martyrdom of St. Peter the Dominican, 1528-30

Fig. 6 Titian, Martyrdom of St. Peter the Dominican, 1528-30

Originally in SS. Giovanni e Paolo, Venice. Transfered from panel to canvas in Paris, 1800 ; destroyed by fire in Venice, 1867. Engraving from “Galerie du Musée Napoléon” c. 1804-15

© The Trustees of the British Museum

15At first glance it may seem shocking that the French were undeterred by the prospect of detachment, imagining frescoes could be taken down without too much more trouble than dismounting a heavy wooden altarpiece. Yet, to understand the French impulse to detach frescoes, involves the recognition that detachment had been associated with the technique of transfer by Frenchmen for at least half a century. When the first momentous transfers were being carried out on the King of France’s pictures by Picault, sources already demonstrate a relationship between these two structural treatments. Some of the early practitioners experimented with both techniques, and several intelligent commentators discussed the procedures in the same breath.

  • 14 Conti, A., Storia del restauro e della conservazione delle opera d’arte, Milan, Electa, 1973; revis (...)
  • 15  Hall, M. B., “The ‘Tramezzo’ in S. Croce, Florence and Domenico Veneziano’s Fresco”, The Burlingto (...)

16The removal of wall paintings, actually, seems to have pre-dated the transfer of easel paintings, since methods for detaching wall paintings were being tested in Rome during the Renaissance, when the ancient method of “stacco a massello,” mentioned by Pliny and Vitruvius, was revived14. Architects and engineers – in other words, specialists from the mechanical arts – were hired to cut out part of the wall to release the painting. Giorgio Vasari recorded how this method was used in 1564 on the frescoes of the Church Fathers by Botticelli and Ghirlandaio in Ognissanti, Florence, and also to preserve Domenico Veneziano’s St. John the Baptist and St. Francis during renovations to the choir of Sta. Croce, Florence, in 156615.

  • 16  Melozzo da Forli : L’umana bellezza tra Piero della Francesca e Raffaello, eds. D. Benati, M. Nata (...)

17In the early years of the eighteenth century, Padre Sebastiano Resta, the remarkable collector of drawings, was involved as a consultant in a momentous structural manoeuvre in Rome. The “stacco a massello” method was used to detach Melozzo da Forli’s apse decoration in the Basilica dei Santi Apostoli. Given the great weight involved, only portions of the composition could be removed, and it is estimated that only one-twelfth of Melozzo’s apse was salvaged.  As the fragments of music-making angels and apostles now on display at the Vatican reveal, the detachment mutilated the original. Indeed, the “stacco a massello” method soon fell out of favour since large works had to be fragmented16.

Fig. 7 Melozzo da Forli, Head of an Apostle, 1481-83

Fig. 7 Melozzo da Forli, Head of an Apostle, 1481-83

Detached fresco, Pinacoteca, Vatican

Photo. Cathleen Hoeniger

  • 17  Baruffaldi, G., Vite de’ Pittori e Scultori Ferraresi, 2 vols., Ferrara, Domenico Taddei, 1844-46, (...)
  • 18  Baruffaldi, G., Vita di Antonio Contri, Ferrarese Pittore e Rilevatore de Pitture dai Muri, Venice (...)

18Beginning in the 1720s in Naples, a number of entrepreneurs from the trades and the sciences had begun to experiment with two methods that could be used to extract larger wall paintings. Both involved separating the mural from most, if not all, of its backing, which could never have been easy or straight-forward, and always resulted in extensive damage. The methods were basically those still in use today: stacco, in which the painting and the lime plaster immediately underneath were removed together; and strappo, in which only the paint layer was detached. Surviving records credit Isidoro Frezza of Naples with the invention of the stacco method in the years 1725-8. Frezza, who was described in an inscription as one who “takes pictures off the wall,” detached a miraculous image of the Virgin without cutting out the wall17. One of the first accounts of a strappo detachment involved an a secco mural by Caracciolo (1570-1637), which was removed in 1720 by Alessandro Majello from a lunette in San Giuseppe in Naples and reattached to wood panel. According to the historian Girolamo Baruffaldi, the process involved “removing only the colour [or paint layer] of the wall paintings”18. For the strappo technique, the fresco first was faced with a cloth applied with water-soluble glue, and sometimes the shrinkage of the facing as it dried was sufficient to separate the pigmented layer from the plaster.

  • 19  Blumer, M.-B., “La Commission pour la Recherche des Objets de Science et Arts en Italie (1796-1797 (...)
  • 20  Titi, F., Descrizione delle pitture, sculture e architetture esposte al pubblico in Roma, Rome, Ma (...)

19During the Napoleonic years in Italy, the leading French scientists and artists chosen to give advice on the requisitions would have been aware of some of the developments in transfer and detachment19. Many had heard about the early detachments, which had attracted large audiences in a manner akin to other events of science and engineering, and were described by journalists. Filippo Titi had recorded the experience of watching the respected mechanic, Niccolò Zabaglia, “miraculously” and with “amazing skill,” cut out Domenichino’s oil-mural of the Martyrdom of St. Sebastian from the wall of a chapel in the Vatican Basilica and move the painting to Sta. Maria degli Angeli alle Terme20.

Fig. 8 Domenichino, Martyrdom of St. Sebastian

Fig. 8 Domenichino, Martyrdom of St. Sebastian

 Oil mural from St. Peter’s Basilica, rehoused in Sta. Maria degli Angeli, to the right of the high altar

Photo. Cathleen Hoeniger

  • 21  The passage from De Lalande is reprinted in Annecdotes des Beaux-Arts, 1776, v. 1, p. 142-3.
  • 22  Bodart, D., “Domenico Michelini, restaurateur de tableaux à Rome au XVIIIe siècle”, Revue des Arch (...)
  • 23  De Brosses, C., Lettres Familières, Écrites d’Italie en 1739 et 1740, Cinquième édition authentiqu (...)

20The commissioners also would have read portions of Joseph-Jérome De Lalande’s Voyage d’un Français en Italie (8 volumes in 12, Paris, 1769), in which Lalande described an early transfer, from canvas to a new canvas, carried out in Rome in 1729 on a Portrait of a Child by Titian21. The transfer expert seems to have been Domenico Michelini22. Moreover, the knowledge that panel-paintings could be transferred to new supports to prolong their life had led the well-known French politician and polymath, Charles De Brosses, to contemplate the detachment of Raphael’s frescoes, though for altruistic reasons not out of acquisitiveness. In one of his letters written from Italy in 1739-40, he remarked that if a method similar to transfer might be found for frescoes it would be the answer to the problem of preserving the works by Raphael and Giulio Romano at the Vatican and the Villa Farnesina, which were deteriorating in their humid environments23.

21In retrospect, it is not difficult to grasp how the French during this age of scientific advancement and revolutionary politics would have become fascinated by these radical structural procedures and grouped them closely together. The French were keen for experts in the sciences and the mechanical arts to contribute to advances in art preservation. Attuned to the relationship between the sciences and restoration, it can be taken for granted that the French in Italy would have been drawn to compare familiar techniques of transfer with what were for them more novel experiments in detachment.

22Moreover, the perceptive commissioners, four of whom were active, research scientists, would have become aware that very similar condition problems often motivated the attraction to these structural treatments. For example, frequently the critical problem was flaking paint caused by an undermined support, either insect infestations to the wood panel, or destabilized intonaco plaster in the case of a fresco, typically caused by water damage. On the other hand, several stark differences in the way the practices were carried out may also have become apparent. In Paris, the transfer experts were much less knowledgeable on the whole than the Italian practitioners of detachment, and they definitely did not have substantial experience with the transfer of panels the size of Raphael’s altarpieces. However, the atmosphere there encouraged experimentation with new procedures and a substantial amount of risk seems to have been allowed, even when the pictures were by Raphael and Andrea del Sarto.

23The French commissioners would have discovered when they reached Rome that experiments similar to those performed by structural experts in Paris on panels, were being tried by mural painting restorers. The practitioners involved in the development of detachment methods, as might have been predicted, were inhibited by problems similar to those encountered in transfers. The original support had to be replaced by a new one that would prove to be adequate over the long term. Lacking modern rigid support materials, however, early practitioners had to mount wall paintings on canvas or other more solid backings which were ill-suited and caused severe surface distortions. The structural transformation gave rise to a sequence of physical and aesthetic changes. As criticism of the damaging effects of incautious strappo detachments mounted, by the early nineteenth century restorers retreated to the somewhat safer stacco technique. Significantly, Pietro Palmaroli, who worked during the French Occupation of Rome, helped to improve the stacco technique out of concern for the surface qualities of paintings.

  • 24  Bellori, G. P., “Della riparazione della galleria del Carracci nel Palazzo Farnese, e della loggia (...)

24As the French in Italy became aware of these practices, they began to contemplate the removal of some of Raphael’s frescoes, conveniently overlooking the well-known risks. On this note, it is important to recognize that, whereas on French soil art experts had been willing to proceed where the risks were high because of the heady spirit of experimentation, Italians often were more cautious. For example, a comparison can be drawn with the restoration of the Loggia of Psyche in Rome about fifty years earlier than Picault’s transfer of the St. Michael, to illustrate how the Italians were reluctant to detach paintings of great artistic merit unless the building was being destroyed. By the late seventeenth century, the loggia belonging to the Villa Farnesina was in a dangerous state, with loose areas of intonaco in the frescoed vault and the loss of paint imminent. The decorative loggia had been designed by Raphael with scenes from the pagan story of Cupid and Psyche and painted in fresco by his workshop in 1517-18 for Agostino Chigi. In 1693, the prominent painter and academician Carlo Maratta was brought in urgently to find a solution. Detachment would have been an option considered, but quickly rejected, since Maratta had to find a way to preserve the frescoes in situ for the continuing pleasure of the owners. To stabilize the vault, therefore, he drew on a technical method previously employed in another one of the mechanical arts, printing: T- and L-shaped nails were inserted to secure the plaster24. In other words, in Italy detachment was an approach rarely considered by established restorers, and typically only undertaken when a painting had to be removed because a building was going to be demolished or was threatening to collapse.

Fig. 9 Raphael and Workshop, Loggia of Psyche

Fig. 9 Raphael and Workshop, Loggia of Psyche

 (Detail), 1517-18, Villa Farnesina, Rome

Photo. Cathleen Hoeniger

  • 25  Perusini, G., “Pietro Palmaroli e il restauro a Roma e Dresda nei primi decenni dell’Ottocento”, i (...)
  • 26  Davidson, B., “Daniele da Volterra and the Orsini Chapel -- II”, The Burlington Magazine, 775, 196 (...)

25In a characteristically Italian fashion, the restorer Pietro Palmaroli, active in Rome during the French years, was enormously experienced and also cautious for his day25. He had gradually risen from his beginnings as an artisan’s assistant to become the favourite restorer to the nobility and the papal circle, who consulted Palmaroli even on the attribution of paintings. It was awkward when he was asked by the committee in charge to attend to a messy situation initiated by the French involving Daniele da Volterra’s Deposition. The highly-praised Deposition had been painted in fresco by Daniele da Volterra in about 1545 in the Orsini Chapel of Trinità dei Monti, the church at the top of the Spanish Steps26.

Fig. 10 View of interior of Trinità dei Monti, Rome

Fig. 10 View of interior of Trinità dei Monti, Rome

Photo. Cathleen Hoeniger

Fig. 11 Daniele da Volterra, Deposition, c. 1545

Fig. 11 Daniele da Volterra, Deposition, c. 1545

After conservation of 2004, Trinità dei Monti, Rome

Photo. Cathleen Hoeniger

  • 27  Steinmann, E., 1917, p. 29, note 55.

26 The church had been erected under the patronage of Charles VII of France in the late fifteenth century, and remained under French patronage throughout the centuries, alongside the other French church in Rome, San Luigi dei Francesi. After the French troops entered Rome in 1798, plans were quickly set in motion to detach the coveted fresco, as the German writer Fernow reported from Rome on October 1, and the extraction was begun in January 179927. The French, under the strong influence of Poussin’s opinions, considered the fresco one of the three greatest paintings in Rome, together with Raphael’s Transfiguration and Domenichino’s Last Communion of St. Jerome, both of which had already been confiscated.

Fig. 12 Domenichino, Last Communion of St. Jerome, 1614, Pinacoteca, Vatican

Fig. 12 Domenichino, Last Communion of St. Jerome, 1614, Pinacoteca, Vatican

Photo. Cathleen Hoeniger

  • 28  Some of the documentation from the Archives of the French School in Rome is transcribed in Bergeon (...)

27 However, as an anonymous correspondent from Rome in 1800 related, the detachment using “stacco a massello” undermined the structure of the chapel completely because of the way the wall was cut to release the fresco, and the work had to be stopped when the ceiling began to cave in, allowing water to leak into the chapel and putting the fresco at high risk28.

  • 29  Steinmann, E., 1917, p. 36

28At this juncture in history, the French interest in the detachment of wall paintings such as the Deposition, stemmed at the most reductive level from acquisitiveness and greed. Once rendered portable, the paintings could be shipped to Paris. Certainly in retrospect, the detachment of famous frescoes becomes just part of the larger process of obtaining treasures, when set alongside other excessively arrogant requests. By the time the French entered and then occupied Rome, a great number of cultural objects already had been taken as war booty. Nevertheless, as letters and journals by contemporaries reveal, their acquisitiveness was not yet nearly satisfied. To get a sense of the nature of the pillaging, one only has to recall that Napoléon’s military deputy in Rome, General Pommereul, wanted to find a way to remove Trajan’s Column. Indeed, Pommereul’s assistant Daunon wrote in this manner to Paris on 15 April 1798: “We are sending an obelisk...”, by which was meant Trajan’s column29. Two principal obstacles shattered this irrational desire: the unbelievable costs and the bureaucratic roadblocks that the Roman consuls put in place to hold up the process.

Fig. 13 Trajan’s Column, 113 AD, Forum of Trajan, Rome

Fig. 13 Trajan’s Column, 113 AD, Forum of Trajan, Rome

Photo. Cathleen Hoeniger

29Seen in relation to the dispersal of thousands of works of art from Italy - including panel paintings, tapestries, gold reliquaries, and painted wooden sculptures of cult saints -- mural paintings represented a particularly significant case. Certainly, we should not downplay that many of the altarpieces shipped to Paris underwent enormous changes in function and viewing when they were taken out of chapel settings and placed, instead, in art galleries. Those subjected to the transfer procedure were altered structurally in a way that changed their surface appearance forever. However, the transformations resulting from detachment, arguably, were greater still. Paintings executed directly on wall surfaces, from which they never were intended to be severed, were removed from the original cycle in a way that violated the integrity of the entire composition. They were mounted onto moveable supports and exhibited in completely different situations. Often only parts of the composition could be detached, which resulted in the creation of a set of fragments.

30The art world in Rome felt the threat of the French in full force, and locals would have dreaded, in particular, their rash plans to remove some of the most revered paintings of all from among the frescoes of the Renaissance and Baroque eras. Enormous hubris and a narrowly political conception of art occasioned the potentially devastating but fortunately impractical scheme of General Pommereul, who wanted to have entire walls of Raphael’s Stanze in the Vatican detached.

  • 30  Giacomini, F., "Per reale vantaggio delle arti e della storia”: Vincenzo Camuccini e il restauro d (...)

31When the French began to extract frescoes from the church of Trinità dei Monti, beginning with the Deposition from the Orsini Chapel, the atmosphere must have been extremely tense. Yet, in this situation, it was not only the Roman citizens who were on edge, but also by 1803 the French themselves were very worried about the precarious condition of Daniele da Volterra’s fresco. In 1806, a committee was struck at the initiative of Joseph Benoît Suvée, Director of the French School in Rome, to discuss rescue measures. The members included: the Inspector of Public Pictures, Vincenzo Camuccini, who was an artist, collector and restorer, and who was in charge of the committee; the commissioner under Napoléon, Jean-Baptiste Wicar, who was a respected portrait painter and a knowledgeable collector of Italian drawings; and the restorer Palmaroli30. As a result of detailed deliberations on site, Camuccini asked Palmaroli to carrying out a stacco detachment, specifying in his report that the fresco was being detached only in order to save it from the water leakage and the structural instability of the chapel. Of course, once detached, another threat arose: the painting potentially would be available for confiscation by the French.

  • 31  Guattani, G. A., Memorie enciclopediche sulle antichità e belle arti di Roma, Rome, 1805-1816, v. (...)
  • 32  Bergeon, S., 1975, p. 66, and Annex XII.

32In a letter of 10 September 1810 to Professor Guattani of the Academia di San Luca, Palmaroli explained the detachment method he had used, and described how he had reduced the intonaco plaster that remained attached to the back before transferring the painting to a fabric support. Palmaroli also described his repainting using an encaustic medium and mastic31. Although Palmaroli was admired in his day for the skilful manner in which he had detached the Deposition under precarious circumstances, Inspector Camuccini was not satisfied with the retouching. Camuccini had the painting taken to his studio, where he removed Palmaroli’s pictorial restoration and contributed his own repainting. Seven years later, Camuccini was still disturbed by the surface, and asked that he be allowed, once again, to rework the fresco. However, this time his request was refused by the French32.

  • 33 Blumer, M.-L., “La mission de Denon en Italie (1811)”, Revue des études napoléoniennes, 38, 1934, p (...)
  • 34  Letters written by Dominique-Vivant Denon: 29 May 1809; 16 September 1809; 14 March 1810; 13 Febru (...)

33Behind the scenes, in their restoration studios, in turn Palmaroli and Camuccini carried out painstaking treatments on Daniele da Volterra’s Deposition. However, in the forefront on the political stage, the Director of the Louvre, Domenique-Vivant Denon, all the while was pushing to obtain the detached mural for Paris. Denon took frequent trips to Italy in search of paintings that would enhance the comprehensiveness of the collection at the Louvre. Denon is recorded as trying to have several large and extremely heavy detached frescoes shipped to Paris, and attempting to get permission to detach others33. Indeed, surviving correspondence reveals how Denon struggled for years to obtain the Deposition34. On 14 March 1810, Denon wrote to the Director of the French School, asking him to intercede to speed up Palmaroli’s work so the painting would be in Paris in time for an exhibition opening. Finally, Denon wrote with resignation, on 2 April 1812, to acknowledge his understanding that the fresco would not be sent to Paris. Nevertheless, as late as 1828 the French Ambassador in Rome, Chateaubriand, was still trying to obtain the fresco. Daniele’s Deposition, however, was saved from the long journey and ultimately returned to the church, though not to its original chapel.

Fig. 14 Daniele da Volterra, Deposition, location since 1860, Aldobrandini Bonfil Chapel, Trinità dei Monti, Rome

Fig. 14 Daniele da Volterra, Deposition, location since 1860, Aldobrandini Bonfil Chapel, Trinità dei Monti, Rome

Photo. Cathleen Hoeniger

  • 35  De Stendhal, M., Promenades dans Rome, 2 vols., Bruxelles, Louis Hauman, 1830, v. 1, p. 263 (27 Ma (...)

34Needless to say, the detachment of Daniele da Volterra’s Deposition in the church chapel, and the restoration over the course of several years in Palmaroli’s studio, would have attracted an audience. Stendhal described his visit to Palmaroli’s studio in 1811, and recorded his understanding that Palmaroli had deliberately prolonged the restoration to save the fresco from the French, who he felt had already taken too much “from our poor Rome”35. Fortunately, by this time Palmaroli was not alone in the attempt to save frescoes. As early as June 1811, the Commission on Monuments began to work actively to restrict detachments in reaction against the French.

35Little has been written about a second wall painting that was detached from Trinità dei Monti during the years of the French Republic, in this instance from the Massimi Chapel. Perino del Vaga, who initially had acquired excellent fresco-painting skills as a member of Raphael’s workshop during the decoration of the Vatican Logge in 1517-19, was later commissioned to fresco the Massimi Chapel with six scenes from the Life of Christ, including the miracle of the Raising of Lazarus, in the years 1538-39. In the same years when Palmaroli was working to salvage the Deposition in the French church, he seems to have been called upon to detach the Raising of Lazarus, which was remounted onto a canvas backing. Another specialist in detachment, Mme. Barret, a French widow actively restoring frescoes in Florence, also may have participated, since she is documented as performing extractions at Trinità dei Monti at the request of Vivant Denon.

Fig. 15 Perino del Vaga, Raising of Lazarus, 1538-39, detached fresco, Victoria and Albert Museum, London

Fig. 15 Perino del Vaga, Raising of Lazarus, 1538-39, detached fresco, Victoria and Albert Museum, London

Photo. Cathleen Hoeniger

  • 36  Hirschland Ramage, N., “The Pacetti Papers and the Restoration of Ancient Sculpture in the 18th Ce (...)

36Whereas Daniele da Volterra’s Deposition from the Orsini Chapel ultimately was returned to the French church, Perino del Vaga’s detached fresco came to be owned by Napoléon’s brother, Lucien Bonaparte. Bonaparte must have acquired the fresco when he was in Italy in the years 1804-10, residing at his villa in Tusculum, just outside Rome. Most likely the fresco was procured with the help of Vincenzo Pacetti, the important restorer of ancient sculpture, who assisted Bonaparte to obtain many ancient and modern works of art for his villa36. It is also possible that Palmaroli was directly involved since he worked on occasion for Lucien Bonaparte.

  • 37  Catalogue of the Magnificent Gallery of Paintings, The Property of Lucien Bonaparte, Prince of Can (...)
  • 38  Gere, J. A., “Two Late Fresco Cycles by Perino del Vaga: The Massimi Chapel and the Sala Paolina”, (...)

37When Napoléon fell from power in 1814, his brother was captured and taken to England together with his most valuable possessions. Lucien Bonaparte’s collection was auctioned in London, including the fresco by Perino del Vaga, which was sold on 14 May 181637. In England, the fresco passed through the hands of the banker Jeremiah Harman, and the affluent collectors, John Dunn Gardner and J. F. Austen. Following the value of the fresco in a sequence of auctions, Perino’s Raising of Lazarus first rose in value from 15 guineas in 1816, as part of the sale of the estate of Lucien Bonaparte, to 103 guineas in 1844, but then fell in value to 90 guineas in 1854 (and did not sell), and fell further to sell for 65 guineas in 1876. Since the auction catalogue entries clearly indicate that the original location of the fresco and its importance had not been forgotten, presumably the value dropped because the condition had deteriorated significantly. The final private owner, J. F. Austen, donated the fresco to the South Kensington Museum in 1876. However, it was not until 1960 that the curator, John Gere, recognized the painting as the only remaining fresco from the Massimi Chapel, after it had been discovered in a storeroom of the Victoria and Albert Museum38.  

  • 39  Hand written conservation report of 1959, by Mr. H. H. Rogers, in the conservation dossier, Victor (...)

38The fate of Perino’s Raising of Lazarus proved more unfortunate in the long run than that of Daniele da Volterra’s Deposition, even though the situation for the Deposition was more critical at first because of the disastrous initial attempt at detachment. That Perino’s Raising of Lazarus is the only fresco remaining from the entire decoration of the Massimi Chapel provides a very stark example of how destructive the process of detachment could be, particularly when used amidst circumstances of war, such as those in Rome during the Occupation, when the cultural identity of a subject state was aggressively dismantled. The fresco itself was severely damaged, either during the detachment, or as a result of the procedure of remounting the wall-painting onto a canvas backing, which at some date was stretched over a panel support. Indeed, conservation records document the presence of “numerous small areas of pigment loss” and some “disturbing areas of damage” due to the “extreme flaking and cleavage of the plaster surface”39. During the chequered history of the fresco, the addition of heavy varnish films also contributed to the flaking. The loss of paint can be seen most obviously in the heads of some of the figures behind Lazarus.

39The dramatic fate of the Raising of Lazarus, the only painting remaining from the chapel frescoed by Perino del Vaga, is also made explicit by the present placement of the painting. In contrast to Daniele’s Deposition, which eventually was returned to the church from which it was taken, the Raising ofLazarus was shipped out of Italy after the fall of Napoléon, and subsequently gained the status of a museum object, hanging as it does today in the new Medieval and Renaissance galleries at the Victoria and Albert Museum.

40These examples of two detached wall paintings, surviving from campaigns of extraction in Trinità dei Monti, indicate the lengths to which the French were prepared to go to secure paintings even when they were frescoes. Although we cannot judge the French under Napoléon by the standards of today, we may assume their plans to perform fresco detachments in some of the most splendidly decorated chapels and private apartments in Rome aroused great controversy. Whereas those in charge would have argued that the frescoes were rapidly deteriorating in humid environments and had already been neglected for centuries by their Italian owners, others certainly would have interpreted the detachments as exploitative. Similarly, when visitors saw altarpieces by Raphael hanging in the Musée Napoleon, some would have had cause to wonder whether the benefits of the new Parisian environment – which offered the latest in museum standards for storage, restoration, and display – outweighed the loss of original context. Raphael’s altarpieces had been dislodged from Catholic chapels, where they had functioned primarily as vehicles for devotion. Now they were to be admired within a secular context, designed to preserve cultural artefacts and to exhibit the variety and development within the history of European art.

  • 40 Quatremère de Quincy, “Lettres sur le projet d’enlever les monuments de l’Italie”, [originally publ (...)

41Even though many members of the French public were captivated by the arrival of booty from countries newly under French domination, a few prominent voices rallied against the cultural appropriation. In the 1820s, Quatremère de Quincy, Secretary of the Bureau of Fine Arts in Paris, openly derided the pillaging and criticized the separation of paintings from their original settings. Quatremère was a disciple of J. J. Winckelmann and an avid antiquarian. Like Winckelmann, he believed in the ethos of the Grand Tour, and strongly felt that Italian art must be studied in Italy in order to be fully appreciated. In a sequence of published letters, Quatremère argued that paintings, such as the altarpieces and frescoes in the church chapels of Rome, could only be properly understood in the context for which they were originally created, surrounded by the other works intended for the same location, and with which they were designed to harmonize40.

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Notes

1  Blumer, M.-L., “Catalogue des peintures transportées d'Italie en France de 1796 à 1814”, Bulletin de la Société de l’Histoire de l’Art Français, 2 fasc., 1936, p. 244-348; Gould, C., Trophy of Conquest: The Musée Napoléon and the Creation of the Louvre, London, Faber and Faber, 1965, p. 49 ff.; Rosenberg, M., “Raphael’s Transfiguration and Napoleon’s Cultural Politics”, Eighteenth-Century Studies, 19/2, Winter 1985-86, p. 180-205; Galassi, C., “Le requisizioni napoleoniche e il mito di Raffaello. Note sul prelievo dello Sposalizio della Vergine di Città di Castello”, in Gli esordi di Raffaello tra Urbino, Città di Castello e Perugia, eds. T. Henry and F. F. Mancini, Città di Castello, Edimond srl, 2006, p. 103-118.

2  On the stature of Raphael in France: Rosenberg, M., Raphael and France: The Artist as Paradigm and Symbol, University Park, Penn., The Pennsylvania State University Press, 1995.

3  Émile-Mâle, G., “Appendix”, to Deoclecio Redig de Campos, “La Madonna di Foligno di Raffaello: Note sulla sua storia e i suoi restauri”, Miscellanea Bibliothecae Hertzianae: zu Ehren von Leo Bruhns, Franz Graf, Wolff Metternich, Ludwig Schudt, Römische Forschungen der Bibliotheca Hertziana, Bd. 16, Munich, Anton Schroll & Co., 1961, p. 194-197; Émile-Mâle, G., “La Transfiguration de Raphaël”, Atti della Pontificia Accademia di Archeologia. Rendiconti, 33, 1961, p. 225-36.

4  Émile-Mâle, G., “Jean-Baptiste Pierre Lebrun (1748-1813): Son rôle dans l’histoire de la restauration des tableaux du Louvre”, Mémoires de Paris et Ile-de-France, 8, 1956, p. 371-417.

5  “Rapport a l’Institut National sur la restauration du Tableau de Raphael connu sous le nom de La Vierge de Foligno, par les citoyens Guyton, Vincent, Taunay et Berthollet”, Mémoires de l’Institut national des sciences et arts – Litterature et beaux-arts, Tome 5, Paris, An. XII, 1803, p. 444-56; Redig De Campos, D., “La Madonna di Foligno di Raffaello: Note sulla sua storia e i suoi restauri”, Miscellanea Bibliothecae Hertzianae: zu Ehren von Leo Bruhns, Franz Graf, Wolff Metternich, Ludwig Schudt, Römische Forschungen der Bibliotheca Hertziana, Bd. 16, Munich, Anton Schroll & Co., 1961, p. 184-97.

6  Steinmann, E., “Die Plünderung Roms durch Bonaparte”, Internationale Monatsschrift für Wissenschaft, Kunst und Technik, 11/6-7, Leipzig ca. 1917, p. 1-46, p. 29.

7  I have been inspired by: Bergeon, S., “Contribution à l’histoire de la restauration des peintures en Italie du XVIIIe siècle (fresques et peintures de chevalet)”, Mémoire de l’Ecole du Louvre, Paris, 1975.

8  Schaible, V., “Die Gemäldeübertragung: Studien zur Geschichte einer ‘klassischen Restauriermethode’”, Maltechnik – Restauro, 2/ 89, April 1983, p. 96-129.

9  Picault is described as the inventor of the technique in : Anon., Beaux Arts: Tableaux du Roi, placés dans le Palais du Luxembourg”,Mercure de France, Decembre, 1750, n. 1, p. 146-51, 150-1; and Lépicié, F.-B., Catalogue raisonné des tableaux du Roy, vol. 1, Paris, Imprimerie Nationale, 1752, p. 43-44.

10  Marot, P.,  [“Recherches sur les origines de la transposition de la peinture en France”, Les Annales de l’Est, 4, 1950, p. 241-83] suggests Léopold Roxin may have been the first to introduce the transfer technique into France c. 1736.

11  Wilson, A. M., Diderot: The Testing Years, 1713-1759, New York, Oxford University Press, 1957, p. 244.

12  Father Berthier, Mémoires de Trévoux, or Mémoires pour l’Histoire des Sciences & des beaux Arts, Trévoux, Fevol, 1751, p. 452-66 (Geneva, Slatkine Reprints, 1968-9).

13  Émile-Mâle, G., “La première transposition au Louvre en 1750: La Charité d’Andrea del Sarto”, Revue du Louvre et des Musées de France, 3, 1982, p. 223-30, 227, with technical analysis by Jean Petit, nn. 31- 32.

14 Conti, A., Storia del restauro e della conservazione delle opera d’arte, Milan, Electa, 1973; revised 1988, p. 31.

15  Hall, M. B., “The ‘Tramezzo’ in S. Croce, Florence and Domenico Veneziano’s Fresco”, The Burlington Magazine, 1970, p. 797-799.

16  Melozzo da Forli : L’umana bellezza tra Piero della Francesca e Raffaello, eds. D. Benati, M. Natale and A. Paolucci, Milan, Silvana Editoriale, 2011, p. 208-217.

17  Baruffaldi, G., Vite de’ Pittori e Scultori Ferraresi, 2 vols., Ferrara, Domenico Taddei, 1844-46, v. 2, p. 348.

18  Baruffaldi, G., Vita di Antonio Contri, Ferrarese Pittore e Rilevatore de Pitture dai Muri, Venice, 1834.

19  Blumer, M.-B., “La Commission pour la Recherche des Objets de Science et Arts en Italie (1796-1797)”, La Révolution française, 87, 1934, p. 62-88, 124-150, 222-259.

20  Titi, F., Descrizione delle pitture, sculture e architetture esposte al pubblico in Roma, Rome, Marco Pagliarini, 1763, p. 10 and 290-91.

21  The passage from De Lalande is reprinted in Annecdotes des Beaux-Arts, 1776, v. 1, p. 142-3.

22  Bodart, D., “Domenico Michelini, restaurateur de tableaux à Rome au XVIIIe siècle”, Revue des Archéologues et Historiens d’Art de Louvain, 3, 1970, p. 136-48.

23  De Brosses, C., Lettres Familières, Écrites d’Italie en 1739 et 1740, Cinquième édition authentique d’après les Manuscrits Annotée e précédée d’une Étude biographique par R. Colomb, 2 vols., Paris, Garnier Frères, 1857, v. 1, Letter XLVII, p. 264.

24  Bellori, G. P., “Della riparazione della galleria del Carracci nel Palazzo Farnese, e della loggia di Raffaëlle alla Lungara”, in Bellori, G. P., Descrizzione delle Imagini Dipinte da Rafaelle d’Urbino, Roma, Giacomo Komarek Boemo, 1695; rpt. Farnborough, U.K., Gregg International Publishers, 1968, p. 81-86.

25  Perusini, G., “Pietro Palmaroli e il restauro a Roma e Dresda nei primi decenni dell’Ottocento”, in Christian Köstler, Sul restauro degli antichi dipinti ad olio, intro. and ed. G. Perusini, Udine, Forum, Editrice Universitaria Udinese, 2001, p. 117-144. For biographical information on Palmaroli: Bergeon, S., 1975, p. 166-90.

26  Davidson, B., “Daniele da Volterra and the Orsini Chapel -- II”, The Burlington Magazine, 775, 1967, p. 552-61.

27  Steinmann, E., 1917, p. 29, note 55.

28  Some of the documentation from the Archives of the French School in Rome is transcribed in Bergeon, 1975, Annexes IV and V.

29  Steinmann, E., 1917, p. 36

30  Giacomini, F., "Per reale vantaggio delle arti e della storia”: Vincenzo Camuccini e il restauro dei dipinti a Roma nella prima metà dell'Ottocento, Roma, Quasar, Associazione Giovanni Secco Suardo, 2007.

31  Guattani, G. A., Memorie enciclopediche sulle antichità e belle arti di Roma, Rome, 1805-1816, v. 5, 1810, p. 127-8; Albers, G. and Morel, P., “Pellegrino Tibaldi e Marco Pino alla Trinità dei Monti. Un affresco ritrovato, Pietro Palmaroli e l’origini dello stacco”, Bollettino d’Arte, 48, 1988, p. 69-92.

32  Bergeon, S., 1975, p. 66, and Annex XII.

33 Blumer, M.-L., “La mission de Denon en Italie (1811)”, Revue des études napoléoniennes, 38, 1934, p. 237-57;  Paul Wescher, “Vivant Denon and the Musée Napoléon”, Apollo, 80/31, 1964, p. 178-86.

34  Letters written by Dominique-Vivant Denon: 29 May 1809; 16 September 1809; 14 March 1810; 13 February 1811; and 2 April 1812; in the Archives du Louvre, Paris ; Bergeon, S., 1975, p. 302-8.

35  De Stendhal, M., Promenades dans Rome, 2 vols., Bruxelles, Louis Hauman, 1830, v. 1, p. 263 (27 March, 1828).

36  Hirschland Ramage, N., “The Pacetti Papers and the Restoration of Ancient Sculpture in the 18th Century”, in Von der Schönheit Weissen Marmors: Zum 200. Todestag Bartolomeo Cavaceppis, ed. T. Weis, Mainz, Verlag Philipp von Zabern, 1999, p. 79-83; Luciano Bonaparte. Le sue collezioni d’arte, le sue residenze a Roma, nel Lazio, in Italia (1804-1840), eds. M. Natoli and M. Gregori, Rome, 1995, p. 301.

37  Catalogue of the Magnificent Gallery of Paintings, The Property of Lucien Bonaparte, Prince of Canino, Sold by Auction by Mr. Stanley, St. James’ Street, 14 May 1816, Lot 88.

38  Gere, J. A., “Two Late Fresco Cycles by Perino del Vaga: The Massimi Chapel and the Sala Paolina”, The Burlington Magazine, 102, 1960, p. 8-17, p. 14.

39  Hand written conservation report of 1959, by Mr. H. H. Rogers, in the conservation dossier, Victoria and Albert Museum, London. In 1987, L. Scalisi wrote a more favourable condition report.

40 Quatremère de Quincy, “Lettres sur le projet d’enlever les monuments de l’Italie”, [originally published in Paris, 1796] in Considérations morales sur la destination des ouvrages de l’art (1815), Paris, Fayard, 1989, Fifth Letter to General Miranda, p. 225.

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Table des illustrations

Titre Fig. 1 The Departure of the Third Convoy of Art Works for France, 1797
Légende Engraving, attrib. Joseph-Charles Marin and Jean Jérôme Baugean
Crédits © The Trustees of the British Museum
URL http://journals.openedition.org/ceroart/docannexe/image/2367/img-1.jpg
Fichier image/jpeg, 100k
Titre Fig. 2 Raphael, Madonna di Foligno, 1511, Pinacoteca, Vatican
Légende Engraving from “Galerie du Musée Napoléon” c. 1804-15
Crédits © The Trustees of the British Museum
URL http://journals.openedition.org/ceroart/docannexe/image/2367/img-2.jpg
Fichier image/jpeg, 172k
Titre Fig. 3 Raphael, Transfiguration, 1518-20, Pinacoteca, Vatican
Crédits Photo. Cathleen Hoeniger
URL http://journals.openedition.org/ceroart/docannexe/image/2367/img-3.jpg
Fichier image/jpeg, 180k
Titre Fig. 4 Raphael, School of Athens, c. 1510, Stanza della Seganatura, Vatican Palace, Rome
Crédits Photo. Cathleen Hoeniger
URL http://journals.openedition.org/ceroart/docannexe/image/2367/img-4.jpg
Fichier image/jpeg, 124k
Titre Fig. 5 Raphael, St. Michael Vanquishing Satan, 1518, Louvre, Paris
Légende Engraving from “Galerie du Musée Napoléon” c. 1804-15
Crédits © The Trustees of the British Museum
URL http://journals.openedition.org/ceroart/docannexe/image/2367/img-5.jpg
Fichier image/jpeg, 156k
Titre Fig. 6 Titian, Martyrdom of St. Peter the Dominican, 1528-30
Légende Originally in SS. Giovanni e Paolo, Venice. Transfered from panel to canvas in Paris, 1800 ; destroyed by fire in Venice, 1867. Engraving from “Galerie du Musée Napoléon” c. 1804-15
Crédits © The Trustees of the British Museum
URL http://journals.openedition.org/ceroart/docannexe/image/2367/img-6.jpg
Fichier image/jpeg, 236k
Titre Fig. 7 Melozzo da Forli, Head of an Apostle, 1481-83
Légende Detached fresco, Pinacoteca, Vatican
Crédits Photo. Cathleen Hoeniger
URL http://journals.openedition.org/ceroart/docannexe/image/2367/img-7.jpg
Fichier image/jpeg, 140k
Titre Fig. 8 Domenichino, Martyrdom of St. Sebastian
Légende  Oil mural from St. Peter’s Basilica, rehoused in Sta. Maria degli Angeli, to the right of the high altar
Crédits Photo. Cathleen Hoeniger
URL http://journals.openedition.org/ceroart/docannexe/image/2367/img-8.jpg
Fichier image/jpeg, 156k
Titre Fig. 9 Raphael and Workshop, Loggia of Psyche
Légende  (Detail), 1517-18, Villa Farnesina, Rome
Crédits Photo. Cathleen Hoeniger
URL http://journals.openedition.org/ceroart/docannexe/image/2367/img-9.jpg
Fichier image/jpeg, 120k
Titre Fig. 10 View of interior of Trinità dei Monti, Rome
Crédits Photo. Cathleen Hoeniger
URL http://journals.openedition.org/ceroart/docannexe/image/2367/img-10.jpg
Fichier image/jpeg, 96k
Titre Fig. 11 Daniele da Volterra, Deposition, c. 1545
Légende After conservation of 2004, Trinità dei Monti, Rome
Crédits Photo. Cathleen Hoeniger
URL http://journals.openedition.org/ceroart/docannexe/image/2367/img-11.jpg
Fichier image/jpeg, 180k
Titre Fig. 12 Domenichino, Last Communion of St. Jerome, 1614, Pinacoteca, Vatican
Crédits Photo. Cathleen Hoeniger
URL http://journals.openedition.org/ceroart/docannexe/image/2367/img-12.jpg
Fichier image/jpeg, 156k
Titre Fig. 13 Trajan’s Column, 113 AD, Forum of Trajan, Rome
Crédits Photo. Cathleen Hoeniger
URL http://journals.openedition.org/ceroart/docannexe/image/2367/img-13.jpg
Fichier image/jpeg, 148k
Titre Fig. 14 Daniele da Volterra, Deposition, location since 1860, Aldobrandini Bonfil Chapel, Trinità dei Monti, Rome
Crédits Photo. Cathleen Hoeniger
URL http://journals.openedition.org/ceroart/docannexe/image/2367/img-14.jpg
Fichier image/jpeg, 160k
Titre Fig. 15 Perino del Vaga, Raising of Lazarus, 1538-39, detached fresco, Victoria and Albert Museum, London
Crédits Photo. Cathleen Hoeniger
URL http://journals.openedition.org/ceroart/docannexe/image/2367/img-15.jpg
Fichier image/jpeg, 163k
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Cathleen Hoeniger, « The Art Requisitions by the French under Napoléon and the Detachment of Frescoes in Rome, with an Emphasis on Raphael »CeROArt [En ligne], HS | 2012, mis en ligne le 10 avril 2012, consulté le 29 mars 2024. URL : http://journals.openedition.org/ceroart/2367 ; DOI : https://doi.org/10.4000/ceroart.2367

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Cathleen Hoeniger

Cathleen Hoeniger is an art historian who specializes in Italian Renaissance painting, and approaches art from interdisciplinary perspectives involving the history of science and the technical examination of works of art. Her extended research on Raphael’s paintings as material objects has recently culminated in the book: The Afterlife of Raphael’s Paintings (Cambridge University Press, 2011). In this study, many of Raphael’s most well-known works are examined from the point of view of reception theory, using the documentation of historical restorations to shed light on the way Raphael’s art was preserved and understood at different moments since the artist’s death in 1520. Cathleen holds a Master’s degree in the History of Science from the University of Toronto, and a Ph.D. in the History of Art from Princeton University. She is Professor of Art History at Queen’s University in Canada. 

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