It is a quiet evening in the French countryside. The road to the chateaux is as innocuous as ever.
About to break that serenity is an ambulance – it drives through the roads with a level of urgency seldom seen until recent times. It is filled with crates, all marked either yellow, green, or red. One particular crate is held in a stretcher, and it has a marking unlike any other.
One red circle means the “greatest treasure[s] of global patrimony”. This one has three.
It is the Mona Lisa.
As the world descended into chaos, Jacques Jaujard, the Director of France’s National Museums, smelled war in the air. Acting against the orders of the Vichy government, Jaujard enlisted the help of students, staff and workers to protect the works of the Louvre. In three days, 200 people had packed away 3,600 paintings.
By the time France declared War on Germany, the Mona Lisa was at Chateau de Chambord, along with the rest of the Louvre’s collection.
Frames await the return of the pieces to the Louvre, Paris, circa 1945 (via Getty Images)
What Jaujard feared was looting. The practice of art theft, particularly during conflict, is hardly new. The prehistoric practice was undertaken from the Roman Sulla to Napoleon. One of the modern masters was Hitler.
Artifacts play an invaluable role in society. These fragments of a world now lost hold within them the dignities and histories of a people. Art, archeologist Peter Campbell explains, “is the material objects that tie our immaterial identities together.”
What could be more demoralising than having the anchor of your people stolen?
The stealing of art is a crucial cog in the wheel of war. As Campbell writes, “in war art theft is about destruction of another’s identity” and in peace “it is about showing control over another”. Just as Nazi Germany stole Jewish artwork to erase their very history, colonialists also appropriated the artworks of countries they invaded. Revolutions, such as the French and Ukrainian, saw the toppling of statues and campaigns to remove symbols associated with regimes.
Mona Lisa is uncovered after the War, 1945 (via louvre.fr)
Artifacts, in creating historical legitimacy, also tend to be ushered into collections when there is a change in leadership. These include that of Israeli generals, Pakistan’s current generals, and ISIS in Syria and Iraq, to name a few recent examples.
While the bulk transfer of artifacts occurs during times of war, conflict of any degree opens the way for stealing. Following Egypt’s revolution, widespread illegal digging and museum theft has been rampant. Iraq, following both Gulf Wars, experienced the same. Although black-market figures are hard to generate, many traffickers are thought to be making billions. ISIS was estimated to gain up to $200 million per year from selling stolen art.
Meanwhile, the Mona Lisa hangs back in the Louvre, encased by bulletproof glass. For four years, she was rushed from safehouse to safehouse.
Unlike millions of works, lost and scattered throughout the globe, she has made it home.
Bibliography:
Brancati, Dawn. 2018. “Five Ways Art And War Are Related – Political Violence At A Glance”. Political Violence At A Glance. http://politicalviolenceataglance.org/2018/01/05/five-ways-art-and-war-are-related/.
Campbell, Peter. 2014. “Why Hitler Stole Art”. Medium. https://medium.com/@peterbcampbell/why-hitler-stole-art-2136f1f54e77.
Charney, Noah. 2020. “A Brief History Of Art Theft In Conflict Zones”. Journal Of Art Crime, no. 12: 77.
Drusus, Livius. 2016. “How The Mona Lisa Escaped Destruction During World War II”. Mentalfloss.Com. https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/84865/how-mona-lis-escaped-destruction-during-world-war-ii.
Johnston Wylly, Marion. 2014. “Motives Of Art Theft: A Social Contextual Perspective Of Value”. Doctor of Philosophy, Florida State University.
Art history has a special place in my heart. This piece is wonderfully written – thank you for this Maria. You have shown how art lends itself to important cultural/historical narratives. We’re indebted to artists and their ability to perceive, reflect and capture moments/people of history. It’s no wonder that the black market for art is extremely lucrative. People have lived and died over art, the efforts to return paintings that were stolen during the world wars is still an active issue. This piece makes me think of one of my personal favourites in the realm of historical paintings, ‘Ivan the Terrible and His Son Ivan’ painted by Ilya Repin (1885). This controversial piece has been fought over, religiously and historically denounced and slashed with a knife but still remains in public view in Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow. (Seen here https://bit.ly/2VjC3GJ)
The ways art is valued, shown, stolen, bought and sold is complex and financially unregulated. In a New Zealand context, these issues are explored in Michael Parekowhai’s art installation ‘Detour’ ( info here: https://bit.ly/3egSiNt). This work was commissioned for the opening of the Toi Art Gallery at Te Papa in 2018. It digs deep into the history and presentation of art in New Zealand, its influences, politics, controversial works and artists (Colin McCahon, Theo Schoon). It also shows the less noticeable but equally powerful role of the art gallery and its curators, who are depicted as a comedy policeman and monkeys. A shiny golden acrylic elephant hovers above – the invisible process of exhibition is now a visible ‘elephant in the room’.
What I loved about this work was the way he brought all the serious and intellectual elements involved around art together in a way that was light and even humorous, but with a dark edge. It was also clever in the concepts and the structural framework of this installation was then re-purposed in other galleries overseas to show their own national dynamics of art history.
We need art to illuminate our cultural narratives as well as our personal ones, to take us on journeys to the past and the future.
This was so beautifully written and lovely to read!
It’s an interesting point thinking about how much transfer of artifacts occurs during times of conflict. It makes me wonder what kind of effect the pandemic is going to have on this sort of thing. People have been calling it a “war” against the virus but I think one of the biggest differences between classic warfare and what we’re going through now is the fact that so many countries have completely shut down any international travel, whereas during wartime, one way or another people end up crossing borders a lot (whether to invade, escape, seek asylum, etc). On the one hand, I imagine that the emptiness of the public and the fact that the world is so focused on this one issue would make it easier to commit illegal activity unnoticed, but on the other hand, I feel like it may be harder without a crowd to disappear into.
I think that this pandemic may bring about a whole new brand of crime that we haven’t seen before, or that haven’t been in the spotlight. We know already with self-isolation and quarantine rules that many auto-related offenses have dropped (because people aren’t driving so much or so far) and the calls for domestic violence have spiked to alarmingly concerning amount. But this is only after a few weeks in quarantine, and I’m curious to see what will happen in the long run after a month, 3 months, 6 months or more.
Anyway, thanks for an interesting read!
Theft and destruction of art makes me think of the various artifacts taken from abroad into (mostly) European museums. I was lucky enough to be able to go to Europe before the current pandemic started spreading, and while the museums there are full of wonderfully historic items, it’s not as wondrous when you recognise that many items were stolen from abroad. The British Museum is probably the most prominent example of this; the Elgin Marbles and Rosetta Stone are the first things brought to mind when artifact repatriation is brought up.
I am quite torn on the dilemma myself, because seeing the Elgin Marbles, Rosetta Stone, Oxus Treasure, Benin Bronzes, and the moai Hoa Hakananai’a would otherwise require a lot of travelling around the globe; and in some cases repatriation could put the artifacts in danger — the fantastic Lamassu at the Louvre would have been destroyed by IS had they not been taken from Dur-Sharrukin in the 1840s, though it should probably be mentioned that the French are at least partially responsible for instability in the Middle East; Sykes and Picot were typically European in drawing lines across the former Ottoman Empire.
Returning the artifacts to their original locations, though, is returning “the anchor of the people,” which would end at least this form of continued colonialism. Artifacts could be studied in a better location, such as near other archaeological sites, or with other artifacts from the same place, rather than split up among various European cities. Artifacts in the west aren’t entirely safe either, the Elgin Marbles notably being damaged several times while housed in the British Museum.
In the end, I think I would prefer the artifacts be repatriated, though the more selfish side of me would mourn the loss of the ability to see items from many different cultures in a single place.
As technology for analysing and copying the artefacts improves, the emphasis on the physical object for archaeology lessens. I can get a better resolution of the Mona Lisa off Google Images than I’d ever see peering through the glass in the Louvre. The physical objects have sentimental value best capitalised on close to the culture they originated from, so I agree they are best returned. We can still view thousands of historical items from hundreds of cultures in one single place, except that single place is actually everywhere thanks to the internet.