ABSTRACT
During Vendèmiaire of year III, Lebrun and Picault carried out the first interventions on the paintings by Rubens arriving from Belgium (the Deposition, the Coup de lance, The Erection of the Cross): a light cleaning and the reattachment of areas which were in danger of falling off. Over and above the intention of removing these paintings as useful contributions to the progress of the arts in France, what appears ever more clearly is the idea of these paintings, manuscripts and works of art as trophies, conquered not requisitioned. Already in the Fructidor of year II, Grégoire had been speaking of the glories of arms in Belgium, and looked forward to new arrivals from Italy; in year VI, Lebrun published a “critical examination” of the works brought from the peninsula, which began with a eulogy of the conquering heroes, and then referred to the deplorable condition of the paintings from Milan and Bologna. The new arrivals caused congestion both in the exhibition rooms and in the restoration laboratories, so much so that from 1801, many of the requisitioned works and others from the Royal Collection were sent to the new museums in the provinces, and in the new climate of Caesarist bonapartism, Napoleon’s homes were decorated with public paintings and sculptures (mostly removed from the “museum of the French School” at Versailles). Amongst the works requisitioned from abroad, the Battle of Issus by Altdorfer was placed in the Emperor’s bathroom at Saint Cloud.48
