Repatriation is the return of the cultural property, often referring to ancient or looted art, to their country of origin or former owners (or their heirs).
The disputed cultural property items are physical artifacts of a group or society taken by another group, usually in the act of looting, whether in the context of imperialism, colonialism, or war. The contested objects vary widely and include sculptures, paintings, monuments, objects such as tools or weapons for purposes of anthropological study, and human remains.
The looting of defeated peoples' cultural heritage by war has been common practice since ancient times. In the modern era, the Napoleonic looting of art was confiscations of artworks and precious objects by the French army or officials. After Napoleon's defeat, some looted artworks were returned to their country of origin, according the Treaty of Paris, among them the Horses of Saint Mark, repatriated to Venice. The earliest known case of formerly-colonized peoples securing the repatriation of cultural property purloined during imperial conquest from a European museum explicitly citing the principle of decolonization is the return of the Samarkand Codex of the Quran of Uthman under the Bolsheviks.
In the early 21st century, debates about the colonial context of acquisitions by Western collections have centered both around arguments against and in favor of repatriations. Since the publication of the French report on the restitution of African cultural heritage in 2018, these debates have gained new international attention and have led to changes regarding the public role of museums and to restitutions on moral rather than merely legal grounds.
Background
War and looting Ancient world War and the subsequent looting of defeated peoples have been common practice since ancient times. The stele of King Naram-Sin of Akkad, which is now displayed in the Louvre Museum in Paris, is one of the earliest works of art known to have been looted in war. The stele commemorating Naram-Sin's victory in a battle against the Lullubi people in 2250 BCE was taken as war plunder about a thousand years later by the Elamites who relocated it to their capital in Susa, Iran. There, it was uncovered in 1898 by French archaeologists.According to the Sumerian poem titled Curse of Akkad, Naram-Sin was responsible for the collapse of the Akkadian Empire as he looted and destroyed the Temple of Enlil and incited the wrath of the gods as a result, see Miles, p. 16
The Palladion was the earliest and perhaps most important stolen statue in western literature.Miles, p. 20 The small carved wooden statue of an armed Athena served as Troy's protective talisman, which is said to have been stolen by two Greeks who secretly smuggled the statue out of the Temple of Athena. It was widely believed in antiquity that the conquest of Troy was only possible because the city had lost its protective talisman. This myth illustrates the sacramental significance of statuary in Ancient Greece as divine manifestations of the gods that symbolized power and were often believed to possess supernatural abilities. The sacred nature of the statues is further illustrated in the supposed suffering of the victorious Greeks afterward, including Odysseus, who was the mastermind behind the robbery.
According to Roman myth, Rome was founded by Romulus, the first victor to dedicate spoils taken from an enemy ruler to the Temple of Jupiter Feretrius. In Rome's many subsequent wars, blood-stained armor and weaponry were gathered and placed in temples as a symbol of respect toward the enemies' deities and as a way to win their patronage.Miles, p. 13 As Roman power spread throughout Italy where Greek cities once reigned, Greek art was looted and ostentatiously displayed in Rome as a triumphal symbol of foreign territories brought under Roman rule. However, the triumphal procession of Marcus Claudius Marcellus after the fall of Syracuse in 211 is believed to have set a standard of reverence to conquered sanctuaries as it engendered disapproval by critics and a negative social reaction.Miles, p. 65
According to Pliny the Elder, the Emperor Augustus was sufficiently embarrassed by the history of Roman plunder of Greek art to return some pieces to their original homes.
A precedent for art repatriation was set in Roman antiquity when Cicero prosecuted Verres, a senate member and illegal appropriator of art. Cicero's speech influenced Enlightenment European thought and had an indirect impact on the modern debate about art repatriation.Miles, p. 4 Cicero's argument uses military episodes of plunder as "case law" and expresses certain standards when it comes to appropriating cultural property of another people.Miles, p. 5 Cicero makes a distinction between public and private uses of art and what is appropriate for each and he also asserts that the primary purpose of art is religious expression and veneration. He also sets standards for the responsibilities of imperial administration abroad to the code of ethics surrounding the collection of art from defeated Greece and Rome in wartime. Later, both Napoleon and Lord Elgin would be likened to Verres in condemnations of their plundering of art.Miles, p. 5
Looting during Napoleon's Empire
The Napoleonic looting of art was confiscations of artworks and precious objects by the French army, or officials, in the territories of the First French Empire, including the Italian peninsula, Spain, Portugal, the Low Countries, and Central Europe. The scale of plundering was unprecedented in modern history, the only comparable looting expeditions taking place in ancient Roman history.Well-known examples include Lucius Mummius' sack of Corinth or Marcus Claudius Marcellus' plunder of Syracuse, See Miles, p. 320 In fact, the French revolutionaries justified the large-scale and systematic looting of Italy in 1796 by viewing themselves as the political successors of Rome, in the same way that ancient Romans saw themselves as the heirs of Greek civilization.Miles, p. 320 They also supported their actions with the opinion that their sophisticated artistic taste would allow them to appreciate the plundered art. Napoleon's soldiers crudely dismantled the art by tearing paintings out of their frames hung in churches and sometimes causing damage during the shipping process. Napoleon's soldiers appropriated private collections and even the papal collection.Miles, p. 321 The most famous artworks plundered included the Bronze Horses of Saint Mark in Venice (itself looted from the Sack of Constantinople in 1204) and the Laocoön and His Sons in Rome (both since returned), with the latter then being considered the most impressive sculpture.
The Laocoön had a particular meaning for the French because it was associated with a myth in connection to the founding of Rome.The Laocoön was the fabled Trojan priest who warned the Trojans not to accept the Wooden Horse that the Greeks offered to Athena. A god hostile to Troy sent sea serpents to kill him and his sons, which led to the fall of Troy and heralded the eventual founding of Rome, see Miles, p. 321 When the art was brought into Paris, the pieces arrived in the fashion of a triumphal procession modeled after the common practice of ancient Romans.
Napoleon's extensive plunder of Italy was criticized by such French artists as Quatremère de Quincy (1755–1849), who circulated a petition that gathered the signatures of fifty other artists.Ironically one of the names included Vivant Denon, the future Director of the Louvre and future facilitator of Napoleon's despoliation of artifacts from Egypt (see Miles, p. 326) With the founding of the Louvre museum in Paris in 1793, Napoleon's aim was to establish an encyclopedic exhibition of art history, which later both Joseph Stalin and Adolf Hitler attempted to emulate in their respective countries.
Napoleon continued his art conquests in 1798 when he invaded Egypt in an attempt to safeguard French trade interests and to undermine Britain's access to India via Egypt. His expedition in Egypt is noted for the 167 "savants" he took with him including scientists and other specialists equipped with tools for recording, surveying and documenting ancient and modern Egypt and its natural history.Miles, p. 328 Among other things, the expedition discoveries included the Rosetta Stone and the Valley of the Kings near Thebes. The French military campaign was short-lived and unsuccessful and the majority of the collected artifacts (including the Rosetta Stone) were seized by British troops, ending up in the British Museum. Nonetheless, the information gathered by the French expedition was soon after published in the several volumes of Description de l'Égypte, which included 837 copperplate engravings and over 3,000 drawings. In contrast to the disapproving public reaction to the looting of Italian works of art, the appropriation of Egyptian art saw widespread interest and fascination throughout Europe, inciting a phenomenon which came to be called "Egyptomania".Miles, p. 329 A notable consequence of looting is its ability to hinder contemporary repatriation claims of cultural property to a country or community of origin. A process that requires proof of theft of an illegal transaction, or that the object originated from a specific country, can be difficult to provide if the looting and subsequent movements or transactions were undocumented. For example, in 1994 the British Library acquired Kharosthi manuscript fragments and has since refused to return them unless their origin could be identified (Afghanistan, Pakistan, or Tajikistan), of which the library itself was unsure.
Repatriation after the Napoleonic Wars
Art was repatriated for the first time in modern history when Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington returned to Italy art that had been plundered by Napoleon, after his and Marshal Blücher's armies defeated the French at the Battle of Waterloo in 1815. This decision contrasted sharply to a long-held tradition to the effect that "to the victors go the spoils." This is remarkable considering that in the battle of Waterloo alone, the financial and human costs were colossal; the decision to not only refrain from plundering France but to repatriate France's prior seizures from the Netherlands, Italy, Prussia, and Spain, was extraordinary.Miles, p. 330 Moreover, the British paid for the restitution of the papal collection to Rome because the Pope could not finance the shipping himself.Miles, p. 331 When British troops began packing up looted art from the Louvre, there was a public outcry in France. Crowds reportedly tried to prevent the taking of the Horses of Saint Mark and there were throngs of weeping ladies outside the Louvre Museum.Miles, p. 334 Despite the unprecedented nature of this repatriation effort, there are estimations only about 55% of what was taken was actually repatriated: the Louvre Director at the time, Vivant Denon, had sent out many important works to other parts of France before the British could take them.Miles, p. 341 Many works remained in French museums, such as the Louvre, the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris or other collections in France. Wellington viewed himself as representing all of Europe's nations and he believed that the moral decision would be to restore the art in its apparently proper context.Miles, p. 332 In a letter to Lord Castlereagh he wrote:
Wellington also forbade pilfering among his troops as he believed that it led to the lack of discipline and distraction from military duty. He held the view that winning support from local inhabitants was an important break from Napoleon's practices.Miles, p. 144