Academy Travel Lecture Program

When Napoleon's troops marched across Europe and into Egypt, they returned with more than territory. 

In the wake of each campaign came convoys of crates—paintings, sculptures, antiquities, and manuscripts stripped from the churches, palaces, and collections of the conquered.

 These spoils flowed into Paris, where they were paraded through the streets in triumphal processions before being installed in the Louvre, recast as a "universal museum" intended to make France the cultural capital of the world.

It was looting on a scale never before attempted, and it served a clear political purpose: the masterpieces of Veronese, Titian, and Raphael became trophies of empire, proof of French supremacy rendered in oil and marble. Yet the story did not end with their seizure. 

After Napoleon's fall, many works were reclaimed, while others remained, raising questions of ownership and identity that museums still grapple with today.

In this lecture, art historian Anne Harbers traces the extraordinary scope of Napoleon's art thefts—how the masterpieces were taken, displayed, and sometimes returned—and explores their enduring legacy in our debates over restitution.