Editing Louvre (section)

=== {{anchor|Musée Napoléon|Napoleon I}}Napoleonic era ===
{{see also|Napoleonic looting of art}}

On 19 November 1802, Napoleon appointed [[Vivant Denon]], a scholar and polymath who had participated in the [[French Invasion of Egypt (1798)|Egyptian campaign]] of 1798–1801, as the museum's first director, in preference to alternative contenders such as antiquarian [[Ennio Quirino Visconti]], painter [[Jacques-Louis David]], sculptor [[Antonio Canova]] and architects [[Léon Dufourny]] or [[Pierre-François-Léonard Fontaine|Pierre Fontaine]].<ref>{{citation|journal=Grande Galerie – le Journal du Louvre |volume=55 |date=Summer 2021 |author=Vivien Richard |title=Quand Bonaparte nomme Denon |page=74}}</ref> On Denon's suggestion in July 1803, the museum itself was renamed ''Musée Napoléon''.<ref name=GBB>{{cite book|author=Geneviève Bresc |title=Mémoires du Louvre |publisher=Gallimard |date=1989 |location=Paris}}</ref>{{rp|79}}

The collection grew through successful military campaigns.{{R|Mignot|page=52}} Acquisitions were made of Spanish, Austrian, Dutch, and Italian works, either as the result of [[war looting]] or formalized by treaties such as the [[Treaty of Tolentino]].<ref name="Alderson 25" /> At the end of Napoleon's First Italian Campaign in 1797, the [[Treaty of Campo Formio]] was signed with [[Count Philipp von Cobenzl]] of the [[Austrian Monarchy]]. This treaty marked the completion of Napoleon's conquest of Italy and the end of the first phase of the [[French Revolutionary Wars]]. It compelled Italian cities to contribute pieces of art and heritage to Napoleon's "parades of spoils" through Paris before being put into the Louvre Museum.<ref name="Plant, p. 36">Plant, p. 36</ref> The [[Horses of Saint Mark]], which had adorned the basilica of San Marco in Venice after the sack of [[Constantinople]] in 1204, were brought to Paris where they were placed atop Napoleon's [[Arc de Triomphe du Carrousel]] in 1797.<ref name="Plant, p. 36" /> Under the Treaty of Tolentino, the two statues of the Nile and Tiber were taken to Paris from the Vatican in 1797, and were both kept in the Louvre until 1815. (The Nile was later returned to Rome,<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Swetnam-Burland |first=Molly |date=2009 |title=Egypt Embodied: The Vatican Nile |journal=American Journal of Archaeology |volume=113 |issue=3 |page=440 |doi=10.3764/aja.113.3.439 |jstor=20627596|s2cid=191377908 }}</ref> whereas the Tiber has remained in the Louvre to this day.) The despoilment of Italian churches and palaces outraged the Italians and their artistic and cultural sensibilities.<ref>Popkin, p. 88</ref>

After the French defeat at [[Battle of Waterloo|Waterloo]], the looted works' former owners sought their return. The Louvre's administrator, Denon, was loath to comply in absence of a treaty of restitution. In response, foreign states sent emissaries to London to seek help, and many pieces were returned, though far from all.<ref name="Alderson 25">Alderson,&nbsp;p. 25</ref>{{R|Mignot|page=69}}<ref>For example, [[Andrea Mantegna|Mantegna]]'s ''Calvary'', [[Paolo Veronese|Veronese]]'s ''The Wedding at Cana|The Marriage of Cana'', and Rogier van der Weyden's ''Annunciation'' were not returned.</ref> In 1815 [[Louis XVIII]] finally concluded agreements with the [[Austrian Empire|Austrian]] government<ref>{{Cite magazine |title=Paolo Veronese |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=59chAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA741 |magazine=The Gentleman's Magazine |year = 1867|publisher=A. Dodd and A. Smith |issue=December 1867 |page=741}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Johns |first=Christopher M. S. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=mYponZ9FFGIC&pg=PA190 |title=Antonio Canova and the Politics of Patronage in Revolutionary and Napoleonic Europe |publisher=University of California Press |year=1998 |isbn=978-0520212015 |page=190}}</ref> for the keeping of works such as Veronese's ''[[The Wedding at Cana (Veronese)|Wedding at Cana]]'' which was exchanged for a large [[Charles Le Brun|Le Brun]] or the repurchase of the [[Alessandro Albani|Albani]] collection.
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