Raphael’s Foligno Madonna at the Louvre in 1800: Restoration and Reaction at the Dawn of the Museum Age

Art Journal

Volumn 54, Issue 2, 1995, Pages 80-85

  McClellan, Andrew ^a  

^a TUFTS UNIVERSITY   (United States)

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[No Author keywords available]

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EID: 84956441011     PISSN: 00043249     EISSN: 23255307     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/00043249.1995.10791696     Document Type: Article

References (29)

1. See Andrew McClellan, Inventing the Louvre: Art, Politics, and the Origins of the Modern Museum in Eighteenth-Century Paris (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1994), 239, n. 103, and passim.
2. Ibid., 70–74., See Andrew McClellan, Inventing the Louvre: Art, Politics, and the Origins of the Modern Museum in Eighteenth-Century Paris (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1994), n. 103
3. Aubin-Louis Millin, Dictionnaire des Beaux-Arts, 3 vols. (Paris: Crapelet-Desray, 1806), 3:434.
4. On the Sistine controversy, see, on the critical side, James Beck with Michael Daley, Art Restoration: The Culture, the Business and the Scandal (London: John Murray, 1993); in support of the restoration, see M. Kirby Talley, Jr., “Michelangelo Rediscovered,” Artnews 86 (Summer 1987): 159–70; and K. W.-G. Brandt. “Twenty-five Questions about Michelangelo’s Sistine Ceiling,” Apollo 76 (December 1987): 392–400. Also see the review of Beck’s book by Charles Hope, “Restoration or Ruination,” New York Review of Books 40, no. 19 (November 23, 1993): 4–8. A not dissimilar row about restoration thirty years ago led to the publication of a number of articles on the history of restoration that are still worth reading; see Burlington Magazine 54 (February and November 1962).
5. The critic and theorist Quatremére de Quincy described Italy as such at the time; see his Lettres à Miranda sur le dé placement des monuments de l’art de l’ltalie, (1796), ed. E. Pommier (Paris: Macula, 1989).
6. A. de Montaiglon and J. J. Guiffrey, eds., Correspondence des directeurs de l’ Academie de France a Rome avec les surintendants des bâ timents, 1666–1804,17 vols. (Paris: N. Charavay frères, 1887–1908; vols. 11–17 published by Jean Schmidt), 16:430–31. Also McClellan, Inventing the Louvre, chaps. 3 and 4.
7. Quoted by G. Emile-Mâle. “Le sé jour à Paris de 1794 à 1815 de célèbres tableaux de Rubens,” Bulletin de l’Institut Royal du Patrimoine Artistique 7 (1964): 159–60. All translations are mine unless otherwise noted.
8. See, for example, La Décade philosophique 29 (20 messidor an 5 [July 8, 1797]): 84–88.
9. Corps legislatif: Conseil des cinq-cents. Motion d’ordre par Marin sur le Muséum central des arts (Paris: Imprimérie nationale, an 6 [1797]).
10. See La Décade philosophique 14 (20 pluviôse an 6 [February 8, 1798]): 301–2. “Even if the alleged abuses could be verified, they must be remedied secretly, and we must not announce to Europe that we have despoiled conquered lands of their precious monuments only to see them destroyed in our capital, under the supervision of our most capable artists no less.” Excerpts from Marin’s report appeared in Der neue teutsche Merkur 1 (February 1798): 156#x2013;57; see Jane van Nimmen, “Responses to Raphael’s Paintings at the Louvre, 1798–1848” (Ph.D. diss., University of Maryland, 1986).
11. “Registre des procès-verbaux du conseil de l’administration de Musée central des arts,” MS 1089, 8 nivose an 6 [December 28, 1797], Bibliothèque d’art et d’arche-ologie, Universite de Paris IV.
12. The report, in the form of an official government publication, appeared under the title Musee Central des Arts: Pieces relatives à l’ administration de cet etablissement; imprimée par ordre du Directoire exécutif (Paris: Imprimérie nationale, nivôse an 6 [1798]). It was signed on behalf of the committee by the painters Vien, Vincent, and Hue, the restorer J.-M. Picault, and the connoisseur J.-B.-P. Lebrun. Their report was republished in a more polished form by one of the Louvre administrators, Joseph Lavallée, as Observations sur l’administration du Musée central des Arts (Paris: C. Houel, [1798]). The foreign minister, Talleyrand, was instructed to distribute copies of the official report to foreign ambassadors in Paris and to French representatives abroad; see Minister of the Interior to Talleyrand, 29 nivose an 6 [January 18, 1798], F21 570 (5), f. 114. Archives Nationales, Paris.
13. Lavellée, Observations, 16.
14. Musée central des arts: Pieces relatives, 18.
15. Ibid, 27–32., Musée central des arts: Pieces relatives
16. The panel from the Institute first visited the Louvre in January 1800, when they inspected the restoration studio and the Raphael Madonna. They concurred on “the necessity of transferring this painting by the methods described.” They returned in early May to supervise the restoration. The artists Jollain, Berthelemy, and Suvée were on hand to help explain the process to the chemists; see “Registre des procès-verbaux du conseil de l’administration du Musée central des arts,” MS 1089 for nivôse-floréal, an 8 [January—April 1800], Bibliothèque d’art et d’archaèologie, Université de Paris IV. Further details on this restoration are provided by G. Emile-Male, Restauration des peintures de chevalet (Freiburg: Office du livre, 1976); and D. Redigde Campos, “La Madonna di Foligno di Raffaello: Note sulla sua storia e i suoi restauri,” in Miscellanea Bibliothecae Hertzianae (Munich: A. Schroll, 1961), 184–97. Interesting recollections of this restoration, as well as others performed on the Raphaels at the Louvre, are recorded in Boucher Desnoyers, Appendice a Touvrage intitule:Histoire de la vie et des ouvrages de Raphael par monsieur Quatremere de Quincy (Paris: Dutot, 1852), 44–45.
17. “Rapport à l’Tnstitut national sur la restauration du tableau de Raphael connu sous le nom de La Vierge de Foligno,” which first appeared in Memoires de Tlnstitut National des sciences et arts: Littérature et Beaux-Arts 5 (an 12 [1804]): 444–56. It was reprinted in the Revue Universelle des Arts 9 (\SS9): 220–28; and J. D. Passavant, Raphael d’Urbin et son pere Giovanni Santi, 2 vols., trans. Jules Lunteshutz (Paris: Veuve Renouard. 1860). 2:622–29. J.-B.-P. Lebrun’s report on the painting when it arrived at the Louvre, dated August 1798, is reproduced by Redigde Campos, “La Madonna di Foligno,” 195. By way of conclusion Lebrun states: “This precious painting would have perished had it not been brought to France.”
18. “Rapport à ITnstitut national,” in Passavant, Raphael d’Urbin, 2:624. J. Guillerme, L’Atelier du temps (Paris: Hermann, 1964), 151, claims incorrectly that the Foligno restoration represented the first time that such a division of labor had occurred. The French had routinely separated these two parts since at least mid century; see McClellan, Inventing the Louvre, chap. 1.
19. Ibid., 627., “Rapport à ITnstitut national,” in Passavant, Raphael d’Urbin, 2.
20. Ibid., 628., “Rapport à ITnstitut national,” in Passavant, Raphael d’Urbin, 2.
21. Ibid., 628–29., “Rapport à ITnstitut national,” in Passavant, Raphael d’Urbin, 2.
22. On the Hacquins and restoration practice before the revolution, see McClellan, Inventing the Louvre, chaps. 1 and 2; and D. Marot, “Recherches sur les origines de la transposition de la peinture en France,” Annales de l’Est (1950): 241–83.
23. On the restoration of Raphael’s Transfiguration, see A Masterpiece Close-up: The Transfiguration by Raphael (Cambridge: Fogg Art Museum, 1981); also G. Emile-Male, “La Transfiguration de Raphael: Quelques documents sur son séjour à Paris (1798–1815),” Rendkonti della Pontificia Accademia Romana di Archeologia 33 (1961): 225–36.
24. See van Nimmen, “Responses to Raphael’s Paintings,” 143–44.
25. References to the complete text are given in note 17 above. Parts of the report were printed in the Salon catalogue that accompanied the first exhibition of the painting, Notice des plusieurs tableaux, recueillis à Venise, Florence, Turin et Foligno, exh. cat. (Paris: Imprimérie des sciences et arts, 1800), 49–53; and Millin, Dictionnaire, 3:435–38.
26. See, for example, Henry Redhead Yorke, France in Eighteen Hundred and Two (London: William Heinemann, 1906), 158; Lady Jackson, The Diaries and Letters of Sir George Jackson, K.C.H., 2 vols. (London: R. Bentley and Son, 1872), 1:76–77; Rev. John Chetwode Eustace, A Letter from Paris to George Petre, Esq. (London: J. Mawman, 1814), 46–47. My thanks to Susan Merriam for help in tracking down these references.
27. John Scott, A Visit to Paris in 1814 (London: Longman, Hurst and Rees. 1815), 252–53. Scott identifies the source of these remarks as “the Common-Place Book of an English Artist.”
28. See Redig de Campos, “La Madonna di Foligno,” 190. Of Raphael’s Transfiguration, the late Fabrizio Mancinelli wrote: “Roeser’s cleaning can be considered commendable, given the age in which it was performed and the materials available. However, the use of soda and abrasive pastes eroded the upper layer of color in several places and caused the loss of many delicate final glazes. It is impossible to establish whether this damage was caused by the 1802 restoration or by …earlier restoration. …For the taste of the time, though, it appears the painting was considered to be ’excessively bright and transparent all over’ after the restoration. To amend this, the Transfiguration was coated with several layers of varnish tinted with Avignon yellow pigment”; Masterpiece Close-up, 7.
29. F. Th. Bratranek, ed., Goethe’s Briefwechsel mit den Gebrudern von Humboldt (1795–1832) (Leipzig: F. A. Brockhaus, 1876), 51–54; quoted and translated by van Nimmen, “Responses to Raphael’s Paintings,” 67. Charles Hope, “Restoration and Ruination,” 4, makes a similar point when he remarks that whatever restorers do “they are almost bound to lay themselves open to criticism from those who had come to love the paintings in their former state.” Goethe was greatly interested in artistic techniques and restoration; see John Gage, ed., Goethe on Art (London: Scolar Press, 1980), 126–29.