This portrait of Napoleon III’s favorite horse tells an important story of art theft and repatriation.
Alfred De Dreux, The Emperor’s Horse, 1853, oil on canvas, 100.01 x 81.28 cm (Mellon Collection, Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond). Speakers: Dr. Sylvain Cordier, Paul Mellon Curator and Head of the Department of European Art, Virginia Museum of Fine Arts and Dr. Steven Zucker
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0:00:06.8 Dr. Steven Zucker: We’re in the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts in the Mellon galleries looking at a portrait. But this is not a portrait of a person. This is a portrait of a horse.
0:00:16.0 Dr. Sylvain Cordier: Here we have a horse that’s at the top of the social system of France at the very beginning of the Second Empire because it happens to be a portrait of the emperor’s favorite horse, Littzy. So the artist is Alfred De Dreux.
0:00:32.2 Dr. Steven Zucker: It’s so important to remember that horses were central to our lives in the 19th century. We depended on horses for their labor, horses went to war, but then there were also horses that were bred for racing and as show horses.
0:00:46.5 Dr. Sylvain Cordier: Horses are a very important political statement, as much as partners in every aspect of life. Napoleon III was an absolute horse enthusiast, and the court life of the Second Empire put an extreme emphasis on the quality of the équipage as this idea of using the horses and using the spectacle of beautiful companies of horses at the service of affirming his legitimacy as a sovereign of France.
0:01:12.8 Dr. Steven Zucker: It is beautifully painted. The horse is so well groomed that it shines and glistens as it moves in the light under this partly cloudy sky. There’s incredible attention to the detail of the horse’s face, as well as tremendous detail to the gold brocade of this lavish saddle and bridle and stirrups and all of the accoutrements of the horse. What’s so interesting about this painting is that this is the second version. The initial painting was a portrait not only of the horse but of the emperor riding her. And that was a thoroughly political painting. It was shown in the 1853 Salon, that is the great government-sponsored exhibition in France, and it showed the emperor astride the horse in control of this powerful animal.
0:02:01.9 Dr. Sylvain Cordier: And De Dreux made it very likely shortly after the first coup d’état that Prince Louis Napoleon made on the 2nd of December, 1851, after which he notoriously paraded in the streets riding Littzy in order to witness the approbation of the Parisian people. Napoleon III reigns over France for 18 years, and eventually, the regime falls. And Napoleon III died in 1873, and it’s only in 1927 this painting was auctioned to the Bacri brothers in association with Léon Bourdier, another dealer.
0:02:41.2 Dr. Steven Zucker: And the brothers held onto the painting. They didn’t sell it.
0:02:44.2 Dr. Sylvain Cordier: And that brings us to the Second World War. The Bacri family is a Jewish family. Fortunately, the Bacri family managed to escape, and eventually, we know that they found refuge in Algeria.
0:02:56.4 Dr. Steven Zucker: But they left their collection in Paris.
0:03:00.0 Dr. Sylvain Cordier: They had to save their life, and they were completely aware of the danger that they would face, and so, they left everything. And we knew that the painting disappeared sometime in 1943.
0:03:09.1 Dr. Steven Zucker: The Germans were responsible for the looting of enormous numbers of works of art from French collections, but that’s not the case here.
0:03:17.6 Dr. Sylvain Cordier: We know the painting was stolen, but not by the Nazis themselves. It was likely by French people. Then comes the liberation of France. The Bacri family came back and very early on claimed the possibility to regain their collection considering that most of their collection had been looted by the Nazis, so would have to be repatriated from Germany. And it opened this very complex case with the German Federal Republic in charge of repatriating artworks. And as late as the early 1960s, we know from correspondences with the Bacri family that German Republic says, “Well, we’ve done due diligence, and this painting unfortunately is not conserved on German soil. We have no idea where it can be.” Well, actually, the painting was in Switzerland, and we know that because in 1973, Paul Mellon, one of the most important collectors of sporting art, is made aware that a German dealer in Zurich owns this wonderful painting by De Dreux representing the horse of Emperor Napoleon III. It is presented to him with a provenance that doesn’t specify anything regarding the Bacri family.
0:04:29.4 Dr. Steven Zucker: Fast-forward to the 1970s. The painting is now in Paul Mellon’s collection. Paul Mellon is a longtime trustee of the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts. He will eventually give it to the museum. But in the last 20 years, there has been tremendous research into the provenance of looted objects from World War II, and especially works that were taken from Jewish collections.
0:04:52.1 Dr. Sylvain Cordier: Very early on because of the importance of the painting within the Mellon Collection, my hope was that we would, of course, find the heirs and come to an agreement with them in order to keep the painting.
0:05:08.0 Dr. Steven Zucker: It’s such an interesting problem because, of course, the painting needs to be returned, but so often the paintings then find their way into private collections and the public loses. But there was a happier ending here.
0:05:19.4 Dr. Sylvain Cordier: The beauty of, I think, what we do in a museum is that we ensure that the art is visible by the public. And in cases like that, not only the art gets visible by the public, but the history and the drama that it represents can also be told. And I think we were very fortunate that the family was very receptive. The family is still based in France and it’s the heirs to the Bacri brothers, and they were very responsive. And so, we came to financial agreement with them, and now the painting hangs in this time very legitimately in the Mellon galleries.
