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Napoleon knew how to combine his aspirations for power with the noble goals of the museum that was named after him. For example, just think of his wedding parade with the Hapsburg Princess Marie-Louise in 1810 through the Grande Galerie of the Louvre. The pageant became widely known through the medium of a copper engraving (see sidebar). As the imperial couple and their large entourage filed through the great hall, their honor guard was made up not only of the royal household but also of the war booty displayed along both sides of the hall. Paintings from the royal collections of Europe, including Jacob Jordaens' Bean Party from Kassel set the stage for Napoleon's celebration, which was crowned by his family's ascent into the ranks of European aristocracy. The propaganda demands which Napoleon placed upon the museum were most blatantly on view in the Salle de la Victoire (Victory Gallery). Here all attention was drawn to one overwhelming masterpiece - the thematically reinterpreted Triumph of the Victor by Rubens. Whereas in Kassel, this painting had found its counterpart in the companion Rubens' painting also concerned with victory Abraham and Melchisedek, here in Paris it dominated the gallery by itself, its companion having, having been sent to a provincial museum in Caen. Concerning just which victories and above all just which victor was being glorified here, was made quite unambiguous thanks to the colossal portrait bust of the Emperor Napoleon by Lorenzo Bartolini (1777 -- 1850), which Denon had placed beneath the painting. At any rate the allegorical hyperbole with which Rubens sought to evoke the victory of Catholicism found a completely new point of referencein this setting: a victor who had not only shown the church the door, but thought himself beyond the reach of history. For just as in the Salle de la Victoire the bust of Napoleon stood opposite the war trophies of the conquered Habsburgs, in the Musée Napoléon, the art treasures of Europe lay at the feet of the Conqueror of Europe. The Triumph of the Victor was not only the most prominent painting in the museum, it was the personal favorite of Napoleon, who later had it conveyed to Fontainebleau Palace.

The Fate of the Lagrange Booty

If it's the case that the Musée Napoléon and its goals were intertwined with Napoleon's propaganda needs, you might say that it was the opposite with Joséphine's connection. The core of the painting collection in Malmaison Palace,made up of the very best paintings taken from Kassel which had fallen into the hands of General Lagrange, were displayed in a gallery which was part of Joséphine's private residence. This is where the Empress and later ex-Empress held court. She had had the palace decorated by Napoleon's court architects Percier and Fontaine in the new Empire style, and she held high expectations for her art collection in its new surroundings. After acquiring the paintings from Kassel she planned the addition of a large gallery to the palace. We don't know much about the criteria that Josephine followed when she was making purchases to add to her collection, however the collection shows an interplay between old and new paintings. In 1811 a catalog of the collection was published. And yet while the Kassel paintings held in the collection were not made available to the public to the extent the paintings held by the Musée Napoléon were, nor with any similar educational goals in mind, a few masterpieces still created a cultural resonance of their own. Take, for example, Gerard Dous' Herring Seller, from Kassel, which was copied onto an urn in one of Josephine's services.

The careful and appreciative attention which these paintings received while in Josephine's ownership continued when they were taken up in the collection of their next owner. In 1815, one year after Josephine's death, the Russian Czar Alexander I. bought thirty-eight paintings from Malmaison, twenty-one of which had originally been confiscated from Kassel. The purchases are listed in the handwritten catalogue of the Czar's collection and represent an important chapter in the foundation of the Hermitage's holdings. And here too, some of the paintings from Kassel were found worthy of being copied onto porcelain, such as the famous Pissing Cow by Paulus Potter. The porcelain, which was painted by the artist Stoletow in 1847, at first glance appears to bear an exact copy of the painting -- with one important exception. The taste of the times required a change in that very detail which gave its name to the painting, so that the "pissing cow" is in fact no longer "pissing".

Jérôme's War Booty

The history of the confiscation of artworks from Kassel does not end with Napoleon's purloining. Napoleons younger brother Jérôme tried in this respect to follow in his footsteps. Jérôme also, wanted to found museum, and at the same time use its holdings to burnish his reputation. However since upon his arrival in Kassel he found nothing but a few leftovers from its former collections, his eye turned to the collection of paintings belonging to the exiled Duke of Braunschweig, Karl Wilhelm Ferdinand (1735-1806), in Salzdahlum. Although Denon had already plundered the Braunschweig collection as well, before the arrival of Jérôme in his new kingdom, the holes in this collection were not quite as gaping. At first Jérôme demanded just 100 paintings for his Kassel palace; then in 1808 he ordered the transfer of 200 pictures from Salzdahlum to a new museum in Braunschweig. The gallery curator, Anton Weitsch, who had been able to retain his position through all the upheavals, was picked to make the selection. But this project was not an original idea of Jérôme's, he was carrying out a series of reforms that had already been planned before the Duke of Braunschweig's forced departure in 1806. The exiled Duke had already intended to bring together all of the art treasures in a large museum attached or near to his palace. Since Jérôme had planned to maintain a second residence in Braunschweig and spend much time there, he initiated far-reaching renovations at the Grauen Hof palace, and a museum in the pattern of the Musée Napoléon would have fitted his plans perfectly

However in point of fact, the two hundred selected paintings from Salzdahlum didn't end up in Braunschweig, but went straight to Kassel. Possibly Jérôme judged the need for decoration to be greater at the royal residence in Kassel after it had been so severely plundered by Denon. At any rate, the pictures from Salzdahlum covered the walls of the palatial rooms in Kassel and at the Wilhelmshöhe Palace on the heights above the city (which during Jérôme's residence, was referred to as Napoleonshöhe). And in the following years no fewer than three hundred additional pictures arrived from the same source in Braunschweig. By that time Jérôme had more than adequately compensated for the confiscation of artworks from Kassel, as far as numbers go. Nonetheless in 1810 over two hundred paintings were once again gathered together -- even if they were somewhat lower quality -- and this time were really sent to Braunschweig. The planned museum, which would later be named after Duke (Herzog) Anton Ulrich, did not open however until 1816 after the return of the confiscated artworks from Paris.

Jérôme considered the collection holdings which he found when he arrived in his kingdom as his personal property, just as Napoleon did when dealing with the paintings taken from Kassel that he had delivered to Josephine. We have a report that during the visit of Jérôme's mother, Madame Mères, she was presented with finely cut stones from the holdings of the Museum Fridericianum. Less believable is the story that astronomical instruments which were held in the museum's collection, were taken and reworked to be used as kitchen tools. Actually, Jérôme added to the museums holdings of scientific instruments, with at least a handful of documented purchases. But they certainly didn't stop him, upon his flight before opposing forces in October of 1813 and with his kingdom collapsing around his years, from taking most of the pictures from Salzdahlum, a few of the remaining Kassel pictures, and nearly all of his own purchases, with him.

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Johann Heinrich Carl Reinhold (Gera 1788-1825 Rome) after Benjamin Zix Wedding Procession of Napoleon and Marie-Louise in the Grande Galerie 1810. Paris, Musée Carnavalet.

On April 2, 1810, Napoleon married the Hapsburg Princess Marie-Louise of Austria in the chapel of the Louvre. The way to the chapel led through the Grande Galerie of the Musée Napoléon. Here the Imperial couple led by a master of ceremonies leads their entourage through the large all. They have just passed one of the arches designed by the imperial architects and inserted into the Louvre, and find themselves surrounded by Flemish paintings, many of which had been confiscated from German collections. Above on the right is the Bean Party by Jakob Jordaens from the Kassel collection. In the original drawing by Benjamin Zix upon which this engraving was based, this spot on the wall held another painting Rubens' Mars and Venus and a Pieta by Van Dyke. Perhaps the engraver considered a festival painting more appropriate than those of the religious nature, and changed the paintings in the engraving before publication for this reason. Napoleon's placed no limits upon the use of his war booty in furthering his reputation.