Stories ·
How did these works reach Paris?
Different objects arrived through royal collections, purchases, excavation agreements and military seizures.
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Collections and purchases
Ancient sculptures from royal holdings were displayed in the Salle des Caryatides from 1692. Another object in the collection, Dedia’s writing palette, followed a different path: it entered through the purchase of Henry Salt’s collection in 1826. Salt was a British collector and diplomat in Egypt. A collection purchase may bring many objects together, each with an earlier history of its own.
Excavation and division
The Egyptian collection also grew through agreements with the Egyptian government to divide excavation finds. That is a different process from buying a private collection. It is worth asking both where an object was found and how it changed hands afterward.
War and removal
Veronese’s Wedding Feast at Cana was painted for a monastery dining hall in Venice. French forces seized it in 1797, and it was transported to France in 1798. Its enormous size belongs to that original setting.
Keep the earlier setting in view
These histories can raise difficult questions about power, loss and ownership. A museum label is a useful beginning. Give the place and people an object came from some of the attention you give its present display.