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Title details for Plunder by Cynthia Saltzman - Available

Plunder

Napoleon's Theft of Veronese's Feast

by Cynthia Saltzman
Suzanne Toren
Audiobook
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Cynthia Saltzman's Plunder recounts the fate of Paolo Veronese's Wedding Feast at Cana, a vast, sublime canvas that the French, under the command of the young Napoleon Bonaparte, tore from a wall of the monastery of San Giorgio Maggiore, on an island in Venice, in 1797. Painted in 1563 during the Renaissance, the picture was immediately hailed as a masterpiece. In 1801, the Veronese went on exhibition at the Louvre, the new public art museum founded during the Revolution in the former palace of the French kings.
As Saltzman tells the larger story of Napoleon's looting of Italian art and its role in the creation of the Louvre, she reveals the contradictions of his character: his thirst for greatness—to carry forward the finest aspects of civilization—and his ruthlessness in getting whatever he sought. After Napoleon's 1815 defeat at Waterloo, the Duke of Wellington and the Allies forced the French to return many of the Louvre's plundered paintings and sculptures. Nevertheless, The Wedding Feast at Cana remains in Paris to this day, hanging directly across from the Mona Lisa.
Expertly researched and deftly told, Plunder chronicles one of the most spectacular art appropriation campaigns in history, one that sheds light on a seminal historical figure and the complex origins of one of the great museums of the world.

  • Creators

  • Publisher

  • Release date

    June 8, 2021

  • Formats

    • OverDrive Listen audiobook

      • ISBN: 9781666124439
      • File size: 285239 KB
      • Duration: 09:54:14

  • Languages

    • English

  • Reviews

    • AudioFile Magazine
      This fascinating audiobook is a fusion of exceptional writing and an outstanding narration by Suzanne Toren. Author Cynthia Saltzman presents a sweeping account of Napoleon's conquest of Europe, including the looting of its finest antiquities and Renaissance masterpieces and the creation of the Mus�e du Louvre. Caught between the colliding worlds of art and politics is the history of Paolo Veronese's painting THE WEDDING FEAST AT CANA. The massive canvas, completed in 1563, was ripped from the wall of a Venetian monastery and taken to Paris in 1797. The level of detail and visual imagery in this audiobook is stunning, and Toren delivers the entirety with a bravura that is uniquely her own. Impeccable pacing, exquisite French, and diverse accents all add depth and clarity to this captivating listen. S.A.A. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award © AudioFile 2021, Portland, Maine
    • Publisher's Weekly

      November 2, 2020
      Art historian Saltzman (Old Masters, New World) provides a rich account of Napoleon’s looting of Italian masterpieces as he battled the Austrian Empire across Italy in the late 18th century. Saltzman focuses on Renaissance artist Paolo Veronese’s The Wedding Feast at Cana, a large-format painting depicting the Venetian Republic at the height of its powers, which in Saltzman’s view was emblematic of the scale of Napoleon’s ambition, both for his military campaigns and the Louvre, where it still hangs. Saltzman unearths fascinating details about the painting, including the contractual terms Veronese agreed to in 1562, his use of “the rarest and most costly blue” to paint the sky above the feast, the way it caught the light in the Benedictine refectory where it hung for two centuries until Napoleon plundered it, and the efforts French archivists undertook to keep it out of Nazi hands during WWII. The author’s descriptions of Napoleon’s military and diplomatic campaigns don’t have the same energy and insight as the book’s art history. Still, this is a rewarding look at the legacy of wartime art theft and the turbulent life of an Italian masterpiece.

Formats

  • OverDrive Listen audiobook

subjects

Languages

  • English

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