This is a gripping tale and Saltzman tells it well. Moving seamlessly between the broader narrative of Napoleon’s rise and fall, and the fate of one sublime painting, she tells a story that will captivate any reader with an interest in art history. The book is expertly and exhaustively researched, and it reads like a thriller.
In the midst of his Italian campaign, Napoleon Bonaparte stole a painting from a monastery in Venice. Cynthia Saltzman has turned this forgotten episode into a highly original work of history . . . She depicts [Napoleon], with masterly economy, as a brilliant tactician riddled with personal conceits and vanity. The author deftly shifts between Napoleon’s military conquests and his wholesale art thefts . . . Saltzman seems equally conversant with 18th-century art criticism and the period’s politics . . . Plunder is supported by prodigious research . . . [Saltzman] has written a distinctive study that transcends both art and history and forces us to explore the connections between the two.
A compelling account of the fragility of beauty before avarice . . . It is heartbreaking to read Saltzman’s description of the way in which Veronese’s vast masterpiece, under the well-meaning supervision of Pietro Edwards, the republic’s chief restorer, was ripped from the wall of the refectory, with holes left where nails had been painted over by the hand of the artist, with its body divided, rolled up and packaged for the perilous and damp voyage to Paris . . . Saltzman’s thrilling blend of historical narrative and art criticism is fitting testimony to its enduring greatness.
Cynthia Saltzman, the author of two previous books about art, exposes the rich contradictions of the 1796 Italian campaign through the story of a prized Venetian masterpiece . . . What was Europe to make of the painting’s new home, a vast public museum stocked with war booty? In Saltzman’s scrupulous telling, there was rancor, but also awe.
[Saltzman’s] perceptive book traces Napoleon’s systematic gathering of artistic treasures as he conquered Italy, focusing on Veronese’s masterpiece . . . The book keeps sight of the rich personalities linked by the painting . . . An absorbing story of conflict and culture.
Saltzman’s sharp eyes—for people, settings and dramatic scenery—draw us brilliantly across 250 years and most of continental Europe . . . Saltzman excels in careful descriptions of contracts, pigments, canvases, stretchers and restoration techniques.
... Cynthia Saltzman has mined a comparatively minor bit of cultural vandalism and produced an absolute gem ... at every moment Saltzman maintains a smooth, easy control over all of it. Plunder is captivating reading, a chronicle full of outsized personalities.
Using a mix of art, military, and intellectual history, [Saltzman] argues that controlling art is a powerful way to control hearts and minds ... Plunder is at its best when Saltzman describes — and dissects — the philosophical and nationalistic underpinnings of France’s art kleptomania ... she joins a growing number of artists, gallerists, journalists, and critics holding museums accountable for their collections’ pasts, and their own ... Plunder asks its readers to look at art museums through a combined historical-ethical lens. Many of us could use that skill in the present, too.
The fascination of Saltzman’s splendid book lies to a significant degree in her subtle contrast of the tumultuous immensity of Bonaparte’s aspirations and the serenity of Veronese’s painting . . . Thoroughly at ease in the Venetian Renaissance and French imperial worlds, Cynthia Saltzman tells this story with Veronesian panache.
History doesn’t typically link art to politics. But when a masterpiece becomes the protagonist of a story, art transcends prescribed movements, canvas, and paint, and the circumstances of its creation and provenance. In her new book, Cynthia Saltzman traces a High Renaissance work—Paolo Veronese’s The Wedding Feast at Cana—from its inception to its role in the rise of the French Republic, uncovering it as a symbol of victory and cultural entitlement . . . She uses art, sometimes a single masterpiece, as a springboard to examine the time, place, and the people it touched and motivated . . . In Ms. Saltzman’s fresh perspective, Napoleon, the quick-thinking tactician, had a driving ambition to ‘prove himself an intellectual and a scientist’ . . . In the spare details Ms. Saltzman chooses, the characters come alive . . . Gripping narrative.
By recounting the long, strange journey of this painting through unsuspected wars, bloodshed, perilous seas, and finally, its close escape from Nazi hands, Saltzman makes one appreciate the beauty of the Wedding Feast at Cana anew. That it still exists is a miracle all by itself. I hope she will keep on looking for new miracles.
In this latest work, journalist and author Saltzman (Portrait of Dr. Gachet) explores Napoleon’s expropriation of art during his conquests. After a fascinating overview of Venetian artworks, artists, patrons, techniques, and pigments, Saltzman highlights the prized massive masterpiece Wedding Feast at Cana, by Paolo Veronese ... Readers with an interest in art history and those with an interest in stolen art piqued by Anne-Marie O’Connor’s The Lady in Gold will appreciate this well-researched and well-written history.
Saltzman is clear on technical matters, without being overly fussy, in this lively account . . . [Plunder] conveys the extent to which past events cast shadows over the art we enjoy today.
Art historian Saltzman’s narrative is packed with drama and detail, while an epilogue traces the enormous painting’s fate during the nineteenth, twentieth, and twenty-first centuries. With its extensive bibliography and compelling story, Plunder will appeal to everyone interested in Western art and civilization.
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 ... 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.
