On 24 August 1939, the day after the Soviet foreign minister Molotov and his German counterpart von Ribbentrop signed the pact that gave Hitler free rein to attack the West, the Louvre director, Jacques Jaujard, ordered the museum to be closed for three days. Officially, for repair. In fact, for three days and three nights, 200 Louvre staff, students from the museum’s art school and employees from La Samaritaine, the grand magasin, carefully placed 4,000 world treasures in wooden cases.
Luckily, The Wedding at Cana by Veronese could be rolled around a cylinder. So could Jacques-Louis David’s The Coronation of Napoleon. But Delacroix’s Crusaders, Géricault’s The Raft of the Medusa and all the Rubenses were too fragile and had to be hauled away on a special open truck made to transport the set designs and murals of France’s state theatre company, the Comédie Française. The Raft of the Medusa, weighing nearly one and a half tons, stood in the open-air truck covered only by a giant blanket.
Masterpieces were categorised in order of importance: a yellow circle for very valuable ones, a green circle for major artworks and a red circle for world treasures. The white case containing the Mona Lisa was marked with three red circles. In a letter to the curator who was in charge of travelling with the painting also known in France as La Joconde — and who did not yet know the full burden of his responsibility — Jaujard broke the news by telling him: “Old friend, your convoy will be made of eight trucks. I have to tell you that the Chenu truck which will be departing from 5 rue de la Terrasse, with the plate number 2162RM2, contains a case with the letters MN written in black. It is the Mona Lisa.” Leonardo da Vinci’s finest work was travelling in an ambulance specially fitted with elastic-rubber-sprung suspension.
A convoy of 203 vehicles transporting 1,862 wooden cases set out one morning in late August to eleven castles in France — where they would wait, anonymous and secure, for what would come. Grand châteaux on the Loire, such as Chambord and Cheverny, were used, but Jaujard also requisitioned more inconspicuous and privately-owned estates conveniently ‘lost’ in the French countryside, far from any strategic locations. Every convoy had a curator and staff attached to it. Their mission: to look after the art collections in their new homes for as long as was necessary. Whole families were displaced and relocated. For those dedicated museum employees, it was an adventure that would last more than five years.
Did they ever ask themselves what the world treasures they were guarding with their lives were worth? The most expensive painting ever sold at auction, Salvator Mundi, attributed to Leonardo da Vinci, was bought for $450 million in 2017. What would the most famous painting in the world, the Mona Lisa, be worth if France sold it? A rhetorical question? Not for French tech entrepreneur Stéphane Distinguin who estimates its value at €50 billion (£44.7 billion) and thinks the French State should sell it to fund post-Covid recovery. His thinking is as simplistic as his maths:
“As an entrepreneur and a taxpayer, I know that all the billions spent in the covid crisis are real and will necessarily cost us. An obvious idea is to sell off a valuable asset at the highest price possible, but one that is the least critical as possible to our future.”
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SubscribeIf we have to descend to the level of the cynics who know the price of everything and the value of nothing, let’s not forget that the Louvre actually makes a substantial net profit for the French state – especially once one factors in the reality that people go to Paris to see the Mona Lisa and their presence there also supports local restaurants, hotels, cafes, etc.
http://www3.grips.ac.jp/~cu…
“The Louvre’s impact on the French economy varies from €936 million to €1.157 billion. Tax receipts for the French state range from €119 million to €203 million, which may result in a change in its financial position of between €37 million to €82 million. The net number of jobs created varies from 10,292 under the most adverse scenario to 21,225 under the most favorable scenario. Lastly, if we look at the data in terms of averages, weighting the three options equally, we can conceive of the different types of impact as very favorable: an impact of €938 million, a net tax gain of €39 million, between 12,738 and 18,090 jobs created. The impact is therefore highly substantial in terms of public finances and employment, both of which play an essential role in current debates and sustainable development:
– The Louvre generates proceeds for the French state, in spite of the budgetary expenses (subsidies) and tax deductions (in consideration for sponsorship) it entails;
– The Louvre guarantees the existence of a significant number of jobs, at a very low cost for public finances at a time when employment is a major concern for political and economic agents.”
Perhaps the British Museum should now follow the example of the Louvre?
Maybe, but I think we have to accept now that the arts, and especially the high arts, are completely finished now. We will never see them again.
Well, I think that’s overly pessimistic; continental museums are opening up again right now; even some concerts will take place in Vienna next month. I expect major arts institutions, particularly in capital cities will survive. A goodly part of tourism all over Europe is motivated by museums, artistic events, and historic architecture, and I think most governments will see supporting that as a Keynesian investment. Private institutions funded by endowments will also presumably be OK. In the UK, we probably need to see museums and art galleries begin to charge admission fees, as they do everywhere else in the world (it’s inconsistent that they don’t in the first place; after all, I cheerfully stump up for a theatre ticket).
What will be clearly in serious trouble are the smaller and provincial institutions. I have no doubt the Royal Opera House will re-open, but I wonder about Opera North…
Whatever… the size, reach and financial commitments and promises of the French state are so great that you could sell off all the artworks in France and it would only keep the show on the road for a few months at best. The same applies to more or less every other state in the west.
The other objection which you don’t raise is: who could possibly afford to pay £44.7 billion now, anyway?
If there is any private buyer who can afford it, then it raises serious questions about the imbalance between private and public wealth in the modern world. The state ought to be in a position to buy up private assets right now!
They should take the money and replace the painting with a portrait of Macron. That will bring in the crowds.
Reading the title of this excellent piece I couldn’t help thinking “What would the Mona Lisa be worth to Italy?’ but they won’t be getting it whatever they think of their Italian painter’s work being detained in Paris.
It raises the question of how the COVID-19 debt will be paid off. But we might as well as consider all debt because public and private debt is now so stupefyingly huge that it will kill any economic recovery. There’re only really two ways out, other than decades of stagnation, and that is a bit of hyperinflation, or some sort of debt jubilee. I don’t have any debt but I would rather go for the debt jubilee as the least injurious way out from under this suffocating debt.
Just for once, the French are entitled to the Mona Lisa. As the author noted, François I invited Leonardo to France and gave him a home, near Chenonceaux, I believe, where he spent his final years.
Well, much as I admire the spirit and Gallic fire with which you defend your thesis and as an aficianodo of France Culture (the radio channel) smile at the way you slip in a reference to your book, there is no reason why the comfortable museumocrats and their crowds of smelly gaping sheep should be spared a Covid-19 shock or two. Turbulence is for everyone, n’est-ce pas?