The Borghese Antiquities

In 1807 Camillo Borghese, husband of Paolina Bonaparte, agreed to sell 695 works between statues, vases and reliefs to France at the behest of his brother-in-law Napoleon, who was wished to endow the capital of his empire with the most important public museum of universal arts. The museum in question was the Louvre, formerly the Central Museum of the Arts, which between 1803 and 1815 took the name of Musée Napoléon. The exhibition, curated by Anna Coliva, Marie-Lou Fabrega Dubert, Jean-Luc Martinez and Marina Minozzipresents the most notable ancient masterpieces from the Louvre’s Borghese Collection. For the first time in 200 years, 60 keystone works of the ancient world including the Borghese Vase, the Sleeping Hermaphrodite (restored by a young Bernini), the Silenus and Young Bacchus, The Three Graces and the famous Furietti Centaurs (which had never left the Louvre) return home to the Galleria Borghese.