Two precious reports by the Minister of War Henry-Jacques-Guillaume-Clarke to Napoleon I and an 18th century polychrome wooden sculpture, recovered by the Carabinieri of the Cultural Heritage Protection Department were returned today [12 June] at the Palazzo Farnese, to the French Ambassador Christian Masset. These restitutions are the result of two different investigations conducted respectively by the Nuclei Carabinieri Tpc of Udine and Monza. The sculpture, depicting a Madonna and Child, had been stolen in 1979 from the “Maison Jean-Jaques Rousseau” Museum in Chambery and the Napoleonic documents had been stolen, on an unspecified date, from the Historical Archive of the Ministre de la Défence et des Anciens Combattants in Paris.
The sculpture was identified in October 2016, during a check carried out by the Tpc Carabinieri of Udine at an antiques shop in the capital of Friuli. The soldiers compared the images of the work with those of known illegally stolen goods at the Cultural Heritage Database, managed by the Carabinieri Command for the Protection of Cultural Heritage, and realized that it was a stolen work. The Public Prosecutor of Udine ordered the seizure, and further investigative developments have made it possible to ascertain the good faith of the antiquarian (who had purchased from a well-known foreign auction house), and who renounced the property and allowing it to be returned to the French State.
The Napoleonic documents, on the other hand, are part of a second recovery activity, originating from a 2011 report by the then Archival Superintendence for Lombardy to the Cultural Heritage Protection Unit of Monza. The Superintendence referred to the sale, through a well-known auction house in Milan, of two documents dating back to the Napoleonic era and relating to communications by the French Minister of War to the Emperor. The investigations, coordinated by the Public Prosecutor’s Office of the Court of Milan, have made it possible to seize the rare documents: a report of 12 April 1809, sent by the Minister for War Henry-Jacques-Guillaume-Clarke (handwritten signature of the “Count of Hunebourg”) “A sa Majesté l’Empereur et Roi”, to inform him of the costs to be incurred for a military operation in Portugal; and a report of 3 June 1812, sent by the same Minister of War Henry-Jacques-Guillaume-Clarke (handwritten signature “Duc de Feltre”) “A sa Majesté l’Empereur et Roi”, in which he asks for an authorisation or exeat (to return to “sa patrie” in favour of a soldier of the “Battallion Etranger”. Further investigations revealed that the seller had inherited the assets, which had meanwhile been recognised by the competent French authorities, unaware of the fact that they were of illegal origin.