Does the name “Denon” ring a bell? Perhaps it would if you are the sort of Louvre visitor who has gazed up at the inscription “Pavillon Denon” on the Louvre’s façade, or who notices, en route to the “Mona Lisa,” to “The Winged Victory of Samothrace,” and to Michelangelo’s Slave sculptures, that you are walking in the museum’s “Denon Wing”. Or maybe you are a connaisseur of erotic literature who knows about the new dual-language edition of “No Tomorrow,” a work attributed to Denon that has recently garnered attention in literary circles. Just who could this chameleon-like Denon fellow be? 

Known as “Napoleon’s Eye,” as well as a lover of the Empress Josephine and eventual director of the Louvre, Denon was a man of many talents. Writer, artist, collector, adventurer, archeologist, tastemaker, and charming courtier, he could metamorphose into whatever role was required of him. 

Readers of Terence Russell’s scholarly, authoritative text will get to know the colorful Denon as an intrepid artist able to sketch rapidly under fire who was selected to accompany the French troops on their Egyptian campaign. In addition to his drawing skills, however, Denon paints with his words keen observations about the land and culture he encounters. Denon’s illustrated record of what he saw in Egypt is here made available to the non-speaker of French, through Russell’s well-chosen quotes and drawings. Russell’s paraphrasing and commentary, although sometimes more dry than Denon’s own words, add a necessary framework to the story. 

It is thanks to Denon that so many Egyptian artifacts made it safely to Paris, where as a result of his efforts, the wonders of Ancient Egypt began to be known and appreciated. Without Denon, today’s Louvre would not be the treasure house that it is. To those interested in art crime, however, there is another facet to Denon’s far-reaching influence and collecting style. 

As an immensely likeable master courtier, Denon was able to put a positive spin on what amounted to Napoleon’s looting of the art of countries where he waged war. Under Bonaparte, the appropriation of art became standard policy. In praising Napoleon for his heroic efforts to “conserve” great art in the face of “the torment of war,” Denon lauds a policy that would later be copied by Hitler, whose wholesale confiscation of art was touted as an effort to “protect” it. 

Now how does the reader put together the Denon who drew for sixteen hours straight through eyelids bleeding from the windblown sand, with the author of the 30-page erotic classic, “No Tomorrow,” which according to one reader, should be next to “titillating” in the dictionary? Although Denon was known to have talent for pornographic art, it may be quite a leap from that to authoring what Good Reads calls “one of the masterpieces of eighteenth-century literature, a book to set beside Laclos’ ‘Les Liasons Dangereuses.’”

This handsome edition by “Le Monde” journalist, Nathaniel Hertzberg, begins provocatively: 

“It’s the largest and richest museum in the world— works by Picasso, Renoir, Rembrandt, Monet, Matisse, Warhol, the great Italian Primitives, a whole range of Flemish masters with Vermeer at the top of the list. Also works of sculpture, furniture, rare books, musical instruments, precious timepieces. No period or important artist is unrepresented in this unique establishment, Le Musée Invisible—the greatest museum in the world, but no one can see it. Its collections, stolen over the course of centuries, pillaged from historic sites, taken from museums, churches, chateaux and private collectors, and never recovered.” 

In homage to these missing works, Herzberg has created this imaginary museum. As a backdrop to the works he has chosen for the collection, he paints the strangely diverse world of criminals responsible for the thefts, but especially a world where to steal a work of art is easier than to resell it. 

The above Introduction is actually preceded by an explanation of why a new edition was necessary so soon after the first appeared. As Herzberg explains, “...the May 2010 thefts of five masterpieces from the Paris Musée d’Art Moderne, the most important theft of a French museum in the past quarter century had occurred, and the book made no mention of it.” 

To no one’s surprise, there were other major thefts during the interval between the first and second editions: a Breughel stolen from an art fair in Brussels, an anonymous portrait from a Polish church, a Degas pastel from the Musée Cantini in Marseilles, an anonymous sculpture from a Venezuela museum, a lavishly decorated marble plaque from a Teheran mosque, and an antique statue stolen from a private collection in Copenhagen. In 2009 alone, 1751 works of art were reported stolen in France.