Paris, 1794. The Republic conquers. But it is not only territories it seizes from the vanquished — it takes their masterpieces too.
As French armies sweep across Flanders, Italy, Rome and Venice, another war is fought in sacristies and palaces: that of the arts commissioners, armed with inventories and requisition orders, who methodically plunder the greatest collections in Europe to fill the Museum of Paris. Van Eyck, Rubens, Raphael, Titian, Veronese — everything the continent holds most precious is making its way to France.
From the Abbé Grégoire, tormented theorist of legal plunder, to the young general Bonaparte who imposes his law on the Italian princes with the smile of a man who knows exactly what he is worth, The Great Plunder traces the birth of an unprecedented system: state theft elevated to cultural policy.
The first volume of a four-part historical saga — epic in scope, rooted in fact, unflinching in its portrait of men and power.
