The extraordinary adventure of the Napoleon Museum is an almost legendary episode in European museum history. In 1802, Vivant Denon was appointed director of the Louvre and renamed it the Napoleon Museum with the ambition of making it the world’s most beautiful. The museum continued to grow and take shape under his direction, as he saw to the presentation of collections and acquired masterpieces from the collections of conquered cities as spoils. This creation was only temporary, however, since the works were returned to their rightful owners under the Vienna Treaty of 1815. But the bygone museum became “an even bigger colossus in the imagination”.

The aim of this guidebook is to recall what the Napoleon Museum once was and what lives on in the Louvre today.