We all know about the theft of the Mona Lisa from the Musée du Louvre, but there was another painting that was snatched right off the wall.
On June 11, 1939, Antoine Watteau’s painting L’Indifferent was quickly cut from its wires and left in the middle of the day from a full room dedicated to the Dr. Louis La Caze collection in the Denon wing.
To make matters worse, it was 28 years after the theft of the Mona Lisa, and again it wasn’t the guards who discovered it was gone, it was a visitor to the Louvre. The tour guide, Colette Tissier walked into the Salle de La Caze et Schlichting at the far end of the 1st floor of the Denon wing and noticed the small painting was missing. She asked guard Charles Césari where it was and a chain reaction of alarms sounded. Although it was too late, the painting was gone.
Césari remembered the day before a man that stood for a long time in front of the small painting. The guard later said that a strange amount of people asked him questions about another painting on the other side of the long room diverting his attention. The next day on June 11, Césari noticed the man again but then was gone as he went on his break at 3:35 pm. At 3:50 pm the alarm rang, the doors closed and all visitors were searched as they left.
Today paintings are hung and attached to metal rods and clipped into place. In 1939 the Watteau was hung by steel wire that the thief would twist a bit every day for over two weeks. Lifting the 8 x 10 painting with his shoulder and gave each wire a little twist which eventually thinned the wire enough for him to quickly cut them on June 11.
In 1939, just as in 1911 the guards were former military and police members but there still wasn’t enough to cover the space. 114 guards for over 400 rooms bringing it to just one guard for every four rooms.
Henri Verne, director of the Louvre had done a lot in the first four years on the job. He moved the Asian antiquities to the Guimet museum and also expanded the galleries by moving into the upper floors of the Sully wing and even suggested they move the Ministry of Finance out so the museum could take over the Richelieu wing which would finally happen in 1989. One of his biggest accomplishments was adding lighting to the museum and expanding the hours.
Verne got the job in 1911 after Théophile Homolle who was fired after the theft of the Mona Lisa. Verne would eventually meet the same fate in December of 1939. The next director, Jacques Jaujard would be the savior of the art of the Louvre during World War II.
The Theft
The painting was gone and again there were very few clues. The Louvre tried to keep it concealed until the next day and then the authorities weren’t allowed into the museum until June 13. An investigation began and an international search was underway. The Louvre reopened to the public on June 15 and once again the crowds lined up to see the room where the painting was stolen but they wouldn’t wait long for its return.
Since the theft of the Mona Lisa the Louvre had put in a permanent security commission that involved the director of the Beaux-Arts, architects, and representatives of the police and fire, based in the Marengo Pavillion on the north side of the Cour Carrée they were far from the scene of the crime and able to keep out of the situation by director Verne.
For two months Commissioner André Roches led an exhaustive search for the painting. The “daring but easy” robbery didn’t yield many clues and then one day they received a call that within the hour they should expect news on the theft.
On August 14 the media was alerted that something “sensational” was going to happen at the courthouse.
When the tall lean man arrived with four lawyers he went directly to the press. He introduced himself as Serge Claude Bougosslavsky, great-grandson of sculptor Pierre Puget, and declared that it was he who stole Watteau’s L’Indifferent from the walls of the Musée du Louvre They all gasped.
Serge “Bog” as he was known was just 24 years old, the son of Russian immigrants who led a mostly quiet life. Arrested on site he was sent to the Santé prison while he awaited trial. He had planned to steal the painting for over a year and frequently visited the small beauty.
Serge basking in the limelight went on to tell them that he went to the Louvre every day for 15 days before he stole it. Each day lifting the painting and twisting the wire from which it hung, no one ever noticed. Bog said “I could not stand to see it in that condition any longer, so I simply took it home with me”
On June 11, he cut the wire, put the small painting under his coat, and walked right out the door. The reason why he took it? Well, that was because he felt it needed to be restored from errors that occurred in earlier restorations. In a small rental apartment on the top floor at 203 Rue Saint Honoré where he “restored” the painting by washing it to bring out the colors and removing the diabolo (Chinese yo-yo) which he felt wasn’t in the style of Watteau. The original frame he deemed inappropriate and not the one the artist would have chosen was removed and destroyed. Bog used industrial strength varnish and substances that did more harm than help the painting he felt so obliged to protect.
During the process, he wrote a manifesto stating his reason for taking the painting and planned to return the painting to the Louvre and then kill himself.
Why did he decide to return it? He had three reasons that compelled him to bring an end to the search. The first was so that the magistrate could go on their long-awaited French vacation. Second, the French police could focus on the national defense as it neared World War II and lastly to relieve Scotland Yard which had put through a “great deal of trouble”.
On October 10, 1939, Serge was sentenced to two years in prison and a fine of 300 francs. He appealed the conviction and on December 4, his sentence was increased to four years.
After his release, he exiled to Switzerland with his wife Denise Nusia who was the mistress of actor Richard Desprès while he was away in prison.
For just a few short weeks Watteau’s “retouched” L’Indifferent returned to the Louvre and was on display. It was the only painting in the Louvre. Thirteen days later on December 29 it was packed up and moved to the Loire Valley before the Germans arrived in Paris.
Restorer Jean-Gabriel Goulinat took special care during the years away and worked on restoring the painting in the Loire Valley. He reported that the painting was attacked and some of the paint was scraped off the hat, left arm, and leg and the removal of the diablo was an arrogant act in itself. The Diablo has never returned
Watteau, the painter
Jean-Antoine Watteau was Born October 10, 1684, in Valenciennes in the north of France, which had become a part of the country six years before. At 18 he moved to Paris and into the Saint Germain neighborhood with Flemish artists and began to paint but not in the romantic way we may think.
The young Antoine got a job at a small shop on the Pont Notre Dame and was employed as a copyist and sign painter. In 1709, with loftier goals he entered the Prix de Rome contest but finished in second and returned to Valenciennes for three years. Refocusing he joined the Royal Academy on July 30, 1712, and moved to the nearby Quai de Conti on the edge of the Left Bank where he worked on what would become the piece that would name the movement.
Watteau was given special access to the Palais du Luxembourg and the Rubens Medici cycle of 24 paintings depicting the life of Marie de Medicis which he would copy and influenced him greatly and led to his carefree depictions of the Regency.
Louis XIV died on September 1, 1715, and his great-grandson Louis XV was only 5 years old. Philippe Duc d’Orlean, nephew of Louis XIV served as the Regent and moved the court back to Paris from Versailles. In Paris, the parties returned to the Hotel Particuliers and the Palais Royal. The days of frivolity and decadence were here and Watteau was about to capture them on the canvas.
On August 18, 1717, Watteau entered his reception piece L’Embarquement pour Cythère . Upon seeing the painting the Academy had a difficult time classifying the painting as a Fetes Galantes giving him his own genre and place in the Academy.
At the end of 1720, suffering from tuberculosis he moved to Nogent-sur-Marrne to live with his friend Léfebvre and died on July 18, 1721, and was buried at the Eglise Saint-Saturnin in Nogent-sur-Marne. Desecrated during the Revolution his bones were destroyed. Today you can find a monument dedicated to the artist by Louis Aurray, inaugurated in 1865.
On November 8, 1896, a monument to Watteau by Henri Desiré Gauquié was added to the east side of the Jardin du Luxembourg.
Anywhere from 35 to 90 paintings have been attributed to him. Since his early paintings were copies some art historians attribute him to fewer paintings, but the majority of them were the scenes of the Fetes Galantes.
The provenance of the L’Indifférent includes a few well-known names along the way. Painter and miniaturist Jean-Baptiste Massé was the first to own l’Indifferent in 1729 after the death of Watteau. After the death of Massé, it was sold to the Marquis de Marigny, superintendent of buildings under Louis XV. A job he was able to slide into thanks to his sister Madame de Pompidour, the love of the king. Marigny died on May 11, 1781, and the painting was sold a year later to Auguste Gabriel Godefroy. Son of jeweler Charles Godefroy, the family had a long love affair with art and as a child, the young Auguste was depicted in John Siméon Chardin’s L’Enfant au Toton found just two rooms away from Watteau in the Louvre.
On September 29, 1806, it was sold to art dealer Jean-Baptiste Le Brun, nephew of Charles Le Brun and husband of Elisabeth Vigee Le Brun, the amazing artist known for her feminine portraits and the official painter of Marie-Antoinette.
In 1848 it was purchased by Doctor Louis Le Caze who in 1865 would give the Musée du Louvre the largest donation in museum history of 583 paintings and drawings covering Dutch, Flemish, Spanish, and French artists that including Watteau. At the time of the donation, the Louvre had only one painting by the artist in the collection. Which grew to 19 paintings and numerous drawings.
Many of Watteau’s paintings can also be found at the Chateau de Chantilly and in St Petersburg, Russia. During WWII the rococo artist was a favorite of Hitler and his main henchman Goering tried to convince Jacques Jaujard to give him the Louvre’s entire Watteau collection. They refused and countered with the return of 8 works the Berlin museum has in its collection. Neither side was successful. The French did give up one piece, more on that another time.
Today l’Indifferent is behind a glass wall in Salle 918 on the 2nd floor of the Sully wing and few search it out.