by Jon Lackman | 15 May 2007 | Ancient
How many antiquities have countries such as Greece lost to foreign looters over the centuries? In the latest issue of the lavish Journal des Savants (Janvier-Juin 2006), which is “the oldest literary journal in Europe … founded in 1665,” Alessia Zambon contributes a lengthy article on “Fauvel and Greek Vases”: “[His] first taste of Greece awakened in Fauvel a great passion for the country. Upon his return to France, his only desire was to return to the Orient. A choice opportunity presented itself in 1784, when Choiseul-Gouffier was named French ambassador to Constantinople. The count embarked upon his mission in the company of a retinue of scholars and artists, among them Fauvel. His intention was to utilize these specialists to study antiquities in situ. Alongside his purely ‘scientific’ interest in antiquities, there was also apparently a desire to collect them … Choiseul’s famous directive [to Fauvel] in a letter nicely illustrates the count’s project: ‘Take everything you can, don’t miss a single opportunity to pillage from Athens and its surroundings everything worth pillaging. [...] Spare neither the living nor the dead.’”
