Three reliefs from Khorsabad, Nimrud and Nineveh or about donations and desiderata: an approach to the relationship between the Louvre and the Museum of Artistic Reproductions of Madrid (1896-1900)

Abstract

The extinct Museum of Artistic Reproductions of Madrid, whose collection houses the National Museum of Sculpture (Valladolid) since 2011, had copies of 14 Mesopotamian pieces. A good part of them was commissioned to two European reference museums: the British Museum and the Louvre Museum. In this article we pay attention to three reliefs from Khorsabad, Nimrud and Nineveh, the originals of which are in the Louvre. As a result of the work with archival documentation from the Reproduction’s Museum, it has been possible, first, to identify the plaster cast of the Khorsabad relief as a desiderata managed in 1896 but never materialized. Secondly, the archaeologist Pierre Paris (1859-1930) has been identified as the intermediary who made it possible for the Louvre to donate to the Madrid museum in the year 1900 the plaster casts of two reliefs from Nimrud and from Nineveh. This case study, articulated from three examples, allows the reconstruction of some aspects of the relationship between the Louvre and the Reproduction’s Museum between 1896 and 1900, reflecting in turn the cultural and diplomatic ties between the two countries involved.