Jacques Brinon/AP
(ENLARGE)
At the Louvre in Paris, the
198-year-old 'Napoleon in
Triumph' was secured in a
custom-made crate for its
trans-Atlantic flight.
Rich Addicks/Staff
(ENLARGE)
The Napoleon statue was
the last work to be installed
at the High Museum for the
opening of the Louvre
Atlanta show.
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What it takes to move a masterpiece
By CATHERINE FOX
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 10/13/2006
Two centuries ago, Napoleon Bonaparte battled his way across Europe
on horseback and sailed the Mediterranean to subdue Egypt. But the
French emperor couldn't have imagined the journey his sculpted likeness
would experience in its 21st century quest to conquer Atlanta.
From the Louvre Museum in Paris, this 10 1/2-foot-tall, 4-ton Napoleon
was secured inside a custom-built crate, flown across the ocean in the
hold of a huge cargo plane, then whisked up I-75 strapped to the back of
a flatbed truck.
Finally, swathed ignominiously in movers' blankets, the emperor hung
suspended from a gantry while being hoisted atop a pedestal in the lobby
 Singer Freddy
of the High Museum's Wieland Pavilion — his command post for the
Fender dies at age 69 duration of Louvre Atlanta, the three-year cycle of exhibitions sampling
 AccessAtlanta.com's the French museum's vaunted collection that opens Saturday.
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Transporting the 198-year-old "Napoleon in Triumph" and the rest of the
 AccessAtlanta.com |
114 objects loaned by the Louvre for the opening exhibits was a complex
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conservators, packers and shippers. It generated a large computer
 Louvre Atlanta
database and reams of paper documenting contracts, insurance and
arrives to a royal
security as well as the condition of each work of art.
'Oui!'
The process began when the objects were approved for loan from the
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Louvre in June, and it won't end until they are back home again, safe and
memories of
sound, in Paris.
Lakewood
Handling artwork is an everyday activity at a museum, necessary to
fulfill the institution's basic function to share artistic accomplishments.
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But moving works of art is also a huge responsibility: They are often
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fragile, valuable and irreplaceable. Ensuring their preservation for future
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generations is just as important as showing them.
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Lending art is an act of faith. After all, accidents do happen. Last spring,
for example, two mixed-media objects that traveled from America to
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Paris for exhibit fell off a wall at the Pompidou Centre. "It's like all the
fears you have for your children," says Isabelle Lemaistre, Louvre
 All things
Atlanta managing curator for the Louvre. "But, like for children, you
French herald
know that they have to quit you sometime to meet other persons, new
Louvre
horizons."
Atlanta's debut
Bubble wrap won't do it
 What it takes to
Frances Francis, the High Museum's registrar, oversees transportation
move a
and related issues. Soon after the checklist of items to be loaned was
masterpiece
confirmed, she and her assistant, Amy Simon, went to Paris to discuss
 A sense of
majesty
 Louvre affair:
At High, pieces
seen in new
their crating and shipping.
Together they determined for each object the size and type of crate required, as well as the specific
types of foam and other wrapping materials needed to insulate the precious cargo from vibration,
humidity and temperature changes.
It's never as simple as using bubble wrap or packing peanuts.
As Francis explains: "Some paintings are double- and triple-crated, like nested Russian dolls, with
layers of insulation in between for extra cushioning."
A custom wooden crate for a painting traveling overseas would cost, on average, about $6,000.
"Some crates are really works of art" in themselves, says Lemaistre, the Louvre's chief sculpture
curator. "It's like a sculpture in negative space."
Once constructed, the crates rest in the galleries a few days before being filled so that the temperature
and humidity match those to which the objects are accustomed. When they reach their destination, the
unopened crates are acclimatized again, depending on the needs of the object. Most paintings require
48 hours; the masterpiece by Raphael needed 72. Some objects in future exhibitions will be displayed
in humidity-controlled cases.
Napoleon pampered
Because it is made of lead, acclimatizing was not an issue for "Napoleon in Triumph." But its size,
weight and fragility presented special challenges.
Because Lemaistre and her colleagues worried that the hollow sculpture, which tips the scales at 8,500
pounds, could collapse on itself, they required that it travel standing up. In crating it, shippers secured
the figure with three horizontal wood braces made to conform to its shape and wedges at the arms.
To transport it, a ship was considered, then abandoned as too slow and too vulnerable to hurricane
season. It was up to the High to find an available plane that could accommodate it. It did — with the
help of Napoleon's packers.
"We make our [crating] decisions based on safety of the artwork, but if the crate had been one inch
taller, it would not have fit on the plane," explains Jody Cohen, the High's special initiatives project
manager and Louvre Atlanta's uber-coordinator.
Artwork never travels alone. A courier, usually a staff member at the lending institution, accompanies
it. Sound glamorous? Not for Napoleon's chaperone, Emilie Leverrier from the Louvre's sculpture
department. A cargo plane is not long on amenities, and jump seats don't recline.
She did, however, receive a welcome bag —a drink, a snack — when she and the sculpture touched
down at Atlanta's Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport in the wee hours earlier this month. The bag
was courtesy of the High registrar's office, which also arranges hotel reservations, dinner parties, tours
of Atlanta, per diems and other elements of courier care.
A suspenseful process
A few days after the sculpture's arrival in Atlanta, under Lemaistre's watchful eye, six preparators from
the High and a crew of four from Superior Rigging, an Atlanta company specializing in moving and
erecting industrial machinery, installed Napoleon.
The sculpture was the last piece from the Louvre to be put in place, and sundry museum staffers
wandered in and out of the lobby gallery to observe.
The rigging crew, in their hard hats, bantered among themselves. They had worked at the High before
— installing the Roy Lichtenstein sculpture "House III" on the lawn, among other things — and this
job was no great shakes from a technical standpoint.
"This is light for what we do," said Dwight Weiters. "We move mainframe computers, heating and air
units."
But that didn't make this job a snap. First, the crew spent several hours inching along the dolly holding
the crate from storage on the service level to its spot in the lobby. It took a few more hours to erect the
scaffolding and the gantry — the horizontal beams holding the chain pulleys that would hoist Napoleon
onto its 3-foot-tall pedestal.
When all was in place, preparator Brian Kelly unscrewed the 8-inch bolts from the crate's front panel to
reveal the emperor — striking a regal pose and all in one piece. The crew wrapped the statue in
blankets to protect it from abrasion, hooked hoisting straps to the chains and slowly, almost
imperceptibly, began to lift it off its pallet.
This is the moment when a curator holds her breath. "It's difficult to suspend a sculpture because you
don't know exactly the center," Lemaistre explained. "It's the most dangerous time."
(At the Seattle Art Museum in 1991, a lift strap broke when workmen were hoisting Jonathan
Borofsky's 11-ton "Hammering Man" sculpture into place. Fortunately, it fell only 1 foot and was
repaired.)
The crew slid the pallet out and set Napoleon on the floor. One last hurdle remained: sliding
Napoleon's 12-foot-tall scepter, which had traveled in a separate box, into his hand. Fortunately, as the
team had hoped, the lobby's ceiling was just high enough to allow the scepter to be raised and lowered
into place without the risk of tipping the sculpture.
Finally, they winched the statue aloft one more time, slid its pedestal beneath it, squared it and lowered
it on top. The riggers dismantled the scaffolding and gantry and, after 25 days in a crate, a 4,369-mile
journey and 12 hours of installation, the final piece of Louvre Atlanta was in place.