Seminar of the Prado Museum Chair. Factivism. Working with Historical Sources.
Museo del Prado, Madrid. Fridays 8, 15, 22 and 29 November 2024.

The 12th Prado Museum Chair program consists of four lectures, a colloquium and a seminar that takes place in four sessions. The seminar is held on Friday mornings in November. It deals with practical exercises in historiographical analysis on the issue that gives the Chair its title: 'Returning Looted Heritage: 1815, the Dismantling of the Louvre and the Rebirth of Museums in Europe'.

In the master seminar 'Factivism. Working with Historical Sources', we will explore together what careful archival work and close reading of historical documents - both texts and images - can - and cannot - contribute to the history of European museums and restitutions. We begin with different sources from 1814/15 onwards, arranged according to themes that coincide with those of the Thursday lectures (see here the program of the Prado Lectures 2024). The analysis work to be undertaken raises questions such as: How can the aporia of sources be addressed methodically? To what extent is archival work political? What does a careful reading of bicentennial documents contribute to current debates on restitution and museums?

The language of the seminar will be English, but we will try to work in a variey of European languages. Native speakers from all countries are welcome!

INFORMATION AND APPLICATION

// General Information //

Direction: Bénédicte Savoy
Organization: Museo Nacional del Prado

Seminars:
Fridays 8, 15, 22 and 29 November 2024, from 9.30 a.m. to 2 p.m. (Spanish peninsular time)

Recipients:
Postgraduate, predoctoral students and postdoctoral students who have obtained their doctoral degree within the last three years (not before 2022).

Location:
Classroom 1 of the Casón del Buen Retiro (Alfonso XII, 28) and permanent exhibition halls of the Museo Nacional del Prado.

// Application //

Attendance at the seminar is subject to pre-registration. The Museo del Prado and the Fundación Notariado offer a maximum of 25 places, all of which are free of charge.
Applicants should be either postgraduate, predoctoral and postdoctoral students or researchers. In the case of postdoctoral students, the doctoral degree must have been obtained within the last three years (not before 2022). Participants will be selected on the basis of their academic record, educational profile and interest in the course, proof of which will be provided by means of a text (500 words maximum), by way of a letter of motivation and a summary of their academic record, which should not exceed one page. Applications are to be submitted between September 2 and October 20, 2024, inclusive. After the deadline, applicants will be notified of the decision. Successful applicants must attend all the lectures as well as participate in the seminars. The application must be made online using the form available on this page during the period indicated above.

Contact
centro.estudiosmuseodelprado.es

// Program//

2024
NOV. 8: The Question of Restitution

In this session we will use and analyse specific newspaper articles, correspondence, pamphlets, statements, etc. to focus on such multifaceted and politically charged terms as restitution, repatriation, recovery and others.

NOV. 15: Question 2: The Controversy

The second session will be devoted to the legal texts and principles invoked by the victors and the vanquished to justify the dismantling of the Napoleon Museum in 1814 and 1815, the legal references and the ethical foundations of their respective positions.

NOV. 22: The Difficult Question of Universality

In this session we will closely examine the visual and textual concepts of universality proposed by the various parties during the great art recovery campaign of 1814 and 1815. We will compare these with more recent texts on the subject.

NOV. 29: One more Question: Reappropriation

The final session of the seminar will focus on the more performative issues that affected the staging, image and institutionalisation of the works recovered in Paris by the various European powers after 1815. In particular, we will focus on the question of the exhibition and display of the works recovered in France.

Holder of the Prado Chair 2024: Bénédicte Savoy
Bénédicte Savoy is professor for Modern Art History at the Technische Universität Berlin. Between 2016 and 2021 she also held a professorship at the Collège de France in Paris, where she taught the cultural history of artistic heritage in Europe from the 18th century to the 20th century. Her research focuses on museum history, Franco-German cultural transfer, Nazi looted art, and research on postcolonial provenance. In 2018 she wrote the report “On the Restitution of African Cultural Heritage” together with Senegalese scholar Felwine Sarr. This report was commissioned by Emmanuel Macron, President of France.
She has received numerous awards for her research, academic activities, and teaching, including the 2016 Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Prize of the German Research Foundation and, most recently, the Berlin Science Prize. She is a member of the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities, a Knight of the French Legion of Honor and a member of various other institutions, advisory boards, and committees. Her most recent publications include the book “Africa’s Struggle for Its Art: History of a Postcolonial Defeat,” which has been translated into several languages, and the joint publication “Atlas der Abwesenheit. Kameruns Kulturerbe in Deutschland” (Atlas of Absence. Cameroon’s Cultural Heritage in Germany).