The Inheritance of Looting:
Medieval Trophies to Modern Museums
SNF Research Project, 2023-2026

This research project considers how and why looted objects become defined as “art.” Taking the Bern Historical Museum (BHM) as a starting point—a collection whose core is a group of objects plundered by the Bernese and/or the Old Swiss Confederacy in the late Middle Ages—we will investigate how these works were valued, interpreted, and displayed through time. How did looted fragments come to be understood as cornerstones of cultural heritage, and why did triumphal displays evolve into museum galleries? In tracing these developments, it is our goal to uncover the longevity of Western collections’ attempts to use “art” as a means of suppressing or recasting entanglements with war and violence. In order to tell these manifold and often contradictory narratives, our team is developing a virtual exhibition geared towards both researchers and the broader public.

Select objects of the so-called Burgunderbeute on display at the BHM in 1943
© Bernisches Historisches Museum, Photo: Hugo Loertscher