Is art worth a life? Is it worth risking your life to safe a work of art? This question, posed by Bernard Taper during an interview, appears constantly through out Robert M. Edsel’s book, The Monuments Men.
The Monuments Men relates the story of a group of art specialists –curators, architects, sculptors and professors- that, enlisted in the army, helped during the final years of the Second World War to preserve the European cultural heritage and to recover the artworks requisitioned by the Nazis. In the last year they recovered around 5 million pieces.
While performing their duty, logically, the Monuments section had to face the question we are dealing with: is art worth a life? How far can you go to preserve art?
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Some of the men who accompanied Da Vinci's Lady with an Ermine back to Cracovia in April 1946. College Park National Archive, MD.
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