Over five years Heritage Malta spent almost €2.8 million on recovering artefacts, with the most expensive items being a sword gifted by Napoleon and a full-length oil on canvas painting of Grandmaster de Rohan.
Heritage Minister Owen Bonnici provided a breakdown of each artefact bought by the national agency for cultural heritage and their cost in reply to a parliamentary question by PN MP Charles Azzopardi.
The most expensive acquisition by Heritage Malta since 2019 cost €350,860: the amount was spent last November on a sword that Napoleon Bonaparte gave to one of his bravest French admirals.
The unique artefact of high artistic quality formed part of a private collection and was bought by Heritage Malta from an auction in Paris.
In 1800, during the upheaval between the French and British rule, a French admiral - Denis Decrès - tried to sail towards France to get more resources. He was captured and brought back to Malta.
Later, Napoleon presented him with a sword to honour him for his great courage.
Another acquisition was a letter signed by Napoleon Bonaparte. It was bought in 2020 for €59,600.
The letter contains orders for one of his generals to invade Malta in 1798. The three-page letter gives instructions to General Desaix to “assemble the armies, impound ships, arm them, and meet off Syracuse”.
Heritage Malta acquired the letter during an auction by renowned Sotheby’s.
The agency also purchased a clay bozzetto of The Disaster of a Submarine by Antonio Sciortino for the National Collection for €100,000, as well as 183 watercolours documenting WWII by Alfred Gerada and related archival material for €85,000.
A full-length, framed, official oil on canvas portrait of Grand Master de Rohan preparing for the Otto Settembre Grand Procession, signed and dated by Antoine Favray in 1775, was meanwhile purchased for €300,000 last August.
The agency also purchased a Jimmy Farrugia collection for just under €182,500.
Farrugia was a Nationalist Party MP in the mid-1970s, after which he was appointed Speaker of the House of Representatives in July 1987 - a post he held until 1988.
He was subsequently appointed Malta’s ambassador to the Holy See at the Vatican in Rome. During the 1990s he often served as Acting President.
Farrugia was an expert in Maltese silverware and collected a large number of items throughout his lifetime.
Among the items on the list of acquisitions by Heritage Malta was a pair of paintings of the View of Marsamxett and the Possesso of the Order’s Fleet by Grand Master Emanuel Pinto de Fonseca for the Malta Maritime Museum, for the price of €200,000 in 2021.
A Still Life with a Boar by Francesco Noletti was purchased for €126,000 while a set of 17th and 18th-century paintings for MUZA cost €40,000.
A rather costly “tale quale umbrella” cost Heritage Malta €15,000 while a Melchiore Cafa statuette cost the agency almost €84,000. Heritage Malta also purchased a Phoenician shipwreck colour 3D model for just under €5,200.
For €30,000, Heritage Malta acquired a bronze statue Il-Ġerrej by late sculptor and artist, Ġanni Bonnici.