Napoleon had filled the Louvre with works of art gathered on his campaigns in Italy and other parts of Europe. After his abdication in 1814, the Allies allowed the works to remain in the Louvre, but after his return and final defeat at Waterloo in June 1815, the allies demanded that the works be returned. More than five thousand works of art, among them two thousand paintings, were sent back; the famous bronze horses that had been atop the Arc de Triomphe of the Carrousel went back to their home at Saint Mark's in Venice. The Venus de' Medici, the most famous work of classical sculpture in the museum, was sent back to Florence, but it was soon replaced by a sensational new discovery, the Venus de Milo, acquired from a Greek farmer by a French naval officer, Olivier Voutier, in 1820. It was purchased by the Marquis de Riviére who gave it to Louis XVIII, who promptly gave it to the Louvre. The Louvre also created a department of Egyptian antiquities, curated by Champollion, with more than seven thousand works.
