Abstract
If borders and geopolitical, heritage and institutional contexts differ, and if the objects themselves return transformed in the course of translocations of works of art, the re-appropriations made on their return will also differ. Each state, society, village and community, as well as scientists, academies and universities where they exist, take their heritage in hand in different ways.
The political dimension of these returns - perfectly illustrated by the many festivities, but also by the myriad pamphlets, programs, texts and poems published to celebrate the return of the horses from Saint Mark's to Venice in 1815 - can thus be related to the scientific reappropriation of the recovered objects. The numerous photographic and radiographic examinations, restoration and/or reallocation work to which they are subjected when they are returned permanently modify their value and form of use, sometimes instantaneously, but sometimes also after very long processes, as in the case of the Sinzig, a German saint whose mummified body was restored by France in 1815 and presented for two centuries in a transparent sarcophagus, before being buried on May 30 2017 in the local parish.
