It is interesting to see how academics, museums, auction-houses and dealers present (or obscure) information. Can Swiss "private collection" in fact mean no more than "once dealer's stock in the Geneva Freeport"? Or could it mean "once stored in a warehouse in Basel"? Or is it genuinely the once cherished piece from the collection of a pot-loving Swiss private collector who values his or her anonymity?
What do such anonymous private collections hide? Where is the transparency?
And do museum curators try to investigate such anonymous "collectors"? Or do they take the information on trust?
What does it say about the "due diligence" process?
Do museums investigate when questions are raised?
Image
Detail of an Attic volute-krater showing a Dionysiac scene once in a Swiss "private collection" and featured in the Symes Dossier seized on Schinoussa (courtesy of Christos Tsirogiannis).
Discussion of the archaeological ethics surrounding the collecting of antiquities and archaeological material.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
The Met returns three antiquities to Iraq
Source: Manhattan DA New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art has returned three antiquities to Iraq ( Manhattan DA Press Release ). The th...
-
Source: Sotheby's A marble head of Alexander the Great has been seized in New York (reported in " Judge Orders Return of Ancien...
-
If international museums can no longer "own" antiquities either through purchase on the antiquities market or through partage , wh...
-
The Fire of Hephaistos exhibition included "seven bronzes ... that have been linked to the Bubon cache of imperial statues" (p. 1...
No comments:
Post a Comment