Another Bubon Head Returns to Türkiye

Source: Manhattan DA

A bearded head from the Santa Barbara Museum of Art (inv. 1971.51.2) has been returned to Türkiye [press release]. The head was included in Cornelius Vermeule's list of figures associated with Bubon (F). Mario A. del Chiaro dated it to the late third century CE, and noted that it came from Türkiye ("Western Asia Minor"). The press release added this information:

Bearded Head of a Man, dating to the 3rd century C.E., was looted from Bubon in 1966 and smuggled out by Turkish traffickers for Robert Hecht. The Bearded Head of a Man was ultimately sold by New York-based dealer Matthias Komor to a private collector, who donated the piece to the Santa Barbara Museum of Art, where it was seized by the ATU.

The press release noted that this was one of three Bubon associated pieces that were being returned to Türkiye. One was the Koutoulakis head in the J. Paul Getty Museum but the third is not identified. One possibility is that the third piece was one of two that passed through a Manhattan gallery in 2006 (Vermeule O and P).

These latest returns will place further pressure on the Cleveland Museum of Art to come to an amicable agreement over the statue once described as Marcus Aurelius (Vermeule D).

Reference

Del Chiaro, M. A. 1974. "New Acquisitions of Roman Sculpture at the Santa Barbara Museum of Art." AJA 78: 68–70, pl. 20.

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Statues from Bubon and Returns to Türkiye

Reconstruction of Statue Base from Bubon

The looting of the series of bronze imperial statues from the sebasteion at Bubon in Türkiye was shocking. Yet more than half a century on the authorities in Türkiye are achieving the gradual return of the statues, or parts of the statues, that were identified and discussed (among others) by Cornelius C. Vermeule and Arielle P. Kozloff. The display of the statues as originally intended will move a little closer.

The returns include statues of Lucius Verus, the possible leg of a statue of Commodus, Septimius Severus, Caracalla, as well as the head of a ruler, a woman, a bearded head, and the head of a youth.

Yet there appears to be active reluctance to accept that the draped man, once presented as Marcus Aurelius, did derive from this group. We also do not know what will happen to the statue in Houston. 

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Bronze kline returns to Türkiye

Source: J. Paul Getty Museum

The J. Paul Getty Museum has decided to return bronze kline to Türkiye [press release]. This was acquired from Nikolas Koutoulakis in 1982.

The kline and other objects seemingly derived from Türkiye have been discussed elsewhere (Gill 2019).

It is even suggested that the bed or kline ‘probably entered the antiquities market as the result of illicit excavations’ (Baughan and Özgen 2012, 63). It may even coincide with a bronze bed that was reported to have been looted in 1979. Interestingly it was claimed that the bed had passed through the S. Schweitzer collection; such a collection was claimed for one of the pieces that the Getty has returned to Italy and it was noted that this may have been ‘a convenient way to launder recently surfaced antiquities’ (Gill and Chippindale 2007a, 216, 229, no. 23). A further report even suggested that the bed had been acquired by a Paris dealer in 1936, though there seems to be no authenticated documentation.

Why has it taken the Getty so long to resolve this dispute? What other objects in the collection will follow the kline back to Türkiye? 

References

Baughan, E. P., and I. Özgen. 2012. "A bronze kline from Lydia." AK 55: 63–87.

Gill, D. W. J. 2019. "Context matters: Nicolas Koutoulakis, the antiquities market and due diligence." Journal of Art Crime 22: 71–78.

Gill, D. W. J., and C. Chippindale. 2007. "From Malibu to Rome: further developments on the return of antiquities." International Journal of Cultural Property 14: 205-40.

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Attic Funerary Relief Returns to Greece

Sources: Hellas et Roma; Hellenic Ministry of Culture

The Hellenic Ministry of Culture has announced that part of a fourth century BCE Attic marble stele has been returned from an anonymous US private collection [Press Release]. The relief featured in an advertisement for the gallery Palladion Antike Kunst that appeared in the back of a 1982 exhibition catalogue produced by the Swiss-based organisation Hellas et Roma.  (The Ministry of Culture press release misleadingly suggests that the relief appeared in an exhibition catalogue implying that the stele was displayed.) A parallel for the stele was found at Kallithea in 1896; it marked the burial of Agnostrate daughter of Theodotos (Athens NM inv. 1863: cat. no. 417).

Christos Tsirogiannis has verified that images of the returning stele feature in the Becchina archive, and specifically to Nino Savoca, a dealer based in Munich. It appears that the stele first surfaced in the late 1970s. 

This stele forms part of a growing list of objects returned to Greece and Italy that had featured in the Becchina archive. Yet the Hellenic Ministry of Culture seems to be reluctant to seek the return of other objects that feature in this source, notably the Cycladic figure in the Leonard Stern collection (and currently on loan to New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art) and the pithos, probably from Rhodes, in the Michael C. Carlos Museum at Emory University. (The Italian authorities, likewise, do not seem to have requested the return of fragmentary wall-paintings in the J. Paul Getty Museum.) 

Source: Hellenic Ministry of Culture

The stele fragment was returned with two other items: a fragmentary 4th century BCE funerary stele, perhaps from Thessaly, showing a woman (next to a child; note the raised hand) who holds a box; and an hellenistic bronze male figure, perhaps of an athlete. 

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Another Bubon bronze head likely to be repatriated

It appears that a bronze head acquired by the J. Paul Getty Museum from Nicolas Koutoulakis has been removed from display and appears to be returning to Türkiye (Adam Schrader, "The Getty Museum Returns an Ancient Bronze Head to Turkey", Artnet April 24, 2024). The head had featured in the Fire of Hephaistos exhibition (1996) no. 44: the find-spot was stated as "Reported to be from Ibecik (ancient Bubon in Lycia) in Turkey". Arielle Kozloff had earlier listed the statue among the Bubon pieces in The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art (1987).

This will put further pressure on the Cleveland Museum of Art in their attempt to disassociate a headless bronze statue from its suggested link with Bubon and its identification with the emperor Marcus Aurelius. Incidentally, the Cleveland statue was illustrated in the Fire of Hephaistos catalogue (cat. 54, fig. 2): "... possibly Marcus Aurelius ... Reported to be from Ibecik (ancient Bubon in Lycia)."

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The Stern Collection in New York: Cycladic or Cycladicising?

Courtesy of Christos Tsirogiannis

There appears to be excitement about the display of 161 Cycladicising objects at New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art (Nikolas Zois, "The Cyclades in New York City", ekathimerini.com January 26, 2024).

Doubts have already been raised by eminent archaeologist Christos Doumas that the collection contains modern creations. Have these concerns been addressed by those who have organised this display of ungrounded material?

Earlier this week a delegation from the Hellenic Ministry of Culture accepted the return of three items from the Michael C. Carlos Museum. Two of the pieces, a Minoan larnax and a funerary sculpture, were returned on the basis of their identification (by Christos Tsirogiannis) in the Becchina photographic archive. Yet Tsirogiannis has been able to identify at least one of the Stern figures in the same archive. 

At the same time five of the Stern figures are catalogued as part of the Keros haul. (The Hellenic authorities overlooked the Keros haul material at the Michael C. Carlos Museum even though they had taken action when the fragments were auctioned in London.)

It seems that some have not taken steps to learn about the material and intellectual consequences of collecting Cycladic figures. 

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The Carlos Museum: Time to Reflect?

The return of three antiquities acquired in 2002 and 2003 raise a number of issues for the curatorial team at the Michael C. Carlos Museum at Emory University. The museum appears to overlook a number of 'facts' in the way that it has written about the return.

First, a Greek journalist, Nikolas Zirganos, raised the issue of three pieces back in 2007: two of the pieces are included in the return. 

Second, there was a suggestion that the Greek authorities had raised concerns about the three pieces at the time.

Third, the identifications had been made by Christos Tsirogiannis.

Fourth, discussion of these issues had been raised on social media and in an academic paper by 2009.

Yet, reading the Emory press statement you would never realise that concerns had been raised over such a long period of time. You could even have been forgiven for thinking that the road to repatriation had been researched by one of their own. Why did it take the museum so long to enter negotiations with the Greek authorities?

The link to the page listing the three objects does not give a complete picture of the owners / handlers of the three pieces. Indeed, there is no mention of the association of one of the items with Japan.

It would have been helpful if the museum had given the full (and correct) history of each of the pieces. And the suggestion that two of the pieces are associated with a particular dealer pointed to problems with the collecting history. Yet the third piece mentioned by Zirganos was linked to this same dealer: why has this been excluded from the agreement? Is it assumed that the full history had been disclosed?

How much of the supplied information is trustworthy? What is the basis of this knowledge? Is there supporting evidence?

What other pieces in the collection need to be investigated with the same level of rigour?

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