Looting Matters

Peter Watson has written a short piece in The Times (7 March 2019) about the return of antiquities to Italy by Christie's. He reminds readers about how the story was revealed in The Times back in 2014, and that the identifications had, in part, been due to the research of Dr Christos Tsirogiannis. Watson writes:
The man who spotted the looted objects in the 2014 sales was Christos Tsirogiannis, a Greek-born forensic archaeologist. Though Christie's was aware of this tainted history, it still took it five years to persuade the consignors of these objects that they were looted. So it's a little rich for Christie's to talk of the "voluntary" return of these artefacts. It was embarrassed into doing so. A spokeswoman for Christie's conceded last week that Dr Tsirogiannis was right about the objects he spotted. She added that illicit antiquities were a minute amount of a predominantly "honourable" market. See my comments on the Apulian hydria, the gla…

Among the objects returned by Christie's to Italy last month were two fragmentary sculptures [press release]. One was a relief showing a satyr and maenad that had been removed from the gardens of the Villa Borghese in Rome in 1985. The second was a sarcophagus fragment that had been removed from the catacomb of San Callisto in Rome by 1982.

The press release from Christie's stated:
The works, that had been acquired in the past in good faith, were more recently identified as not having the required, verifiable title, export or provenance details needed to proceed with a sale and as such were returned voluntarily. How did these two pieces end up being consigned to Christie's? Where have they been residing over the intervening three decades? Who has been handling them? Who has been passing the sculptures on 'in good faith'?

It has been announced that a museum in the Netherlands will be returning 139 Benin Bronzes to Nigeria. This will no doubt send a signal to other universal museums that hold Benin Bronzes that they may be the next to negotiate a return. The circumstances of the Benin Punitive Expedition that allowed so many of these pieces to enter European, and subsequently North American, collections should be a reminder to curators and museum directors that the histories of pieces should be re-examined. The decision to return the pieces is a tangible challenge to the position of retention that has been argued by James Cuno among others.

An Etruscan terracotta antefix was among the items returned to Italy from Christie's [see ARCA]. The piece had been recognised from the Medici Dossier by Dr Christos Tsirogiannis when it was offered at auction by Christie's in London on 15 April 2015 (lot 103) [see Looting Matters]. It had then been withdrawn, along with three other lots [see ARCA].

The antefix had surfaced at Sotheby's in London on 9 December 1985 (lot 273). (In 2009 Looting Matters had highlighted issues about objects surfacing through Sotheby's in 1985.)

Why does the Christie's press release fail to mention the link with the Medici Dossier and the identification by Tsirogiannis?

A glass oinochoe is among the objects returned to Italy from Christie's. This appears to be the one offered in the sale of antiquities on 2 April 2014 (lot 173). That particular oinochoe had surfaced at Sotheby's in London on 11 July 1988 (lot 173). The identification of the oinochoe with an image in the Medici Dossier [see ARCA] was made by Dr Christos Tsirogiannis [see earlier comments]. The piece was then withdrawn from the sale [see earlier comments].

Why has the official press release [Christie's] failed to mention either the Medici Dossier, or the research of Dr Christos Tsirogiannis?

Last month Christie's was reported to have returned eight antiquities to Italy [press release]. This initiative appeared to be a new one but it now appears that the objects may relate to historic cases. For example, the returned Apulian hydria attributed to the Varrese painter appears to be the one identified at the April 2015 Christie's sale [see Looting Matters] by Dr Christos Tsirogiannis from an image in the Becchina archive. 

One wonders why this historic information as well as Tsirogiannis' contribution has been omitted. Back in 2015 I commented on why the hydria's history (and the histories of its companions) had not been spotted by the auction-house.