I came across this from 2000 (Walter V. Robinson, "Art Collection Said to Brake Appointment", The Boston Globe, June 29, 2000):
The issue might also prove awkward for Hillary Rodham Clinton, who is campaigning for the New York Senate seat that Moynihan is relinquishing. In Turkey last November, Clinton decried the looting of archeological sites in that country. For several years, Turkey has been pressing White and Levy to return the top half of a marble statue of the "Weary Heracles" that Turkey and experts say was looted about 1980.I have discussed the Weary Herakles before. Half of the upper part was given to the MFA in 1981 through the generosity of Jerome Levy Foundation; and the remaining title was transferred to the MFA in January 2004 by Shelby White.
The bottom half sits, incomplete, in a museum in Antalya that Hillary Clinton visited. Years ago, Levy and White donated a half-interest in the top of the statue to the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, which has also rebuffed Turkish pleas for its return.
Now that Shelby White has made a public acknowledgment that there were recently-surfaced antiquities in her collection (and that is why she has returned ten of them to Italy), has the time come for the MFA to return the upper part of the statue to Turkey?
It was the intention of the original sculptor that the legs and upper body should form a single composition. Can the staff of the MFA make it happen?
1 comment:
Concerning Hillary Clinton, she also made a public announcement during her husband's presidency on a trip to the Acropolis in Athens, for the repatriation of the Parthenon marbles. Personally, I would like to hear what the candidates have to say on whether or not the U.S. would change or update their policy regarding the looting of antiquities within the country and import/export sanctions for illicit material.
Thank you for your blog, I am an avid fan!
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