This exquisite red-figure example from south Italy shows a mythological scene featuring Eros, the god of Love and Hermes, the messenger god. Attributed to the Trudo [sic.] Painter.The hydria, more accurately attributed to the Truro painter, had apparently surfaced at Sotheby's (London) on 9 December 1985 (lot 375). It had then been placed on loan to the University of Melbourne (March 1988 - July 2003) and the Museum of Mediterranean Antiquities, Monash University, Melbourne (November 2005 - April 2008). It was then sold at Bonham's (London) in October 2008, lot 18. (This sale was particularly significant.)
"True, at once the greatest sinner and the greatest champion of reform, has been made to pay for the crimes of all American museums," Felch and Frammolino conclude. That seems an accurate assessment, though it could also be argued that True's breathtaking ability to say one thing while doing another, coupled with the Getty's institutional arrogance, made her a fair target. This chronicle of her painful, protracted fall from grace certainly makes for a riveting cautionary tale.
In one case, Cuno approved the purchase of more than 180 Greek vase fragments with unclear ownership histories. Cuno has said he inquired into their origins. With no clear evidence that they came from illicit excavations, Cuno said Tuesday, "we were satisfied these were appropriately acquired."Felch contacted Cuno who is quoted: "At the time I didn't know the extent of his reputation". (I presume this meant Hecht.)
In an interview, David Mitten, the retired Harvard curator and professor who recommended the purchase, has a slightly different account. He said he and Cuno knew that two antiquities dealers known to traffic in looted antiquities — Robert Hecht and Frieda Tchacos — were the source of some of the fragments.
In 1996, Cuno oversaw an exhibit of bronze statues that included objects with murky ownership histories on loan from private collectors Leon Levy and Shelby White and Lawrence and Barbara Fleischman.
Irene Winter, the chair of Harvard's fine arts department, filed a complaint with the university's then-president, Neil Rudenstine, requesting that the loans be barred under the school's loans and acquisitions policy. Dozens of objects from the two private collections have since been returned to Italy or Greece.
Rudenstine today is a Getty Trustee and a member of the committee that selected Cuno. In an interview, he said he was satisfied that Cuno had conducted the proper due diligence.
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| Source: Blic |
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| Source: Getty Trust |
Cuno says that his appointment does not signal a change in Getty's antiquities policies. "No, I'm certain they won't change. The decisions that the Getty made were absolutely right for the Getty," he says.
"In terms of my criticism of cultural property laws, I think reasonable people can disagree on these matters, and I very much look forward to engaging in conversations with colleagues around the world. I think we are all seeking the same thing: to preserve the objects of antiquity and broaden public and scholarly access to them."
Colin Renfrew, a leading archaeologist at Cambridge University, calls Cuno a "seemingly odd choice" to lead the Getty because of his position on this topic.
"But if he maintains the new acquisition policy, he may do no harm," Renfrew says. "If he persuades the trustees to renege on that policy he will make the Getty once again the black sheep of the Western world. We shall have to wait and see."
So why would the Getty board have chosen to replicate the same disastrous management structure — to hire another veteran museum director (from the same Chicago institution, no less) to be its president, who in turn will have to choose a museum director to work for him? This is not just déjà vu, it smacks of an institution that is incapable of even recognizing that there is a problem with its management structure. They have just set themselves up for the same old antagonisms to arise all over again.The publication of Chasing Aphrodite later this month will only serve to highlight institutional problems within the Trust as well as the Museum.
This intemperate rhetoric, presuming to tell other countries that they have no "right" to enact their own cultural-property laws and suggesting that they also have no right to derive a sense of national identity and self-esteem from the rich cultures that historically flourished in their lands, is waving a red flag in front of archaeologists and officials from the source countries for antiquities---the very people with whom the Getty has been conscientiously trying to reach a rapprochement.
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| Source: Getty Trust |
The Board of Trustees of the J. Paul Getty Trust announced today that James Cuno, recognized both nationally and internationally as a noted museum leader and scholar and an accomplished leader in the field of the visual arts, has been named president and CEO of the J. Paul Getty Trust. Dr. Cuno, who comes to the Getty after serving as president and Eloise W. Martin Director of the Art Institute of Chicago since 2004, will assume his position August 1.Cuno's position on cultural property is well-known (see some of the reviews of his work).
Most American museums have yet to fully acknowledge their role in the illicit antiquities trade over past decades. But we have seem a remarkable and relatively sudden change in the policies and practice of American museums, led by a new generation of museum directors who are sensitive to these issues of cultural patrimony. After decades of turning a blind eye, they’re confronting the issue of provenance.I will comment in more detail about the book in due course but its focus on the J. Paul Getty Museum allows readers to understand the motivation for collecting.
Septimius Severus. Source: Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek It has been announced that the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek in Copenhagen will be returning the ...
