St Louis Mummy Mask Back for Reconsideration?

Rick St Hilaire has reported that the US Attorney for Eastern District of Missouri has asked for the case relating to the Egyptian mummy mask in the St Louis Art Museum to be reopened.

This is a sensible move as it is now clear that the collecting history ("provenance") supplied by the dealer does not appear to be accurate or even trustworthy.

One has to ask why anybody would wish to fabricate a collecting history?

If the case does reopen it will cause problems for those auction houses and dealers who have already started to cite the SLAM case. And there are implications for those museums that have acquired material with equally interesting collecting histories from the same Swiss source.