Becchina, Medici and the London market

Peter Watson has reported in today's Times (London) that the objects linked to Gianfranco Becchina and Giacomo Medici have been withdrawn from auction in London. This is due to identifications made by Cambridge University researcher Dr Christos Tsirogiannis.

The remaining question is why the due diligence process conducted by the two major auction houses were unable to detect these objects? We also note that one of the auction-houses appeared to be the vendor or co-vendor of one of the pieces.

Comments

kyri said…

the auction houses could never conduct proper due diligence while the becchina and medici archives are not made public and are only made available to a select few.they use the ALR which is next to useless as these pieces have never been reported stolen.to accuse them of not doing due diligence when it comes to pieces related to these two archives is a bit unfair and you know it.
kyri

3 April 2014 at 20:52

David Gill said…

Kyri
You assume that the ALR does not have access to these databases.
David

3 April 2014 at 20:56

kyri said…

hi david,yes i do,otherwise they are not fit for purpose.there have been to many pieces popping up over the years which leads me to believe they dont have access to the archives,or at least full access.do you know different??it would be nice if the archives were made public so we can all have a look.
kyri.

3 April 2014 at 21:08

The scale of the returns to Italy

I have been busy working on an overview, "Returning Archaeological Objects to Italy". The scale of the returns to Italy from North American collections and galleries is staggering: in excess of 350 objects. This is clearly the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the material that has surfaced on the market without a history that can be traced back to the period before 1970.

I will provide more information in due course, but the researcher is a reminder that we need to take due diligence seriously when it comes to making acquisitions.

Stele returns to Greece

The Hellenic Ministry of Culture has announced (Saturday 8 September 2018) that a stele that had been due to be auctioned at Sotheby's in London in June 2017 has been returned to Greece (Friday 7 September 2018). The identification had been made by Cambridge-based forensic archaeologist Dr Christos Tsirogiannis.

It appeared that the stele had been supplied with a falsified history as its presence with Becchina until 1990 contradicted the published sale catalogue entry. It then moved into the hands of George Ortiz.

A year ago it was suggested that Sotheby's should contact the Greek authorities. Those negotiations appear to have concluded successfully.

The 4th century BC stele fragment, with the personal name, Hestiaios, will be displayed in the Epigraphic Museum in Athens. It appears to have come from a cemetery in Attica.

"Beating sites to death"

Policy decisions for protecting archaeological sites need to be informed by carefully argued positions based on data. Dr Sam Hardy has produced an important study, “Metal detecting for cultural objects until ‘there is nothing left’: The potential and limits of digital data, netnographic data and market data for analysis”. Arts 7, 3 (2018) [online]. This builds on Hardy's earlier research.

Readers should note Hardy's conclusion about his findings: "they corroborate the detecting community’s own perception that they are ‘beat[ing these sites] to death’".

Pieterjan Deckers, Andres Dobat, Natasha Ferguson, Stijn Heeren, Michael Lewis, and Suzie Thomas may wish to reflect on whether or not their own position is endangering the finite archaeological record.

Abstract
This methodological study assesses the potential for automatically generated data, netnographic data and market data on metal-detecting to advance cultural property criminology. The method comprises the analysi…

Looting Matters

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