Finds from Afrati, Crete

Source of image: Michael C. Carlos Museum
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The repatriation of Norbert Schimmel's helmets and mitrai from New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art has implications for other museum collections. One is the Michael C. Carlos Museum at Emory University that purchased the breast- and back-plate of a bronze cuirass when it was sold at Christie's (London) in 2002 after it had formed part of the Axel Guttmann collection. It had been sold as part of the Schimmel collection at Sotheby's (New York) in 1992.

The cuirass was on loan to the Met from 1979 (inv. L.1979.49.7) as part of the exhibition Greek Art of the Aegean Islands (cat. no. 94). The catalogue stated - like the other pieces in the same exhibition - "said to be from Afrati on Crete".

The looting of Afrati in the 1960s was well documented and would have been known to the curatorial team at the MCCM. 

The Carlos has a public commitment to so-called "Provenance Research". The museum's position is stated as:

The Carlos is proactive in our approach to ownership resolution. Through the course of our research, if we find reason to believe that an object was looted from its original context or changed hands illegally or unethically, the Carlos takes immediate steps to rectify the situation and determine rightful ownership.

Can we assume that the Carlos will be contacting the Hellenic authorities to arrange for the cuirass to be returned to Greece so that it can be displayed with other material from Afrati in the Heraklion Museum?

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