Apulian grave group in Berlin subject to Italian court order

Apulian grave group currently in Berlin
© David Gill

The apparent grave group consisting of Apulian pottery now in Berlin is the subject of a court order from the Tribunale di Roma ("Scoppia la "guerra" dell'arte Italia-Germania. Il tribunale di Roma confisca 21 vasi al museo di Berlino", ItTempo.it February 25, 2022). The group has been the subject of discussion by LM back in 2007. Three of the volute-kraters are attributed to the Darius painter. This painter was the subject of an exhibition in Geneva: 

Aellen, Christian, Alexandre Cambitoglou, and Jacques Chamay. 1986. Le Peintre de Darius et son Milieu: Vases grecs d'Italie méridionale. Hellas et Roma, vol. 4. Geneva: Association Hellas et Roma.

The Berlin pots were acquired in 1983 (and accessioned in 1984), and they appear in the Medici Dossier. 

The acquisition record links the group to Jacques Chamay of Geneva's Museum of Art and History. 

«l’organo giudicante evidenziava una complicità con Medici degli indagati Jacques Chamay, all’epoca direttore del museo archeologico di Ginevra, e Fiorella Cottier Angeli, restauratrice, nella vendita al museo archeologico di Berlino dei 21 vasi».

It has been suggested that the grave group had once resided in a 19th century collection but there does not appear to be any authenticated documentation to support this claim. 

Will Berlin finally return this group to Italy?

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Spotlight on European collections

Attic black-figured amphora
 from the Schinoussa Archive. Courtesy of Christos Tsirogiannis.

Following the recent return of antiquities from the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek to Italy, the spotlight will be on other European collections that contain archaeological material that appears to have been derived from Italy. Among the museums are:

• Amsterdam, Allard Pierson Museum. Some 15 disputed objects linked to Ellie Borowski, Palladion Antike Kunst, and Robin Symes.
• Berlin, Altes Museum. Tomb group containing Apulian pottery.
• Leiden, Rijksmuseum van Oudheden. Cavalry armour derived from a Swiss dealer.
• Madrid, Museo Arqueologico Nacional. 22 objects identified from the Medici Dossier and the Becchina archive. [See also here.]

The Italian authorities will no doubt be negotiating with each of these institutions to secure the return of this material.

Nefertiti: Hawass plans action

I have earlier commented on the acquisition of the head of Nefertiti from Amarna. The head was the main subject of a meeting of the Egyptian National Committee for the Return of Stolen Artifacts this week. Zahi Hawass notes that the session "discuss[ed] the procedures needed to make a formal request for the return of the Bust of Nefertiti now on display at the Neues Museum in Berlin".

Hawass gave the immediate outline of the case:

Earlier this month Dr. Seyfried met with Dr. Hawass and presented him with copies of all of the key documentation held by the Berlin Museum concerning this iconic piece. This includes the protocol of 20 January, 1913, written by Gustav Lefébvre, the official who signed the division of finds on behalf of the Egyptian Antiquities Service, and excerpts from the diary of Ludwig Borchardt, the excavator of the Bust.

The case was made in an earlier report about Hawass' visit to Berlin:

Dr. Seyfried presented Dr. Hawass with copies of all of the key documentation held by the Berlin Museum concerning this iconic piece. This includes the protocol of January 20, 1913, written by Gustave Lefevre, the official who signed the division of finds on behalf of the Egyptian Antiquities Service, as well as excerpts from the diary of Ludwig Borchardt, the excavator of the piece. These materials confirm Egypt’s contention that Borchardt did act unethically, with intent to deceive: the limestone head of the queen is listed on the protocol as a painted plaster bust of a princess. Borchardt knew, as his diary shows, that this was the queen herself; he also knew that the head was of limestone covered with plaster and painted, not simply of plaster, as this was clearly visible through inspection of the piece itself. It seems that there was an agreement between Borchardt and Lefevre that all the plaster pieces (which included an important group of plaster masks of the royal family at Amarna) would go to Berlin, and this appears to have been one way that Borchardt misled Lefevre to ensure that the bust would also go to Berlin.

Egypt appears to be making a case that there was deliberate deception as part of the division of the finds.
 
Image
© David Gill

Recovered Masterpieces: Further Coverage

Andrew Curry has covered the Rome exhibition for Spiegel: On-line ("Recovered Treasures: Italian Antiquities 'Going Home'", December 18, 2007).

Curry comments on a fall 2007 Berlin lecture by Phillipe de Montebello of the Metropolitan Museum of Art which "argued that the aesthetic value of a piece of art should trump the artificial restrictions created by national boundaries -- and that places like Italy and Egypt shouldn't be so greedy." De Montebello is quoted as saying:

We should recognize that a great deal of knowledge, cross-fertilization and exchange can come from objects moving across borders ... Source countries now enjoy an embarrassment of riches and have more material than they can display, let alone conserve.

De Montebello is clearly mounting an offensive response to the returns at the moment with a series of lectures and press interviews ("The right to everything that's in the ground").

Curry has one or two statements that need clarification. There are thousands (if not tens of thousands) of Polaroid photographs showing antiquities that passed through the illicit market. The returns from Boston, Malibu, New York, Princeton, and the Royal Athena Galleries are only the tip of the iceberg. There are thousands more objects waiting to be identified. (Remember that some pieces from the Shelby White collection are reported to feature in the Polaroids.)

Curry also implies that it was just "newer museums like California's Getty [that] have gone on buying sprees in the last few decades". In fact a tabulation for the returns from Boston, Malibu and New York show that all three institutions were buying through the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s. The Getty was not alone.

So much of the discussion has been on North American museums. But I wonder what Curry could have made of the tomb-group of Apulian pots in Berlin some of which are reported to appear in the set of Medici Polaroids ("Chippindale's Law applied in Berlin"). The movement of antiquities from Italy via Switzerland has not just directed across the Atlantic.

Chippindale's Law applied in Berlin

I feel that my eyes have been opened by The Medici Conspiracy. But surely I should be familiar enough with the world of antiquities not to be shocked?

But in steps "Chippindale's Law":

"However bad you feared it would be [so far as antiquities looting and smuggling are concerned], it always turns out worse" (quoted in the Medici Conspiracy, p. 310).

It was coming face to face in the Altes Museum in Berlin with a massive display case positively groaning under ranks of Apulian pottery from a single grave.

There are:

a. Seven massive volute-kraters (three attributed to the Darius painter: 1984.39, 40, 41) - but only the foot of a eighth.
b. Two amphorae.
c. One hydria.
d. Eight fishplates.
e. One large dish.
f. Three smaller dishes.
g. Two skyphoi.

Many of the pots fall into distinct workshop groups and share the same attributed "hands" (e.g. Group of Copenhagen 4223, Varrese painter, Underworld painter). This is a common feature of tomb-groups.

All the pots seem to have been broken into fragments and carefully restored. Had the tomb collapsed and every single pot been broken into Jiffy-bag sized pieces?

The helpful museum labelling hints that the cemeteries of Taranto had been destroyed by modern construction. Perhaps the museum was giving these dispossessed orfani a home.

So how did these Apulian pots end up in Berlin? Who handled the transaction? What was their route?

The Medici Conspiracy mentions the Berlin material in passing (p. 109). The source seems to have been Giacomo Medici as Polaroids showing the objects were found in Geneva.

"The third acquisition was the most important and took place in 1983 [the accession was in 1984]. This involved a group of twenty-one Apulian vases all coming from the same tomb. The photographs in Medici's warehouse didn't show all the vases, however, but just four of them in fragments, lying on the floor. In this case there were three series of Polaroids---one of fifteen photographs, another of six, and a third of two---that show the vases in various stages of restoration, the most important of which was a krater by the Darius Painter" (p. 361 n. 2).

The explanation continues:

"All twenty-one had been offered to Berlin by one Christoph Leon of Basel on behalf of a Basel family, the Cramers. Professor [Wolf-Dieter] Heilmeyer examined the vases on the premises of the director of the Museum of Art and History of Geneva, Jacques Chamay ... Heilmeyer had spoken to the person who declared she had restored the vases, Fiorella Cottier-Angeli, who told him that the vases had been in very old chests and had reached Geneva "in the nineteenth century" ... the overall price of 3 million marks had been paid to Leon" (p. 199).

It has been noted elsewhere (Vase-painting in Italy: Red-figure and related works in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston [1993]) that pots attributed to the Darius painter were surfacing in the 1980s, e.g.:

a. Boston 1987.53 (calyx-krater),
b. Princeton y1983-13 (volute-krater),
c. Princeton y1989-20 (loutrophoros),
d. Malibu 87.AE.23 (pelike) [to be returned to Italy].

The irony is that Berlin's "Museum Island" (Museumsinsel) has been granted UNESCO Cultural Status and Protection - to display what appears to be cultural material looted from an undocumented archaeological site.

Is there any documented evidence that this "grave group" was known prior to Heilmeyer's inspection of the material in Geneva? What is known about the Cramers of Basel? Why would Giacomo Medici have Polaroids of fragmentary pots which had reached Geneva in the nineteenth century?

Has the history of the group been fabricated? Should the pots be taken off display? When will the group be returned to Italy?

Or is there an innocent explanation?

From Berlin to Cairo?

How far back should cultural property claims go? Should there be a limitation?

Last week in Berlin I came face to face with the famous portrait of Nefertiti. This was found in a scuptor's workshop at Amarna by Ludwig Borchardt in 1912. The head then formed part of the German allocation of the finds.

A request for its return to Egypt was made in the 1930s. Adolf Hitler is reported to have said, "What the German people have, they keep" (quoted in Brian Fagan, The Rape of the Nile [2004], p. 249).

The official website of Zahi Hawass takes the position that the head was "smuggled out of Egypt in 1913". Things have been hotting up since the Altes Museum in Berlin refused to loan the portrait to Egypt for the projected opening of the Grand Egyptian Museum.

Hawass has been reported as wanting to "organize a worldwide boycott of loans to German museums" if his request for the loan is not made. He is quoted as saying, "We will make the lives of these museums miserable ... It will be a scientific war" (Dan Morrison, "Egypt Vows "Scientific War" If Germany Doesn't Loan Nefertiti", National Geographic, April 18, 2007).

And the temperature seems to be rising. Hawass was quoted only last week as saying that antiquities such as the portrait of Nefertiti "were taken out by imperialism ...Well, the days of imperialism are over'' (Abeer Allam, "Queen Nefertiti Boils Cairo Blood as Germans Reject Bust Loan", Bloomberg.com, September 10, 2007).

Berlin is only being asked for a three month loan - not a return (at least at the present time). Clearly "conservation" is being presented as a reason for not allowing the portrait to travel - but is this the real issue?

What other "treasures" and "masterpieces" will be requested?

The discussion is blurring two issues: recent looting and the historic removal of cultural property.

The Bloomberg.com report takes encouragement from the recent return of antiquities from North America to Italy. Yet in those cases the Italian government has been successful in its claims on material that was acquired since the 1970 UNESCO Convention.

Nefertiti left Egypt more than half a century before the UNESCO Convention (and the Rosetta Stone a century before Nefertiti). Should this fine image be on display in Cairo or Berlin? On the banks of the Nile or the Spree? Is it an icon of Egypt for Egypt, or of German achievements in the field of Egyptology?

Whose image is it anyway?