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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.
To Ask Her Majesty's Government whether they will review the definition of "treasure" so that major heritage discoveries, such as the Roman parade helmet found at Crosby Garrett and recently sold by public auction, should fall within the scope of the Treasure Act.[HL2515]
The Department for Culture, Media and Sport plans to review the Treasure Act Code of Practice and this will include the definition of Treasure contained in the Treasure Act 1996. This review will take the form of a public consultation and so will provide the opportunity to consider whether it would be appropriate to extend the definition of treasure to include items such as the Roman parade helmet found at Crosby Garrett.
To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether they will review the definition of “treasure” in the Treasure Act 1996 in the light of the sale at auction of the Roman parade helmet recently found in Cumbria for £2 million.
It is strange that a national treasure can be sold at public auction by an anonymous vendor to an anonymous buyer.But he then added a question that must cause concern for those dealing in antiquities within the United Kingdom:
will the Government consider reviewing the law on antiquities at sale by auction in favour of some transparency?Transparency would mean auction houses and galleries providing full details of collecting histories and vendors.
My Lords, are moves afoot to look at the practices of the auction houses, given that this helmet was found in many pieces and an enormous amount of archaeological information was lost when conservators put the pieces back together without consulting archaeologists? Is that a practice that auction houses should undertake, given that loss of information on a very rare artefact? Are the Government looking at sales of antiquities through internet sites such as eBay? That is becoming a real source of worry, as much of our heritage is disappearing abroad without any record whatever.The restorer's report on the helmet is indeed enlightening and I am very grateful to Georgiana Aitken of Christie's for sending me a copy. There is indeed real concern that such an unusual object - could we use the term 'national treasure'? - was not put in the hands of an archaeological conservator.
It is in the interests of both auctioneers and dealers to check that the provenance of items is acceptable to reduce any risk of prosecution for handling stolen goods or dealing in tainted or mended goods.This brings us back to Lord Renfrew's point for the need of greater transparnechy in the market and the full disclousre of documented collecting histories when archaeological material is offered for sale on the market.
"The destruction leaves objects out of context. Even if [an object] is a masterpiece, our duty is to give people history."Renfrew calls for dealers to reveal the identity of vendors: "That would be a step towards clarifying the problem".
If the striking advances recently achieved by the Italian authorities in combating the illicit traffic in looted antiquities are to be of wide general, indeed international value, a number of steps will be necessary. The first of these could be the formal and published acceptance of the 1970 Rule by museums and then by private collectors in all countries.
The second should be the true internationalisation of such a position. That would include, for instance, the recognition by Japan of its obligations under the 1970 UNESCO Convention, and the equivalent recognition by the Trustees of the Miho Museum of their own responsibilities. I do not imply here that the Miho Museum is alone in flouting the conventions of good conduct in this respect, but it is certainly prominent. And here it should be remembered that many museums, even private museums, have charitable status in relation to taxation. That status should be questioned by national authorities if the institution is seen to be flouting either international law or the widely shared ethical standards implied by the UNESCO Convention. Only then can progress be made.Details of the controversial acquisitions by the Miho Museum emerged in the Rome trial of Robert Hecht and Marion True in June 2007. The Italian prosecutors had images of a Roman marble oscilla. Although these are images that are likely to have been seized in the Geneva Freeport, there was a comparable dossier seized in Basel. Earlier reports have indicated that there are some 50 objects in the Miho Museum that are under investigation by the Italian authorities. (Other countries, including Iran, may also be looking at their collection.) There are also indications that some antiquities in the Miho Museum were supplied by Gianfranco Becchina.
"We bought only from major dealers ... And we invited museum curators, scholars, collectors, restorers and dealers to look at the collection and urged everyone to tell us of any problems they saw."It would be interesting for the Miho Museum to declare the names of the major dealers who provided the antiquities for the collection.
we decided to investigate because we want to know the truth and serve our research purposes.The Shinji Shumeikai, the sect linked to the Miho Museum's founder, has as its values the "pursuit of truth, virtue and beauty". Now is the time for the Miho Museum to investigate the Italian claims with rigour.
I had seen the extraordinary marble sculpture of the Griffins at Malibu, both at the Villa where they were originally exhibited by the J. Paul Getty Museum and then at the inaugural installation at the new Getty Museum in Los Angeles. Indeed so striking and unexpected was the impression then made on me that I was quite doubtful of their authenticity. That is one of the prices which one pays when antiquities are clandestinely removed from their context of discovery.
And now, at the Palazzo Massimo I saw not only the Griffins and the remarkable painted marble basin but a whole assemblage of marble artefacts, including the painted calyx crater and the splendidly severe group of marble vessels (loutrophoros, epichysis, oinochoe) which apparently formed part of the original tomb group. A single de-contextualised artwork now had an important series of accompanying pieces. These added greatly to the significance of the extraordinary Griffin piece. But in addition they themselves became of vastly greater importance.But the marbles are only part of the "assemblage". It has been reported elsewhere that they were found with "a number of vases by the Darius Painter" (see earlier discussion). One of the interesting features of the returns from North America have been the pots attributed to the Apulian pot-painter dubbed the Darius painter: from Boston's Museum of Fine Arts, the Cleveland Museum of Art, Malibu's The J. Paul Getty Museum, New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Princeton University Art Museum. And we must not forget the tomb-group incorporating pots attributed to this painter in Berlin. Could the marbles have been associated with any of these pots? Indeed is it possible that they were found with Apulian cavalry armour? The answer is we just do not know details of the tomb and its original contents.
The UCL report concludes that "the bowls are subject to the Iraq United Nations sanctions order 2003 as cultural objects illicitly removed from Iraq after 6 August 1990 and that UCL has therefore a duty to deliver them to a constable".The history of the report is also discussed:
The learned team of academics and researchers who worked on the report concluded that both the university and Schøyen were guilty of not showing enough curiosity about the source of the 654 bowls, although it is not suggested that Schøyen knew they might have been looted when he bought them. The team recommended they be returned immediately and asked for the findings to be made public. But in 2007 the report's three authors were made to keep quiet about their conclusions and UCL paid an undisclosed sum of compensation to Schøyen. The authors are believed to have been unhappy about the legal gag.
Bonhams the auctioneers withdrew from its London antiquities sale at the request of the Italian Government some 10 antiquities, among them items formerly owned by the now sadly notorious dealer Mr Robin Symes. I understand that the Italian authorities had already made representations to the Home Office about several warehouses in London containing antiquities formerly in his ownership—many of them, it is alleged, illegally excavated in Italy.Does this need further legislation? A better solution would be for those dealing in archaeological material to show a more rigorous level of due diligence.
What is an auctioneer in this country doing, selling antiquities without a documented provenance? It is scandalous that this practice continues, and to put an end to it is one purpose of this amendment. There are serious matters here, which demand government attention.
The second case to which I shall refer is as scandalous but less well known in view of intimations of libel action by the lawyers of Mr Martin Schøyen, a Norwegian shipowner. He purchased a major series of 654 Aramaic incantation bowls that had been imported into this country in the 1990s in dubious circumstances and lent them for study to a London university. When the university realised that they might be looted antiquities, it rightly set up a committee of inquiry on which I had the honour of sitting under the chairmanship of the distinguished lawyer, Mr David Freeman. We determined that they had indeed been looted from Iraq, or more precisely concluded,
“on the balance of probabilities that the bowls were removed from Iraq, and that their removal took place after 6th August 1990”,
and was therefore illegal. We recommended,
“the return of the incantation bowls to the Department of Antiquities of the State of Iraq”.
A copy of that report is in the Library of the House.
Despite that, I am sorry to say that the bowls were not returned to Iraq: they were returned to the custody of Mr Martin Schøyen. Under the new clause proposed in Amendments 70 and 68, lending and borrowing would both be dealing in terms of the Bill. It would be an offence to deal in undocumented archaeological objects in such a way—and so it should be: it is scandalous that the heritage of Iraq has been treated in this way.
in June 2008 the Executive Committee of the Board of Trustees of the Metropolitan Museum of Art accepted the Association of Art Museum Directors's June 4, 2008 Guidelines on the Acquisition of Archaeological Materials and Ancient Art, and on November 12, 2008, the Board of Trustees adopted a revised Collections Management Policy incorporating those guidelines.
The Museum normally shall not acquire a work unless provenance research substantiates that the work was outside its country of probable modern discovery before 1970 or was legally exported from its probable country of modern discovery after 1970.Lee Rosenbaum had indicated that such an announcement would be forthcoming back in June 2008.
Lord Renfrew will be giving the 2009 SAFE Beacon Award Lecture, "Combating the Illicit Antiquities Trade: the 1970 Rule as a Turning Point (or How the Metropolitan Museum lags behind the Getty)". Mike Boehm has commented on the forthcoming lecture in "Getty's antiquities policy gets kudos vs. the Met" (LA Times blog January 1 2009).I’m much in favour of collecting, so long as it doesn’t involve objects recently taken from the ground. In my opinion all too many collections are scandalous for this very reason. I don’t mind so much people buying antiquities looted a century ago, but not if the items in question entered the market post-1970 when the convention on the illegal trade in antiquities was signed.
A group of wealthy and influential arts figures calling themselves the American Council for Cultural Policy (ACCP) is arguing that the legitimate dispersal of cultural material is one of the best ways to protect it. The coalition's members wield such influence that they secured a high-level meeting in January with US State and Defence Department officials, to the alarm of archaeologists.The Times noted that members of the American Council for Cultural Policy (ACCP) included "Shelby White, a leading antiquities collector, as well as museum directors and curators". The claimed aim of the group was "to save the country's wealth of archaeological sites".
What on earth are they doing seeking to meet with the US Defence Department at this sensitive time?It looks as if Renfrew was right.
These collectors and curators want to be free to buy antiquities that come from archaeological sites and relax the export laws. They want the antiquities legislation of Iraq to be relaxed in the aftermath of war. If there's an intervention, there's a real risk of serious looting.
Earlier this week Lord Renfrew was in debate with James Cuno on the BBC. Renfrew's view of James Cuno's position is now made crystal clear in his review of Cuno's Who Owns Antiquity? for the Burlington Magazine. Renfrew noted the "readable and lucidly argued book James Cuno sets out what might, ten years ago, have been described as the art museum director’s case on the proprieties of ownership and acquisition". Cuno's position is considered to be "traditional" (and by implication rather dated).But the issues in the two cases – modern, clandestine looting, versus colonial or imperial appropriation, mainly during the nineteenth century and by the leading world powers of the day – are not the same.Such a mix does however come together in the present Nostoi exhibition in Athens where recent returns from Italy and Greece are placed alongside returns of parts of the Parthenon frieze (Palermo and the Vatican).
There are many interesting arguments here. And it should indeed be possible to ensure that the great universal museums of the world can fulfil their mission without at the same time conniving in the illicit traffic in antiquities which funds the continuing destruction of archaeological sites today. But Cuno’s implication that the rich institutions of the modern world can be left to regulate their own affairs, without clear acquisition codes and without international regulation, is belied by recent evidence. Peter Watson’s book, The Medici Conspiracy: the Illicit Journey of Looted Antiquities, from Italy’s Tomb Raiders to the World’s Greatest Museums (New York 2006) makes all too clear how museum curators and widely respected dealers have sometimes been complicit in the traffic in looted antiquities. Acquisitive museums have too often been in league with wealthy collectors, encouraging them to amass substantial assemblages of antiquities without any exercise of due diligence, and then accepting these by gift or bequest, some years later, on the grounds that they have now become ‘recognised collections’. This is the unpleasant reality that has recently led the Association of Art Museum Directors to move towards the acceptance of the 1970 rule, a position which the Museums Association of the United Kingdom, like the Department of Culture, Media and Sport, adopted some years ago. Most of us would share the aspiration underlying Cuno’s question ‘Who owns art?’ that the past is the inheritance of us all. More dubious, however, is the fitness of institutions such as the one he directs, to be the custodians of this inheritance. Until they accept and publish an ethical acquisitions policy, their position – like that of the author – will be open to question.
James Cuno and Lord Renfrew discussed the issue of recently surfaced antiquities on the BBC's flagship Today news programme. They were interviewed by Sarah Montague who brought a crispness to the proceedings."It's a colossal problem. It's destroying the record of the past. It's got much worse over the past 30 years, so the opportunity of getting really good data about the past is being very substantially damaged or reduced."Renfrew then turned to the people he felt were responsible:
Looting has increased, he says, largely because of the "rapacious" demands of collectors in the West. Ancient sites are excavated clandestinely and their contents removed, so the chance for archaeologists to study and document them is lost for ever.
"For example, we get a lot of information from cemeteries. But if a looter has gone in and dug up half the graves, you've not going to get that information about the entire community. Now there are very few ancient cemeteries that
continue undisturbed."
He criticises museums and collectors in the United States, Japan and Russia for buying antiquities from "dodgy dealers" without checking their provenance.Now we are seeing returns of antiquities to Italy and Greece from public institutions, private collectors and dealers will we see a change in selling and collecting habits in the antiquities market? It would be good to think so.
"They are completely thwarting the good ambition of better understanding the human past. They are actually financing the looting. They know the antiquities they are buying are likely to be looted."
Overall, this is positive for the future of collecting antiquities and for the future of a trade that's crucial to America's culture ... Collectors in antiquities should be conducting more due diligence than in the past.There is a long way to go.
Source: MMA A psykter column-krater attributed to the Troilos painter was deaccessioned by New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art in June...
