Revised history for the Carlos Museum Minoan Larnax

L: image from Becchina archive.
R: larnax in Michael C. Carlos Museum

Back in 2007 Christos Tsirogiannis identified a Minoan larnax in the Michael C. Carlos Museum at Emory University from an image in the Becchina archive showing that it had passed through Palladion Antike Kunst. The larnax had been acquired in 2002. The museum has apparently declined to negotiate with the Hellenic authorities.

Two years ago, almost to the day, I checked the history of the larnax and found that the sequence was presented as:

• Ex private collection, Switzerland, 1980s. 
• Ex private collection, Japan, 1990s. 
• Purchased by MCCM from Robert Haber & Associates, Inc., New York, New York.

The paperwork for the Steinhardt seizure mentioned the Carlos Museum larnax (due to the mention of Haber [pp. 70–71]). This has prompted me to check the museum website and found that the history of the object has been clarified and amplified.

PROVENANCE With Nicolas Koutoulakis (1910-1996), Geneva, Switzerland, late 1960s. Ex private collection, Switzerland, 1980s. Ex coll. Noriyoshi Horiuchi, Japan, 1990s. Purchased by MCCM from Robert Haber & Associates, Inc., New York, New York.

It now appears that the anonymous Japanese collection is in fact the dealer Noryioshi Horiuchi. Horiuchi was linked to Becchina as a result of the investigations as part of Operation Andromeda.  It is unclear why the museum still fails to acknowledge that the larnax passed through Palladion Antike Kunst: why is a gallery and a dealer described as a Swiss private collection? Is the Becchina image too awkward to accept?

It now appears that Koutoulakis has been added to the history with a date just prior to the 1970 Convention. What is the authenticated documentation to support this claim? Why has it taken twenty years for this information to come to light? Indeed, the association of an object with Koutoulakis should sound an alarm bell. Another Koutoulakis linked larnax is currently in New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art: what is its (authenticated) prior history? (For more on Koutoulakis see here.)

Is the time fast approaching when the Michael C. Carlos Museum will return to the values held by EUMILOP in the late 1980s? A university museum needs to uphold the highest ethical standards when it comes to acquisitions as well as resolving cases when new information comes to light. 

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The Minoan Larnax and the Michael C. Carlos Museum

Minoan larnax from the Becchina archive and in the Michael C. Carlos Museum

I was recently asked to comment on the acquisition of recently surfaced antiquities in Greece as part of an interview. One of the examples I gave was the Minoan larnax that was acquired by the Michael C. Carlos Museum. Although this piece has been discussed in the Greek press, the museum has not yet responded to the apparent identification in the Becchina archive.

Is the time now right for the Michael C. Carlos Museum or the wider authorities at Emory University to negotiate the return of this impressive piece so that it can be placed on display in a museum in Greece?

"Credible provenance" and the Minoan larnax

Back in September 2008 the Michael C. Carlos Museum spoke about the importance of a "credible provenance" or "history of ownership" in a press statement responding to Greek claims for three items in the museum.

As far as I can see the museum has never presented the authenticated collecting history (sometimes obsoletely termed the "provenance") for the Minoan larnax in its collection.

I have read the documentation on this piece and the photographic evidence from the Becchina archive is compelling.

I am also aware that the positive identification was made by Dr Christos Tsirogiannis.

We know that the "credible" collecting history for this larnax places it in the hands of Gianfranco Becchina. Why has it taken the Michael C. Carlos Museum seven years to ignore this "credible" evidence?

The Minoan Larnax in the Michael C. Carlos Museum

I am much enjoying Adam Nicolson's The Mighty Dead: Why Homer Matters (London: William Collins, 2014). I love the weaving of the literary landscapes and the application of Homer's works to contemporary society. And I am about to move from "Grasping Homer" to "Loving Homer".

The book has a series of "Homeric" (broadly speaking!) colour images: a gold mask from the shaft graves at Mycenae; inlaid Myceanean daggers; representations of the Homeric narratives on Athenian black- and red-figured pottery; a writing tablet from the Ulu Burun shipwreck; the walls of Tiryns; the "Homeric" cup from Ischia; an Egyptian ivory cosmetic container; the Kypselid gold phiale from Olympia.

And I wait to see how this diverse group of objects are woven into Nicolson's narrative.

But I am not writing a review. Readers of LM can always get a copy of the book for themselves. [Amazon.co.uk | Amazon.com]

So why am I writing about this book?

One of the colour plates shows "A Cretan bath from the mid-fourteenth century BC, one of the elements of Mediterranean civilisation most greedily adopted by Homeric Greeks".

The credit is "© Carlos Collection of Ancient Art, Emory University".

But wait. Is this the Minoan larnax that was acquired in 2002? Is this the Minoan larnax that appears in the Becchina photographic archive? Is this the Minoan larnax that the Greek authorities asked the Michael C. Carlos Museum to return back in 2007? Is this the larnax that was featured on LM back in 2008? (And see the museum's press release issued back in 2008.)

And we need to remember that part of Becchina's holdings was revealed in a major publicity event in Rome earlier this year. And this has implications for the Michael C. Carlos Museum.

Nicolson's book is a good reminder of why the museum staff at Emory University need to be contacting the Greek authorities as a matter of urgency. This case needs to be resolved not ignored. (See also the professional responsibilities for the museum.)

And of course the fish on the cover of the book (and elsewhere in the volume) rather evoke the fish on the Minoan larnax. So every time that I pick up this book I will be reminded of the larnax. And if readers of LM take up my suggestion, they too will be reminded of the larnax.

The antiquities collection of 'the worst man in the world'

When Jonathan Pine enters Crystal, the home of Roper ('the worst man in the world'), he passes through a gallery.

Greek torsos, marble heads, hands, urns and stone panels of hieroglyphics stood or lay about in disarray. Brass-bound glass cabinets ran along the walls crammed with figurines. Hand-printed signs declared their provenance: West African, Peruvian, pre-Columbian, Cambodian, Minoan, Russian, Roman, and in one case simply "Nile".

Richard Onslow Roper, trader of arms, shipper of drugs, is based in Nassau, the Bahamas. And he collects antiquities.

Arms, drugs, antiquities come together.

But this is fiction.

Pine is the eponymous Night Manager created by John Le Carre (chapter 16).

The real world is so different ... isn't it?