Further reflections on toxic antiquities

Earlier this year I wrote about the impact of "toxic antiquities". In other words antiquities that have surfaced on the market in an illicit manner and then lurk in a private collection or as part of a dealer's stock for some years before resurfacing. Take some recent examples:

• The Egyptian funerary reliefs in the Louvre. At least one piece is reported to have surfaced in a London auction house in the 1980s.
• A Corinthian column-krater seized in New York. It featured in a photograph from the Medici archive.
• An Apulian hydria withdrawn from a London sale. It came from a London auction in the 1980s that appears to have had links with Medici. [See also comments on material withdrawn from the same sale.]

The objects could have been purchased in "good faith" but it does not lessen the impact of the bad publicity if a government such as Egypt or Italy makes a claim.

We need to remember that there are well over 10,000 unidentified antiquities waiting for somebody to make the connection between a polaroid seized in a police raid in, say, Geneva or on, say, a Greek island, and the piece appearing in a sale or a museum catalogue.

So what can auction-houses do to protect their reputations? Why not avoid selling any ancient object that does not have a properly documented collecting history that can be traced back to the 1960s?

And what can museums and private collectors do to avoid the sort of "corrosive" publicity that has been attached to the returns to Egypt, Greece, and Italy? They should avoid objects that do not have a properly documented collecting history that can be traced back to the 1960s.

Opaque transparency

Nearly a year ago I commented on the AAMD's "commitment" to transparency over the acquisition of archaeological material. One year on I have yet to receive the information that I requested from two (AAMD member) museums about four items that have been acquired since 2002. (Note: these are very recent acquisitions.)

Why are AAMD members reluctant to disclose collecting histories? Why do they send out a signal that they have something to hide?

Looting Matters in London: Contemporary Issues

Readers have been asking for an overview of yesterday's seminar in London. My starting point was the decision for the Cultural Property Advisory Committee to review the MOU with Italy (on Wednesday) [see discussion of 2001 presentations]. We considered the way that Italy has been increasing the protection of its cultural property, action that has celebrated in a series of exhibitions dispaying returned material. The returns from North American museums and the ongoing trial of Robert Hecht and Marion True serve as disincentives for those who would want to buy recently surfaced antiquities (see earlier comments).

At the same time we reviewed those bodies that are seeking to challenge US Import Restrictions through the FOIA action against the US State Department. The perception by some cultural property lobbyists that the UK Portable Antiquities Scheme (PAS) is only there to "ensure that the State only keeps what it can reasonably be expected to take care of" (Peter Tompa) was challenged. (It was good to have Roger Bland as a member of the audience.)

We speculated about the implications of the photographic dossier (some 10,000 images) and receipts seized from warehouses in Basel. (Overview of Switzerland.)

A review of the returns of antiquities from North American museums has shed light on some of the dealers, galleries and auction houses that were handling recently surfaced material. There was a reflection on Apulian pots attributed to the Darius painter which supported Ricardo Elia's work on this area. I also addressed the question of the missing memorandum that sought to discredit Elia's research.

We reviewed the October 2008 Bonhams sales of the Graham Geddes collection and the way that the Italian authorities were able to challenge the auction. In the questions members of the audience wondered how reputable museums had been able to accept this recently surfaced material on loan.

Examples of returns to Greece and Egypt were also provided. The seminar was reminded of the Greek request from the Michael C. Carlos Museum at Emory University, and FYROM's desire to reclaim the Koreschnica bronze krater thought to be in a North American private collection.

The presentation closed with a summary analysis of the sale of antiquities at Sotheby's New York in the period 1998 to 2009.

It is hoped to make an online version of the lecture available shortly.

The collecting history of a black-figured stamnos

Next week Bonhams is planning to auction an Attic black-figured stamnos attributed to the Michigan painter (28 October 2009, lot 193; estimate £60,000 - £80,000). The collecting history ("provenance") is provided:

"Acquired at a German [sic.] auction, Kunstwerke der Antike, Münzen und Medaillen A.G., Basel, Auktion 70, November 14th, 1986, lot 203. Formerly ex Ferrucio Bolla Collection, Lugano, 1960s."

There is a little more we can add as the stamnos appears in the database of the Beazley Archive (no. 3886). It was first published in Numismatica e Antichità Classiche, Quaderni Ticinesi 5 (1976), 39, fig. 3 (A). (The journal was founded by Bolla.) There is nothing cited in the Beazley archive to indicate its history between the 1960s and 1976.

The stamnos was exhibited at the J. Paul Getty Museum in 1980. Bolla died in 1984 and the stamnos was sold at Münzen und Medaillen A.G., Basel in 1986. It was then offered for auction at Christie's New York on 7 December 2000 as lot 433 [not 2001 as in the Beazley Archive database]. The estimate was for $100,000 to $150,000 but the stamnos failed to sell [see report].

The stamnos features in an interview with Hicham Aboutaam (June 19, 2009) [see post].The interview, found here, asks about the collecting history:

Interviewer: Where was this stamnos before Phoenix Ancient Art acquired it?

Hicham Aboutaam: The Stamnos was part of the collection of Mr. Ferruccio Bolla, a banker in the Canton of Ticino, Switzerland and was published in 1976. We also learned that it was exhibited at the J. Paul Getty Museum of Art, Malibu, in 1980.

There is no mention of the history of the piece prior to 1976. What is the basis for Bonham's statement ("Formerly ex Ferrucio Bolla Collection, Lugano, 1960s.")?

I emailed Madeleine Perridge in the Antiquities Department at Bonham's and she replied (Wednesday October 21, 2009)

I am afraid that this is the only information that we have concerning the provenance.

[The stamnos] was part of the collection of Mr. Ferruccio Bolla, a banker in the Canton of Ticino, Switzerland and was indeed published in 1976. But prior to it being in Mr Bolla’s collection, I do not have any more information to give you.

So who supplied the information? Who checked the facts?

The stamnos presently is on offer on-line from artfinding.com for 78,000 euros (or $110,00). The seller is Phoenix Ancient Art. (At today's exchange rate that is the equivalent of £71,000, the mid-point of Bonham's estimate.)

CPAC and Italy

The US Cultural Property Advisory Committee (CPAC) has announced that it will be meeting on Friday November 13, 2009 to review its interim MOU with Italy (2001, 2006) [CPAC Italy].

On November 13, the Committee will continue its interim review of the MOU with Italy and will have an open session from approximately 9:30 a.m. to 12 noon to receive oral public comment. An open session is not a statutory requirement, nor is the invitation for public oral or written comment. These steps are taken at the initiative of the Department of State. Persons wishing to attend either of these open sessions should notify the Cultural Heritage Center of the Department of State at (202) 632–6301 no later than November 4, 2009, 5 p.m. (EST) to arrange for admission. Seating is extremely limited. Requests for reasonable accommodation should also be made at that time; last minute requests will be difficult to fulfill.

Anyone wishing to make an oral presentation at either public session must request to be scheduled and must submit a written text of the oral comments by November 2, 2009, to allow time for distribution to Committee members prior to the meeting. Oral comments will be limited to allow time for questions from members of the Committee ... With respect to comments on the interim review of the Memorandum of Understanding Between the Government of the United States of America and the Government of the Republic of Italy Concerning the Imposition of Import Restrictions on Archaeological Material Representing the Pre-Classical, Classical and Imperial Roman Periods of Italy, concluded on January 19, 2001, and extended in 2006, oral comments must be limited to Article II of this MOU. The Committee also invites written comments and asks that they be submitted no later than November 2, 2009, to allow time for distribution to Committee members prior to the meeting. ...

The text of the MOU can be found here.

The demonstrable work of the Italian Carabinieri in their work to deter looting is the subject of an exhibition in Rome at the moment.

It will be interesting to see who will be seeking to speak. I suspect North American museums will be wanting to put the recent returns behind them and also be seeking to develop cultural links (including the loan of archaeological material from Italy).

Looting Matters Goes Live in Torrington Place

The Looting Matters debate with the Heritage Studies Research Group of the Institute of Archaeology starts at Thursday 5 pm in the Galton Lecture Theatre, Torrington Place, London.

What are the breaking issues?

Looting Matters Goes Live: Contemporary Issues

Looting Matters goes on the road this week and will be visiting the Heritage Studies Thursday  (October 22) research seminar at the Institute of Archaeology, London, hosted by Tim Schadla-Hall.

What are this week's contemporary issues?

Have we moved on from Egypt's actions against the Louvre? What about Nefertiti and the Rosetta Stone?

What is happening about the trials in Rome? Will the thousands of objects shown in polaroids seized in Switzerland be identified and returned to Italy?

What about Greek claims over objects in Atlanta? FYROM's claim on the Koreschnica krater? Bulgaria's request for Greece to return the Byzantine silver hoard?

Will there be an update on the octodrachm in the Swiss sale?

And can we make sense of the challenges to US import restrictions on archaeological material from Cyprus?

Is there a story waiting to break?