Turkey and the Met

A report by Benjamin Sutton ("More Antiquities Woes for U.S. Museums Loom, As Turkey Demands 18 Artifacts From the Metropolitan Museum", Artinfo March 20, 2012) discusses the post on Chasing Aphrodite that suggests that the Turkish Government is requesting objects from the Norbert Schimmel Collection. It appears that the claim is covered by Turkish legislation and precedes the 1970 UNESCO Convention.

It will be interesting to see if Turkey pursues the series of bronzes that were removed from the Sebasteion at Bubon. One of the statues now resides in a private collection in New York.

MOU and Cyprus

Christina Luke and Jane Evans have published an overview of the CPAC public hearing back in January. The inclusion of coins features prominently. Opposition was noted as follows:

Three people attended the session opposed the renewal of the MOU with Cyprus due to the inclusion of coins on the list of objects with import restrictions. Their arguments were threefold: that the agreement abrogated their constitutional right to happiness (through collecting); that coins were meant to circulate widely in the ancient world, and so should continue to circulate today; and that the restriction of coins and the documentation required for legally imported coins would have deleterious effects upon small business. These views were met with penetrating questions by committee members.

At the end of the report was a list of those who provided oral comment. This suggests that one of the three who opposed the renewal of the MOU was a paid lobbyist acting for two numismatic trade organisations.

Do museums respond to photographic evidence?

Caught in the net?

Will the publication of parts of the photographic dossiers seized in Switzerland and Greece change the attitudes of museums? The answer is probably not, at least in Europe.

The Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek in Copenhagen has refused to hand over material requested by the Italian authorities. The Museum of Cycladic Art in Athens holds an Athenian pot recognised from the Medici dossier. The National Archaeological Museum in Madrid has yet to resolve its disagreement with Italy. And there are museums in the UK where material has been linked.

Looking further afield there is the unresolved situation with the Miho Museum in Japan.

And museums form only one element. Identification of stock with dealers and in auctions has made little difference to some.

It seems to me that the major issue is compliance with international agreements. And there seems to be little willingness to demonstrate co-operation in some quarters.

Fortuna Humana: the New York link

Source: MiBAC

It appears that one of the two statues returned to Italy by healthcare company Humana was purchased from a New York gallery in 1984. The identity of the company has now been confirmed by a source in Rome.

Although the gallery was reformed during the 1980s, subsequent to the sale to Humana, it remains in the same family.

The same New York gallery has been linked to material that has been returned to Italy.

Interestingly the gallery has been linked to the investigations into the Becchina dossier. While I was in New York earlier this year I viewed material from the same gallery (now in a public space) that also features in the Becchina receipts (and images).


What does this say about the ethics of the North American trade in recently surfaced antiquities? Will the Becchina investigation be even more damaging to the reputation of North American museums and dealers than the Medici Conspiracy?

Suffolk Matters and the BBC

I was a sofa guest on Lesley Dolphin's BBC Radio Suffolk show this afternoon. We were chatting about my move to Suffolk but also touched on why the Icklingham Bronzes should be on display in the Ipswich Museum and not tucked away in a New York private collection.

The programme is available on the BBC iPlayer (at 2:30).

Almagià: update

Chasing Aphrodite has discussed further objects links to Edoardo Almagià. This includes material in San Antonio and Indiana. There is also a discussion of material in Boston that I have discussed elsewhere.

There is also a note on the continued "stonewalling" by Princeton.

Byzantium, Islam and Turkey

© David Gill

The exhibition "Byzantium and Islam: Age of Transition" opens at New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art later this month. More details can be found here, including a list of lenders.

An exhibition with a focus on Byzantium / Constantinople would expect to include material from the world-class collections in Turkey. But the press release has no mention of objects on loan from Turkey.

It now appears that Turkey has refused to make any loans ("Turkey Bans Artifact Loans to NY Metropolitan Museum", International Business Times News March 5, 2012). Ertugrul Günay, the Turkish Culture and Tourism Minister, has made a claim on antiquities in the Met's collection: "You have artifacts that were stolen from Turkey. We'll cooperate once you've returned them to us."

The items presumably include Byzantine silver.