Antiquities in the New York Times again.

Investigators seized 27 antiquities from the Metropolitan Museum of Art, including this marble head of a Greek youth dated to the third to second century B.C.Credit...The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Antiquities taken from the Met

Once again, for the second time in three weeks, an article about antiquities being seized from the Met appears in the NYTimes. The last one was about Cambodian pieces being seized, this time it is classical and Egyptian. And once again pieces that were part of the public domain here in the US are being taken, and returned to the “country of origin” for an uncertain fate. 

 

I recognize that looted antiquities is a problem in that it involves the destruction of archeological sites and loss of context, but I don’t think the best solution is what is being enforced here. First it makes targets of public museums, and takes out of public view objects that enriched the museum going public. When pieces are returned, they end up in smaller museums, if they are displayed at all, and very few people see them. Italy loves to have exhibitions of returned pieces, but after they end, where do they go? I have been around long enough to remember going to visit the Euphronius krater at the Met, only to have it returned to Italy. When I went to the Etruscan Museum in Rome, I did see it again. However, this is a barely visited museum, and the vase had no special placement and was out of place there, as it is Greek and not Etruscan. So the vase went from a place of honor where it was seen by the many thousands of people who go through the Met each week, to a small museum which hardly anyone knows about. 

 

I am not denying that the trade in antiquities has been a shady business, particularly in the 1970’s to 1990’s, and I saw much of that first hand in my early career as a dealer of ancient art. But I don’t like to see pieces taken off public view here. Italy and Egypt both have more art then they know what to do with, none of the pieces in discussion here add anything to their cultural patrimony. Anything that can be learned from them can be done in NY as well as Italy. As for the idea that stolen is stolen and things should be returned to the rightful owners, that works if you accept the premise that art belongs to the State and cannot be owned privately. Because that is the effect of these laws, that declare that everything found in the ground belongs to the government. That isn’t how that works here, where private individuals have ownership rights. 

 

As it the case of the Cambodian pieces at the Met, I think a better solution is to acknowledge the correct provenance, even transfer ownership to Italy or Egypt but to leave the pieces on view, on long term or permanent loan to the Met. If crimes were involved in how they reached the market and the museum, prosecute those, and go after the people who sold them. But let us not strip our encyclopedic museums here.