China & Cyprus are very different countries in many ways. They do however both face problems with looting of archaeological sites, with the spoils from these actions often eventually ending up in auctions abroad.

It is great to see them signing an agreement to clamp down on this, although the idea of countries signing numerous bilateral agreements for an issue such as this clearly does not scale well, when you consider the number of countries involved in similar issues.

Cyprus Communications Minister Tasos Mitsopoulos and China’s Culture deputy-minister Li Xiaojie

From:
Cyprus Mail

October 29, 2013
Cyprus and China agree to safeguard artefacts

Cyprus and China have signed a bilateral agreement to safeguard their archaeological objects and prevent their illicit trading.

Communications Minister Tasos Mitsopoulos and China’s Culture deputy-minister Li Xiaojie signed on Tuesday on behalf of their respective countries a memorandum of cooperation to prevent trading of stolen goods and illicit excavations.
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Nazi loot in museums has been a hot topic in recent years for many countries. While some countries are still dragging their heels in terms of any attempts at restitution, it appears that the Netherlands has taken a far more proactive approach & is examining museum collections across the board to identify artworks, along with possible rightful owners.

1921 painting ‘Odalisque’ by Henri Matisse

From:
Haaretz

Dutch museums identify 139 likely Nazi looted artworks
Paintings by Matisse, Klee and Kandinsky are among works thought to have been taken from Jewish owners during Holocaust.
By The Associated Press | Oct. 29, 2013 | 6:40 PM

Dutch museums announced Tuesday they have found 139 artworks that may have been looted during the Nazi era, including paintings from masters such as Matisse, Klee and Kandinsky.

The major review of all museum collections in the country found art that had either dubious or definitely suspect origins.
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Egypt’s most publicly know archaeologist, Zahi Hawass, has never shied away from controversy. His demands for the restitution of disputed Egyptian artefacts irritated many museums around the world.

At present, I’m struggling to work out whether this particular story is a real story or not. If Hawass was involved in taking bribes to allow National Geographic to film, then it is damaging for both his & their credibility. However, there sees to be a lot in this story that is speculative – and there are many people who have an axe to grind with Hawass.

Time will tell whether there is really a story here or not.

Zahi Hawass

From:
Independent

US investigates National Geographic over ‘corrupt payments’ to Egypt’s keeper of antiquities
David Usborne
Monday 28 October 2013

National Geographic may be facing an unexpected challenge to its reputation as one of the world’s most respected educational and scientific institutions amid reports that it is under investigation in the United States over its ties to a former Egyptian official who for years held the keys to his country’s many popular antiquities.

At issue is whether the Washington-based organisation, which in recent years has rapidly extended its public reach beyond its well-known glossy magazine to a cable television channel and other enterprises, violated strict US laws on payments to officials of foreign governments in contracts starting in 2001 with Dr Zahi Hawass, who, until the overthrow of President Hosni Mubarak, was the government’s sole gatekeeper to all things ancient Egypt.
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Because of the current start of ruin of the Parthenon in Athens, many theories about how it would originally have looked are somewhat speculative. The fact that Lord Elgin removed many of the sculptures, in no way helps either.

While looking for something else, I came across information on Emory University’s Parthenon Project. They were aiming to try & see how the frieze on the Parthenon might have originally looked from ground level. This fascinated me, as I spent a lot of time creating 3D models to research this same aspect of the building in 2000.

The viewpoint taken by many, is that due to its location & restricted viewing angle, the frieze would have been barely visible to people viewing the Parthenon on the Acropolis, if they did not already know about it. Even then, their views would be limited, because it would be seen from such a steep angle.

With their Parthenon Project, Emory University’s students aimed to use the replica of the Parthenon in Nashville to test out the various theories about the visibility of the frieze.

Although Nashville’s Parthenon is a close replica of the actual Parthenon, it never had the frieze installed due to a lack of funds. This meant that the first task for the students was to recreate the frieze panels. They did this in a variety of ways, creating them flat & in relief, in colour and in black and white. This use of colour is a very interesting step. We know that the panels were originally painted, but when we visualise them, we still tend to see them as they are today in the Acropolis Museum & British Museum, where the detail on them is formed by the shadows cast & therefore becomes more visible when the light is less diffuse. What had not been tested before was how the painting on the surface of the sculptures would have helped to define them more clearly, making the fine detail far more apparent even in the comparative gloom of the location of the frieze (compared to the metopes which were in bright sunlight).

I would be interested to see this experiment re-attempted in Athens – although I’m not sure where it could be done, as the Parthenon now has no roof. The attic sunlight is breathtaking in its sharpness & I wonder whether the sculptures would still be as clear to see on a summers day there as they were in the Nashville experiment.

Visit the website for the project for far more detail about its aims & the issues they encountered in trying to recreate what was originally there.

From:
Emory University

The Problem: the Visibility of the Parthenon Frieze
By Bonna D. Wescoat

The Parthenon is the most famous ancient Greek building, and its celebrated frieze, dispersed between London, Paris, and Athens, is one of the icons of western art. We view the frieze today at eye level within a museum setting, but originally it was placed at the top of the cella wall behind the surrounding colonnade. The location has baffled scholars, who find a serious disjunction between the high level of articulation and meaning, and the low level of visibility. Scholarly opinion on the visibility of the Parthenon frieze is universally negative. The frieze is described as illegible and fragmented, its position dark and cramped. Photographs tend to confirm the awkwardness of the position. In making this assessment, we are of course seriously hindered by the state of the remains. The reliefs are no longer on the building, and the building no longer has its ceiling and roof.

Scholars and the general public have long admired the precise replica of the Parthenon built in the 1920s in Nashville because it allows us to recapture some of the experience of being in an ancient Greek temple. But there is one very important way in which scholars have not yet mined the value of the Nashville Parthenon: it has the capacity to serve as a crucial tool for understanding the visibility of the Parthenon frieze.
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More coverage of the free admission to the Acropolis Museum today in celebration of Ochi day – the date that the Greek government refusal of the ultimatum given to them by Mussolini.

Acropolis Museum

From:
Kathimerini (English Edition)

Acropolis Museum celebrates ‘Ochi Day’ with free admission and special events
Friday October 25, 2013 (15:18)

In celebration of October 28 – a national holiday in Greece which commemorates the rejection by Prime Minister Ioannis Metaxas of the ultimatum made by Italian dictator Benito Mussolini on October 28, 1940 – admission to the Acropolis Museum (15 Dionysiou Areopagitou), which will be open from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. on the day, will be free of charge. The museum will also present a talk for adults titled “The Other Gods of the Acropolis” and an interactive workshop for children, titled “Myths in Images.”

Although Athena was the patron goddess of their city, the Athenians also worshipped a host of other deities, among them Zeus, Asclepius, Dionysus and Aphrodite. “The Other Gods of the Acropolis” addresses the cult practices and monuments associated with these other gods. The presentation will be held in English at 1 p.m. and French at 5 p.m.
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Kwame Opoku has forwarded me information about proposals (supported by various organisations in a number of countries) for an International Day for Reparations Related to Colonization.

Regular readers of this website will know that many of the cases discussed here, such as the Benin Bronzes, would fall into this category.

If you would like further information about this, please contact Louis-Georges Tin, the Chairman of the CRAN (Council Representing Black Organisations in France). If you would like to get in touch, please let me know & I can provide you with further contact details.

From:
Kwame Opoku (by email)

Call for the International Day for Reparations Related to Colonization

On October 12, 1492, Christopher Columbus set foot on the so called “New World”,
ushering in a cycle of occupation, violence, genocide and slavery: this was the beginning
of colonization.

Colonization is a global phenomenon: there is hardly a country in the world that has not
been colonized, a colonizer, or both, such as the United States. Colonization is one of the
phenomena that has most disrupted humanity. It has left a deep and lasting impression on
all continents and the consequences of this are
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This article looks at a lot of interesting aspects in a period of the life of the Parthenon Sculptures that is often glossed over. After they first arrived in Britain, some time elapsed before they were finally purchased by the British government. As this article explains, during this time, Elgin did everything he could to try & raise the profile of them & hype them up (after declaring them as of “little or no value” for customs purposes.

I am not sure about some of the conclusions however – I don’t know whether anyone really believed that they were taking the Marbles for their protection. This was more a justification that was post rationalised, because it sounded so much more palatable to the public, than the reality of taking them to decorate a house. Later, the same argument appealed to the British Museum, when in reality, they were most interested in adding a significant work to their collection & thus stopping anyone else from getting it.

View of Parthenon Frieze by Alma Tadema

From:
Open Democracy

The Parthenon Marbles and British national identity
Fiona Rose-Greenland 25 October 2013

Today, the British Museum’s Trustees argue that the Parthenon sculptures are “integral to the Museum’s purpose as a world museum telling the story of human cultural achievement.” But what does history tell us?

This article is part of an occasional series on ‘The Political Aesthetics of Power and Protest,’ the subject of a one-day workshop held at the University of Warwick in September, 2012. Democracy, since it does not function through command or coercion, requires instead a constant renewal of sets of symbols – symbols which appeal to people and instill in them a sense of belonging and identification. Increasing disenchantment and disillusion with the state, with political institutions, their practices and performance, makes it more important to explore the place of this aestheticisation of political language, the aesthetics of protest as well as of power.

But most the modern Pict’s ignoble boast,
To rive what Goth, and Turk, and Time hath spared:
Cold as the crags upon his native coast,
His mind as barren and his heart as hard,
Is he whose head conceived, whose hand prepared,
Aught to displace Athena’s poor remains:
Her sons too weak the sacred shrine to guard,
Yet felt some portion of their mother’s pains,
And never knew, till then, the weight of Despot’s chains. (XII)

Cold is the heart, fair Greece! that looks on thee,
Nor feels as lovers o’er the dust they loved;
Dull is the eye that will not weep to see
Thy walls defaced, thy mouldering shrines removed
By British hands, which it had best behoved
To guard those relics ne’er to be restored.
Curst be the hour when from their isle they roved,
And once again thy hapless bosom gored,
And snatched thy shrinking gods to northern climes abhorr’d! (XV)

Lord Byron, Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage. Second Canto (1812)

What is happening with the Parthenon sculptures, also known as the Elgin Marbles and widely lauded as the jewel in the crown of the British Museum?

When the new Acropolis Museum opened in Athens in June 2009, the British Museum faced unprecedented pressure to return the sculptures to Greece. Intellectuals, elected officials, and ordinary citizens weighed in, with public opinion apparently in favour of giving them back. It looked as though Museum officials might finally relent. The issue was back on the public agenda in June 2012, in a repatriation debate between Stephen Fry and MP Tristram Hunt, and again this month in a speech by Henry Porter in which he urged that returning the sculptures would be the right thing to do.
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A bit late posting this, as the event has already started.

The Third International Conference of Experts on the Return of Cultural Property is currently taking place in Greece, with events at a variety of locations.

If you want further details of the event, have a look at this web page.

3rd International Conference of Experts on the Return of Cultural Property

From:
Greek Ministry of Culture

3rd International Conference of Experts on the Return of Cultural Property

4/10/2013

As a follow-up to the Second International Conference of Experts on the Return of Cultural Property, held in Seoul, Republic of Korea, 16-17 October 2012, the Hellenic Ministry of Culture and Sports organizes the Third International Conference of Experts on the Return of Cultural Property.
The Conference will be held from Wednesday 23 until Saturday 26 October 2013. The opening ceremony, as well as the procedures of the first day will be accommodated in the auditorium of the Acropolis Museum, while the rest sessions from Thursday 24 to Saturday, October 26, will take place in Ancient Olympia (SPAP Conference Center).

The conference program is divided into two main areas:
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Back in the relatively early days of this blog, there was a lot of press coverage about the case of the painting belonging to Arthur Feldmann. Dr Feldmann was a Czech Jew whose paintings were seized by the Nazis. Eventually, some of his paintings ended up in the British Museum. The British Museum claimed that they wanted to return them, but couldn’t.

As a result of this, they brought a legal case, seeing if it was possible to over-ride the British Museum act. A lot of papers made out that the story that the case was about the Elgin Marbles, although this was more media spin than anything else. If you are not familiar with the case, I wrote a fairly lengthy analysis of it here. Some of the legal details from the case, which were not published until later are here.

Following the trustees of the British Museum losing the case (I’m not sure that anyone ever expected anything different), there were demands for changes in the law to handle such situations, although in reality, discussions relating to this aspect of Nazi loot restitution had already been going on for some time before that. These discussions were eventually incorporated into the law (after fairly long delays), in the form of the Holocaust (Stolen Art) Restitution bill.

In the end, because the British Museum was not allowed to return the paintings, the heirs settled instead for financial compensation (something that was outside the scope of the British Museum Act).

That should have been the end of things, but it appears that it wasn’t. The paintings that were the subject of the earlier case were not the only ones in the museum, that the Feldmann Heirs claimed were rightfully theirs. Although the original case was dealt with by the Spoliation Advisory Panel. This most recent case was not though & was instead dealt with through direct negotiation with the museum (the reasons behind this are not given in the articles that I have read).

Young Couple in a Landscape, 1535-45, in the style of Georg Pencz

What is interesting, is that as I described above, the law now allows the British Museum to return Nazi loot. The Feldmann heirs were still happy to accept an ex-gratia payment though, in lieu of the actual artwork being returned. Once again, the reasons for this are unclear, but the fact remains, that even when the law allows is, not every restitution case is settled by the actual artefacts being returned.

In some cases, the rightful owners only want it acknowledged that they are the owners. In many instances, people accept that the museums are better placed to look after expensive works of art – often you do not want something like this in your home, due to issues with controlled humidity & temperature, security, insurance costs etc.

From:
Haaretz

British Museum compensates collector’s heirs for art looted by Nazis
Family of Arthur Feldmann proved Gestapo had seized work of art in Czechoslovakia in 1939.
By Eitan Buganim
Oct. 17, 2013 | 2:15 AM

The British Museum agreed to compensate descendants of a Jewish art collector who owned a medieval German drawing in the style of Georg Pencz, which the Gestapo looted from his home with the rest of the family’s art collection in March 1939. The museum accepted a spoliation claim by collector Arthur Feldmann’s grandson, Uri Peled. It made an ex gratia payment that allows the museum to keep the drawing, “Young Couple in a Landscape,” painted around 1535-45.

The drawing had been acquired by the museum in good faith from Mrs. Rosi Schilling, in 1993. Peled, who lives in Tel Aviv, proved after extensive research that the drawing had originally belonged to his grandfather and was seized from him in Brno, Czechoslovakia, in 1939. Neither of the Feldmanns survived the war.
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Both Henry Porter & Rodi Kratsa‘s talks from the Parthenon Marbles round table event held in Brussels last week have now been published.

This is in addition to Tom Flynn‘s, which he posted on his website last week.

I also wrote an article about the event, which includes some detail of the talks given by the other speakers who were there.

From:
The Parliament

Return of Parthenon marbles a ‘moral obligation’, says MEP
By Rodi Kratsa – 22nd October 2013

Protecting European cultural heritage, including the Parthenon marbles, is a ‘moral obligation’ and should be at the heart of the EU, writes Rodi Kratsa.

(…) The union shall respect its rich cultural and linguistic diversity, and shall ensure that Europe’s cultural heritage is safeguarded and enhanced”, stresses the Lisbon treaty.

Cultural heritage and its symbols undoubtedly constitute the main capital of European peoples and the soul of the European Union. Respecting and restoring them is a European obligation and concern.
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Admission to the Acropolis Museum will be free on 28th October. This is to celebrate Ochi day (Οχι looks strange written in English), when Greece refused the Axis powers entry into the country. There will also be a special presentation taking place on the day, called “The Other Gods of the Acropolis”.

From:
Kathimerini (English Edition)

Tuesday October 22, 2013
Acropolis Museum offers free admission on October 28 national holiday

Admission to Greece’s landmark Acropolis Museum will be free of charge on Monday, October 28, in celebration of “Ochi Day,” a national holiday commemorating the country’s refusal to allow the Axis powers’ entry into the country on October 28, 1940.

The museum will also be offering 10 separate presentations for adults titled “The Other Gods of the Acropolis,” with one in English at 1 p.m. and another in French at 5 p.m., as well as eight workshops for children on “Myths in Images” aimed at 8-12 year olds.

Parties interested in attending the special events must book a spot in advance on tel 210.900.0900.

Opening hours on October 28 will be 8 a.m. to 8 p.m.

In addition to the articles I posted earlier, Marbles Reunited has written a report on the event held in Brussels earlier this week, and Tom Flynn has also posted a transcript of his talk.

The report that follows is based on my notes taken during the event. I have not tried to capture everything, just the key points. I am hoping that my comments do not misrepresent what the speakers were saying – some it was from the live translation there, and some of it was from the responses to questions afterwards, rather than from the original speeches.

After introductions by Krister Kumlin & a brief video, Tom Flynn was the first speaker, and pointed out, that when considering the acquisition of obviously looted artefacts “Most museums now know better”. The thing is of course, how to get museums to act retrospectively – to apply the rules that they would use now to actions that they made well before their current rules and guidelines came into force.

He also added, that “Nowadays, the social network acts as a critical filter to the acquisition of disputed artefacts”. This is a good point, as museums nowadays have a far greater interaction with the public than perhaps ever before. People’s opinions mean more to them than they ever used to, and as a result, it is important to let museums know if what you think they are doing is morally unacceptable.

German MEP Jo Leinen had a simple message – drawing on the words of another German politician, he quoted Willie Brandt “we have to unite what belongs together”.

The Spanish MEP, Miguel Angel Martínez Martínez took a slightly different viewpoint from some of the other speakers, looking at this action by Britain, in the context of other actions that occur within Europe. He felt that it was particularly important that the countries of northern Europe, in some way recognise that although they might be economically the powerhouses of Europe today, they still owe so much culturally to the Mediterranean countries in the South of Europe. He stressed a message that Campaigns such as Marbles Reunited have also long emphasised, that “It is not about sending the Parthenon Marbles back to Athens, but about reuniting them”.
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