Ethiopian president Girma Wolde-Giogis has requested of various leading museums in Britain, that they return artefacts that were looted from his country.

From:
Daily Telegraph

Ethiopian president demands return of ‘looted’ treasures held in British museums
By Stephen Adams, Arts Correspondent
Last Updated: 2:25PM GMT 23 Nov 2008

The president of Ethiopia has written to Britain’s leading museums to demand they return treasures he claims were “looted” in the 19th century.

President Girma Wolde-Giogis wants a number of pieces returned including an 18-carat gold royal crown.

Read the rest of this entry »

More coverage of the return of a looted Byzantine icon to Greece following successful legal action earlier this year.

From:
Artinfo

Britain Returns Stolen Byzantine Icon to Greece
Published: November 20, 2008

ATHENS—Britain has returned a 14th-century Byzantine icon painting stolen from a Greek monastery 30 years ago, BBC News reports. The painting, which is valued at £1 million ($1.4 million), depicts Jesus being lowered from the cross. It was commissioned 700 years ago for the St. John the Baptist monastery in Serres, in northern Greece, and hung there until 1978, when thieves cut it into six pieces and smuggled it out of the country.

In 2002, British police recovered the icon after it was offered for sale by a London-based Greek art collector. The seller failed to provide proof of ownership, prompting the High Court in London to order the painting’s return. An appeal by the seller was dismissed.

Read the rest of this entry »

Through the country’s almost perpetual status as a war zone in recent years, Afghanistan’s heritage has suffered greatly at the hands of looters. Many of the artefacts taken from the country, then end up on sale through art dealers & auction houses in the West. Operation Syenite is the name being given to a new initiative in Britain, which hopes to focus on this problem. The largest part of the problems though, as it has been throughout history, is that there will always be unscrupulous collectors who are willing to purchase the looted artefacts by whatever means. Whilst there remains a market for the looters to sell to, it seems likely that the looting will continue in some form.

From:
Daily Telegraph

Police to clamp down on trade in looted Afghan art
Last Updated: 12:01am BST 21/10/2008

Police to clamp down on trade in looted Afghan art Unscrupulous art galleries that deal in looted Afghan art could face prosecution under a new police initiative.

The Metropolitan Police has just started Operation Syenite to clamp down on the sale of art stolen from Afghanistan.

Read the rest of this entry »

The British Government is after long deliberations planning on altering existing legislation, to allow the countries national museums & galleries to return artefacts that were looted during the Nazi era.

This move to allow further selective deaccessioning (following the decision to allow return of human remains) is an important step. It does however highlight the fragmented nature of legislation on this issue, creating various special case scenarios, rather than defining a policy that applied more comprehensively to all restitution claims based on merit. Whilst few would object to the decision to allow return of Nazi loot from Britain’s institutions, as I have highlighted before, there are many other equally worthy cases that fall outside the parameters of the proposed legislation.

From:
Daily Telegraph

National galleries to hand back Nazi art
By Jasper Copping
Last Updated: 11:53PM BST 18 Oct 2008

Artworks looted by the Nazis during the Second World War and now held in Britain’s national museums and galleries are to be handed back to their owners.

The Tate, the British Museum, and the British Library are all known to hold looted items but are currently prevented by law from giving them back to the families that once owned them.

Read the rest of this entry »

The return by others of artefacts that were once part of the Elgin marbles (e.g. the Palermo Fragment), can only be seen as strengthening Greece’s position & adding to the pressure on the British Museum.

From:
Daily Telegraph

Italy returns Elgin Marbles fragment to Greece
Italy has given back to Greece a fragment of the Parthenon sculptures - increasing pressure on Britain to return the Elgin Marbles.
By Nick Squires In Rome
Last Updated: 6:01PM BST 24 Sep 2008

The 2,500-year-old section of marble was presented to the Greek government by Italy’s president, Giorgio Napolitano, as a gesture of goodwill between the two Mediterranean countries.

The 14-by-13-inch artifact consists of a foot and part of a dress hem from a sculpture of Aphrodite, the goddess of love.

Read the rest of this entry »

Maurizio Fiorilli has in recent years been no stranger to restitution cases in his work for the Italian Government. Here he talks about some of the issues he is dealing with, as well as the way that the problems of looting are exacerbated by the policies of many of the museums that receive the stolen artefacts.

From:
Sunday Telegraph

Maurizio Fiorilli: scourge of the tomb raiders
Last Updated: 12:01am BST 10/08/2008

Bad news for the art thieves who for years have been selling Italy’s ancient treasures to foreign museums: ‘Il Bulldog’ is on your case. Alastair Smart meets the resolute attorney demanding their return

Pasquale Camera didn’t do light lunches. After a third plate of veal Napolitano, washed down by his nth glass of Barolo, the 25-stone ex-police captain galumphed his way out of a Naples restaurant, climbed into his Renault 21, and set off north for Rome. The August heat was intense, and just a few miles up the motorway, he fell asleep at the wheel, smashed into the guardrail and overturned his car. He died instantly.

Read the rest of this entry »

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown has commented publicly on the Elgin Marbles, during an interview on BBC’s One Show. His response predictably follows the line of previous statements by the Department of Culture Media & Sport on the issue.

You can listen to the show online on the BBC’s website for the next few days. The relevant section is about fifteen minutes into the programme.

From:
Daily Telegraph

Gordon Brown’s son calls him ‘Gordon’ rather than ‘dad’
By Rosa Prince, Political Correspondent
Last Updated: 8:44PM BST 17/07/2008
Gordon Brown has told how his five-year-old son John had taken to calling him “Gordon” rather than “dad”.

[...]

Despite a tape-recorded plea from Stelios Haji-Ioannou, the owner of the budget airline Easyjet, Mr Brown said that he did not support the return of the Elgin Marbles to Greece.

Insisting the best place for the Marbles was the British Museum, he added: “From everywhere in the world people can see them free of charge.”

Following on from their successes in Scotland, the Ngarrindjeri have also collected skulls of their ancestors from Exeter’s Royal Albert Memorial Museum to be returned to Australia.

It is worth remembering again, that the current reunifications of Aboriginal artefacts only happened after a change in the law allowed many of the countries larger museums to over-rule the anti-deaccessioning clauses in their own charters & return these pieces. Once various key institutions had returned pieces, many smaller museums and galleries followed their example.

From:
BBC News

Page last updated at 09:48 GMT, Wednesday, 9 July 2008 10:48 UK
Aboriginal skulls returning home

Four Aboriginal skulls, which have formed part of a British museum’s collection for more than 100 years, are to be returned to Australia.

The 19th century human remains were donated to Exeter’s Royal Albert Memorial Museum by someone who claimed to have been given them.

Read the rest of this entry »

James Cuno’s new book expounds his views that we should not be moving towards more reunifications of artefacts. The Daily Telegraph (somewhat predictably) chooses to agree with him in their review of his new book, although others have already pointed out the numerous flaws in his reasoning.

Who Owns Antiquity? Museums and the Battle over Our Ancient Heritage: Museums and the Battle Over Our Ancient Heritage
Author: James Cuno
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691137129

From:
Daily Telegraph

Why the Elgin Marbles should stay
Last Updated: 12:01am BST 06/07/2008

Jonathan Keates reviews Who Owns Antiquity?: Museums and the Battle Over Our Ancient Heritage by James Cuno

Connoisseurs of little-known facts will rejoice in the existence of a department of Unesco called the Intergovernmental Committee for Promoting the Return of Cultural Property to its Countries of Origin or its Restitution in case of Illicit Appropriation.

Besides defying all efforts to reduce it to a manageable acronym, the name surely deserves some sort of accolade for its verbosity.

Read the rest of this entry »

Following recent publicity about his advert campaign for the reunification of the Parthenon Sculptures, Stelios Hadji-Ioannou appears dis-satisfied with the way things are progressing. Whilst there are issues for both sides over whatever sort of deal might be reached though, I very much doubt that Stelios has given up on the issue yet. This seems more like wishful thinking on the part of the Telegraph, a paper who have (with a few notable exceptions) generally come out as strongly against reunification of the Elgin Marbles whenever the issue has been raised.

From:
Daily Telegraph

Gordon Brown won’t holiday in Cliff Richard’s Barbados villa
By Tim Walker
Last Updated: 8:54PM BST 04/07/2008

[...]

A game of Elgin Marbles

Sir Stelios Haji-Ioannou appears to have conceded defeat in his battle to return the Elgin Marbles to Athens.

“The Greeks don’t seem to understand that the marbles are not owned by the British Government but by a trust,” the founder of easyJet told Mandrake at The Spectator summer party.

Read the rest of this entry »

When Philippe de Montebello announced his retirement from New York’s Metropolitan Museum, British Museum director Neil MacGregor was one of the people tipped to replace him. The British Museum has just announced though that although he was offered the post, he has turned it down with the intention of staying with the British Museum until 2012.

During the next four years though, whilst MacGregor may continue trying to resist change, he may find that he is left with little choice, with the carpet being swept out from under him by changing views on restitution in the Museums’ world.

From:
Daily Telegraph

British Museum director says no to Metropolitan Museum of Art move
By Anita Singh, Showbusiness Editor
Last Updated: 6:42PM BST 01/07/2008
British Museum director Neil MacGregor has turned down a job as head of New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Mr MacGregor was approached as a possible replacement for Philippe de Montebello, who is stepping down as Met director at the end of this year.

But after weighing up the offer, he has pledged his future to the British Museum for another five year term.

Read the rest of this entry »

Earlier this year, Easyjet founder Stelios Haji-Ioanou spoke out in support for the return of the Parthenon Sculptures to Greece. He’s now continuing on this theme with the motto “Reunite the Parthenon Marbles” painted onto his new cruise ship.

From:
Daily Telegraph

easyCruise’s cut-price Odyssey
Max Davidson
Last Updated: 1:13PM BST 30/05/2008

Max Davidson joins the lastest ship from easyCruise for its maiden voyage around the Aegean – and is pleasantly surprised. Just don’t mention the breakfast .

It is after midnight. On the dance floor, a sixtysomething Sikh is strutting his stuff, arms aloft, to the strains of the Plastic People. “Nice mover,” says the man on the double bass. From the bar, a young German couple watch, mesmerised. There is a shriek of drunken laughter from the deck above. Welcome aboard the people’s cruise ship.

Read the rest of this entry »