India’s recent hopes of securing the return of some of their cultural heritage appear to have been rejected by the British Government. The fact is though, that they fall back on an outdated law as a defence of the status quo – neglecting the fact that if the political will existed, the law could easily be changed to allow restitution.

From:
Times of India

Britain rejects ASI demand for artifacts
ASHIS RAY, TNN, Jun 4, 2010, 02.12am IST

LONDON: Britain has rejected Archeological Survey of India’s demand for the return of artifacts that were carted away from India, mostly illegally, during British colonial rule. The British foreign office said domestic laws prevented museums from removing items from their collection.

‘‘The British Museum Act 1963 prevents our national museums from removing items from their collections, with the exception of human remains and objects lost during the Nazi era, and government has no plans to change the law,’’ a spokesperson of the Foreign & Commonwealth Office said.

The spokesperson said people felt strongly about the restitution debate and that museum trustees take decisions relating to the items vested in their care and politicians don’t interfere. ‘‘It’s a long-established principle in the UK, supported by successive governments.”

When people argue against restitution of cultural property, much is made of the argument that it would leave the great museums of the world almost empty. Aside from the notion that this suggests nearly all the items in the collection were acquired in dubious circumstances (few claims are made about items that were legitimately purchased), this goes completely against the reality of the situation. Well over a hundred years ago, the British Museum already had far more in its collection than it could possibly display. Due to the prohibition on deaccessioning, this situation has only got worse since then. Certainly, some of the artefacts that are hidden in store rooms might not be particularly worth seeing – but there must be many that are.

From:
Heritage Key

How Many Ancient Artefacts Are on Display at the British Museum?
Submitted by Sean Williams on Thu, 06/03/2010 – 14:48

How many ancient artefacts are on show at the British Museum? Sounds like an easy question: after all, surely it’s just a case of finding the right person and writing down a figure, right? I mean, the British Museum is the second most visited museum on the planet behind the Louvre, and well over half the Louvre’s collection is non-ancient (for an explanation of what ‘ancient’ actually is check out Jon’s blog here) – someone must know how much stuff is on show. For the short story, the numbers and how I came to my conclusions click here. If not read on and suffer with me.

First port of call: the museum’s press office, who could only tell me the museum holds a total of around 6,000,000 artefacts. Around? It’s not a great omen if the press office doesn’t even know its own total collection, let alone how much of that has made it from storage into display cases. I was whisked off to another department: “We have around six million items in total, sir, but I’m not sure of the number on display – maybe one of our guidebooks has what you’re after.”
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The British Museum (& most state / local authority owned museums in the UK), often stand behind the screen of anti-deaccessioning regulations, using these as an excuse to avoid restitution claims, stating that there is no point even entering into discussion, as they would not be allowed to return the artefacts if they did want to. In many countries though, deaccessioning is far less of a problem & can be relatively commonplace, as evidenced that the International Council of Museums publishes specific guidelines on the subject.

The guidelines are in fact published for the entirely different reason, that recently, a number of US art collections have tried to sell off large chunks of their collections. Therefore, it is clear that deaccessioning, while not perhaps legally regulated, should have clear ethical guidelines in place for institutions to sign up to as they wish – on the other hand, this is a completely different thing to outlawing the practice altogether.

From:
Eflux

Museum deaccessioning:
April 4, 2010
International Committee of ICOM for Museum and Collections of Modern Art

The International Council of Museums
General Principles on Conditions of Deaccession from Museum Collections

http://www.cimam.org

GENERAL PRINCIPLES ON CONDITIONS OF DEACCESSION FROM MUSEUM COLLECTIONS

Ethical codes must evolve in response to the evolving nature of standards and practices in museums and in society, and need to be periodically reviewed, discussed and updated.

In view of recent controversial practice with regard to selling art from museum collections, CIMAM states its opposition in the first instance to the notion of deaccession. In those instances where deaccession is deemed defensible or necessary, CIMAM’s General Assembly adopts the following set of principles for the conditions of deaccession, and urges the directors of member institutions to accept these principles as guidelines for their institutions.
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When the return of artefacts is mentioned, institutions such as the British Museum argue that it would empty their collections, leaving them with nothing to display. The reality however is that the British Museum has so many artefacts in their collection (that they are not allowed to sell, return or otherwise de-accession) that only one percent of the collection is currently on public display.

They do allow the public to visit the items not on display – but for most people this is not possible, for the simple reason that as the artefacts are not on display, they don’t know that they are there in the first place.

From:
BBC News

Page last updated at 08:38 GMT, Wednesday, 31 March 2010 09:38 UK
The 99% of the British Museum not on show

In the BBC Radio 4 series A History of the World in 100 Objects, the rise of civilisation is depicted with a hand-picked selection of the British Museum in London.

Choosing just 100 out of 80,000 objects on display was no mean feat. But what is on public show amounts to just 1% of the institution’s eight million artefacts.
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In stark contrast to the rigid anti-deaccessioning policies of institutions such as the British Museum, University College London is asking the public to give their views on which of the items in their collection should be sold off to free up space for new artefacts.

From:
Time

London Museum Asks Public What to Pitch
By Gaëlle Faure / London
Saturday, Nov. 14, 2009

If you’re the type of person who has trouble throwing anything out, then the job of collections reviewer at the University College London’s museums might not be for you. The college is embarking upon a purge of its assorted collections, some 250,000 items in total, only 2% of which are currently on display. A gargantuan task, surely, but the college is not doing it on its own — officials have taken the unusual step of opening the process up to the public. They’re asking visitors what they should keep, what they should give away to other museums — one institution’s trash is another’s treasure — or, as a last resort, what they should just throw away.

“Disposal is still a dirty word. Most museum people are too scared to use it,” says Jayne Dunn, UCL’s collections manager. “We work for the public, but no one’s ever thought of asking them what they want.”
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The journal of the School of Museum Studies at the University of Leicester, the Museological Review, has chosen to focus their most recent edition on the issues surrounding museums, deaccessioning & restitution.

In the first piece, Clare Blakey writes about some of the restitution demands made by Italy to the Getty Museum & the Metropolitan Museum in the USA.

The second article by Jennifer Jankauskas examines some of the ethical concerns which underpin the issue of deacccessioning in American Art Museums.

Finale, Dietrich Heißenbüttel takes a look at German art from the 1930s & 1940s, arguing for museums to take a different approach to restitution demands.

You can read the entire magazine online here.

More coverage of Andrew Dismore’s bill to allow museums to over-ride their governing charters & return artefacts looted during the Nazi era.

From:
Hendon & Finchley Times

Looted artwork from the Second World War could be returned under new bill tabled by Hendon MP Andrew Dismore
12:31pm Tuesday 10th November 2009
By Kevin Bradford

A LAW allowing artwork looted by the Nazis to be returned to families is set for royal approval this week.

A number of historic items, which were taken by the regime from homes during the Second World War, are on display in galleries and museums in Britain, but are prevented by current laws from being handed back to those families.
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Andrew Dismore’s bill on looted art from the Holocaust now looks increasingly likely to become law – this is very significant for UK museums as like the Human Tissue Act before it, it opens up another hole in the anti-deaccessioning clauses that govern them, making clearer the need for a complete rethink of these issues rather than piecemeal legislation that only gets passed by sidestepping some of the other big issues.

From:
Totally Jewish

Fri, Nov 6, 2009
My Bid to Change the Law on Looted Art in the UK
Andrew Dismore

Once a year, Parliament is like the New Year sales, as we’re forced to queue for the remaining slots for Private Members Bills, after the best slots are taken by those who win the ballot.

So, early one evening a year ago, I unrolled my sleeping bag on the Public Bill Office’s floor to be first in line to table my proposed new laws the following morning. Against the odds, one of my Bills has got all the way through and will come into force in a couple of months time – the Holocaust (Return of Cultural Objects) Bill.
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The British Museum Act forbids the British Museum from de-accessioning artefacts from its collection, unless they are duplicates of other items or damaged to the extent of being worthless. Attempts to legally circumvent it have been unsuccessful. This fact is regularly used as a wall by the British Museum when anyone asks to discuss the reunification of the Elgin Marbles – with the statement that even if they wanted to return them they couldn’t.

A solution to this has been put forward in the past by the Greek Government, suggesting that the sculptures could instead be located in the New Acropolis Museum on a long term loan – an arrangement that is supported by many in Britain. The British Museum has in the past avoided serious discussion of this, by stating that the concept of long term loans is oxymoronic – suggesting that a loan for a long duration is no longer a loan & essentially constitutes ownership, making it impossible.

A few weeks ago, I covered one artefact – currently in the British Museum on long term loan. It appears though that in their collection are many other similar cases, such as the chalice from Lacock detailed in the article below, which has been on loan to the British Museum since the 1960s. Clearly long term loans are a lot easier to contemplate when you are the recipient rather than the owner – but whatever point of view one takes on that, it is clear that long terms loans are very definitely possible.

From:
Daily Telegraph

£2 million communion chalice could save church roof
A church appealing to raise money for a new roof has had its prayers answered after one of its silver communion chalices was valued at £2 million
Published: 7:00AM BST 28 Sep 2009

The medieval cup, which stands just a few inches high, was described by experts as one of the best-preserved specimens of its kind anywhere in the world.

It has been used by countless generations of worshippers at St Cyriac’s Church in the village of Lacock, Wilts, since the 1400s. But until now the chalice – on loan to the British Museum since the 1960s – has never been accurately valued.
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This is the second part of Kwame Opoku’s article on the reasons given by museums against restitution as a way of avoiding confronting the real issues.

From:
Modern Ghana

WOULD WESTERN MUSEUMS RETURN LOOTED OBJECTS IF NIGERIA AND OTHER AFRICAN STATES WERE RULED BY ANGELS? RESTITUTION AND CORRUPTION*
By Kwame Opoku, Dr.
Feature Article | 12 hours ago

[...]

IV. What is to be done?
In view of the very clear position of the major Western museums not to return any of the looted/stolen African artefacts, what should be done? Below are few proposals in this regard.

1. Urgent examination of existing cooperation agreements and arrangements between African museums and Western museums.
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Many of the museums of the West, when faced with restitution claims, have insisted that they would consider returning the artefacts – but they are unable to do so. Common reasons given include the security of the artefacts if they were returned, the lack of a suitable place to house them, or statutes that forbid deaccessioning. Are these institutions really speaking the truth though, ore merely trying to throw up more barriers to prevent any sort of serious discussion of the real issues involved.

Due to the length of this piece I am reproducing it here in two parts.

From:
Modern Ghana

WOULD WESTERN MUSEUMS RETURN LOOTED OBJECTS IF NIGERIA AND OTHER AFRICAN STATES WERE RULED BY ANGELS? RESTITUTION AND CORRUPTION*
By Kwame Opoku, Dr.
Feature Article | 12 hours ago

Corruption, like tango, requires two partners.

A seminal study by Peju Layiwola, dealt with the question of the cultural memory of a people whose development has been brutally interrupted and their cultural objects seized by a foreign invader. (1) In the specific case of Benin, the British seized more than 3000 artefacts during their nefarious invasion in 1879. (2) This date and the invasion have remained memorable for the people of Benin, Nigeria and the continent of Africa.

Peju Layiwola whose mother, Princess Elisabeth Olowu, is a well-known artist, was born in the Palace of the Oba in Benin City during the reign of Oba Akenzua II, her maternal grandfather. Peju spent her childhood in Benin City, went to school there and did her first degree at the University of Benin. Her doctoral dissertation at the University of Ibadan dealt with contemporary Benin brass casting. Peju is therefore from family affiliation, from childhood experience and education linked to Benin and inevitably, since she was drawn to art in her infancy, to the arts of Benin and the tragic loss of the Benin bronzes through the British invasion. The important question then is not why Peju is concerned by the continued loss of the Benin Bronzes but rather why some people are less concerned or even indifferent to attempts to recover looted or stolen artefacts.
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The Holocaust (Stolen Art) Restitution Bill looks likely to become law. This opens a new special case in Acts of Parliament such as the British Museum Act that govern museums – defining a type of artefacts that the museum can legitimately deaccession from their collections

From:
ITN

Nazi art set to be returned
Last update: Sat Jul 11 2009 09:08:33

Artworks looted by the Nazis that have ended up in UK galleries could be returned to their owners.

Labour’s Lord Janner of Braunstone, chairman of the Holocaust Educational Trust, said around 20 looted pieces are believed to be held in national collections.
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