It is great that museums are working together, to try & tackle the problem of art theft. One can’t help thinking though, that they are much more interested in keeping artefacts in their own collections, that considering the plight of the original owners of many disputed items that ended up within their own collections.

From:
Independent

Look out, art thieves: museums are fighting back
New organisation set up after high-profile thefts will let galleries share information instantly
Sunday 17 February 2013

Should criminals attempt to lift a valuable Chinese artefact from a museum display case, or scrawl over a priceless painting, their photograph now could be with the police and 800 cultural institutions in 20 minutes.

A new national organisation has been set up to allow museums and galleries to share their experiences of criminal behaviour with the police and each other, as they look to beef up security in the wake of ongoing threats to their collections.
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More coverage of Ethiopia’s request addressed to many of Britain’s leading museums, for the return of stolen treasures, seized from the country in 1868.

From:
The Independent

Ethiopia demands stolen crown back
By Andrew Johnson
Sunday, 23 November 2008

President writes to British museums to call for return of more than 400 treasures looted in 1868

Ethiopia is demanding that Britain’s museums return some of its most significant religious treasures. President Girma Wolde-Giorgis has personally intervened in a dispute to get the artefacts, including the Ethiopian royal crown, returned home 140 years after they were “looted” by marauding British troops.
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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.
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The British Museum regularly makes a virtue of the fact that the Elgin Marbles Can be seen “free of charge, seven days a week“. There are downsides to free museum admission though & in the end, there is a price to be paid for everything.

From:
The Times

June 1, 2008
Is there a price to pay for free art?
We love art now, especially when it’s free, but there is a price to pay for free art discovers our writer as he joins the crowds at London’s leading attractions
Bryan Appleyard

In Tate Modern, Simon Halberstam, a father of three, thinks for a moment, then says: “It’s better for them to stand in front of a urinal than stay at home with a Wii.” Marcel Duchamp’s ironic “ready-made” sculpture, Fountain, he’s saying, is superior as an educational tool to Nintendo’s enervating games console. And so Halberstam, with his friend Michael Rosehill and his two children, are spending the spectacularly wet bank holiday at the Tate.
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