This article puts forward the view, that some in the US museums establishment think the current wave of restitution claims is going to far. I would have thought though that amongst that particular group of individuals, many of them would consider any restitutions as a move to far. The fact remains though that guidelines need to be laid out to broadly define what can & can’t be returned – on the other hand, the museums would not be in this situation now if they had been more careful with determining the source of many of these pieces in the first place.
From:
Boston Globe
Finders, keepers
As museums ship ancient treasures back to the countries where they were found, some are now saying: Enough.
By Drake Bennett
February 10, 2008
ON THE FIRST floor of Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts, in the early Greek art galleries, there is a long display case filled with Athenian ceramics. In one corner, partway up the linen backing, are two holes, a couple of inches apart, where a shelf holding a small, 2,500-year-old oil flask was once attached. Upstairs, in the Imperial Roman galleries, a group of marble busts and statues has been rearranged after the departure of a 6-foot-tall marble statue of the Roman empress Sabina. Ten Greek pots and one carved marble fragment from Imperial Rome are also gone from the museum’s collection.
more stories like this
All the pieces were given to the government of Italy, and are now part of a blockbuster exhibition, in Rome’s Quirinal Palace, made up entirely of pieces alleged to have been looted and smuggled out of Italy. The show’s title, “Nostoi” – from a lost epic poem recounting the perilous homeward voyages of Greek heroes after the Trojan War – is a nod to the labors of the Italian culture ministry and police, whose campaign of persistent arm-twisting, public criticism, and criminal prosecution secured the return of the 68 artifacts in the show, each now the property of the Italian government.
Read the rest of this entry »