This article was published some time ago, but its content is still relevant today.

Everyone reading this weebsite hopefully realises that the so called Elgin Marbles were not from Elgin, nor did they ever pass through Scotland to the best of my knowledge. The fact remains though, that they were brought to the UK by a Scotsman, although subsequently purchased off him by the British Government. Whilst they might not be under contention in Scotland’s independence debate, many of the other artefacts may well be more closely tied to Scotland than to Britain.

Further to this, the British Museum is a national museum for the whole of the UK – if a country was to split from the union, would they then be entitled to a percentage share of all the artefacts in the collection.

Neil MacGregor refuses to answer any of these questions, saying that they will be considered as & when the issue becomes real for them.

Lewis Chessmen – discovered in Scotland, but many of them are now in the British Museum

From:
Guardian

What would be the implications for the British Museum if Scotland voted for independence?
If Scotland became independent after 2014, the British Museum would be presented with an “existential question”, according to its director Neil MacGregor
Tuesday 25 June 2013

“Let’s jump off that bridge when we get to it,” said Neil MacGregor, director of the British Museum, when pressed on the putative future of the institution were Scotland to become independent.

The question was raised at a British Museum press conference today not by a journalist, but, intriguingly, by Gus O’Donnell, cabinet secretary under three prime ministers and once the most powerful civil servant in the land.
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An interesting perspective her, advocates breaking up the largest museums, to allow visitors to enjoy a better experience there, without such high levels of crowding. Institutions such as the British Museum regularly crow about the number of people who visit (with the implication of the statements being that they all see the Parthenon Marbles), but the reality is that this tells nothing about the quality of the experience.

The idea of splitting museums into more manageable chunks is nothing new – London’s Natural History Museum, the British Library & the now sadly defunct Museum of Mankind, once all fell under the auspices of the British Museum.

Some in the industry talk in horror about any event that might lead to a reduction in the collections of the encyclopaedic museums, but the reality is that if current trends continue, such breaking up of collections might become a necessity. As such, once this happens, surely restitution requests would not be seen in quite the same light as they are now, as breaking apart the integrity of a collection that had been amassed over the centuries.

Crowds at the Metropolitan Museum in New York

From:
Al Jazeera

Break up the major museums to save them
August institutions should build more outposts rather than cloister themselves in big cities
August 31, 2014 6:00AM ET

The Louvre in Paris recently told The Art Newspaper that it expects its visitor numbers to rise by a third over the next decade, putting the world’s busiest art museum on track to welcome 12 million visitors annually by 2025. It’s a staggering figure that points to a growing reality facing art lovers and museumgoers: How can you expect to see and enjoy art through the chaotic crowds that are increasingly defining major museums?

In the last few years, many of the largest and most popular museums, including the Louvre and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, have been experiencing significant issues with crowding. The head of visitor services at the Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg recently admitted to The New York Times, “Such a colossal number of simultaneous viewers isn’t good for the art, and it can be uncomfortable and overwhelming for those who come to see the art.” In the same article, an art historian disparaged the situation at the Uffizi Gallery, home to some of the most famous masterpieces of the Renaissance, saying, “It seems like a tropical greenhouse. You can’t breathe.”
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While this story is not really that relevant to the subject in hand, it does appear that a museum is acting like a microcosm of the subject it is supposed to be educating people about.

On the one hand, you have Britain (in the days of the British Empire), regularly taking items from other countries that were under its control, on the basis that these items were taken on loan to be studied, yet when the original owners asked for them back, the return was rarely forthcoming & they discovered that the items were now held in some grand museum & could no longer legally be returned.

Contrast this with a museum set up to tell the story of the days of Britain’s empire (looking at it from a present day perspective), that borrowed various items on loan from individuals – yet when the original owners asked for the items back after the museum had closed, they discovered that their property had been lost or sold at auction.

History repeats itself, for as long as public institutions do not have proper procedures in place that give equal weighting to the acquisition & the deaccessioning of items in their collections.

From:
Guardian

Row erupts over British empire museum’s ‘lost’ artefacts
144 items loaned to British Empire and Commonwealth Museum believed to be missing, with some sold without owners’ consen
Steven Morris
The Guardian, Monday 10 December 2012

Almost 150 artefacts lent to a museum set up to tell the story of Britain’s colonial past may be missing, it has emerged, with some of them having been sold without their owners’ permission.

Trustees of the British Empire and Commonwealth Museum in Bristol, which has now closed, are in talks with about six of the owners about compensation.
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The British Museum has strict rules in place that limit the selling off (known as deaccessioning) of artefacts in its collection, unlike museums in some other countries. This means that (with a few exceptions), the museum can only ever grow larger – the only way of shrinking it is to split it into separate smaller institutions.

In marked contrast to this though, in various places across Britain, churches (& related institutions) that are short of cash are ending up selling off their artefacts, to try & pay for the repair & upkeep of the buildings.

Surely, on a national level, we ought to be focussing more on maintaining our own heritage, rather than desperately trying to cling on to items that we took from foreign countries, during different eras, when such acts were tolerated more than they would be today?

From:
The Independent

The great Church art sell-off runs into trouble
Parishes accused of off-loading treasures just to fund building maintenance
By Andrew McCorkell
Sunday, 26 June 2011

Increasing numbers of churches are trying to sell valuable historic artefacts and paintings to pay for repairs and upkeep. But the great parish sell-off, which could turn into a sort of high-class countrywide boot sale, is running into opposition.

A case to be heard at the end of this summer will test the freedom of parishes to sell off their prize possessions. At the centre of it is a 16th-century helmet that has hung above a marble tomb at Wootton St Lawrence Church, in Hampshire, for more than 300 years. Known as an armet, the Wootton artefact marked the resting place of Sir Thomas Hooke and was sold for £54,000 at auction in December to an anonymous American collector.
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Deaccessioning is a problematic topic for many museums – particularly those in the UK, where the law prohibits many of them from disposing of artefacts except in certain very specific circumstances. It is however, an issue that remains on the agenda – not least because whilst budgets of museums are cut, the size of their collections is ever increasing, yet much of it is never on public display. Institutions such as the British Museum hide behind the anti-deaccessioning clauses in their governing act of parliament, as a way of avoiding any sort of serious debate in many restitution cases. Surely though, there should be some more easy mechanism for downsizing vast collections, or loaning the items out on a more long term basis.

Many museums arguing that by keeping items in the public realm, they are serving an important educational purpose. It must be considered however, that if many of the items are not on display, the public is generally unaware of their existence (yet at the same time continues to pay for their storage & upkeep).

From:
BBC News

19 January 2011 Last updated at 06:30
London museums urged to show more ‘hidden’ artefacts

Museums in London are being urged to get more of their collections out of storage and on display as funding cuts will mean fewer landmark exhibitions.

Many museums in the capital keep more than 90% of their collections stored away.
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In the UK, most of the major museums are prohibited from deaccessioning any of their artefacts – often by specific clauses in their governing charters. Smaller museums also have difficulty doing so, as they may struggle to get funding grants if they do. Most of the issues in the UK with regards to deaccessioning are in terms of it being used as a blocking mechanism to prevent serious debate on many restitution claims.

In the USA, the situation is very different – more museums are independent of government & are free to sell items in their collections – this however raises potential new controversies with the deaccessioning of valuable items being used as a source of quick money.

From:
New York Times

Small Town, Big Word, Major Issue
By ROBIN POGREBIN
Published: December 27, 2010

LITTLE FALLS, N.Y. — This small city up the hill from the Erie Canal is known for manufacturing paper and tea, for rooting on its Mounties at high school football games, for deposits of quartz that glint like diamonds and for the Victorian mansion that houses its 100-year-old library.

And now it’s also known locally as the place where the library director took a stand — or started a fuss, depending on your point of view — when the library board started selling historical items from its collection.
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The British Museum regularly makes much of the fact that the Elgin Marbles in their collection can be seen free of charge – but never enters into a debate about whether this is really to everyone’s benefit or not. The admission to the Acropolis Museum for instance is set at a level that it is easily affordable to most, yet this is somehow automatically seen by the British Museum as a bad thing.

Brian Sewell is not someone who is generally seen as a friend of the campaign for reunification of the Parthenon Marbles looked in previous articles at what the price of free admission to museums is – and whether resources could be better utilised across the culture sector if charges were introduced.

He now looks further, at whether some deaccessioning should be allowed. Traditionally, the UK has had very strict laws in this regard compared to the US, but there are arguments for allowing museums to refine their collections & reduce the cost of storing worthless artefacts.

From:
Evening Standard

It’s time to sacrifice some sacred cows
By Brian Sewell
09.12.10

The great (but not necessarily good) artists who put themselves forward as spokesmen for their profession have this year been very loud in their objection to cuts in state funding for themselves, for galleries, museums and all other institutions of the “creative industries” in which their work is exhibited. To these august orators and signatories of open letters in the press, their art is a sacred cow never to be fed short rations, never to be slaughtered; to others, however, they — and never mind their art — are fat cats in feather beds, or pigs with snouts in troughs, and short rations must be borne by them as well as by the rest of us.

Both views have some merit but neither represents the truth. Those of us who hold the middle view see the nation’s crisis as one from which the arts must not be exempt — we cannot go on fiddling while Rome burns — but must survive it in a fitter state than now. Heaven-sent may not be quite the suitable term, but the crisis has brought us an unexpected opportunity for radical revision of the way we run and fund the arts and we should take advantage of it to think what has hitherto been quite unthinkable.
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As was speculated at the time of the law being passed, the Benevento Missal will be the first item to be officially returned under the Holocaust (Stolen Art) Restitution Act.

The points made originally about this particular return in relation to the law that allows it still stand. There is no evidence that the Missal was looted by the Nazis, or had any connection to the Holocaust. The law however allows its return, because of the time period in which it was removed from Italy. This highlights the piecemeal legislation implemented (when it is politically advantageous to do so) opening up holes in the anti-deaccessioning rules that govern the UK’s largest museums. The Human Tissue act before it opened up similar holes. The fact that holes need to be opened up for so-called special cases highlights the need for a full review of the legislation to cover all artefacts in museums in the UK, that they can be returned from collections when necessary.

From:
BBC News

15 September 2010 Last updated at 16:55
British Library returns manuscript looted during WWII

A 12th Century manuscript which was housed in the British Library is to be returned to Italy because it was looted during World War II.

The 290-page Beneventan Missal was taken from the Metropolitan Chapter of the Cathedral City of Benevento, Naples, in 1943.
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One of the key differences between museums in the UK & those in the US, is that while the ones in Britain tend to often be run almost as though they are a distant offshoot of the government, those in the USA tend to be run far more like a normal business.

In the UK, deaccessioning of any form is generally seen as something to be avoided – the charters that govern many of the countries major institutions explicitly prohibit it except in a very narrow range of special cases. This tends to lead (whatever the intention of the institution) to the dominance of quantity over quality, meaning that maintaining the overall quality of the collection is only possible by keeping vast amounts of it permanently in storage. In the USA on the other hand, the opposite approach is often taken. The Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth, Texas is an excellent example of this approach, whereby acquisitions are only ever made with the aim of enhancing the quality of the collection & as a result are generally countered with a consequent deaccessioning to remove one of the less significant pieces from the museum. As a result, the museum’s collection is generally percieved as gaining in quality over time, rather than merely increasing in size or scope. The running costs of the museum are also significantly reduced by the fact that it does not need to create vast stores of artefacts that are never seen by the public except at special request.

More contentious though in the US (& even more so in the UK, particularly in the case of the Watts Gallery), is the idea that museums could sell off parts of their collection to cover their own operating costs.

The problem is that whilst there are benefits to both arguments, many institutions in the UK use anti-deaccessioning clauses in their governing charters as something to shelter behind when restitution requests are made, rather than actually dealing with the issue itself.

From:
New York Times blogs

September 14, 2010, 4:38 pm
Board of Regents Ending Injunction Against Museums’ Art Sales
By ROBIN POGREBIN

In a surprise development in the battle over whether museums should be allowed to sell art to cover operating costs, the New York State Board of Regents on Tuesday approved the expiration of emergency regulations regarding such “deaccessioning” on Oct. 8.

Those rules, which enjoined such sales, have been in effect since 2008. After hearing views from museums statewide, “there was no consensus on the efficacy of those emergency regulations,” David Steiner, the state’s education commissioner, said in a statement. Thus, “those regulations will be allowed to expire, allowing the prior regulations regarding museum collections to once again take effect.”
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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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