Cultural Restitution
SHARE ARTICLE
Much ado about the Parthenon Marbles
January 2023
Not a week went by in January without feverish speculation on the fate of the Parthenon Marbles. And it shows no sign of letting up in February. We've expressed our own concern that much of this speculation is unwarranted. But this didn’t stop one article after another speculating on different outcomes. Adopting a cautious approach, The Guardian’s report on secret talks referenced chairman George Osborne’s “willingness to strike a deal to break the deadlock over the highly contested sculptures.” But a few weeks later Artnet News was reporting that Greece had rejected outright the prospect of a “long-term loan”. Instead, senior Greek ministers were repeating their belief the British Museum has no right to speak of loans as they are not the legitimate owners of the sculptures. At the end of the month, a more thoughtful and nuanced approach emerged in an op-ed by Charlotte Higgins in The Guardian. Dispelling the narrow thinking of UK politicians, the article asked us to consider whether an act of restitution can be regarded “not as a loss, but as a gain”. Higgins concludes with a personal observation on the shifting ground: “what I do know is that to break the impasse, the usual ways of thinking, and the usual ways of framing ideas about cultural restitution, are going to have to change”.
Emma Bunker’s role in the smuggling and falsification of Cambodian artefacts has been exposed
05 January 2023
Further investigations into the notorious art trafficker Douglas Latchford have thrown light on the role played by Emma Bunker, who died in 2021 aged 90. A 'low profile' expert on Chinese and central Asian art, Bunker nevertheless collaborated with
Latchford
on the falsification of records and provenance information that he used to achieve high prices for looted sculptures and artefacts. Bunker travelled to Cambodia and Thailand with Latchford and together they published three books that are now used to track down missing objects. At the time Bunker was thanked by officials in Phnom Penh for her work on behalf of Cambodian culture.
Glasgow Life Museums return seven objects to India in the first-ever repatriation by a UK museum service to India
11 January 2023
Following the agreement forged during a visit by dignitaries from the High Commission of India in London to Glasgow Life in August 2022, seven objects from the Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum have been transferred into the hands of the Archaeological Survey of India (see
Glasgow: Determined to expose and address colonial injustice). Six of these objects were stolen from shrines and temples across India in the 19th century. Among the objects returning are a ceremonial Indo-Persian ‘tulwar’ (sword) dating to the 14th century and an 11th century carved stone door jamb removed from a Hindu temple in Kanpur. All seven objects had been gifted to Glasgow’s civic museum collections.
Glasgow Life Museums and the High Commission of India have been negotiating the return of these seven objects since January 2021. “The physical return of these Indian items marks a milestone for Glasgow,” said Bailie Annette Christie, Chair of Glasgow Life. “Glasgow has led international repatriation efforts since 1998, when an agreement was reached to return the Lakota Sacred Ghost Dance shirt to the Wounded Knee Survivor’s Association.” The Indian government has agreed to meet the full costs of repatriation.
London’s Hunterian Museum has decided to retain the skeleton of Irish ‘giant’ Charles Byrne, taken from Ireland in 1783, despite appeals for its return
13 January 2023
On public display for more than 200 years, the skeleton of Charles Byrne, an Irish ‘giant’ who grew to 7ft 6in will be removed from public view when the Hunterian Museum in London reopens in March this year. But the Museum continues to resist calls for its repatriation to Ireland where it could be buried, according to some, in compliance with his documented wishes. Acquired by John Hunter following Byrne’s death aged 22 in 1783, the skeleton is the best-known anatomical specimen in Hunter’s collection. The Museum maintains that further research on the skeleton could throw further light on our understanding of Byrne’s medical conditions. Others disagree. In a statement to the
Daily Mail, Len Doyal, emeritus professor of medical ethics at London’s Queen Mary University and Thomas Muinzer, a lawyer at the University of Aberdeen said: “We can see no justification for the Hunterian to retain the skeleton for ‘further research’; there is no obvious justification for this since DNA from the skeleton has been obtained and it is entirely unclear what further research the Hunterian has in mind.”
The return of a 2,700 year-old ‘cosmetic spoon’ to representatives of the Palestinian Authority is the first repatriation by the US to a Palestinian government
13 January 2023
The return by US officials of a looted Assyrian ivory ‘cosmetic spoon dating to between 800 and 700 B.C. was described by the chief of the US Office of Palestinian Affairs, George Noll, as “a historic moment between the American and Palestinian people and a demonstration of our belief in the power of cultural exchanges in building mutual understanding, respect and partnership.”
Probably originating from Hebron in the West Bank, the spoon first surfaced on the international art market in January 2003 when it was purchased from an Israeli antiquities dealer by Michael H. Steinhardt, a major collector in antiquities. The Israeli dealer, who sold at least 28 ancient artefacts to Steinhardt, is now known to have dealt in hundreds of stolen Israeli and Middle Eastern objects. Steinhardt’s own collection has been the subject of a lengthy investigation by Matthew Bogdanos, chief of New York district attorney’s Antiquities Trafficking Unit. Investigators seized 180 stolen artefacts valued at $70 million from Steinhardt who has agreed to a lifetime ban on acquiring antiquities.
France’s Ministry of Culture is pushing forward with three new framework laws designed to return contested objects and human remains
18 January 2023
Ever since 2017 when President Emmanuel Macron trumpeted his famous pledge to return African objects taken by force, we’ve been waiting for French acts of restitution. However, despite the report published in 2018 by Sarr and Savoy recommending the permanent return of any object taken by force or presumed to be acquired through inequitable conditions and despite France’s return of 27 objects to Benin and Senegal in 2019, there’s been conspicuously little progress….that is, until now.
This week, France’s ministry of culture announced the introduction of three new laws that will set in place the frameworks needed to kickstart the process of returning other contested objects and human remains held in France’s national collections. Although able to vote on returning objects on a case-by-case basis, the ability of the French parliament to agree large-scale returns has been impeded by domestic legislation which ensures that objects entering French national collections are deemed inalienable by law. If approved by parliament later this year, French culture minister Rima Abdul-Malak believes the three new laws will accelerate France’s restitution process, enabling cultural objects and human remains to be returned without the need to revert each time to parliament. Instead, the case for returning objects will be considered by a committee, comprising French officials and representatives of the source country making the appeal. The three laws include one aimed at returning human remains, a second to address artworks removed from Jewish families during the Nazi era, and a third to consider the restitution of art objects, including those from France’s colonial period. “I hope 2023 will be a year of decisive progress for restitutions,” said Abdul-Malak in her annual New Year speech on 16 January 2022.
A Guatemalan heritage group demands the return of an ancient Maya throne on loan to New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art
18 January 2023
The Guatemalan Collective for the Defence of Heritage has written a public letter to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York demanding they return an eighth-century Maya throne. The throne was sent to New York by the Guatemalan government for restoration and for display in a loan exhibition. But this heritage group, along with other Indigenous communities, say that Guatemalan law prohibits the export of artefacts for exhibition. They claim the Guatemalan government broke its own law when it negotiated a rare temporary export license as part of an arrangement for the conservation and exhibition of Maya works.
Throne I, together with a panel dated to the same period, are on exhibition in
Lives of the Gods: Divinity in Maya Art
and will be returned to Guatemala when the exhibition closes on 2 April 2023.
Berlin officials deny there are plans to return the bust of Nefertiti and the Pergamon Altar to their countries of origin
20 January 2023
Berlin officials have been forced to deny there are plans to return the bust of Nefertiti to Egypt and the Pergamon Altar to Turkey, two of the most popular attractions in Berlin’s museums. Interviewed last month by the German publication
Tagesspiegel, Saraya Gomis, deputy to Berlin’s senator for justice, diversity and anti-discrimination, said “All the cultural assets from other regions of the world do not belong to us, they are here illegally.” While she acknowledged that returning the Nefertiti bust or the Pergamon Altar was not her decision to make, a spokesperson for Berlin’s Ministry of Justice clarified responsibilities with The Art Newspaper, confirming “such questions, as well as possible future dealings between Egypt and Germany, lie in the responsibility of the federal German Ministry of Foreign Affairs.”
A ceremonial spear is the fifth cultural artefact returned by a Dutch non-profit foundation to the palace of Klungkung in Bali, Indonesia
26 January 2023
Yayasan Bali Bersih/Westerlaken Foundation, a Dutch non-profit organisation, has returned a fifth cultural artefact to Puri Klungkung (the palace of Klungkung) in the Indonesian island of Bali. The ‘tombak’ (a ceremonial spear) is the fourth tombak identified and returned by the Westerlaken Foundation. Two others were returned in 2019 and another in 2020. A fifth cultural object, another distinctive form of Indonesian dagger known as a ‘kris’, was also returned to Puri Klungkung in 2020. This latest tombak was identified when offered for auction in Germany. Yayasan Bali Bersih acquired the spear at the auction before returning it to Puri Klungkung.
A gold tooth belonging to the pan-African nationalist Patrice Lumumba is returned by Belgium to the Democratic Republic of Congo
27 January 2023
A news story published by the London Financial Times in January reports that a single gold-capped molar belonging to the mutilated body of Patrice Lumumba, the pan-African nationalist and first democratically elected prime minister of the Democratic Republic of Congo, was returned to the DRC by Belgium in June 2022. Lumumba was prime minister for less than three months before being deposed in a coup supported by the former colonial power and the US. He was shot to death by firing squad on January 17, 1961 in the presence of Belgian officials. The body of Lumumba, along with two of his colleagues, is understood to have been cut into pieces before being dissolved in vats of sulphuric acid. However, the Belgian police commissioner responsible for disposing of Lumumba’s body removed two of his teeth. One came to light in 2015 when the commissioner’s daughter revealed one during the visit of a Belgian sociologist researching a book on the murder. It took four years before a Belgian court finally gave permission for the tooth to be returned to the DRC where it will be buried. It’s believed the burial of a single body part allows the soul to rest in peace.
More News
