On Tue, 23 Feb 1999, Simon wrote:

> A hypothetical and theoretical situation:
>
> The ICOM code of ethics states that it is highly unethical for
> museums to obtain or use illicit materials in a collection. But what
> should be done if the only examples of a valuable artefact needed for
> a certain collection are of dubious origins?

========================================
Simon:

I think that Claudia Nicholson has answered this clearly, but as
I chaired the ICOM Ethics Committee that drew up the ICOM Code of
Professional Ethics (http://www.icom.org/ethics.html) adopted in 1986,
perhaps I should amplify what she said.

There was nothing particularly dramatic about the position taken by
the ICOM Code in relation to illegally acquired or transfered material:
museums should comply with relevant laws and regulations.

Also, and not least, when expending either public money
or charitable foundation funds on an acquisition their senior staff
and trustees must take all reasonable steps to ensure that they are
actually getting a good legal title in exchange along with the goods.
I have been frequently amazed over the years at the way in which this
quite basic financial obligation has been ignored.

Can anyone imagine a museum (or any other public or charitable body),
or for that matter a museum director in his/her personal life)
spending even $5,000 on a bit of land (real estate) or even a
second-hand car without making checks on the ownership of what they
are being sold?  Yet until quite recently such an elementary precaution
was often ignored in considering purchases of works of art or antiquities
costing a hundred, or even a thousand, times as much.

Frankly, I am surprised that this practice did not attracted the
attention of the regulatory authorities and the courts as a potential
breach of the basic fiduciary responsibilities of trustees and senior
managers of museums, especially when the stolen or otherwise
misappropriated works eventually have to be returned to their
legitimate owner, often without financial compensation to the museum.

Certainly, in the case of a UK museum coming under our local government
laws any such financial loss could be re-charged in full by the
Council's external auditors by means of "surcharge" on the negligent
senior officer(s) - without any limit of time (even after the director
or curator had left the Council's employment).

Certainly there are many desirable things "needed" to "complete"
collections, whether public or personal, which are difficult to obtain,
or perhaps completely unavailable legitimately these days, but this
doesn't justify anyone taking the law into their own hands, or ignoring
basic ethical standards.

I was in precisely this situation in my first museum job over 30 years
ago as the natural history curator of a museum that had lost three
buildings, including the central museum dating back to the mid-19th c
century, and over 98% of its collections, through bombing in World War II.
However, the very obvious "need" to re-establish key parts of the
collections - part of my designated duties on recruitment - did not
give me the right to go out into the countryside with a 12 gauge
shotgun and 200 cartridges filled with dust-shot to shoot examples
of legally protected species of birds "needed".

Equally, there are several categories - especially among African and
Asian archaeology  - where the first discovery of a particular culture
or type of object post-dates the relevant country's heritage protection
and export control laws, so that anything on the market is - virtually
by definition - illicit.

A good example are the Nok prehistoric terracottas from what is today
Nigeria - very highly prized by collectors and museums because of
their claimed resemblance to and influence on some kinds of highly
fashionable and valuable mid-20th century sculpture.  Yet this culture
was to all intents and purposes completely unknown when the British
Colonial government passed Nigeria's first antiquities law in the
early 1940s.  Consequently, except for examples legally transferred
to foreign museums by the Nigerian authorities (with appropriate
documentation) virtually anything that is on the market must be
regarded as of very dubious provenance.

There similar examples in other areas: well under 5% (perhaps as little
as 1%) of the known Cycladic figures from Greece are provenanced.
(Again these are particularly highly prized for their "modern art"
appearance, though what limited evidence there is suggests that they
were originally very highly and garishly painted - looking not like
a 20th century Romanian Brancusi but in fact much more like a piece
of modern Romanian folk art terracotta, with the result that any
surviving colour is likely to have been polished off to create the
"authentic" appearance demanded by collectors and art museums alike.)
Many others are suspected modern fakes (as much as 20% according to some
estimates) - indeed the fakes outnumber the well-documented one to
such an extent that there is a very real possibility that some of
the key "type specimens" used for authenticating Cycladic figures
may themselves be fakes.

There are few fields in which the old legal adage "Caveat Emptor"
(Let the buyer beware) is more relevant.  Adding to museum collections
is in this respect no different from other transactions: if you can't
do it legitimately or ethically you don't do it.


Patrick J. Boylan

City University, Frobisher Crescent, Barbican, London EC2Y 8HB, UK;
phone: +44-171-477.8750, fax:+44-171-477.8887;
Home: "The Deepings", Gun Lane, Knebworth, Herts. SG3 6BJ, UK;
phone & fax: +44-1438-812.658;
E-mail: [log in to unmask];  Web site: http://www.city.ac.uk/artspol/