I tried to post this before, but it appears to have gotten lost in cyberspace. Here goes attempt #2. What is the general opinion concerning the exhibit suggestion below? > Reposted from Aegeanet > > Reply to D. Gill > Is the Loan Project of the Michael Carlos Museum, directed by Maxwell > Anderson, something of which we should approve? > 21% of the items displayed were unprovenienced, among them many coins. > Why are coins so often thought to be permissible for trade and display? > See the revealing article in Vanity Fair, April 1994 by Bryan Burrough > entitled "Raider of the Lost Art", which is a profoundly disturbing > portrait of Bruce McNall and Robert Hecht. > Jewellery also often seems to fall into this category, too. Certainly > Michael Ward seemed to think that small baubles could be put on the market > without attracting much attention. Instead they have caused a huge > problem. Now that they have been given to the Society for the Preservaton > of the Greek Heritage, a group that has no experience in curating and > displaying artifacts, the society is finding it difficult to meet its > obligations to display the jewelry. It does not even have a clear idea of > what kind of message it should send about the jewelry, since it is only > alleged to have been stolen. I would like to see the society display the > items in an exhibit that was entirely focused on the antiquities trade and > the problems it creates, from loss of knowledge to loss of patrimony, but > that may be difficult to effect since museums are not eager to take on this > tainted material and, apparently, to make bold statements about the > problems of collecting. > Which brings me back to the Emory museum. Reading the latest issue of the > magazine, Antiques (September, 1994) I find an article on page 308 by > Maxwell Anderson, "The antiquities collection of Lawrence A. and Barbara > Fleischman, which is P.R. for the exhibition "A Passion for Antiquities: > Ancient Art from the Collection of Barbara and Lawrence Fleischman" on > view now at the Getty Museum and then moving to the Cleveland Museum. > Here's a quote of Anderson's prose that I think well reflects his attitude: > > "[the Fleischmans] have assembled what is universally acknowledged to be > one of the world's foremost private collections of classical art. Its > unselfconscious arrangement in their spectacular residence allows for > frequent repositioning. Indeed, Lawrence Fleischman admits to occasional > nocturnal tuning of the displays when sleep eludes him. The result of this > informality is extremely inviting for visitors and communicates the > Fleischman's genuine love of collecting for its own sake. > "When the Fleischmans began collecting classical antiquities in earnest > they sought the advice of specialists. However, their skills as > connoiseurs were quickly honed, and within a few months they startled > curators here and abroad with the acuity of their taste." > > Ironically Anderson recently chaired a session in Seattle on the draft > UNIDROIT Convention on the Return of Stolen and Illegally Exported Cultural > Property. The draft would create a unified private law code whereby > claimants in countries that are party to the convention could sue in the > courts of a signatory nation for the return of stolen, illegally exported, > or unlawfully excavated cultural objects. But, so far as I understand the > UNIDROIT draft, it still does not address the issue of how a claimant can > establish that an artifact was illegally excavated and illegally exported > if its presence had not in some way been documented prior to its removal. > That is the loophole that permits dealers to bring in and sell items that > in fact have been stolen. And small objects are easiest to loot for this > purpose. > I would propose that we lobby museums here and abroad to mount displays > that use objects of unknown provenance and from private collections to > illustrate how collecting contributes to the loss of knowledge, the rape of > cultural patrimony and the enslavement of cultural symbols. If you have > recently visited the Archaeological Museum of Anatolian Civilizations in > Ankara, you can see on display the silver recently returned by the > Metropolitan Museum, but unfortunately there is NOT A SINGLE WORD that > informs the viewer of the history of those objects and the long journey > they took before they came home. It is an opportunity lost. Jim Wright > james c. wright [log in to unmask] > professor and chairman office 610-526-5340 > department of classical and fax 610-526-7475 > near eastern archaeology > bryn mawr college,101 north merion avenue, bryn mawr, pa 19010-2899 > > > > Patricia Kirkland University of Nebraska [log in to unmask]