An ancient Roman bronze bust has been seized from the Worcester Art Museum. The seizure is the latest recovery by the Manhattan district attorney’s office Antiquities Trafficking Unit, which also includes material from the Cleveland Museum of Art, the Met, Fordham University and Christie’s. Details on the seizure from Worcester are difficult to ascertain, as we are left mainly with a press release from the Museum, and a “no comment” from the Manhattan DA. The Museum will “transfer ownership” to the New York County District Attorney’s Office” so that it can then be returned to its country of origin. Ownership is the wrong term here, possession would be more appropriate.
The transfer of possession was prompted with the benefit of “new information about the object’s history of ownership”. It had been acquired in 1966, reportedly from the late antiquities dealer Robert Hecht. And may belong to the collection of ancient Roman bronzes from the Bubon area of Turkey.
The initial question is why did the museum voluntarily return the object? Perhaps it considered mounting a legal challenge, yet the Museum’s statement would seemingly have us think that it would return all other similarly improperly imported and acquired objects. It asks forgiveness on the basis that it has not been able to prioritize provenance research of its existing collection due to limited resources. The likely speculation goes then that had it had such an initiative in place, it would have sent the object back. That adds an interesting wrinkle to the difficult task of Museum publicists when forced to account for the presence of illicit material for so many decades.
The Antiquities Trafficking Unit has made a considerable dent in the number of illicit objects in various museum and private collections. The objects are returning to where they were illicitly removed from, but the prosecution of the individuals responsible remains elusive.
Tom Mashberg, Manhattan Prosecutors Seize a Bronze Bust Valued at $5 Million, The New York Times (Sep. 3, 2023), https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/03/arts/design/manhattan-prosecutors-seize-3rd-century-bust.html.
Malcolm Gay Globe Staff et al., How Could Smuggled Roman Art Have Ended up at the Worcester Art Museum? – The Boston Globe, BostonGlobe.com, https://www.bostonglobe.com/2023/09/05/arts/how-could-smuggled-roman-art-have-ended-up-worcester-art-museum/ (last visited Sep. 7, 2023).
Worcester Art Museum Transfers Ownership of Bronze Bust, https://www.worcesterart.org/news/press-room/press-releases/PR/worcester-art-museum-portrait-of-a-lady-press-release.pdf, archived at https://perma.cc/7QX4-GT2D (Sep. 2023).
Roman Bust Seized from US Museum in Investigation into Stolen Pieces, the Guardian, https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2023/sep/06/stolen-art-massachusetts-worcester-museum (last visited Sep. 7, 2023).
Ancient Roman Bust Seized from U.S. Museum in Trafficking Probe, Washington Post, https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/art/2023/09/06/worcester-art-museum-roman-bust/.
