Author: Derek Fincham

Meaningful Discourse

There is a core of agreement even among the most diametrically opposed heritage advocates.

For example on Wednesday of this week the BBC program Today featured a brief piece with James Cuno and Colin Renfrew debating some of the foundational issues of heritage policy. What I find striking, is how to the casual observer much of what Cuno and Renfrew are discussing would appear to not be too far apart. They’ll both agree I think that the looting of sites is a problem, and museums should not acquire stolen or looted antiquities and works of art. They will disagree vigorously on what exactly constitutes ‘stolen’ or ‘looted’.

I’d argue that the disagreement, and much of the petty argument which takes place on the nets and at conferences actually makes the task of all sides more difficult, and is counterproductive. I’d like to see some real meaningful discourse, and a lot less sniping and unproductive exaggerations on both sides. Sadly all too often the disagreements make the american electoral process look sane and measured in comparison, not an easy task. The end result is a situation where the public often does not know how or why these issues matter.

Take for example the recent Interpol Symposium on the Theft of and Illicit Traffic in Works of Art,Cultural Property and Antiques in which a “lack of awareness among the general public of the importance of cultural heritage and the need for it to be protected,” and recommend that “INTERPOL, UNESCO and ICOM: Jointly seek ways of raising awareness among law-enforcement services, those responsible for safeguarding religious heritage, the major players in the art market and the conservation world, and the general public, with regard to protecting cultural property and combating illegal trafficking.” (via).

Questions or Comments? Email me at derek.fincham@gmail.com

3 Trucks Worth of Antiquities

The AP is reporting this afternoon that Switzerland is returning 4,400 objects to Italy, three trucks worth:

GENEVA (AP) — Switzerland is returning 4,400 ancient artifacts stolen from archaeological sites in Italy, including ceramics, figurines and bronze daggers dating as far back as 2,000 B.C., prosecutors said Thursday.

The transfer will require three tractor-trailers and all but end a seven-year legal battle over the antiquities.

They were seized in 2001 in storage rooms belonging to two Basel-based art dealers after a tip-off from Italy, said Markus Melzl, a spokesman for city prosecutors. The couple have since lost several court battles to prevent the antiquities from being returned to Italy, Melzl said.

More than half the objects were from the eastern Italian region of Apulia, an area that was heavily influenced by ancient Greek culture, said Guido Lassau, a Swiss archaeologist who worked on the case.

They include richly decorated vases and so-called kraters, large vessels that were used for mixing wine with water. The objects were stolen from upper-class tombs dating from the fifth to third centuries B.C., according to Lassau.

That’s a lot of lost context.

Questions or Comments? Email me at derek.fincham@gmail.com

Trump Prevails in NE Scotland


Officials in Aberdeen, Scotland have made the decision to sacrifice some of the World’s most beautiful and untouched coastal dunes for Europe’s largest golf complex. Trump calls his project “the greatest golf course in the world.” One wonders if he’s setting the bar a little high, particularly as there are already some amazing golf courses just on the 30-mile stretch of coastline near the proposed project. The decision is not that surprising given the bad economic news in the UK.

Jobs and economic growth will often take precence over environmental or heritage concerns. As Severin Carrell notes in the Guardian this morning, “the habitat supports wildlife such as skylarks, otters, pipistrelle bats, badgers and toads. The dunes are also periodic nesting sites for migratory pink-footed geese using the Ythan estuary, Sands of Forvie and Meikle Loch 3km to the north.” It should be noted that our electioneering French Spaniel enjoyed walking those dunes the last few years (on his leash of course).

This has been a long approval process. I wrote nearly two years ago about the initial stages of the planning permission process. These dunes are important environmental areas and also contain stone age relics. Of course balancing those concerns against the jobs and economic impact the golf complex could foster may have been too tempting for the local officials. The complex will be 1,400 acres, costing $1.6 billion, with two championship courses, a hotel, time-share condos, and private homes. It helped of course that the Scottish Prime Minister Alex Salmond was eager to force the project to go ahead.

At a practical level, I’m not sure that kind of resort compound will fit well with NE Scotland. Trump won’t be able to wall off his complex in Scotland, as is the unfortunate tendency in many American complexes like this. You can walk everywhere Scotland. Also, though it is very beautiful, the NE of Scotland is not endowed with hospitable weather. Fog, rain, bitter cold and wind are common — even in the height of summer in July and August.

Trump might do well to bear in mind the history of Cruden Bay to the North. It is an exceedingly beautiful course. In 1899, a 55-room hotel was built to capitalize on the golf course and encourage visitors. Things went smoothly until the hotel closed during the 1930s, and it currently lies in disrepair. One hopes at least that Trump’s golf complex won’t result in a similar boondoggle.

Questions or Comments? Email me at derek.fincham@gmail.com

"Antiquities Wars" at NYU Nov. 19th

The New York Institute for the Humanities at NYU is presenting the following:

Antiquities Wars

A conversation about loot and legitimacy

Wednesday, November 19th, 7 pm

NYU’s Hemmerdinger Hall
Silver Center for Arts and Science
100 Washington Square East

James Cuno
Director, The Art Institute of Chicago
Author, Who Owns Antiquity?

Sharon Waxman
Formerly of The New York Times
Author, Loot: The Battle over the Stolen Treasures of the Ancient World

Kwame Anthony Appiah
Philosopher, Princeton University
Author, Cosmopolitanism: Ethics in a World of Strangers

Daniel Shapiro
International Cultural Property Society
President Emeritus

Free to the public. For more information: 212.998.2101 or nyih.info@nyu.edu

Questions or Comments? Email me at derek.fincham@gmail.com

MIA Returns a Nazi-Looted Work

The Minneapolis Institute of Arts (MIA) has made the decision to return this work Smoke Over Rooftops by Fernand Léger.  From the Minneapolis Star Tribune:
The institute’s saga began in 1997 when the museum received a letter claiming that the painting had been taken from Alphonse Kann, a legendary French collector who owned “tons of Picassos, Braques and late-19th-century Impressionist paintings,” according to Patrick Noon, the institute’s paintings curator. His story helped inspire a 1964 movie, “The Train,” starring Burt Lancaster, about a trainload of art that the Germans tried to spirit away before the Allies liberated Paris in 1944.
Much of Kann’s art was returned to him after World War II, but not the Leger. That painting was bequeathed to the museum in 1961 by Minneapolis businessman Putnam Dana McMillan, a General Mills vice president who bought it from the Buchholz Gallery in New York in 1951. No one questioned the picture’s history. Nazi-era archives were sealed in France and inaccessible in Soviet-controlled Eastern Europe. 
Responding to the claim took years because the museum had to establish if it was legitimate. Was this Leger the same one Kann had owned? (“Smoke Over Rooftops” was a theme Leger painted at least six times.) If so, what had happened to the picture between 1939, when Kann fled Paris on the eve of war, and 1949 when a New York art dealer bought it from a French gallery? Did Kann sell it freely, or did the Nazis confiscate it?
There’s no indication that this was a settlement of any kind, and a legal claim may have been difficult for the claimant as the work had been owned by the MIA since 1961.  It appears they voluntarily relinquished the work, though the story does make vague reference to a French Lawsuit.  Kaywin Feldmin, the MIA Director says “it was the right thing to do”, which is a refreshing sentiment to hear from a Museum Director.   

Questions or Comments? Email me at derek.fincham@gmail.com

Art-Beat Constables

Martin Bailey of the Art Newspaper has the story of Scotland Yard’s part-time volunteer officers which have been tasked with policing art theft, the sale of looted antiquities, forgery and fraud. 

ArtBeat began in January 2007, and there are currently 13 special constables (six males and seven females). These include two from national museums, three from the Art Loss Register, three archaeologists with the remainder from a variety of institutions. The two from museums are Zoe Jackman of the V&A (see below) and Michael Lewis of the British Museum, where he is deputy head of the Portable Antiquities Scheme.

The Art and Antiques Unit needs all the manpower it can get. Last year Scotland Yard proposed halving the staff of its Art and Antiques Unit, which had four officers. In the end, the cuts did not proceed and funding has been confirmed for the current financial year. Nevertheless, resources are tight and having 13 part-time special constables for two days a month is equivalent to one extra full-time officer. Inspector Alan Seldon told us: “There are only four officers in the unit. The scheme expands what we can do, and enhances our capability.” He wants to encourage more recruits from the London art scene.

This seems to be a good idea generally, and if it helps the Arts and Antiques Unit, that must be a good thing.  But its no substitute for an open and honest market in art and antiquities. 

Questions or Comments? Email me at derek.fincham@gmail.com

Two Indicted for Looted Native American Artifacts

A local TV station in Sacramento has a brief account of two men who have been indicted for looting Native American sites in Nevada, Donald and Steven Parker. If they are ultimately convicted they will face up to five years in prison and a $250,000 fine. The story indicates this was part of a five-year investigation, leading me to the conclusion that this may have been related to the massive searches of California museums earlier this year.

Questions or Comments? Email me at derek.fincham@gmail.com

Call for Return of Chinese "Cultural Relics"

Both China Daily and CCTV have reported on China’s efforts to seek the return of two bronze animal heads, which were stolen from Beijing’s Old Summer Palace in 1860 by an Anglo-French coalition during the Second Opium War. They were created in the 18th century. I learned with great interest that it was Lord Elgin who ordered the burning of the Summer Palace — perhaps to discourage Chinese forces from kidnapping and as recompense for mistreating prisoners. Students of history will know his father was Thomas Bruce, the 7th Lord of Elgin who removed the Parthenon frescoes from Greece.
Charles George Gordon, a 27-year-old captain in the Royal Engineers wrote:

We went out, and, after pillaging it, burned the whole place, destroying in a vandal-like manner most valuable property which [could] not be replaced for four millions. We got upward of £48 apiece prize money…I have done well. The [local] people are very civil, but I think the grandees hate us, as they must after what we did the Palace. You can scarcely imagine the beauty and magnificence of the places we burnt. It made one’s heart sore to burn them; in fact, these places were so large, and we were so pressed for time, that we could not plunder them carefully. Quantities of gold ornaments were burnt, considered as brass. It was wretchedly demoralising work for an army.

These heads, one of a rabbit and one of a mouse were two of 12 sculptures which were taken. Five others are still missing. Christies has announced these objects will be on sale next February in the Yves Saint Laurent and Pierre Berge Collection auction in Paris. At least some of the proceeds from the sale will be used for AIDS prevention. The two items are expected to fetch at least 8 million Euros. Any legaly claim for these sculptures will have long-since expired, despite the less-than-noble way in which they were looted.

The China’s Lost Cultural Relics Recovery Fund, a privately funded organization has indicated it may try to purchase these objects and return them to China. In 2003 and 2004 the organization attempted to buy back these objects, but the asking price was $10 million. As the spokesperson told Daily China, “At that time, we bought back the pig’s head for less than $1 million. We think the offered prices are unreasonable and unacceptable.” China, an emerging economic power is in a unique position among nations of origin, as it can often use its considerable economic clout to buy back objects which were removed from the country during the imperial age.

Questions or Comments? Email me at derek.fincham@gmail.com

Afghanistan Exhibit, Pros and Cons


I just listened to a very interesting story on Marketplace, discussing the pre-Islamic Afghani objects which are currently touring the United States. Two points. First, Afghanistan still is badly in need of funds and resources to protect sites; and second though the tour raises Afghanistan’s international profile and has a number of important benefits, it may also raise the desire of collectors to buy similar objects. This puts pressure on the limited enforcement mechanisms. Of course one possible solution is to dissuade collectors from buying these items, or we might even encourage source nations to consider marketing some of their surplus antiquities (a wildly controversial solution to be sure).

More on this travelling exhibition here. There has been concern in the past that Afghanistan didn’t quite get a fair deal out of this tour, though I think the piece speaks to this point. When Egyptian antiquities tour, the public associates Egypt with ancient civilizations. What does the American public currently think about when they think about Afghanistan? As the Afghan official pointed out, defining success for this Afghan tour is far different.

Questions or Comments? Email me at derek.fincham@gmail.com