Author: Derek Fincham

Footnotes

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

Who Benefits From the Stieglitz Collection at Fitz University?

So asks Boston University Law Prof. Alan Field in a piece on SSRN: Who Are the Beneficiaries of Fisk University’s Stieglitz Collection? Here is the abstract:

Most fiduciary relationships determine with specificity the beneficiaries of the fiduciary’s activities. Not-for-profit entities, however, serve a class of unspecified beneficiaries and can exercise discretion in determining who to serve and how to serve them. This paper explores the limits of discretion that recent litigation established for Fisk University in balancing its educational mission and its administration of a valuable art collection donated decades earlier. The paper analyzes the case as it addresses respect for donor conditions, changes in circumstance, standing issues, the doctrine of cy pres and the designation of the appropriate class of public beneficiaries. Race and geography also play contributing roles.

Well worth a read. Donn Zaretsky finds it “much more interesting” than the Attorney General’s brief in the very long legal battle over the present disposition of the collection.

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

Cuno on the Getty’s New Acquisition Policy

“I have argued against the laws, but I haven’t broken the laws.”

So says James Cuno in Jason Felch’s report on the new Getty president and chief executive:

Cuno’s awkward embrace of a point of view he has long criticized creates a potential stumbling block for the Getty, which today relies heavily on cooperative relationships with Italy and other nations Cuno has openly criticized.
As director of the Chicago Art Institute since 2004, Cuno has rarely had to wrestle with claims by other countries that certain antiquities belong to them and not the museum that acquired them. The position Cuno staked out is largely a philosophical one, embracing the concept of “cosmopolitanism” — that antiquities are the common heritage of mankind and not the property of one nation.
He has denounced what he considers politicized claims by modern nations like Italy that, in his view, have only weak ties to the ancient civilizations that once occupied the same land.
Cuno’s arguments are perhaps the clearest articulation of a view that American museum officials used for decades to justify the acquisition of antiquities with no clear ownership record. That practice has largely ended as direct evidence of looting forced leading museums, collectors and dealers to return hundreds of objects to Italy and Greece in recent years.
Yet while many museums moderated their stances during that controversy, Cuno became more outspoken.
“Cultural property is a modern political construct,” he said in a 2006 debate at the New School hosted by the New York Times. In March of this year, he described laws that give foreign governments ownership over ancient art found within their borders as “not only wrong, it is dangerous.”

You can read the Getty’s acquisition policy here: http://www.getty.edu/about/governance/pdfs/acquisitions_policy.pdf

  1. Jason Felch, James Cuno’s history of acquiring ancient art – latimes.com, L.A. Times, May 12, 2011, http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/la-et-cuno-antiquities-20110512,0,7395453,full.story (last visited May 12, 2011).
Questions or Comments? Email me at derek.fincham@gmail.com

Cuno on the Getty’s New Acquisition Policy

“I have argued against the laws, but I haven’t broken the laws.”

So says James Cuno in Jason Felch’s report on the new Getty president and chief executive:

Cuno’s awkward embrace of a point of view he has long criticized creates a potential stumbling block for the Getty, which today relies heavily on cooperative relationships with Italy and other nations Cuno has openly criticized.
As director of the Chicago Art Institute since 2004, Cuno has rarely had to wrestle with claims by other countries that certain antiquities belong to them and not the museum that acquired them. The position Cuno staked out is largely a philosophical one, embracing the concept of “cosmopolitanism” — that antiquities are the common heritage of mankind and not the property of one nation.
He has denounced what he considers politicized claims by modern nations like Italy that, in his view, have only weak ties to the ancient civilizations that once occupied the same land.
Cuno’s arguments are perhaps the clearest articulation of a view that American museum officials used for decades to justify the acquisition of antiquities with no clear ownership record. That practice has largely ended as direct evidence of looting forced leading museums, collectors and dealers to return hundreds of objects to Italy and Greece in recent years.
Yet while many museums moderated their stances during that controversy, Cuno became more outspoken.
“Cultural property is a modern political construct,” he said in a 2006 debate at the New School hosted by the New York Times. In March of this year, he described laws that give foreign governments ownership over ancient art found within their borders as “not only wrong, it is dangerous.”

You can read the Getty’s acquisition policy here: http://www.getty.edu/about/governance/pdfs/acquisitions_policy.pdf

Not much room for acquiring illegally-acquired objects

  1. Jason Felch, James Cuno’s history of acquiring ancient art – latimes.com, L.A. Times, May 12, 2011, http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/la-et-cuno-antiquities-20110512,0,7395453,full.story (last visited May 12, 2011).

“I have argued against the laws, but I haven’t broken the laws.”

So says James Cuno in Jason Felch’s report on the new Getty president and chief executive:

Cuno’s awkward embrace of a point of view he has long criticized creates a potential stumbling block for the Getty, which today relies heavily on cooperative relationships with Italy and other nations Cuno has openly criticized.
As director of the Chicago Art Institute since 2004, Cuno has rarely had to wrestle with claims by other countries that certain antiquities belong to them and not the museum that acquired them. The position Cuno staked out is largely a philosophical one, embracing the concept of “cosmopolitanism” — that antiquities are the common heritage of mankind and not the property of one nation.
He has denounced what he considers politicized claims by modern nations like Italy that, in his view, have only weak ties to the ancient civilizations that once occupied the same land.
Cuno’s arguments are perhaps the clearest articulation of a view that American museum officials used for decades to justify the acquisition of antiquities with no clear ownership record. That practice has largely ended as direct evidence of looting forced leading museums, collectors and dealers to return hundreds of objects to Italy and Greece in recent years.
Yet while many museums moderated their stances during that controversy, Cuno became more outspoken.
“Cultural property is a modern political construct,” he said in a 2006 debate at the New School hosted by the New York Times. In March of this year, he described laws that give foreign governments ownership over ancient art found within their borders as “not only wrong, it is dangerous.”

  1. Jason Felch, James Cuno’s history of acquiring ancient art – latimes.com, L.A. Times, May 12, 2011, http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/la-et-cuno-antiquities-20110512,0,7395453,full.story (last visited May 12, 2011).

Art Theft at the Forbidden City

Seven works of 20th century decorative art have been stolen from the Palace Museum inside the Forbidden City in Beijing. The items were stolen when the thief may have knocked a hole in the wall. The pieces were works made of gold and encrusted with jewels. A spokesperson said that a suspect was seen fleeing the seen but guards did not intervene:

This will be an embarrassment for those who run the Palace Museum. 
One official has already said that there was a lapse in security. 
“Certainly we can only blame the fact that our work was not thorough enough if something like this can happen,” said official Feng Nai’en at a news conference. 
An investigation has begun to see where improvements can be made and the museum is checking to see if any other objects have been taken. 
Perhaps more embarrassing though is the fact that these items were on loan from Liangyicang, a private collection in Hong Kong. 
The Beijing News reported that the Hong Kong museum had not insured the items for as much as it could have because it believed they would be safe in Beijing. 
The Palace Museum is based within the Forbidden City, home to the country’s emperors during the Ming and Qing dynasties. 
The complex is made up of courtyards, palaces and gardens. It became a museum in 1921 after the fall of the last emperor Puyi a decade earlier.
  1. Michael Bristow, Rare theft from Forbidden City, BBC, May 11, 2011, http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-13356725 (last visited May 12, 2011).
Questions or Comments? Email me at derek.fincham@gmail.com

Art Theft at the Forbidden City

Seven works of art have been stolen from the Palace Museum inside the Forbidden City in Beijing. The items were stolen when the thief may have knocked a hole in the wall:

This will be an embarrassment for those who run the Palace Museum. 
One official has already said that there was a lapse in security. 
“Certainly we can only blame the fact that our work was not thorough enough if something like this can happen,” said official Feng Nai’en at a news conference. 
An investigation has begun to see where improvements can be made and the museum is checking to see if any other objects have been taken. 
Perhaps more embarrassing though is the fact that these items were on loan from Liangyicang, a private collection in Hong Kong. 
The Beijing News reported that the Hong Kong museum had not insured the items for as much as it could have because it believed they would be safe in Beijing. 
The Palace Museum is based within the Forbidden City, home to the country’s emperors during the Ming and Qing dynasties. 
The complex is made up of courtyards, palaces and gardens. It became a museum in 1921 after the fall of the last emperor Puyi a decade earlier.
  1. Michael Bristow, Rare theft from Forbidden City, BBC, May 11, 2011, http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-13356725 (last visited May 12, 2011).

James Cuno to head the Getty

Dr. James Cuno, a noted writer on cultural policy and a firm supporter of universal art museums and the movement of art has been named the next President and CEO of the Getty Trust:

LOS ANGELES—The Board of Trustees of the J. Paul Getty Trust announced today that James Cuno, recognized both nationally and internationally as a noted museum leader and scholar and an accomplished leader in the field of the visual arts, has been named president and CEO of the J. Paul Getty Trust. Dr. Cuno, who comes to the Getty after serving as president and Eloise W. Martin Director of the Art Institute of Chicago since 2004, will assume his position August 1.
Prior to directing the Art Institute of Chicago, one of the world’s leading encyclopedic art museums, where in 2009 he presided over the opening of the museum’s Modern Wing, Dr. Cuno was the director and professor of the Courtauld Institute of Art, University of London, from 2003-2004; the Elizabeth and John Moors Cabot Director of the Harvard University Art Museums and professor of the history of art and architecture at Harvard from 1991 to 2003; director of the Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, from 1989-1991; director of the Grunwald Center for the Graphic Arts, UCLA, from 1986-1989; and assistant professor of art, Vassar College, from 1983-1986.
There are many tasks involved in this new position of course, but the one I’ll be closely watching will be how this will impact the Getty’s ongoing dispute with Italy over this ancient bronze.

  1. PRESS RELEASE: James Cuno , PRESIDENT AND ELOISE W. MARTIN DIRECTOR OF THE ART INSTITUTE OF CHICAGO, NAMED PRESIDENT AND CEO OF THE J. PAUL GETTY TRUST, (2011), http://getty.edu/news/press/center/james_cuno.html (last visited May 9, 2011).

(via)

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

Looting Shipwrecks, Archaeology and the Smithsonian

Changsha bowls from the excavation

“To sell ceramics from a wreck like that makes them a hell of a lot more than selling sea cucumbers,”

So argues marine archaeologist Michael Flecker discussing the looting of perhaps the most significant shipwreck found in modern times. The wreck was discovered in 1998 by local fishermen while diving for sea cucumbers and was packed with some 60,000 glazed bowls, ewers and other ceramics. They were found in the wreck of an Arab dhow on its way from China to the Persian Gulf some 1,100 years ago. The Indonesian government did little to prevent the fishermen for taking objects from the cite and moved to hire Seabed Exploratiosn, a commercial salvage company to excavate the site, with the assistance of Flecker, who has published the excavation.

Archaeologists now are criticizing the exhibition of this material at the Smithsonian, claiming the commercial salvage amounts to looting. Kimberly Faulk of the Advisory Council on Underwater Archaeology says: “They were not excavated properly. They are indeed looted artifacts that were sold for profit,” which “sends a message that treasure hunting is OK.” That seems a very impractical stance to take. No one would argue that a concerted and extensive archaeological excavation would have been the best resolution here, or even if the Indonesian government had been able or willing to police the site of the wreck. yet short of those options, a removal of the objects with archaeologists yields some information right? What should be done with the objects now according to the archaeologists? What kinds of information might a longer extended excavation have recovered? I’d be interested in comparing the scientific results of this excavation with other more rigorous studies?

I mean, what should happen, should the 60,000 objects be returned to the ocean floor? Is there really no value in these objects without the context? If the advocates are using this for a chance to raise the profile of the problem of conservation and excavation of underwater archaeological sites, that seems a worthwhile endeavor, but doing so at the expense of common sense solutions seems to diminish their cause.

  1. Elizabeth Blair, From Beneath, A Smithsonian Shipwreck Controversy : NPR, http://www.npr.org/2011/05/04/135956044/from-beneath-a-smithsonian-shipwreck-controversy (last visited May 6, 2011).
  2. Flecker, Michael. “A 9th-Century Arab or Indian Shipwreck in Indonesian Waters.” International Journal of Nautical Archaeology. Volume 29(2), 2000.
  3. Flecker, Michael. “A 9th-Century Arab or Indian Shipwreck in Indonesian Waters: Addendum.” International Journal of Nautical Archaeology, Volume 37(2), 2008.
Questions or Comments? Email me at derek.fincham@gmail.com

Footnotes

Häuser mit bunter Wäsche (Vorstadt II), by Egon Schiele
  • The Leopold Museum in Vienna is deaccessioning a cityscape by Egon Schiele to raise the money to pay the settlement to the heirs of Lea Bondi Jaray over the disposition of Portrait of Wally.
  • A 500 year-old Nuremberg Chronicle has appeared in Salt Lake, it had been gathering dust in an attic for decades, or so the undisclosed seller has claimed. One wonders if the actual story is a good deal more complicated.
  • A review of a new human history of the Mediterranean notes the study of the island-city of Motya in Sicily has been delayed by looting: 

Motya is just four kilometres square, yet only five per cent has been excavated to date. Archaeological investigations collapsed in 1987 owing to Mafia complicity in pilfering antiquities. In the nearby Sicilian town of Marsala (famous for its fortified wine) a small museum nevertheless displays artefacts. Marsla is incidentally named after the Arab Mars al Allah, “Harbour of God”, after the Saracen invasion of the western Mediterranean in 831.

Here’s a list on which most Egyptologists agree: Consult with local and international agencies and specialists to develop and implement long-term management plans. Train on-site inspectors and give them greater responsibility. Design better security for sites and museums. Allocate more money for site conservation and documentation. Take a strong stand against commercial and political interests that threaten the monuments.

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