art, heritage, & law
I’m very much looking forward to participating in this Friday’s conference at the Capitoline Museum in Rome marking the 20th Anniversary of the UNIDROIT Convention on Stolen and Illegally Exported Cultural Property. If you haven’t registered yet, and happen to be in Rome, I’m afraid registration is closed. But I’ll be offering some thoughts on the conference when I get back home next week.
I happened on two opposing viewpoints on the import restrictions on ancient coins in my inbox this afternoon. The first, written by Nathan Elkins, critiques from an archaeological perspective the test case brought by the Ancient Coin Collectors Guild. The case attempted to challenge the breadth of import restrictions against the import of ancient coins, “Ancient Coins, Find Spots, and Import Restrictions: A Critique of Arguments made in the Ancient Coin Collectors Guild’s ‘Test Case’,” Journal of Field Archaeology 40.2 (2015): 236-243. From the abstract:
The Ancient Coin Collectors Guild (ACCG) has launched multiple legal challenges aimed at undermining import restrictions on ancient coins into the United States in bilateral agreements with foreign countries. One key component of the ACCG’s argument is that the State Department has inappropriately restricted certain types of coins according to where they were made rather than where they are found, as mandated by the 1983 Convention on Cultural Property Implementation Act. Although the ACCG has thus far been unsuccessful, it has not been pointed out that existing import restrictions on coins, in fact, have been written to include coins that tended to circulate locally and that are found primarily within the borders of the country with which the bilateral agreement is made. The ACCG’s argument is thus on shaky ground. As the ACCG continues to press ahead with new litigation, it is worth drawing attention to realities and probabilities of ancient coin circulation as they pertain to protected coins.
An opposing view is offered by Wayne Sayles, Executive Director of the Ancient coin Collectors Guild, ‘Ideology, governance and consequences from a collector’s point of view‘, Internet Archaeology 33. From the abstract:
This article is a condensed version of the background paper created for an Ancient Coin Collectors Guild (ACCG) presentation at the 2010 CBA, Tyne and Wear Archives and Museums, and Newcastle University conference in Newcastle, England. It presents a view shared by many American collectors and independent scholars. The ACCG, a member of the International Numismatic Council, is a registered non-profit organisation within the United States but enjoys the active support of members worldwide.
The Chasing Aphrodite blog has the story of a noteworthy new federal forfeiture involving billionaire hedge-fund manager and buyer of antiquities, Michael Steinhardt. At issue is this lovely fresco allegedly looted from Paestum. The name Steinhardt will likely be a familiar one as he was a claimant who lost another federal forfeiture action over the Gold Phiale, which helped set useful precedents for federal prosecutors.
The Federal prosecutor’s complaint alleges the importation of the fresco violated US customs law, §1595a, which prohibits the importation of objects contrary to law. The fresco was part of a FedEx shipment into Newark in 2011 that was detained by Customs and Border Protection. the shipment had a customs declaration form, but again, just like with the Godl Phiale case there appears to been misstatements on the customs form with respect to the country of origin for this object. The form declared the origin to be Macedonia, while the complaint alleges the fragment was taken from a tomb in Paestum.
The provenance for the object claims that the fresco was acquired by Lens Tschanned from a Swis art gallery in 1959, and it had been in his home from then until April of 2011. The fresco had no export permissions.
Customs and Border Protection contacted the Italian Carabinieri, and the Tutela Patrimonio Cultrale was able to identify the object as the pediment of a painted tomb north of Paestum in present-day Salerno. This site is known as the necropolis of Andriuolo. The complaint alleges that the figures on the fresco in question are painted in mirror image to another fresco from tomb 53 suggesting they may have likely been installed on different sides of the same tomb.
Here’s the mirror image fresco from tomb 53, which is not on display at the National Archaeological Museum in Paestum. Federal prosecutors appended both of these images in the complaint:
Chasing Aphrodite gives some background of the company Mat Artcare, based in Switzerland:
Mat Securitas is the same Swiss shipping service that transported the Getty Museum’s looted goddess of Aphrodite from Switzerland to London. (See Chasing Aphrodite p. 148).Their motto is “Safe. Discrete. Reliable.”
Will Steinhardt litigate this dispute as aggressively as he did in the 1990’s with the Gold Phiale forfeiture? The Federal complaint makes an extremely compelling case that this fragment was looted from a tomb in Paestum. It’s connection to macedonia seems ludicrous when compared to the other pediment which was excavated and is on display at the museum there.
Complaint, United States v. One Triangular Fresco Fragment, CV 136286 (S.D.N.Y. 2013).
Steinhardt Redux: Feds Seize Fresco Looted from Italian World Heritage Site, Destined for New York Billionaire CHASING APHRODITE, Nov. 18, 2013.
China’s request for import restrictions of certain classes of China’s antiquities has finally been granted. The Memorandum of Understanding is here, while the State Department Press Release is here. Now prohibited, unless accompanied by a Chinese export license will be “archaeological material originating in China and representing China’s cultural heritage from the Paleolithic Period through the end of the Tang Dynasty (A.D. 907), and of monumental sculpture and wall art at least 250 years old; including categories of metal, ceramic, stone, textiles, other organic material, glass, and painting”.
Randy Kennedy has an overview for the New York Times. Professor Patty Gerstenblith thinks the decision “is a very appropriate way for the State Department to have applied the statute and the statutory requirements to China’s request”.
James Lally, a New York dealer in Asian art was not quite as impressed, “It’s going to have a terrible effect on efforts to encourage new students to study Asian art and on collectors and patrons to become involved in the field … They’ll say, ‘Well, I’ll just go to contemporary art or I’ll support the symphony.’ It sends the wrong signal.”
Peter Tompa has a thoughtful criticism on his blog as well,
I would, however, echo [other’s] concerns about fair enforcement, particularly when it comes to coins. Indeed, many Chinese coins of the types covered under the agreement have so little monetary value that it makes little sense for importers to go through the time and effort to secure the necessary certifications for licit import. For example, at the CPAC hearing in February 2005, I passed around a Han Dynasty cash coin from the 1st c. BC (bought for $2.25) and a Tang Dynasty cash coin c. 618-907 AD (bought for $8.00).
Such a problem presents some very difficult regulatory challenges, and goes I think to the heart of how we define cultural heritage or property. I don’t envy the task of ICE agents, who are now charged with making sure these very small objects are not imported into the US.
China has created a large heritage bureaucracy which does allow the purchase and sale of antiquities, but the government has right of first refusal for all of these objects. There is also a complicated ratings system, overseen by a government official in relics shops, which determines what is too important to sell, and what is not. The system has been criticized for its potential for abuse, though what heritage policy in any nation isn’t.
Kevin Bogardus has an interesting article in The Hill on the State Department and its Cultural Property Advisory Committee taking its sweet time in deciding on whether to impose import restrictions on Chinese antiquities.
China made the request in 2004, and both proponents and critics of the restrictions are eager for a decision. Members of the Ancient Coin Collector’s Guild and others have even brought suit to elicit more information from the State Department about the deliberations with respect to the requests of China and Cyprus. It seems they have started to receive “heavily redacted” documents. Given the administration’s adamant refusal to disclose what it deems privileged information, even on the most mundane matters, it should be a long and difficult task. This is regrettable. Though I don’t share their criticism of the restriction, I do think we would all be better served in knowing how these decisions are made.
The Museum Security Network mailing list today circulated a really fascinating blog entry by Gary Vikan from last month. Vikan was discussing a NY Times article on the Cultural Property Advisory Committee. It’s a State Department body which recommends whether the US should adopt import restrictions on certain classes of objects. It’s the way the US chose to implement the 1970 UNESCO Convention.
Here’s a link to the NY Times article, Is the US Protecting Foreign Artifacts? Don’t Ask. You can access it via the timesselect service, which is free to academics and students. `
Here’s a link to Gary Vikan’s post. Of particular interest are some of the comments after the post.
Here’s an excerpt of what Vikan had to say:
The work of CPAC, which was created in 1983 by legislation intended to give effect to ratification of the UNESCO Convention on cultural property (1970), is to make recommendations to the State Department on applications from foreign nations asking, in effect, that their export laws governing cultural property become our import laws. From its inception, the committee’s activities have been highly secretive; in recent years, its internal deliberations have become increasingly contentious, as the archaeologists’ voice has come to dominate the collectors and dealers on the committee.
The hot issue now is whether the State Department will accept, on CPAC’s recommendation, a sweeping ban on the import of Chinese art and artifacts predating 1911. (The often-repeated counterarguments are that the Chinese have yet to clean up their own art-dealing house and that the share of the Chinese trade is relatively small, and will simply go elsewhere.)
The points made by Kahn, and through him, by his many sources on and off the committee, including its present chair, Jay Kislak, are right on the mark. The archaeologists’ voice and values are disproportionately strong among the CPAC membership, and its activities are overly secretive and exclusionary.
Vikan’s perspective is very enlightening, as he served on the CPAC from 2000-2003, and resigned after the looting of the National Museum of Iraq. Both links are essential reading if you are interested in cultural policy or the protection of antiquities.
Much of this controversy centers around China.
Without regard to the reasons given for the panel’s secrecy, from an academics perspective it is indeed frustrating that we can’t have a clearer picture of how the advisory committee reaches its decisions. However, all 11 requests for import restrictions have been granted. Whether that will continue for China and Cypress remains to be seen. The importance of the committee internationally should not be underestimated, as the US by most accounts is considered the largest importer of art and antiquities.