OPINION
GUEST ESSAY
What a Scandal at the British Museum Reveals
Sept. 16,
2023
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/16/opinion/museum-artifacts-looting.html
Credit...Rozalina
Burkova
By Jason
Felch
Mr. Felch
is a co-author of “Chasing Aphrodite: The Hunt for Looted Antiquities at the
World’s Richest Museum.”
Sign up for
the Opinion Today newsletter Get expert
analysis of the news and a guide to the big ideas shaping the world every
weekday morning. Get it sent to your inbox.
The news
that roughly 2,000 objects, dating from antiquity to the 19th century, have
disappeared over a decade from the vast storerooms of the British Museum — a
fact the museum acknowledged a few weeks ago — should be enough to endanger the
job security of any museum’s director. Add in the news that the thief is
suspected to have been a curator of Greek antiquities at the museum, and that
the precious objects were being peddled in the digital marketplace, and you can
understand why the museum’s director recently resigned.
These
revelations have shaken the staid museum world and raised important questions
about security, record keeping and funding priorities. But the root problem
goes deeper, to the origins of our national museums. And the fix will take more
than new security protocols.
The British
Museum must use this scandal as an opportunity to update the dusty notion of
the so-called universal museum — rethinking how these institutions can exist in
a 21st-century world where the sharing and blending of cultures has never been
more crucial. Rather than resisting calls to repatriate contested objects in
their collections, museums should be transparent about their holdings and how
they were acquired. They should embark on a campaign of generous, long-term
loans that allows objects to circulate freely across borders. And they should
embrace digital tools to open their storage facilities to public scrutiny.
This is an
opportunity to radically reimagine the mission and purpose of the universal
museum — places like the Metropolitan Museum, the Louvre, the Prado and the
British Museum — and what they owe to the world.
The dream
of a “universal” or “encyclopedic” museum was born centuries ago as a product
of the Enlightenment. During the 1700s, in a burst of noblesse oblige, many art
collections were moved from private drawing rooms into public spaces, where
they theoretically could be appreciated by all. The grand institutions that
were built over the next century to house them were established on the notion
that access to the world’s art and artifacts would foster an enlightened,
democratic culture — and, implicitly or explicitly, on the idea that only
institutions in the West could properly preserve, protect and study the world’s
great wonders.
The
Enlightenment led into the age of empire, and these new museums were quickly
filled with plunder. Thomas Bruce (a.k.a. Lord Elgin) whisked sculptures from
the Parthenon away to London. “The Winged Victory of Samothrace” landed in the
Louvre. The “Benin Bronzes” were dispersed around the globe, including to the
Met. Egypt’s Nefertiti bust was shipped off to Berlin.
At the
time, many considered this kind of acquisition to be benign, even necessary,
arguing that the museums would be suitable curators and custodians of the
objects. That view is still invoked as the rationale to keep vast collections
of antiquities in museum storerooms now. In 2002, more than a dozen leading
museums, including the Louvre and the Met, signed on to a “Declaration on the
Importance and Value of Universal Museums,” partly as a retort to Greece’s
nagging claims for a return of the Parthenon marbles in London and to the
growing criticism that these museums embodied a colonial view of culture that
needed correcting.
“Over time,
objects so acquired — whether by purchase, gift or partage — have become part
of the museums that have cared for them, and by extension part of the heritage
of the nations which house them,” the statement read. “To narrow the focus of
museums whose collections are diverse and multifaceted would therefore be a
disservice to all visitors.”
But the
theft of objects from the bowels of the British Museum put the lie to that
threadbare view: If these institutions fail at the fundamental task of
physically protecting the treasures they are supposedly preserving, how can
they justify keeping things they themselves have taken from other societies?
Indeed, the
British Museum thefts might have gone unnoticed if not for an antiquities
dealer who was browsing eBay and recognized an ancient Roman cameo as one from
the museum’s collection. The dealer notified the museum in 2021 that, after
tracking and buying many such objects, he had identified the anonymous seller
via a PayPal account. The evidence presented by the dealer was doubly
disturbing: Not only were the thefts an inside job, but they were allegedly
carried out by a curator (who is now facing a police investigation) whose duty
was to protect these objects.
As an
investigative reporter, I spent years uncovering how the J. Paul Getty Museum,
along with peer institutions in Boston, New York and elsewhere, had built
world-class collections of Classical antiquities in the 1980s and ’90s by doing
business with a thriving black market. After the Getty’s curator was criminally
charged by the Italian government (a case that was later dropped when a
three-judge panel ruled that the statute of limitations had expired), the
mounting evidence compelled several museums to return over 100 looted
antiquities to Italy, Greece, Turkey and beyond.
Several
antiquities dealers have likewise been heavily involved in the theft and sale
of antiquities from across Asia, selling them to collectors and museums,
including some in the United States. Some of the dealers have since faced
criminal charges, and federal agents at Homeland Security Investigations, the
Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency usually charged with investigating
antiquities trafficking, have worked with federal and state prosecutors to
seize and repatriate tens of thousands of looted objects.
European
museums are facing a similar reckoning about their colonial acquisitions. A
report commissioned by France’s president recommended the restitution of major
artifacts and any illegally obtained works to African countries on the basis of
bilateral agreements. Last year, Germany announced it would return more than
1,000 bronzes from the historical Kingdom of Benin.
As the very
first of the universal museums, the British Museum built its collection over
several hundred years of colonial boondoggles and the result is a treasure
house of epic proportions: The collection contains some eight million objects
(nobody knows for sure), of which only about 4.5 million have been fully
documented online. A mere 1 percent are on display. But the museum is largely
prohibited by law from disposing of its holdings, and it has often justified
its position by invoking its ability to safeguard the world’s treasures.
That
position no longer makes sense. The universal museum, a relic of the
Enlightenment, was never truly universal: Virtually all universal museums
reside in Western cities, far beyond the reach of many of the communities from
which their objects were taken. And there is nothing enlightened about hoarding
the world’s culture in storage, unseen by many and often, apparently, unsafe.
Jason Felch
is a former investigative reporter for The Los Angeles Times and a co-author of
“Chasing Aphrodite: The Hunt for Looted Antiquities at the World’s Richest
Museum.”
The Times
is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to
hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And
here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.
Follow The
New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and
Instagram.
No comments:
Post a Comment