'Product of theft': Greece urges UK to return
Parthenon marbles
The New Acropolis Museum wants to display antiquities
removed on the orders of Lord Elgin
Helena
Smith in Athens
Published
onSat 20 Jun 2020 18.35 BST
The New
Acropolis Museum was purpose-built to host the one thing every Greek government
will always agree on: the Parthenon marbles being returned from London.
On
Saturday, as the four-storey edifice marked its 11th anniversary, Athens
reinvigorated the cultural row calling the British Museum’s retention of the
antiquities illegal and “contrary to any moral principle”.
“Since
September 2003 when construction work for the Acropolis Museum began, Greece
has systematically demanded the return of the sculptures on display in the
British Museum because they are the product of theft,” the country’s culture
minister Lina Mendoni told the Greek newspaper Ta Nea.
“The
current Greek government – like any Greek government – is not going to stop
claiming the stolen sculptures which the British Museum, contrary to any moral
principle, continues to hold illegally.”
For years,
she said, the museum had argued that Athens had nowhere decent enough to
display Phidias’ masterpieces, insisting that its stance was “in stark
contrast” to the view of the UK public. In repeated polls, Britons have voiced
support for the repatriation of the carvings, controversially removed from the
Parthenon in 1802 at the behest of Lord Elgin, London’s ambassador to the
Sublime Porte.
“It is sad
that one of the world’s largest and most important museums is still governed by
outdated, colonialist views.”
Greece’s
centre-right administration has vowed to step up the campaign to win back
artworks that adorned the frieze of the Periclean showpiece ahead of the
country’s bicentennial independence celebrations next year.
Within
weeks of his election, Kyriakos Mitsotakis, Greece’s prime minister, told the
Observer Athens was prepared to allow treasures that had never travelled abroad
to be exhibited in London in exchange for the marbles being reunited with “a
monument of global cultural heritage”.
Well-placed
government officials have not excluded the EU pressing for the return of the
antiquities as part of an overarching Brexit deal.
The row was
injected with renewed rancour when the British Museum’s director, Hartwig
Fischer, described their removal from Greece as “a creative act”. Half of the
160-metre frieze is in London, with 50 metres in Athens and other pieces
displayed in a total of eight other museums across Europe
Last year
more than 14.5 million people visited the new Acropolis museum among the most
popular cultural institutions globally.
For those
who want the sculptures back in Athens, the Acropolis Museum’s top-floor
Parthenon gallery is the perfect antidote to the dark Duveen gallery in the
British Museum.
Some 2,500
years after its construction, the Acropolis is viewed as Pericles’ greatest
triumph, testimony, say admirers, to his role in the achievements of the Golden
Age.
As a
classicist with an avowed love for ancient Greece, Boris Johnson has often paid
tribute to the soldier statesman’s mastery of governance “by the many, not the
few”, placing a bust of Pericles – purchased from the British Museum’s gift
shop – on his desk as soon as he moved into Downing Street.
But the
British prime minister remains an ardent supporter of the sculptures remaining
in London contending they were “rescued, quite rightly, by Elgin”.
This month
his predecessor, Tony Blair, conceded in an interview with the Greek newspaper Kathimerini
that the sculptures had been in a box marked “too hot to handle”.
Relocation
debate
Rationale
for returning to Athens
Those
arguing for the Marbles' return claim legal, moral and artistic grounds. Their
arguments include:
The main
stated aim of the Greek campaign is to reunite the Parthenon sculptures around
the world in order to restore "organic elements" which "at
present remain without cohesion, homogeneity and historicity of the monument to
which they belong" and allow visitors to better appreciate them as a
whole;
Presenting
all the extant Parthenon Marbles in their original historical and cultural
environment would permit their "fuller understanding and
interpretation";
Precedents
have been set with the return of fragments of the monument by Italy, Sweden,the
University of Heidelberg, Germany, the Getty Museum in Los Angeles and the
Vatican;
The marbles
may have been obtained illegally and hence should be returned to their rightful
owner;
Returning
the Parthenon sculptures (Greece is requesting only the return of sculptures
from this particular building) would not set a precedent for other restitution
claims because of the distinctively "universal value" of the
Parthenon;
Safekeeping
of the marbles would be ensured at the New Acropolis Museum, situated to the
south of the Acropolis hill. It was built to hold the Parthenon sculpture in
natural sunlight that characterises the Athenian climate, arranged in the same
way as they would have been on the Parthenon. The museum's facilities have been
equipped with state-of-the-art technology for the protection and preservation
of exhibits;
The friezes
are part of a single work of art, thus it was unintended that fragments of this
piece be scattered across different locations;
Casts of
the marbles would be just as able to demonstrate the cultural influences which
Greek sculptures have had upon European art as would the original marbles,
whereas the context with which the marbles belong cannot be replicated within
the British Museum;
A poll
suggested that more British people (37%) supported the marbles' restoration to
Greece than opposed it (23%)
The
conservation claims made by British authorities over the time Parthenon Marbles
have been kept at the British Museum seem controversial, if compared to
contemporary British expeditions carried out in other parts of the Greek world.
British architects Samuel Angell and William Harris[disambiguation needed]
excavated at Selinus in the course of their tour of Sicily, and came upon the
sculptured metopes from the Archaic temple of “Temple C.” Although local
Bourbon officials tried to stop them, they continued their work, and attempted
to export their finds to England, destined for the British Museum. Now in the
echos of the activities of Lord Elgin in Athens, Angell and Harris’s shipments
were diverted to Palermo by force of the Bourbon authorities and are now kept
in the Palermo archeological museum.
In a 2018
interview to the Athens newspaper Ta Nea, British Labour party leader Jeremy
Corbyn did not rule out returning the Marbles to Greece, stating, "As with
anything stolen or taken from occupied or colonial possession—including
artefacts looted from other countries in the past—we should be engaged in
constructive talks with the Greek government about returning the
sculptures."
Rationale
for retaining in London
A range of
different arguments have been presented by scholars,[53] British political
leaders and British Museum spokespersons over the years in defence of retention
of the Parthenon Marbles by the British Museum. The main points include:
the
assertion that fulfilling all restitution claims would empty most of the
world's great museums – this has also caused concerns among other European and
American museums, with one potential target being the famous bust of Nefertiti
in Berlin's Neues Museum; in addition, portions of Parthenon marbles are kept
by many other European museums. Advocates of the British Museum's position also
point out that the Marbles in Britain receive about 6 million visitors per year
as opposed to 1.5 million visitors to the Acropolis Museum. The removal of the
Marbles to Greece would therefore, they argue, significantly reduce the number
of people who have the opportunity to visit the Marbles. The English Romantic
poet John Keats, and the French sculptor Auguste Rodin, are notable examples of
visitors to the Parthenon Marbles after their removal to England who
subsequently produced famous work inspired by them.
the
assertion that Modern Greeks have "no claim to the stones because you
could see from their physiognomy that they were not descended from the men who
had carved them," a quote attributed to Auberon Waugh. In nineteenth
century Western Europe, Greeks of the Classical period were widely imagined to
have been light skinned and blond. This view has been overturned by modern
genetic research and is now widely understood as having racist underpinnings.
the
assertion that Greece could mount no court case, because Elgin claims to have
been granted permission by what was then Greece's ruling government and a legal
principle of limitation would apply, i.e., the ability to pursue claims expires
after a period of time prescribed by law;
The last
was tested in the English High Court in May 2005 in relation to Nazi-looted Old
Master artworks held at the British Museum, which the Museum's Trustees wished
to return to the family of the original owner; the Court found that due to the
British Museum Act 1963 these works could not be returned without further
legislation. The judge, Mr Justice Morritt, found that the Act, which protects
the collections for posterity, could not be overridden by a "moral
obligation" to return works, even if they are believed to have been
plundered.[108][109] It has been argued, however, that the case was not
directly relevant to the Parthenon Marbles, as it was about a transfer of
ownership, and not the loan of artefacts for public exhibition overseas, which
is provided for in the 1963 Act.
Another
argument for keeping the Parthenon Marbles within the UK has been made by J. H.
Merryman, Sweitzer Professor of Law at Stanford University and co-operating
professor in the Stanford Art Department. He has argued that the Marbles are
now established as a significant element of Britain's own cultural history, as
"the Elgin Marbles have been in England since 1821 and in that time have
become a part of the British cultural heritage." He has also argued that
if the Parthenon were actually being restored, there would be a moral argument
for returning the Marbles to the temple whence they came, and thus restoring
its integrity. The Guardian has written that many among those who support
repatriation imply that the marbles would be displayed in their original
position on the Parthenon. However, the Greek plan is to transfer them from a
museum in London to one in Athens. These arguments are perhaps complicated a
little by the completion of the new Acropolis Museum in 2009, where the half
not removed by Elgin is now displayed, aligned in orientation and within sight
of the Parthenon, with the position of the missing elements clearly marked and
space left should they be returned to Athens.
The
Trustees of the British Museum make the following statement on the Museum
website in response to arguments for the relocation of the Parthenon Marbles to
the Acropolis Museum: "The Acropolis Museum allows the Parthenon
sculptures that are in Athens to be appreciated against the backdrop of ancient
Greek and Athenian history. This display does not alter the Trustees’ view that
the sculptures are part of everyone’s shared heritage and transcend cultural
boundaries. The Trustees remain convinced that the current division allows
different and complementary stories to be told about the surviving sculptures,
highlighting their significance for world culture and affirming the universal
legacy of ancient Greece."
Public
perception of the issue
Popular
support for restitution
Outside
Greece a campaign for the Return of the Marbles began in 1981 with the
formation of the International Organising Committee - Australia - for the
Restitution of the Parthenon Marbles, and in 1983 with the formation of the
British Committee for the Reunification of the Parthenon Marbles. International
organisations such as UNESCO and the International Association for the
Reunification of the Parthenon Sculptures, as well as campaign groups such as,
Marbles Reunited, and stars of Hollywood, such as George Clooney and Matt
Damon, as well as Human Rights activists, lawyers, and the people of the arts,
voiced their strong support for the return of the Parthenon Marbles to Greece.
American
actor George Clooney voiced his support for the return by the United Kingdom
and reunification of the Parthenon Marbles in Greece, during his promotional
campaign for his 2014 film The Monuments Men which retells the story of Allied
efforts to save important masterpieces of art and other culturally important
items before their destruction by Hitler and the Nazis during World War II. His
remarks regarding the Marbles reignited the debate in the United Kingdom about
their return to their home country. Public polls were also carried out by
newspapers in response to Clooney's stance on this matter.
An internet
campaign site, in part sponsored by Metaxa, aims to consolidate support for the
return of the Parthenon Marbles to the New Acropolis Museum in Athens.
Noted
public intellectual Christopher Hitchens had, at numerous times, argued for
their repatriation.
In BBC TV
Series QI (series 12, episode 7, XL edition), host Stephen Fry provided his
support for the return of the Parthenon Marbles while recounting the story of
the Greeks giving lead shot to their Ottoman Empire enemies, as the Ottomans
were running out of ammunition, in order to prevent damage to the Acropolis.
Fry had previously written a blog post along much the same lines in December
2011 entitled "A Modest Proposal", signing off with "It's time
we lost our marbles".
Opinion
polls
A YouGov
poll in 2014 suggested that more British people (37%) supported the marbles'
restoration to Greece than opposed it (23%).
In older
polls, Ipsos MORI asked in 1998, "If there were a referendum on whether or
not the Elgin Marbles should be returned to Greece, how would you vote?"
This returned these values from the British general adult population:
40% in
favour of returning the marbles to Greece
15% in
favour of keeping them at the British Museum
18% would
not vote
27% had no
opinion
Another
opinion poll in 2002 (again carried out by MORI) showed similar results, with
40% of the British public in favour of returning the marbles to Greece, 16% in
favour of keeping them within Britain and the remainder either having no
opinion or would not vote.When asked how they would vote if a number of
conditions were met (including, but not limited to, a long-term loan whereby
the British maintained ownership and joint control over maintenance) the number
responding in favour of return increased to 56% and those in favour of keeping
them dropped to 7%.
Both MORI
poll results have been characterised by proponents of the return of the Marbles
to Greece as representing a groundswell of public opinion supporting return,
since the proportion explicitly supporting return to Greece significantly
exceeds the number who are explicitly in favour of keeping the Marbles at the
British Museum.
The
Parthenon Marbles (Greek: Γλυπτά του Παρθενώνα), also known as the Elgin Marbles (/ˈɛlɡɪn/),
are a collection of Classical Greek marble sculptures made under the
supervision of the architect and sculptor Phidias and his assistants. They were
originally part of the temple of the Parthenon and other buildings on the
Acropolis of Athens.
From 1801
to 1812, agents of Thomas Bruce, 7th Earl of Elgin removed about half of the
surviving sculptures of the Parthenon, as well as sculptures from the Propylaea
and Erechtheum. The Marbles were transported by sea to Britain. Elgin later
claimed to have obtained in 1801 an official decree (a firman) from the Sublime
Porte, the central government of the Ottoman Empire which were then the rulers
of Greece. This firman has not been found in the Ottoman archives despite its
wealth of documents from the same period and its veracity is disputed.The
Acropolis Museum displays a proportion of the complete frieze, aligned in
orientation and within sight of the Parthenon, with the position of the missing
elements clearly marked and space left should they be returned to Athens.
In Britain,
the acquisition of the collection was supported by some, while some others,
such as Lord Byron, likened the Earl's actions to vandalism or looting.
Following a public debate in Parliament and its subsequent exoneration of
Elgin, he sold the Marbles to the British government in 1816. They were then
passed to the British Museum, where they are now on display in the
purpose-built Duveen Gallery.
After
gaining its independence from the Ottoman Empire in 1832, the newly-founded
Greek state began a series of projects to restore its monuments and retrieve
looted art. It has expressed its disapproval of Elgin's removal of the Marbles
from the Acropolis and the Parthenon,[19] which is regarded as one of the
world's greatest cultural monuments.[20] International efforts to repatriate
the Marbles to Greece were intensified in the 1980s by then Greek Minister of
Culture Melina Mercouri, and there are now many organisations actively campaigning
for the Marbles' return, several united as part of the International
Association for the Reunification of the Parthenon Sculptures. The Greek
government itself continues to urge the return of the marbles to Athens so as
to be unified with the remaining marbles and for the complete Parthenon frieze
sequence to be restored, through diplomatic, political and legal means.
In 2014,
UNESCO offered to mediate between Greece and the United Kingdom to resolve the
dispute, although this was later turned down by the British Museum on the basis
that UNESCO works with government bodies, not trustees of museums.
Background
Built in
the ancient era, the Parthenon was extensively damaged during the Great Turkish
War (1683–1699) against the Republic of Venice. The defending Turks fortified
the Acropolis and used the Parthenon as a gunpowder magazine. On 26 September
1687, a Venetian artillery round, fired from the Hill of Philopappus, blew up
the magazine, and the building was partly destroyed. The explosion blew out the
building's central portion and caused the cella's walls to crumble into rubble.
Three of the four walls collapsed, or nearly so, and about three-fifths of the
sculptures from the frieze fell.[ About three hundred people were killed in the
explosion, which showered marble fragments over a significant area.[28] For the
next century and a half, portions of the remaining structure were scavenged for
building material and looted of any remaining objects of value.
Acquisition
In November
1798 the Earl of Elgin was appointed as "Ambassador Extraordinary and
Minister Plenipotentiary of His Britannic Majesty to the Sublime Porte of Selim
III, Sultan of Turkey" (Greece was then part of the Ottoman Empire).
Before his departure to take up the post he had approached officials of the
British government to inquire if they would be interested in employing artists
to take casts and drawings of the sculptured portions of the Parthenon.
According to Lord Elgin, "the answer of the Government ... was entirely
negative."
Lord Elgin
decided to carry out the work himself, and employed artists to take casts and
drawings under the supervision of the Neapolitan court painter, Giovani
Lusieri. According to a Turkish local, marble sculptures that fell were being
burned to obtain lime for building. Although his original intention was only to
document the sculptures, in 1801 Lord Elgin began to remove material from the
Parthenon and its surrounding structures under the supervision of Lusieri.
Pieces were also removed from the Erechtheion, the Propylaia, and the Temple of
Athena Nike, all inside the Acropolis.
The
excavation and removal was completed in 1812 at a personal cost to Elgin of
around £70,000. Elgin intended to use the marbles to decorate Broomhall House,
his private home near Dunfermline in Scotland, but a costly divorce suit forced
him to sell them to settle his debts. Elgin sold the Parthenon Marbles to the
British government for less than it cost him to procure them, declining higher
offers from other potential buyers, including Napoleon.
The
Parthenon Marbles acquired by Elgin include some 21 figures from the statuary
from the east and west pediments, 15 of an original 92 metope panels depicting
battles between the Lapiths and the Centaurs, as well as 75 meters of the
Parthenon Frieze which decorated the horizontal course set above the interior
architrave of the temple. As such, they represent more than half of what now
remains of the surviving sculptural decoration of the Parthenon.
Elgin's
acquisitions also included objects from other buildings on the Athenian
Acropolis: a Caryatid from Erechtheum; four slabs from the parapet frieze of
the Temple of Athena Nike; and a number of other architectural fragments of the
Parthenon, Propylaia, Erechtheum, the Temple of Athene Nike, and the Treasury
of Atreus.
Legality of
the removal from Athens
The
Acropolis was at that time an Ottoman military fort, so Elgin required special
permission to enter the site, the Parthenon, and the surrounding buildings. He
stated that he had obtained a firman from the Sultan which allowed his artists
to access the site, but he was unable to produce the original documentation.
However, Elgin presented a document claimed to be an English translation of an
Italian copy made at the time. This document is now kept in the British Museum.
Its authenticity has been questioned, as it lacked the formalities
characterising edicts from the sultan. Vassilis Demetriades, Professor of
Turkish Studies at the University of Crete, has argued that "any expert in
Ottoman diplomatic language can easily ascertain that the original of the
document which has survived was not a firman".The document was recorded in
an appendix of an 1816 parliamentary committee report. 'The committee
permission' had convened to examine a request by Elgin asking the British
government to purchase the Marbles. The report said that the document[35] in
the appendix was an accurate translation, in English, of an Ottoman firman
dated July 1801. In Elgin's view it amounted to an Ottoman authorisation to
remove the marbles. The committee was told that the original document was given
to Ottoman officials in Athens in 1801. Researchers have so far failed to
locate it despite the fact that firmans, being official decrees by the Sultan,
were meticulously recorded as a matter of procedure, and that the Ottoman
archives in Istanbul still hold a number of similar documents dating from the
same period.
The
parliamentary record shows that the Italian copy of the firman was not
presented to the committee by Elgin himself but by one of his associates, the
clergyman Rev. Philip Hunt. Hunt, who at the time resided in Bedford, was the
last witness to appear before the committee and stated that he had in his
possession an Italian translation of the Ottoman original. He went on to
explain that he had not brought the document, because, upon leaving Bedford, he
was not aware that he was to testify as a witness. The English document in the
parliamentary report was filed by Hunt, but the committee was not presented
with the Italian translation in Hunt's possession. William St. Clair, a
contemporary biographer of Lord Elgin, said he possessed Hunt's Italian
document and "vouches for the accuracy of the English translation".
The committee report states on page 69 "(Signed with a signet.) Seged
Abdullah Kaimacan" - however, the document presented to the committee was
"an English translation of this purported translation into Italian of the
original firman",[36] and had neither signet nor signature on it, a fact
corroborated by St. Clair. The 1967 study by British historian William St.
Clair, Lord Elgin and the Marbles, stated the sultan did not allow the removal
of statues and reliefs from the Parthenon. The study judged a clause
authorizing the British to take stones “with old inscriptions and figures”
probably meant items in the excavations the site, not the art decorating the
temples.
The
document allowed Elgin and his team to erect scaffolding so as to make drawings
and mouldings in chalk or gypsum, as well as to measure the remains of the
ruined buildings and excavate the foundations which may have become covered in
the [ghiaja (meaning gravel, debris)]; and "...that when they wish to take
away [qualche (meaning 'some' or 'a few')] pieces of stone with old
inscriptions or figures thereon, that no opposition be made thereto". The
interpretation of these lines has been questioned even by
non-restitutionalists, particularly the word qualche, which in modern language should
be translated as a few but can also mean any. According to
non-restitutionalists, further evidence that the removal of the sculptures by
Elgin was approved by the Ottoman authorities is shown by a second firman which
was required for the shipping of the marbles from Piraeus.
Many have
questioned the legality of Elgin's actions, including the legitimacy of the
documentation purportedly authorising them. A study by Professor David
Rudenstine of the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law concluded that the premise
that Elgin obtained legal title to the marbles, which he then transferred to
the British government, "is certainly not established and may well be
false". Rudenstine's argumentation is partly based on a translation
discrepancy he noticed between the surviving Italian document and the English
text submitted by Hunt to the parliamentary committee. The text from the
committee report reads "We therefore have written this Letter to you, and
expedited it by Mr. Philip Hunt, an English Gentleman, Secretary of the
aforesaid Ambassador" but according to the St. Clair Italian document the
actual wording is "We therefore have written this letter to you and
expedited it by N.N.". In Rudenstine's view, this substitution of
"Mr. Philip Hunt" with the initials "N.N." can hardly be a
simple mistake. He further argues that the document was presented after the
committee's insistence that some form of Ottoman written authorisation for the
removal of the marbles be provided, a fact known to Hunt by the time he testified.
Thus, according to Rudenstine, "Hunt put himself in a position in which he
could simultaneously vouch for the authenticity of the document and explain why
he alone had a copy of it fifteen years after he surrendered the original to
Ottoman officials in Athens". On two earlier occasions, Elgin stated that
the Ottomans gave him written permissions more than once, but that he had
"retained none of them." Hunt testified on March 13, and one of the
questions asked was "Did you ever see any of the written permissions which
were granted [to Lord Elgin] for removing the Marbles from the Temple of
Minerva?" to which Hunt answered "yes", adding that he possessed
an Italian translation of the original firman. Nonetheless, he did not explain
why he had retained the translation for 15 years, whereas Elgin, who had
testified two weeks earlier, knew nothing about the existence of any such
document.
English
travel writer Edward Daniel Clarke, an eyewitness, wrote that the Dizdar, the
Ottoman fortress commander on the scene, attempted to stop the removal of the
metopes but was bribed to allow it to continue. In contrast, John Merryman,
Sweitzer Professor of Law at Stanford Law School and also Professor of Art at
Stanford University, putting aside the discrepancy presented by Rudenstine,
argues that since the Ottomans had controlled Athens since 1460, their claims
to the artefacts were legal and recognisable. Sultan Selim III was grateful to
the British for repelling Napoleonic expansion, and unlike his ancestor Mehmet
II, the Parthenon marbles had no sentimental value to him. Further, that
written permission exists in the form of the firman, which is the most formal
kind of permission available from that government, and that Elgin had further
permission to export the marbles, legalises his (and therefore the British
Museum's) claim to the Marbles. He does note, though, that the clause
concerning the extent of Ottoman authorisation to remove the marbles "is
at best ambiguous", adding that the document "provides slender
authority for the massive removals from the Parthenon ... The reference to
'taking away any pieces of stone' seems incidental, intended to apply to
objects found while excavating. That was certainly the interpretation privately
placed on the firman by several of the Elgin party, including Lady Elgin.
Publicly, however, a different attitude was taken, and the work of dismantling
the sculptures on the Parthenon and packing them for shipment to England began
in earnest. In the process, Elgin's party damaged the structure, leaving the
Parthenon not only denuded of its sculptures but further ruined by the process
of removal. It is certainly arguable that Elgin exceeded the authority granted
in the firman in both respects".
The issue
of firmans of this nature, along with universally required bribes, was not
unusual at this time: In 1801 for example, Edward Clarke and his assistant John
Marten Cripps, obtained an authorisation from the governor of Athens for the
removal of a statue of the goddess Demeter which was at Eleusis, with the
intervention of Italian artist Giovanni Battista Lusieri who was Lord Elgin's
assistant at the time. Prior to Clarke, the statue had been discovered in 1676
by the traveller George Wheler, and since then several ambassadors had
submitted unsuccessful applications for its removal, but Clarke had been the
one to remove the statue by force,[48] after bribing the waiwode of Athens and
obtaining a firman, despite the objections and a riot, of the local population
who unofficially, and against the traditions of the iconoclastic Church,
worshiped the statue as the uncanonised Saint Demetra (Greek: Αγία Δήμητρα). The people would adorn the statue with
garlands,[48] and believed that the goddess was able to bring fertility to
their fields and that the removal of the statue would cause that benefit to
disappear. Clarke also removed other marbles from Greece such as a statue of
Pan, a figure of Eros, a comic mask, various reliefs and funerary steles,
amongst others. Clarke donated these to the University of Cambridge and
subsequently in 1803 the statue of Demeter was displayed at the university
library. The collection was later moved to the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge
where it formed one of the two main collections of the institution.
Contemporary
reaction
Contemporary
museum director in the Louvre had no doubt around the legality of the
acquisition of Lord Elgin. During the art restitutions of post-napoleonic
France to other European States, Vivant Denon, then director of former Musee
Napoleon then Louvre, wrote in a private letter to the French ambassador
Talleyrand who was then engaged in the Congress of Vienna: "If we yield to
the claims (for art restitution) of Holland and Belgium, we deprive the Museum
of one of its greatest assets, that of having a series of excellent
colorists... Russia is not hostile, Austria has had everything returned,
Prussia has a restoration more complete.... There remains only England, who has
in truth nothing to claim, but who, since she has just bought the bas-reliefs
of which Lord Elgin plundered the Temple at Athens, now thinks she can become a
rival of the Museum [Louvre], and wants to deplete this Museum in order to
collect the remains for her" (Denon to Talleyrand, quoted in Saunier, p.
114; Muintz, in Nouvelle Rev., CVII, 2OI). Vivant Denon uses clearly the verb
"plunder" in French.
A portrait
depicting the Parthenon Marbles in a temporary Elgin Room at the British Museum
surrounded by museum staff, a trustee and visitors, 1819
When the
marbles were shipped to England, they were "an instant success among
many"[9] who admired the sculptures and supported their arrival, but both
the sculptures and Elgin also received criticism from detractors. Lord Elgin
began negotiations for the sale of the collection to the British Museum in
1811, but negotiations failed despite the support of British artists after the
government showed little interest. Many Britons opposed purchase of the statues
because they were in bad condition and therefore did not display the
"ideal beauty" found in other sculpture collections. The following
years marked an increased interest in classical Greece, and in June 1816, after
parliamentary hearings, the House of Commons offered £35,000 in exchange for
the sculptures. Even at the time the acquisition inspired much debate, although
it was supported by "many persuasive calls" for the purchase.
Lord Byron
strongly objected to the removal of the marbles from Greece, denouncing Elgin
as a vandal. His point of view about the removal of the Marbles from Athens
is also mentioned in his narrative poem Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, published
in 1812, which itself was largely inspired by Byron's travels around the
Mediterranean and the Aegean Sea between 1809 and 1811:
Dull is the
eye that will not weep to see
Thy walls
defaced, thy mouldering shrines removed
By British
hands, which it had best behoved
To guard
those relics ne'er to be restored.
Curst be
the hour when from their isle they roved,
And once
again thy hapless bosom gored,
And
snatch'd thy shrinking gods to northern climes abhorred!
Byron was
not the only one to protest against the removal at the time. Sir John Newport
said:
The
Honourable Lord has taken advantage of the most unjustifiable means and has
committed the most flagrant pillages. It was, it seems, fatal that a representative
of our country loot those objects that the Turks and other barbarians had
considered sacred.
Edward
Daniel Clarke witnessed the removal of the metopes and called the action a
"spoliation", writing that "thus the form of the temple has
sustained a greater injury than it had already experienced from the Venetian
artillery," and that "neither was there a workman employed in the
undertaking ... who did not express his concern that such havoc should be
deemed necessary, after moulds and casts had been already made of all the
sculpture which it was designed to remove." When Sir Francis Ronalds
visited Athens and Giovanni Battista Lusieri in 1820, he wrote that "If
Lord Elgin had possessed real taste in lieu of a covetous spirit he would have
done just the reverse of what he has, he would have removed the rubbish and
left the antiquities."
A
parliamentary committee investigating the situation concluded that the
monuments were best given "asylum" under a "free
government" such as the British one. In 1810, Elgin published a defence of
his actions, but the subject remained controversial. A public debate in
Parliament followed Elgin's publication, and Parliament again exonerated
Elgin's actions, eventually deciding to purchase the marbles for the
"British nation" in 1816 by a vote of 82–30. Among the supporters of
Elgin was the painter Benjamin Robert Haydon. He was followed by Felicia Hemans
in her Modern Greece: A Poem (1817), who there took direct issue with Byron,
defying him with the question
And who may
grieve that, rescued from their hands,
Spoilers of
excellence and foes of art,
Thy relics,
Athens! borne to other lands
Claim
homage still to thee from every heart?
and quoting
Haydon and other defenders of their accessability in her notes.[56] John Keats
visited the British Museum in 1817 and recording his feelings in the sonnet
titled "On Seeing the Elgin Marbles. William Wordsworth also viewed the
marbles and commented favourably on their aesthetics in a letter to Haydon.
Following
the exhibition of the marbles in the British Museum, they were later displayed
in the specially constructed Elgin Saloon until the Duveen Gallery was completed in
1939. The crowds packing in to view them set attendance records for the museum.
Damage
Morosini
East
Pediment
Prior
damage to the marbles was sustained during successive wars, and it was during
such conflicts that the Parthenon and its artwork sustained, by far, the most
extensive damage. In particular, an explosion ignited by Venetian gun and
cannon-fire bombardment in 1687, whilst the Parthenon was used as a munitions
store during the Ottoman rule, destroyed or damaged many pieces of Parthenon
art, including some of that later taken by Lord Elgin. It was this explosion
that sent the marble roof, most of the cella walls, 14 columns from the north
and south peristyles, and carved metopes and frieze blocks flying and crashing
to the ground, destroying much of the artwork. Further damage to the
Parthenon's artwork occurred when the Venetian general Francesco Morosini
looted the site of its larger sculptures. The tackle he was using to remove the
sculptures proved to be faulty and snapped, dropping an over-life-sized
sculpture of Poseidon and the horses of Athena's chariot from the west pediment
on to the rock of the Acropolis 40 feet (12 m) below.
War of
Independence
The
Erechtheion was used as a munitions store by the Ottomans during the Greek War
of Independence (1821–1833) which ended the 355-year Ottoman rule of Athens.
The Acropolis was besieged twice during the war, first by the Greeks in 1821–22
and then by the Ottoman forces in 1826–27. During the first siege the besieged
Ottoman forces attempted to melt the lead in the columns to cast bullets, even
prompting the Greeks to offer their own bullets to the Ottomans in order to
minimize damage.
Elgin
Elgin
consulted with Italian sculptor Antonio Canova in 1803 about how best to
restore the marbles. Canova was considered by some to be the world's best
sculptural restorer of the time; Elgin wrote that Canova declined to work on
the marbles for fear of damaging them further.
To
facilitate transport by Elgin, the columns' capitals and many metopes and
frieze slabs were either hacked off the main structure or sawn and sliced into
smaller sections, causing irreparable damage to the Parthenon itself.[62][63]
One shipload of marbles on board the British brig Mentor was caught in a storm
off Cape Matapan in southern Greece and sank near Kythera, but was salvaged at
the Earl's personal expense; it took two years to bring them to the surface.
British Museum
The
artefacts held in London suffered from 19th-century pollution which persisted
until the mid-20th century and have suffered irreparable damage by previous
cleaning methods employed by British Museum staff.
As early as
1838, scientist Michael Faraday was asked to provide a solution to the problem
of the deteriorating surface of the marbles. The outcome is described in the
following excerpt from the letter he sent to Henry Milman, a commissioner for
the National Gallery.
The marbles
generally were very dirty ... from a deposit of dust and soot. ... I found the
body of the marble beneath the surface white. ... The application of water,
applied by a sponge or soft cloth, removed the coarsest dirt. ... The use of
fine, gritty powder, with the water and rubbing, though it more quickly removed
the upper dirt, left much embedded in the cellular surface of the marble. I
then applied alkalies, both carbonated and caustic; these quickened the
loosening of the surface dirt ... but they fell far short of restoring the
marble surface to its proper hue and state of cleanliness. I finally used
dilute nitric acid, and even this failed. ... The examination has made me
despair of the possibility of presenting the marbles in the British Museum in
that state of purity and whiteness which they originally possessed.
A further
effort to clean the marbles ensued in 1858. Richard Westmacott, who was
appointed superintendent of the "moving and cleaning the sculptures"
in 1857, in a letter approved by the British Museum Standing Committee on 13
March 1858 concluded
I think it
my duty to say that some of the works are much damaged by ignorant or careless
moulding – with oil and lard – and by restorations in wax and resin. These
mistakes have caused discolouration. I shall endeavour to remedy this without,
however, having recourse to any composition that can injure the surface of the
marble.
Yet another
effort to clean the marbles occurred in 1937–38. This time the incentive was
provided by the construction of a new Gallery to house the collection. The
Pentelic marble mined from Mount Pentelicus north of Athens, from which the
sculptures are made, naturally acquires a tan colour similar to honey when exposed
to air; this colouring is often known as the marble's "patina" but
Lord Duveen, who financed the whole undertaking, acting under the misconception
that the marbles were originally white probably arranged for the team of masons
working in the project to remove discolouration from some of the sculptures.
The tools used were seven scrapers, one chisel and a piece of carborundum
stone. They are now deposited in the British Museum's Department of
Preservation. The cleaning process scraped away some of the detailed tone of
many carvings. According to Harold Plenderleith, the surface removed in some
places may have been as much as one-tenth of an inch (2.5 mm).
The British
Museum has responded with the statement that "mistakes were made at that
time." On another occasion it was said that "the damage had been
exaggerated for political reasons" and that "the Greeks were guilty
of excessive cleaning of the marbles before they were brought to Britain."
During the international symposium on the cleaning of the marbles, organised by
the British Museum in 1999, curator Ian Jenkins, deputy keeper of Greek and
Roman antiquities, remarked that "The British Museum is not infallible, it
is not the Pope. Its history has been a series of good intentions marred by the
occasional cock-up, and the 1930s cleaning was such a cock-up".
Nonetheless, he claimed that the prime cause for the damage inflicted upon the
marbles was the 2000-year-long weathering on the Acropolis.
American
archeologist Dorothy King, in a newspaper article, wrote that techniques
similar to the ones used in 1937–38 were applied by Greeks as well in more
recent decades than the British, and maintained that Italians still find them
acceptable. The British Museum said that a similar cleaning of the Temple of
Hephaestus in the Athenian Agora was carried out by the conservation team of
the American School of Classical Studies at Athens in 1953 using steel chisels
and brass wire. According to the Greek ministry of Culture, the cleaning was
carefully limited to surface salt crusts. The 1953 American report concluded
that the techniques applied were aimed at removing the black deposit formed by
rain-water and "brought out the high technical quality of the
carving" revealing at the same time "a few surviving particles of
colour".
Documents
released by the British Museum under the Freedom of Information Act revealed
that a series of minor accidents, thefts and acts of vandalism by visitors have
inflicted further damage to the sculptures. This includes an incident in 1961
when two schoolboys knocked off a part of a centaur's leg. In June 1981, a west
pediment figure was slightly chipped by a falling glass skylight, and in 1966
four shallow lines were scratched on the back of one of the figures by vandals.
In 1970 letters were scratched on to the upper right thigh of another figure.
Four years later, the dowel hole in a centaur's hoof was damaged by thieves
trying to extract pieces of lead.
Athens
Air
pollution and acid rain have damaged the marble and stonework. The last
remaining slabs from the western section of the Parthenon frieze were removed
from the monument in 1993 for fear of further damage. They have now been
transported to the New Acropolis Museum.
Until
cleaning of the remaining marbles was completed in 2005, black crusts and
coatings were present on the marble surface. The laser technique applied on the
14 slabs that Elgin did not remove revealed a surprising array of original
details, such as the original chisel marks and the veins on the horses'
bellies. Similar features in the British Museum collection have been scraped
and scrubbed with chisels to make the marbles look white. Between January 20
and the end of March 2008, 4200 items (sculptures, inscriptions small
terracotta objects), including some 80 artefacts dismantled from the monuments
in recent years, were removed from the old museum on the Acropolis to the new
Parthenon Museum. Natural disasters have also affected the Parthenon. In 1981,
an earthquake caused damage to the east façade.
Since 1975,
Greece has been restoring the Acropolis. This restoration has included
replacing the thousands of rusting iron clamps and supports that had previously
been used, with non-corrosive titanium rods; removing surviving artwork
from the building into storage and subsequently into a new museum built
specifically for the display of the Parthenon art; and replacing the artwork
with high-quality replicas. This process has come under fire from some groups
as some buildings have been completely dismantled, including the dismantling of
the Temple of Athena Nike and for the unsightly nature of the site due to the
necessary cranes and scaffolding. But the hope is to restore the site to
some of its former glory, which may take another 20 years and 70 million euros,
though the prospect of the Acropolis being "able to withstand the most
extreme weather conditions – earthquakes" is "little consolation to
the tourists visiting the Acropolis" according to The Guardian. Under
continuous international pressure, Directors of the British Museum have not ruled
out agreeing to what they call a "temporary" loan to the new museum,
but state that it would be under the condition of Greece acknowledging the
British Museum's claims to ownership.
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