More than a thousand objects from the catalog of the Metropolitan Museum of Art (MET) in New Yorksuch as statues, friezes and precious objects that go from India to Italy or Egypt, come from suspicious acquisition practices such as looting and trafficking, according to an investigation by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists.
The investigation found 1,109 pieces, of which less than half have records describing how they left their country of origin, that previously belonged to people accused or convicted of crimes against antiquities or their galleries, and 309 of them are currently on display. , the newspaper reported today The Guardian.
A concrete example: in more than 250 ancient objects from Nepal and Kashmir, only three have origin records explaining how they came out of their regions of origin. The result of the investigation should not be surprising, since throughout its history the MET has received numerous complaints of appropriation of objects and in some cases it has voluntarily returned some items, while in others it has been the courts that seized the objects, such as acts of reparation for violence and patrimonial looting.
One of the most resonant and recent cases is the complaint from the Bungamati community in Nepal, who one day had a statue of Shreedhar Vishnu, the Hindu protector god, stolen from a sanctuary. A decade later the piece appeared on display at the MET, until it a Facebook account called Lost Arts of Nepal he finally identified her and executed the complaint.
At this point, Tess Davis, executive director of the Antiquities Coalition, an organization that seeks to prevent and raise awareness about the looting of antiquities, warned that with these practices “the Met sets the tone for museums around the world” and if ” the Met is letting all these things go under the radar, what hope do we have for the rest of the art market?
For her part and in response to the results of the investigation, a spokesperson for the museum assured that “it is committed to responsible art collecting and does everything possible to guarantee that all the works that enter the collection comply with the laws and policies strict rules in effect at the time of the acquisition,” said Kenneth Weine. And he clarified that “in addition, as collection laws and guidelines have changed over time, so have museum policies and procedures. The Met also continually researches the history of works in the collection, often in collaboration with colleagues in countries around the world, and has a long history of acting on new information as appropriate.”
Another episode that went international occurred in 2018 when businesswoman and influencer Kim Kardashian posted a photo next to a golden Egyptian coffin inside a private gallery at the Met Gala. What Kardashian did not imagine, that she posed next to the sarcophagus because her dress matched the piece, is that her photo would become a key piece to solve a criminal mystery about a work of more than 2000 years.
It turned out that the Met had purchased the piece from a dealer who had provided the museum with a poorly forged export license. An investigation by the Manhattan district attorney’s office determined that the coffin had indeed been looted from Egypt. In early 2019, the museum agreed to return it.
But that was not the only recent return: 27 pieces from ancient Rome, Greece and Egypt that had been looted and were part of the MET collection were repatriated last year, and 30 artifacts linked to Douglas Latchford, a dealer, were also returned to Cambodia. dealer who was accused of leading an illegal artifacts trafficking ring. In September 2021, authorities seized more than 100 pieces from one of the museum’s billionaire donors, Michael Steinhardt. The action was part of a deferred prosecution agreement reached between Steinhardt and the district attorney’s office and involved some pieces that had been on display at the New York museum.
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