The Metropolitan Museum of New York announced on Tuesday the return to Yemen of two antiquities, at a time when the prestigious museum promises to be more transparent about the origin of its collections and to return works resulting from art trafficking to their countries . If they now belong to Yemen, the two sculptures, “Standing female figure wearing a bracelet and necklace”a piece of sandstone and quartzite dating back to the third millennium BC, and a “Rectangular mortar” in veined marble from the same period, will remain on loan in the Met collections.
“Due to the current situation in Yemen”the poorest country on the Arabian Peninsula, plagued by war and one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises, “this is not the time to return these objects to our homeland”said Mohammed al-Hadhrami, Yemen’s ambassador to the United States, in the museum’s statement.
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Trafic d’art international
The Met acquired the statue in 1998 from a collector, Jean-Luc Chalmin, who also donated the mortar in 1999. “Following research by the Met into their provenance, specialists established that the pieces were found near the town of Marib in 1984 and legitimately belonged to the Republic of Yemen”underlines the museum, which did not provide other details on the origin of the pieces.
In recent years, the Met and other prestigious museums in the United States and around the world have agreed to collaborate with justice and return numerous pieces and works resulting from international art trafficking, particularly after looting in countries troubled by war or civil revolutions. In New York, the Manhattan prosecutor’s office has been leading a campaign to return works of art since 2017.
Under the aegis of prosecutor Alvin Bragg, in office since 2022, more than 950 coins worth $165 million have been returned to 19 countries, including Cambodia, China, India, Pakistan, Egypt, Iraq, Greece, Turkey or Italy. Last May, the director of the Met, Max Hollein, announced the creation of a new commission of researchers to «examiner» the «provenance» of certain pieces from the extraordinary collection of its museum (1.5 million works) in order, in the event of theft and looting, to “return” to the countries of origin.
2023-09-19 20:42:08
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