Can Museums Help Change the Antiquities Market?Guidelines, Best Practices, and a Case Study in Restitution

Victoria ReedMonica S. Sadler Curator for Provenance

Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

Recent headlines (2011-2013)

NEW REPORT ON ACQUISITION OF ARCHAEOLOGICAL MATERIALS AND ANCIENT ART ISSUED BY ASSOCIATION

OF ART MUSEUM DIRECTORS (JUNE 4, 2008)

…States that AAMD members normally should not acquire a work unless research substantiates that the work was outside its country of probable modern discovery before 1970 or was legally exported from its probable country of modern discovery after 1970.

Provides a specific framework for members to evaluate the circumstances under which a work that does not have a complete ownership history dating to 1970 may be considered for acquisition

Announces a new section of the AAMD website where museums will publish images and information on acquisitions of ancient works, in order to make such information readily and publicly accessible....

http://aam-us.org/resources/ethics-standards-and-best-practices/

Juno, Roman, early 2nd century ADFirst recorded: 1633, Ludovisi collection1897, Brandegee family, Brookline, MA

2011, sold to the MFA.

Buddha with two bodhisattvasChinese, 516 AD

1963, sold to Arthur Sackler2012, gift of the Sackler Foundation to MFA.

HachaMexican, Veracruz, Classic

Period, 400–800 AD

Purchased in 1962 by Jepthaand Emily Wade; bequest to

the MFA, 2012.

Head of a block statueEgyptian, New Kingdom,

18th Dynasty

First documented: 1896, Lady Meux collection,

London.

2014, sold by Axel Vervoordt to the MFA.

Pectoral with ‘ib’ amuletEgyptian, New Kingdom. Late

18-19th Dynasty

Between 1895 and 1898, found at Abydos, Egypt, by Emile

Amélineau

2014, sold by Rupert Wace to the MFA.

The European Fine Art Fair, Maastricht, 2014

“The Egyptian piece was a gift from my great-uncle, John H. Behrman to me while he resided in my parents’ home during the last years of his life. He died in

our house in January 1945. It has been in my possession since the gift was made, having never been exhibited in public. When I lived at home the piece

hung in my room (1945-1959). Since that time, it has been in storage.”(Unsigned statement, 1981)

About 1979, stolen from Lafayette College, Easton Pennsylvania(MFA 1981.159)

Bonhams, October 2, 2014 lot 192

Before research

By 1954, Millard Meiss (b. 1904 – d. 1975), Princeton, NJ [see note]; by inheritance to his widow, Margaret L. Meiss (d. 1994); probably given or bequeathed by Mrs. Meiss to the Nature Conservancy, Boston. 1996, sold by Charles Ede, Ltd., London, to a private collector, Japan. October 2, 2014, anonymous sale (auction 21928), Bonhams, London, lot 192, to the MFA. (Accession Date: November 19, 2014)

NOTE: He lent the sculpture to the Fogg Art Museum, Cambridge, MA, in 1954.

After research

Signed statement from Leo S. Figiel to dealer Subhash Kapoor, April 13, 2005:

“Regarding the small Chola figure of Shivaand Parvati – Please be advised that I purchased this figure from a European

collector in 1969.”

The sculpture in question at the left, after its sale by Kapoor; and at the right, as Kapoor acquired it in 2004, broken and covered in dirt.

Albert Stöcker (d. 1987), The Netherlands and France; April 12-13, 1989, Stöcker estate sale, AderPicard Tajan, Paris, lot 251, sold to Jean-Loup Despras (d. 2001), Galerie Orient-Occident, Paris; sold by Despras to the Galerie Cybele, Paris; 1995, sold by Cybele to Royal-Athena Galleries, New York; 2002, sold by Royal-Athena to a private collection; 2008, sold by this private collection back to Royal-Athena Galleries.

Granodiorite torso of a scribeEgyptian, Middle Kingdom, 12th Dynasty,

about 1971-1926 B.C height: 14 1/2 in.

Offered to the MFA in 2009:

Sotheby’s, London, March 5, 1962

William and Bertha Teel Collection

William Teel (1928 – 2012) with Christraud Geary, Teel Curator Emeritaof African and Oceanic Art

“Found in Bremen, Germany, circa 1910.“-African art dealer, in 1990

Helmet Mask

Elema peoples, Papuan Gulf, Papua New Guinea19th century

78.74 cm (31 in.)

Bark-cloth, bamboo, raffia, reed, pigments

Pitt-Rivers notebooks, volume 3, p. 1099Cambridge University Library (MS Add.9455)

Between about 1886 and 1891, acquired in Papua New Guinea by Edwin Bentley Savage (b. 1853 or 1854), England;

October 20, 1894, sold by Savage to Lt.-General Augustus Henry Pitt-Rivers (b. 1827 - d. 1900), Farnham, England;

Transferred to the Pitt-Rivers Museum, Farnham (Room 7, case 65).

“M. Luttig, France” for over 15 years?

Portrait Head12th-14th centuryIfe Kingdom, Nigeria

Terracotta7 ¾ inches

Purchased from LovartInternational, 1995

Indication of possible looting:

Keith Nicklin, Ekpu: The Oron AncestorFigures of South Eastern Nigeria, as in the Oron

Museum; photo creditNational Commission for Museums and

Monuments, Nigeria

Indication of possible theft:

January, 1990, said to have been collected from the family altar of brass casters, Benin City, Nigeria

September, 1990, said to have been collected in Buguma, Nigeria.

February, 1993, said to have been collected in Nigeria

Sold to Mr. Teel in the U.S. between 1990 and 1994:

Boston Globe, June 26, 2014

Asked about the MFA’s returns, Davis is philosophical.

“I’ll take the hit,” he said. “I knew it was coming. I knew we were getting politically correct that nothing should be exported, and the people be damned.”

“I think the MFA has made a mistake,” he said.

“This is African language,” he said. “Africa never had a real written language. Their art was their way of communicating. There are great notions like abstraction that we’ve learned from. To deny this to the rest of world would be a travesty. Without these wonderful objects, without the story being told, there would be no Pablo Picasso. To put prohibition on these things is a step way over the line.”

-Art dealer Charles Davis, in an interview with Jason FelchTaken from ChasingAphrodite.com