Does Italy Only Send Long-Term Loans to Museums that Have Repatriated Objects?

During his testimony during the Nov. 13th CPAC hearing, Maxwell Anderson of the Indianapolis Museum of Art suggested that the only AAMD member museums that have benefited from long-term loans with Italy are those that have repatriated artifacts.

Patty Gerstenblith contested this allegation, mentioning the National Gallery of Art's Pompeii Exhibit. See http://culturalpropertyobserver.blogspot.com/2009/01/mario-resca-to-rescue.html She also noted that SMU has an exhibit of archaeological finds. Of course, one should note that while the NGA is an AAMD Member, it is also an instrumentality of the federal government. As for SMU, it excavates in Italy, and the exhibit apparently displayed finds of its own faculty and students. See http://smu.edu/poggio/

In any event, the current MOU with Italy does not link long-term loans to repatriation efforts. See: http://exchanges.state.gov/heritage/culprop/itfact/pdfs/it2001guidelines.pdf
Instead, Italy is supposed to promote agreements for long-term loans to all American Museums.

To solve this perceived problem, Anderson suggested that Italy should create a database of objects it is willing to lend on a long-term basis. It remains to be seen whether CPAC adopts this recommendation and whether it finds its way into the next MOU (assuming, of course, current restrictions are extended for another five years).

Ancient Greek and Roman Coins from Italy Appear on AAMD Objects Registry

The Boston Museum of Fine Arts has listed several Greek and Roman coins with varying amounts of provenance information on the AAMD Object Registry. See http://aamdobjectregistry.org/taxonomy/term/70

The Greek and Roman coins struck in Italy carry the following note,

Per the MFA’s 2006 agreement with the Italian Ministry of Culture, the Museum contacted Ministry representatives prior to acquiring the coin; the Ministry raised no objection to the acquisition.

During his testimony at CPAC, Stefano De Caro referenced the Ministry of Culture's consent to the MFA's accession of these coins, presumably to show how "reasonable" the Italian Cultural Bureaucracy can be.

But if the Italian Ministry of Culture wishes to be "reasonable," why require U.S. collectors to certify the provenance of ancient Roman and Greek coins struck in Italy before import, particularly when there is NO REQUIREMENT that Italian collectors do the same for coins they collect?

CPRI "Orphans Study" Stimulates Debate in Blogosphere

One of the points of the CPRI "Orphans Study" was to stimulate debate. And so it has. For an interesting discussion of some the issues related to the study, see Larry Rothfield's "The Punching Bag" blog: https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=5868481&postID=2125331681275459362&pli=1

Is the Italian Cultural Bureaucracy the Best Steward for Coins?

In my planned oral statement for last Friday's CPAC meeting (which was abbreviated somewhat in the telling at the Chairwoman's request), I observed,

Italy has one of the world’s richest economies. Yet, ..efforts to reform the system have run up against an entrenched cultural bureaucracy and given serious under funding, “passive preservation” has become the rule. In such an environment, it is no wonder that Italy has done a poor job taking care of the coins at state institutions and archaeological sites. In particular,

• Coins in museums have historically suffered from major thefts and poor internal documentation.
• Institutional collections are poorly documented in published form.
• The publication record for coins found in Italian excavations is poor.
• Without publication it is almost impossible to know what has been found and what has become of the material.

This of course suggests that the Italian state may not be the best steward of common artifacts like coins—and collectors should continue to be able to study, preserve and display them through their own efforts.

Interestingly, neither Stefano De Caro nor anyone else from the archaeological community contested these facts, and, indeed I recall De Caro admitting that publishing coins was "difficult."

Yet, Mr. De Caro defended Italy's claims to all coins struck there in ancient times, stating they were being made on behalf of "Pax Britannia," etc. Is De Caro's claims to all ancient coins struck in Italy aimed at furthering scholarship and the preservation of these common artifacts or is it in reality about nationalism and bureaucratic control? Do the facts deceive us or is the Italian cultural bureaucracy really the best steward for ancient coins struck in Italy? And what are the AIA's views about the state of coins under the care of the Italian cultural bureaucracy and Mr. De Caro's claims to all ancient coins struck in Italy?

Against PAS Because the ACCG is for It?

I have been struck by SAFE associate Blogger David Gill's increasingly negative comments about the U.K.'s Portable Antiquities Scheme. Compare Gill from 2008 when continued funding for the scheme was in doubt
(http://lootingmatters.blogspot.com/2008/03/portable-antiquities-scheme-to-preserve.html and http://lootingmatters.blogspot.com/2008/01/portable-antiquities-scheme-funding.html) with Gill of today (http://lootingmatters.blogspot.com/2009/11/portable-antiquities-scheme-cited-in.html)

If the scheme is worth funding isn't it worth asking the Italians (who are every bit as wealthy as the English) to investigate?

Does Gill even disagree with Lord Refrew on this point? See http://culturalpropertyobserver.blogspot.com/2009/01/report-on-lord-renfrew-talk-in-new-york.html ("The talk was followed by Q&A, so, knowing that Renfrew had supported PAS when its funding was threatened, I took the opportunity to ask: "Do you think that if other source countries were to adopt similar schemes, that it would help to reduce looting ?". His answer was an unqualified yes ("brilliant scheme"), with none of the usual caveats about it not being our place to dictate antiquity policy to other nations.").

A Case in Antiquities for Finders Keepers

John Tierney, writing in the New York Times Science section, applies Jim Cuno's critiques of the nationalistic cast of the repatriation game to the latest offensives of Zahi Hawass against Western Museums. See http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/17/science/17tier.html?_r=1&emc=eta1

In so doing, he observes,

Restricting the export of artifacts hasn’t ended their theft and looting any more than the war on drugs has ended narcotics smuggling. Instead, the restrictions promote the black market and discourage the kind of open research that would benefit everyone except criminals.

...

Some of the most culturally protectionist nations today, like Egypt, Italy and Turkey, are trying to hoard treasures that couldn’t have been created without the inspiration provided by imported works of art. (Imagine the Renaissance without the influence of “looted” Greek antiquities.) And the current political rulers of those countries often have little in common culturally with the creators of the artifacts they claim to own.

I can't agree more, but would again suggest systems like the U.K.'s Treasure Act and PAS can help make the public allies of archaeologists and the State when it comes to reporting antiquities.

Gotcha Italian Style

During his testimony during the interim review of the Italian MOU, antiquities dealer representative Bill Pearlstein made a good point about the US Customs' recent seizure of two ancient vases. See http://culturalpropertyobserver.blogspot.com/2009/10/us-customs-announces-recovery-of.html The vases that were consigned to an auction were apparently identified as coming from the Medici stash of illicit artifacts, but Italy has apparently never listed the artifacts -- known from pictures- on the Art Loss Register. Italy has thus not allowed U.S. auction houses the opportunity to research these pieces before they are listed for auction. Instead of providing U.S. auction houses the means to identify such artifacts. Italian and U.S. authorities would rather lay in wait for such pieces to be listed for auction-- and then sweep in with maximum publicity to seize the artifacts.

Are the Italians and US Customs more interested in playing "gotcha" than anything else? Some might conclude, "you betcha!"