I suppose you have heard the story of this marble head in
Cleveland, that either has been, or is in the process of being, returned to
Italy because it turns out that it was stolen from the museum in Sessa Aurunca
in 1944. The usual suspects are making rude remarks and pointing fingers about
it, but, in fact, I think it might be a very good and exemplary story for you
to tell on your blog.
The big thing is that it, and another piece, appeared at
auction in Paris in 2004 - illustrated - but no one said peep about them.
Apparently two Italian scholars wrote about the head around the time Cleveland
acquired it, illustrating, FINALLY, record photos of a number of heads from
Sessa that were discovered in excavations there in 1926. I want to stress the
fact that despite there being record photos, taken in 1926, of some sculpture
stolen in 1944, those photos were never publicly shown prior to 2011 or so!!!
In any case, we can be sure that Cleveland actually did everything that was
normally and humanly possible to do when they acquired the piece in 2012. The story
they had: that the head was from a collection in France, brought there from
Algeria in 1960 (when A was part of France), and previously in a collection in
Algeria (they said since the 19th century), was by no means implausible. In any
case, the possibility that the head had been looted in Sessa by French troops
from Algeria in 1944 would go far to explain the head's supposed Algerian
origins.
That the head should go back to Sessa is clear: it is modern
war loot. But when does the story end? The way the usual suspects use the story
to attack the "bad" American museum and the "bad" dealer, but say poo about the fact that a clear
photograph, that was in existence by 1926 of an object that was stolen in 1944,
remained unpublished until 2011/2013 or so is an even greater scandal!
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