|
|
 |
|
| Feature |
The Specter of Spoils
Ernest Beck
01/01/2005
|
The Sack of Iraq
The ransacking and looting of the National Museum of Antiquities in Baghdad after the fall of Saddam Hussein—thousands of works are still missing—is only the latest example of the plunder of a developing nation’s cultural heritage. This type of pillaging has occurred for decades, mostly carried out by locals armed with digging tools and metal detectors who comb through archeological sites looking for buried treasure. “Sometimes they strike it rich,” says Malcolm Bell, professor of classical archeology at the University of Virginia. The antiquities are then smuggled over the border, often by middlemen, and taken to dealers in places such as Switzerland or London, Bell explains.
Joseph Braude, a Middle East scholar, was recently convicted for trying to smuggle stolen Mesopotamian relics, specifically seals, from Iraq into the United States. (The American ban on Iraqi imports includes antiquities.) Braude, a graduate of Princeton and Yale universities, is the author of the book, The New Iraq: Rebuilding the Country for Its People, the Middle East, and the World. According to court documents, Braude acquired the treasures in Baghdad from a man known as the king of the black market, who had presented him with a plastic bag filled with a dozen seals. Braude told the court that he had intended to turn over the seals to the proper authorities once he was in the United States.
No one can accurately gauge the extent of the market for such antiquities. Most knowledgeable collectors would shy away from acquiring works that were obviously plundered from Iraq, and the blaze of publicity has underscored the need to report them if they are offered for sale. Yet this has not stopped attempts to export the works. According to a report last year by Marine Colonel Matthew Bogdanos, head of the American investigative team at the Baghdad Museum, almost 800 illegally exported objects had been seized in Britain, Italy, Jordan and the United States. Although the European Union, Switzerland and other countries have tightened laws on illegal exports, business is said to be flourishing, say observers who point to rising prices for Islamic and Middle Eastern art.
Bell, for one, has nothing against collectors who enjoy antiquities and want to own works. But he admits that it pains him to see the consequences of archeological sites being stripped to meet market demands for such objects. “Dealers generally don’t ask questions about objects that don’t have a known provenance, and these objects are certain to have been looted,” he argues.
In one ongoing case, Italian authorities are seeking an indictment against Marion True, curator of antiquities at the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles, for receiving stolen property and exporting stolen antiquities related to the museum’s 1996 acquisition of the Barbara and Lawrence Fleischman collection of antiquities. Three dealers, an Italian, an American and a Swiss, have also been named in the case. If it goes ahead, Italian prosecutors must prove that True knowingly acquired works that had been illegally exported. Barbara Fleischman has been quoted as saying that all the pieces given to the Getty have documented provenances, with guarantees of legal export and clear title that she has turned over to the museum.
Deborah Gribbon, who resigned in October as director of the Getty Museum, has said that she had no reason to be more concerned about the Fleischman works than any other similar collection. She said the absence of data about its findspots—sites where the objects were found or excavated—is not unusual in antiquities collections.Museum curators try to determine how objects came into the seller’s possession, looking for red flags such as a period of time when the whereabouts of the work cannot be ascertained. “We are vigilant but open-minded,” Gribbon says. “More often than not, there are gaps because the objects are very old and have been passed through the market with very little documentation.” Investigations continue after a work is acquired, but there are times when the museum gets it wrong and returns an object. In 1999, for example, the Getty restituted a first-century marble head from the Fleischman collection.
“It is possible that almost every major collection contains a work with a problematic provenance,” says Ronald Spencer, a New York attorney who specializes in art law. “Legitimate questions may have existed, and sometimes someone wasn’t quite diligent enough, but one can be only so diligent.”
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
