Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-m9kch Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-30T18:51:21.927Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Modern Antiquities: The Looted and the Faked

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 April 2013

David A. Scott
David A. Scott*
Affiliation:
Professor, Department of Art History; Founding Director, 2003–2011, UCLA/Getty Program in Archaeological and Ethnographic Conservation, Cotsen Institute of Archaeology. Email: dascott@ucla.edu.
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This article discusses some of the issues regarding the acquisition of art and the different philosophical views of some of the main protagonists regarding the reclaiming of art by nation-states, following American museums' acceptance of the 1970 UNESCO Convention, using examples from the Getty Museum and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The mediation of Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA) claims by conservators is often an important component of the dialogue between museums and native communities. The philosophical and art-historical opinions regarding the value of copies and reproductions of works of art have oscillated from promulgation in the 1860s to outright rejection by the 1920s. In a modernist sense, points of view are once again open to reevaluation as host nations demand back more originals than ever before. Arguments against the claims of nationalist-retentionist countries and those advanced in favor of the claims of nation-states regarding the repatriation of their art are discussed. The problems created by looted art in association with the ever-increasing number of fakes is highlighted, with examples of the issues surrounding pre-Columbian art and some classical antiquities. The utility of copies in relation to the protective value of the authentic piece is discussed in the context of museum examples in which the concept of the utilization of copies for museum display has been accepted in certain cases as desirable.

Type
Research Article
Information
International Journal of Cultural Property , Volume 20 , Issue 1 , February 2013 , pp. 49 - 75
Copyright
Copyright © International Cultural Property Society 2013

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

American Association of Museums. American Association of Museums Standards Regarding Archaeological Material and Ancient Art. www.aam-us.org (July 2008) accessed 12 August 2012.Google Scholar
Apollo from Pompeii: Investigating an Ancient Bronze. Exhibition: 2 March–12 September 2011. www.getty.edu/art/exhibitions/apollo 2012b (accessed 3 January 2012)Google Scholar
Appadurai, Arjun. “Introduction: Commodities and the Politics of Value.” In Appadurai, Arjun (Ed.) The Social Life of Things: Commodities in Cultural Perspective. 5–61. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Appiah, Kwame. Cosmopolitanism: Ethics in a World of Strangers. New York: WW Norton, 2006.Google Scholar
Australian ICOMOS. Heritage Council of Australia. Government of Western Australia, 1979, revised 1999.Google Scholar
Baker, Malcolm. “The History of the Cast Courts.” V&A website. http://www.vam.ac.uk/content/articles/t/the-cast-courts/ (1982) accessed 12 November 2011.Google Scholar
Bauer, Alexander A., Lindsay, Shanel, and Urice, Stephen. “When Theory, Practice and Policy Collide, or Why Do Archaeologists Support Cultural Property Claims?” In Archaeology and Capitalism, edited by Hamilakis, Yannis and Duke, Philip, 45–59. Walnut Creek, CA: Left Coast Press, 2007.Google Scholar
Best, E. “Cremation Practices Amongst the Maori Tribes of New Zealand.” Man 32 (1914): 49–50.Google Scholar
Brandi, Cesare. The Theory of Restoration. (trans. Cynthia Rockwell; rev. Dorothy Bell). Firenze: Nardini, 1965/2005.Google Scholar
Bray, Warwick. The Gold of El Dorado. New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1980.Google Scholar
Bray, Warwick, de Schrimpff, Marianne Cardale, Herrera, Leonor, Legast, Anne, Patino, Diogenes, and Rodriguez, Carlos Armando. “Lords of the Marshes: The Malagana People.” In Calima and Malagana: Art and Archaeology in Southwestern Colombia, edited by de Schrimpff, Marianne Cardale, 140–197. Geneva: Pro Calima Foundation, 2005.Google Scholar
Brown, Michael F. “Exhibiting Indigenous Heritage in the Age of Cultural Property.” In Whose Culture? The Promise of Museums and the Debate Over Antiquities, edited by Cuno, James, 145–164. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2009.Google Scholar
Byron, Lord George Gordon. “The Curse of Minerva.” In Bentham, Byron and Greece, edited by Risson, Fred. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1811/1992.Google Scholar
Caune, Jean. La Politique Culturelle Initiée par Malraux. Une Certain Idée d'Art. http://www.espacestemps.net/en/ (2010) accessed 12 April 2012.Google Scholar
Clark, Sir Kenneth. The Other Half: A Self-Portrait. New York and London: Harper Collins.Google Scholar
Cuno, James, ed. Whose Muse? Art Museums and the Public Trust. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2004.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cuno, James. Who Owns Antiquity? Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2008.Google Scholar
Cuno, James, ed. Whose Culture? The Promise of Museums and the Debate Over Antiquities. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2009.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Department of Science and Art of the Committee of the Council on Education. List of Medals, Medallions and Plaques Reproduced in Metal in the South Kensington Museum. London: Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1889.Google Scholar
Felch, Jason, and Frammolino, Ralph. Chasing Aphrodite: The Hunt for Looted Antiquities at the World's Richest Museum. New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2011.Google Scholar
Foucault, Michel. L'Hermeneutique du Sujet. Cours au College de France 1981–1982, 173. Paris: Gallimard Seuil, 2001.Google Scholar
Hamilakis, Yannis. “Stories from Exile: Fragments from the Cultural Biography of the Parthenon (or ‘Elgin’) Marbles.” World Archaeology 31 (1999): 303–20.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hamilakis, Yannis, and Duke, Philip, eds. Archaeology and Capitalism. Walnut Creek, CA: Left Coast Press, 2007.Google Scholar
Hardy, Matthew, ed. The Venice Charter Revisited: Modernism, Conservation and Tradition in the 21st century. Newcastle-upon-Tyne: Cambridge Scholars, 2008.Google Scholar
Holtorf, Cornelius. From Stonehenge to Las Vegas: Archaeology as Popular Culture. Walnut Creek, CA: Alta Mira Press, 2005.Google Scholar
Hudson, Manley O. “Present Status of the Hague Conventions of 1899 and 1907.” American Journal of International Law 25 (1931): 114–17.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Iamandi, Cristina. “The Charters of Athens 1931 and 1933: Coincidence, Controversy and Convergence.” Conservation and Management of Archaeological Sites 2 (1997): 17–28.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lovata, Troy. Inauthentic Archaeologies. Walnut Creek, CA: Left Coast Press, 2007.Google Scholar
Lowenthal, David. The Past Is a Foreign Country. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990.Google Scholar
Lowenthal, David. “Why Sanctions Seldom Work: Reflections on Cultural Property Internationalism.” International Journal of Cultural Property 12 (2005): 393–423.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lyons, Claire. “Objects and Identities: Claiming and Reclaiming the Past.” In Claiming the Stones, Naming the Bones The Archaeology of Colonialism, edited by Barkan, Elazar and Bush, Ronald, 116–41. Los Angeles: Getty Research Institute, 2002.Google Scholar
MacGregor, Neil. A History of the World in 100 Objects. London: Allen Lane, 2010.Google Scholar
Malraux, André.La Politique, la Culture: Discours, Articles, Entrentiens 1925–1975. Paris: Gallimard, 1996.Google Scholar
McGuire, Randall, and Walker, Mark. “Class Confrontations in Archaeology.” Historical Archaeology 33 (1999): 159–83.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Merryman, John Henry. Thinking About the Elgin Marbles: Critical Essays on Cultural Property, Art and Law. London: Kluwer Law International, 2009.Google Scholar
Merryman, John Henry. “The Nation and the Object.” In Whose Culture? The Promise of Museums and the Debate Over Antiquities, edited by Cuno, James, 123–28. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2009.Google Scholar
“Met and Princeton Objects Returned to Italy.” Chasing Aphrodite website. Chasingaphrodite.com/tag/almagia 2012a (accessed 27 February 2012).Google Scholar
Newell, Jenny, and King, Jonathan. Human Remains from New Zealand. Briefing Notes for the Trustees. www.britishmuseum.org/pdf/00%2012%20Brief (2006) accessed 22 February 2012.Google Scholar
Nicholas, George, and Hollowell, Julie. “The Legacy of Scientific Colonialism.” In Archaeology and Capitalism, edited by Hamilakis, Yannis and Duke, Philip, 59–83. Walnut Creek, CA: Left Coast Press, 2007.Google Scholar
Northedge, F. S.The League of Nations: Its Life and Times, 1920–1946. New York: Holmes and Meier, 1986.Google Scholar
Perenyi, Ken. Caveat Emptor: The Secret Life of an American Art Forger. New York and London: Pegasus Books, 2012.Google Scholar
Prott, Lyndel V. “Protecting Cultural Heritage in Conflict.” In Archaeology, Cultural Heritage and the Antiquities Trade, edited by Brodie, Neil, Kersel, Morag M., Luke, Christina, and Tubb, Kathryn Walker, 25–34. Gainesville: University of Florida Press, 2006.Google Scholar
Renfrew, Lord Colin. “Book Review: Who Owns Antiquity?” Burlington Magazine CL (2008): 768.Google Scholar
Rostron, Brian. “The Mystery of the Getty Bronze.” The Spectator 234 (2008): 23–24.Google Scholar
Schücking, Walther. The International Union of the Hague Conferences. Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1918.Google Scholar
Schulz, Matthias. “‘Art War’: Turkey Battles to Repatriate Antiquities.” Der Spiegel. http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/turkey-waging-art-war-to-repatriate-artifacts-from-foreign-museums-a-845159.html (16 July 2012 accessed 15 February 2013).Google Scholar
Scott, David A.Pre-Columbian Metallurgy of Colombia: Studies of Some Gold and Platinum Artefacts. 3 Vols. Unpublished.Google Scholar
Scott, David A. “The La Tolita-Tumaco Culture: Master Metalsmiths in Gold and Platinum.” Latin American Antiquity 22 (2011): 65–96.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Scott, David A., and Maish, Jeffery P.. “A Lydian Bed of Iron, Bronze and Copper: Technical Examination of a Metallurgical Masterpiece.” Studies in Conservation 55 (2010): 3–19.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Silverman, Helaine. “Contemporary Museum Practice in Cusco, Peru.” In Archaeology and Capitalism, edited by Hamilakis, Yannis and Duke, Philip, 195–213. Walnut Creek, CA: Left Coast Press, 2007.Google Scholar
Stanish, Charles. “Forging Ahead.” Archaeology 62 (2009): 23–28.Google Scholar
Tubb, Kathryn Walker. “Artifacts and Emotion.” In Archaeology, Cultural Heritage and the Antiquities Trade, edited by Brodie, Neil, Kersel, Morag M., Luke, Christina, and Tubb, Kathryn Walker, 284–302. Gainesville: University of Florida Press, 2006.Google Scholar