Flea market, anyone?

I have been following this story since it appeared in the local Baltimore News a couple of weeks ago, and have since seen it evolve into a matter of Cultural Heritage ownership. Perhaps it was always so, and I was just not as aware of it as I am now. Anyway, today I saw an article about this story on the Illicit Cultural Property Blog and this prompted me to write a little bit about it.

What's the story you might ask?

A lady went to a flea market and bought a framed painting for 7 USD. The painting was later identified to be one of the works of the famous Pierre-Auguste Renoir, most commonly known by just his surname.

Renoir's Paysage Bords de Seine

 It was estimated to be worth between $75,000  and $100,000, and was set to be auctioned off, but the auction has since been cancelled due to reports that the work was stolen from the BMA, the Baltimore Museum of Art. The BMA had the Renoir on loan from famous benefactors Herbert L. May and Sadie Adler May, who purchased the painting in 1926 and bequeathed their collection (over 100 items) to the BMA in 1951, the same year the painting was stolen. The irony of the story is that the woman bought the painting simply for the frame, which one might argue most definitely belongs to the BMA. 

A police report (middle) from 1951 details the theft of a landscape by Renoir
 from the Baltimore Museum of Art. (Courtesy of the Baltimore Police Department.)

It is also quite remarkable that the anonymous lady who bought it at the flea-market, although disappointed that she may not get that big paycheck, has cooperated fully from the start with the FBI. 

The reason this story captivated me, apart from my familiarity with the BMA, is the many issues of ownership it has raised. It is clear to me that artwork is not treated in the same way as other cultural artifacts. The provenance of the painting was completely unknown at the time of the auction, and yet, all the auctioneers needed to legally continue with the sale was proof of the authenticity of the work. 
Now that the painting's provenance has come to light, who does it belong to? Does it belong to the BMA, who was the legal owner prior to the UNESCO convention of 1970? Does it belong to the woman who found it and purchased it (after the 1970s convention) for the bargain price of seven dollars? 
How is this case any different from other cases where a clear provenance is known, but the object was exported from the country of origin before 1970? 

Let's compare it to the Pergamum altar at the Berlin Museum. We know it came from Pergamum, and therefore, having come from Turkish soil, belongs to Turkey. But the Berlin Museum "purchased" and exported it before the UNESCO convention in 1970, and therefore it, too, is a rightful owner. Likewise, the benefactors bequeathed the Renoir to the BMA in 1951, therefore it belongs to the BMA. But the woman legally purchased it from a flea market and therefore, she, too, is the rightful owner. A third claimant may be the insurance company which paid for the lost property in 1951. 

The question I have to ask myself to determine if these statements have any validity is simple: Can something which has been stolen be legally bought? I would say no, but would also advocate that a buyer or seller, who did not know the artifact was stolen, should not be penalized. Seven dollars is not much, but let's say the woman had paid 4,000. Does she get her money back? Does the state pay her? Does the seller have to return the money? Should the BMA have to "buy back" its own stolen painting? For classical artifacts, this is a little different, as the buyers and sellers ARE held responsible for this knowledge. But how often do these rare artifacts end up in garage sales and are purchased for any other purpose other than collecting? Therein lies the difference: collectors must be held accountable for what they purchase, whereas the layman who comes across an extraordinary find may not need to be. 

Clearly, at this stage in my knowledge of these ownership laws and procedures, I have more questions than answers. 

For this particular case, I would say that if it was stolen from the BMA, it should be restored to the BMA, but the woman who bought it should receive some sort of commendation (a plaque of honour? a lifetime membership?)

Who are the dealers?

Drusus Minor sculpture now at Cleveland Museum

I recently read an article on the website Saving Antiquities For Everyone (SAFE) about the Cleveland Museum of Art buying 'important' ancient Roman and Mayan antiquities. Although this may not be recent news for many of you, it brought to my attention many of the questions that we discuss when we talk about the import and export of antiquities, and their acquisition. 

The Museum stated that the two pieces were bought "in accordance with American art museum guidelines" which aim at halting the looting of antiquities by stipulating that museums should not buy artifacts unless they were documented as being outside their country of origin before 1970, or were legally exported thereafter. This date, 1970, is crucial to the modern laws and regulations for artifact possession, as it is the date of the international UNESCO convention aimed at prohibiting and preventing illegal import, export and transfer of ownership of artifacts.  

Apollo Sauroktonos sold in 2004 

The museum bought the ancient head sculpture of Drusus Minor from the company Phoenix Ancient Art run by dealers Hicham and Ali Aboutaam, who in 2004 sold the museum an ancient bronze statue of Apollo Sauroktonos with gaps in its ownership history. This acquisition raised complaints that the museum was encouraging looting by purchasing such objects with questionable provenance. 

Who are these dealers, and should we deem them trustworthy to legally manage our antiquities?   Hicham and Ali Aboutaam have both faced legal charges related to the misuse of ancient artifacts: Ali was convicted in absentia in Egypt in 2003 on charges of smuggling, and Hicham pleaded guilty in New York on June, 2004 to falsifying a customs document to hide the origins of an ancient silver drinking vessel which the gallery later sold for $950,000. These are both serious accusations for the managers of a Gallery which claims to have "one of the antiquities trade's most vigorous and stringent procedures of due diligence for establishing the provenance and ownership history of its objects." While Ali's lawyer claimed that his client's charges were "ridiculous" and politically motivated, why was he suspected of doing such things? and why did Hicham falsify a customs document? What did he have to hide? Perhaps these two are not directly looting, but does that follow that because they are not the direct plunderers, they are not helping the trade of plundered items? 

It seems to me that someone dealing in such a precarious field would make sure to be very diligent about their image and actions in order to be deemed trustworthy. Personally, I'd be suspicious if these two offered me anything. Don't we know that at least one of them can falsify documents? And how many can we supposed were and have been falsified without being detected as such?

Perhaps, in this specific case of the Drusus sculpture the provenance is sound. But I know that every time that I read a mention of a new acquisition by a museum, I'll ask myself the same questions, and hopefully, you will too, concerning the provenance and authenticity of the artifact, who the dealer was, and what their record/reputation is. 

The Case of Cycladic Figurines and the Importance of Proveniance

When we think about material culture, we tend to think about its importance in terms of what it tells us about the past, providing a window of understanding or insight into an ancient culture. For example, the White-ground Lekythoi of the 5th century BCE provide an insight into funerary rituals, not only by the function and context of the vessels themselves, but also by the scenes depicted on said vessels.

If the provenience of an artifact is critical to its meaning, and thus artifacts without provenience are worthless, are Cycladic Figurines, then, worthless?

Many would argue that yes, any artifact without context is, in some ways, worthless. They are not worth anything in the sense that they cannot tell us anything truly specific about the past. The figurines show variations, like any other corpus, but it is almost impossible to categorize these variations through time and space with any degree of certainty. The main questions archaeologists want to know are: what was their function? What were they used for? Were they votive offerings? Were they grave goods? These are questions that we may guess at, but until more figurines are discovered with archaeological contexts, we cannot be sure of the answer.

To put it into perspective, here are some numbers to consider:

1,400 tombs were excavated by archaeologists, which yielded 140 figurines with context (meaning that 10% of tombs had figurines).
There are 1,600 known figurines, which means that 1,460 figurines come from illicit excavations. This number is bad in and of itself, but considering that only 10% of tombs yield figurines, we may reasonably deduct that roughly 14,600 tombs were excavated illegally.
From an aspiring archaeologist's point of view, there's something to be said about the ethics of desecrating the tombs, just for monetary gain.

For me, these objects, even without provenience, are precious. The mere fact that they were sculpted by ancient hands and survive against all odds through time to the present day, some over 4,000 years, makes them extremely precious and valuable. And yes, their exact function is not known,  but here's one artifact to consider:

The Phaistos disk.

Both sides of the Phaistos Disk

 Discovered in 1908 by Luigi Pernier, the disk was unearthed during a proper excavation of the Minoan 'palace' of Phaistos. We have its provenience. We have the excavation notes,  scholars have studied it for 100 years, and yet, we have no idea what it was used for. It may be a calendar, or a game of some sort, or something entirely different. It may even be a hoax. The point is that even with provenience, this item may be a fake made by the archaeologist and it's meaning remains unknown, much the same as the hoards of Cycladic figurines.

Are these items any less valuable because we don't know their meaning? My personal opinion is that there is much more to their value than just their scientific or artistic value, making them, indeed, still quite valuable without provenience or a fully-understood meaning.

Coca-Cola

       The fizzy black beverage seems to be everywhere the last couple of weeks!

Ai Weiwei, "Neolithic Vase with Coca-Cola Logo," 2010, Mary Boone 
Image taken from http://www.artsjournal.com/culturegrrl/

The very first reading for my graduate seminar on cultural heritage was an article in the New York Times entitled "The Case for Contamination: No to Purity, No to Tribalism. No to Cultural protectionism. Toward a new Cosmopolitanism." by Kwame A. Appiah.
While the article was engaging, so much so that I sent it to my mother!, one line stuck with me, and when it was mentioned in class, I realized there is much I could share about this one, seemingly simple question.

The question Appiah poses is: What can you tell about a person's soul from the fact that they drink Coca-Cola? Could the question be followed up by "What can you tell about a person's soul from the fact that they eat a quarter pounder at McDonalds? Or drink a cup of Caramel Frappuccino from Starbucks? Or eat a Krispy Kreme glazed doughnut?" Well, you might be able to say a lot about their eating habits and their deteriorating health if they are in the United States, but these questions become relevant in different spheres in other countries, where these franchises are slowly taking over. 
I will never forget the day my grandfather told me that Coca-Cola  was "las aguas negras del imperialismo Yankee" roughly translated, "the sewage from the imperialism of the United States"  
You can imagine how mind boggling it must have been for a 10 year old to realize that one beverage which she's known her whole life has such cultural implications and carries so much political weight!
What can we tell about a culture from the fact that they drink Coca-Cola? A lot of things.
For one, we can tell that they are active in trade, and like most human beings, we are suckers for those things which are deemed "popular" by the elite. If you are a rather poor country farmer in the outskirts of Guatemala, Coke would probably seem the most curious thing on the planet. Wouldn't you want to try that bizarre black beverage that everyone is raving about? 

Well, if you live in Burma, you're in luck, because for the first time in 60 years, Coke will be available in your own country! Will it be affordable to the everyday agrarian? Who knows... Will it remain popular once the novelty has died down? These are all questions which only time will answer, but for now, Burma becomes one more coke-drinking country, leaving only two countries sans coca-cola: Cuba, and North Korea (for the full story, you can click here). 
No wonder some would describe coke as "the nearest thing to capitalism in a bottle." Tom Sandage, the author of of A History of the World in Six Glasses states that the beverages' entry "into any country is a powerful symbol" and that "the moment Coca-Cola starts shipping is the moment you can say there might be real change going on here." Real change, yes. But does that follow that the change will be welcome by all? That the move away from the traditional needs the intervention of Coca-cola? 
Let's think about Cuba, for a moment. It has always been my dream to visit Cuba, especially Havana, and witness a place where time seems to have stood still since the 1950s. The cars are from the 50s, the buildings have that old-style feel... it's what Appiah might call an "unpolluted" place. Cuba is still active in trade, but the big franchises have no presence there, which is perhaps what makes it such a magical place: The US has had no (visible) influence there since the revolution in the late 1950s. Well, if you see someone drinking Coke there, you can pretty much guess that they smuggled it in.

 The point is that in the country of origin (in this case, the United States), these dietary choices may not cause much of a reaction except from a health-perspective point of view, whereas in other places, many more things must be considered. For example, if I see a person walking down the streets of Mexico city with a Krisy Kreme doughnut drinking something from a Starbucks cup, I could think "Looks like an unhealthy way to start the day off with" or I could get annoyed and think "Why are they eating this mass-produced, machine-made doughnut, when they could be eating a delicious, perfectly fresh churro from the local store? And why are they drinking something from Starbucks instead of supporting one of the many local or even National Coffee shops?" 
This is most likely the attitude my proud grandfather woud have. 

While Coca-cola drinking might not reveal anything about a person's soul per se, it might reveal a great deal about that person's culture, such as their willingness to try new things, to trade with foreign countries, to change their customs and adopt something so completely unfamiliar and make it their own. 
In the end, Coca-Cola carries political weight because it stands for so many things: capitalism, imperialism, etc. 

First Post- A Brief Introduction

Hello Blogging World!

There is definitely something to be said about the painlessness of creating a journal -- for any subject -- and joining the world of online journaling and blogging. This blog will cover art, archaeology and cultural heritage- namely ongoing issues and cases related to the protection and exploitation of cultural heritage.

To define 'Cultural Heritage' would be a task not for today's topic, but just to give you an idea,  this UNESCO site discusses about why cultural heritage is difficult to define, and gives a link to different types of cultural heritage.