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Museums unite against return of imperial 'loot'

Nick Fielding

8 December 2002 - Forty of the world's top museums have issued a landmark statement firmly opposing the repatriation of precious artefacts seized in colonial times.

Released today, it comes amid growing pressure from nations such as Greece and Egypt that lost many of their finest treasures when they were plundered in the 19th century, most notably by Britain.

It is likely to bring to a head a growing international debate over the role of museums and the proper resting place of treasures as diverse as the Elgin marbles and Benin bronzes held in London, the Pergamon altar in Berlin and 5,000 ancient Egyptian works in the Louvre in Paris, including a huge statue of Ramses II.

The museums that put their names to the statement include the British Museum, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Louvre, the Prado in Madrid, the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, the Hermitage in St Petersburg and the Berlin Museum.

Their "statement on the value of the universal museum" rules out the return of plundered art, arguing that their international role in helping to promote culture should supersede narrower considerations of nationalism and ownership.

"We should acknowledge the essentially destructive nature of the repatriation of objects . . .

Museums are agents in the development of culture, whose mission is to foster knowledge by a continuous process of reinterpretation. They serve not just the citizens of one nation, but the people of every nation," says the statement.

The signatories are all exhibiting museums that meet in an informal grouping to discuss issues they share. The name of the British Museum is included but other UK museums have deliberately been left out to highlight the international nature of the group.

Neil MacGregor, director of the British Museum, which holds the Elgin marbles, said last night it was vital that museums asserted their role as international institutions for the benefit of humanity as a whole.

"The British Museum was founded in 1753 as a museum of the world," he said. "All the signatories are predicated on the notion that they belong to everybody."

Nobody sought to justify what had happened in the past, he said, but it was a question of dealing with the present: "We were particularly concerned after the Greek government made it official policy to seek the return of the Elgin marbles. If all museums were to send back items acquired abroad, the essential nature of these great collections would disappear and we would all be the poorer for it."

MacGregor said this was a separate issue from the theft of cultural objects during the second world war, where all museums had pledged to search their collections and return items stolen by the Nazis.

The museums' statement asserts that: "The international museum community shares the belief that illegal traffic in archeological, artistic and ethnic objects must be firmly discouraged." But it adds that objects and monuments installed "decades and even centuries ago in museums throughout Europe and America" were acquired under very different conditions.

Museums have become increasingly sensitive to demands for restitution, with some taking a sympathetic attitude towards certain categories of artefact. About 40 British museums have agreed, for example, to return items including human remains taken from Australian aborigines and from native Americans.

The Manchester Museum at the University of Manchester has agreed to return four Aboriginal skulls to Australia and Leeds Museum is to send jewellery back to the Cook Islands. The Natural History Museum has been in talks with the Chitimacha Indian tribe in Louisiana over the return of cultural artefacts and body parts.

In 1999 Glasgow city council agreed to return a ghost dance shirt - believed to have made the wearer impervious to bullets - from Kelvingrove Museum to the Lakota Sioux Indians of South Dakota. The shirt, on display for more than 100 years, had been worn by a victim of the Wounded Knee massacre in 1890.

The Italian government recently agreed to return the 78ft Axum Obelisk to Ethiopia. The 3,000-year-old monument was seized by Mussolini's troops in 1937 and placed in a square in central Rome. The Italians agreed to return it after it was damaged by lightning earlier this year.

Source: The Sunday Times

Statement on the value of the universal museum

Media Release
British Museum

December 2002 - Eighteen of the world's great museums and galleries have signed a statement supporting the idea of the universal museum. The statement was drafted at their last meeting in Munich last October, and presented to the British Museum for publication.

Their directors are all members of an informal group of museums worldwide which meets regularly to discuss issues of common interest.

One of the most pressing of these is the threat to the integrity of universal collections posed by demands for the restitution of objects to their countries of origin.

Museums and galleries such as these are cultural achievements in their own right. They bring together the different cultural traditions of humanity under one roof. Through their special exhibitions and their permanent displays they endow the great individual pieces in their collections with a worldwide context within which their full significance is graspable as nowhere else.

Neil MacGregor, Director of the British Museum, said "This declaration is an unprecedented statement of common value and purpose issued by the directors of some of the world's leading museums and galleries. The diminishing of collections such as these would be a great loss to the world's cultural heritage."

The statement and signatories:

Declaration on the importance and value of universal museums

The international museum community shares the conviction that illegal traffic in archaeological, artistic, and ethnic objects must be firmly discouraged. We should, however, recognize that objects acquired in earlier times must be viewed in the light of different sensitivities and values, reflective of that earlier era. The objects and monumental works that were installed decades and even centuries ago in museums throughout Europe and America were acquired under conditions that are not comparable with current ones.

Over time, objects so acquired—whether by purchase, gift, or partage—have become part of the museums that have cared for them, and by extension part of the heritage of the nations which house them. Today we are especially sensitive to the subject of a work’s original context, but we should not lose sight of the fact that museums too provide a valid and valuable context for objects that were long ago displaced from their original source.

The universal admiration for ancient civilizations would not be so deeply established today were it not for the influence exercised by the artifacts of these cultures, widely available to an international public in major museums. Indeed, the sculpture of classical Greece, to take but one example, is an excellent illustration of this point and of the importance of public collecting. The centuries-long history of appreciation of Greek art began in antiquity, was renewed in Renaissance Italy, and subsequently spread through the rest of Europe and to the Americas. Its accession into the collections of public museums throughout the world marked the significance of Greek sculpture for mankind as a whole and its enduring value for the contemporary world. Moreover, the distinctly Greek aesthetic of these works appears all the more strongly as the result of their being seen and studied in direct proximity to products of other great civilizations.

Calls to repatriate objects that have belonged to museum collections for many years have become an important issue for museums. Although each case has to be judged individually, we should acknowledge that museums serve not just the citizens of one nation but the people of every nation. Museums are agents in the development of culture, whose mission is to foster knowledge by a continuous process of reinterpretation. Each object contributes to that process. To narrow the focus of museums whose collections are diverse and multifaceted would therefore be a disservice to all visitors.

Signed by the Directors of:

• The Art Institute of Chicago
  Bavarian State Museum, Munich (Alte Pinakothek, Neue Pinakothek)
  State Museums, Berlin
  Cleveland Museum of Art
  J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles
  Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York
  Los Angeles County Museum of Art
  Louvre Museum, Paris
  The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
  The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
  The Museum of Modern Art, New York
  Opificio delle Pietre Dure, Florence
  Philadelphia Museum of Art
  Prado Museum, Madrid
  Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam
  State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg
  Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum, Madrid
  Whitney Museum of American Art, New York
  The British Museum, London
  

Media release from the British Museum

Top museums unite to fight Aboriginal claims

By Peter Fray in London and Alexa Moses

11 December 2002 - Several museums in Europe and the United States have issued a landmark declaration opposing the wholesale repatriation of cultural artefacts seized during imperial rule or by means now considered unethical.

The museums say the universal value of collections of archaeological, artistic and ethnic objects in promoting culture outweighs the desire by individual countries or racial groups for their return.

The declaration is the most significant attempt by the world's leading museums to protect treasures, often seized during colonial rule, from governments or descendants of original owners.

Disputed high-profile treasures include the Elgin Marbles and the Benin bronzes in the British Museum and several thousand Egyptian works in the Louvre. The declaration on the "value of universal museums" may harm Australian Aboriginal campaigns for the return of artefacts and human remains from Europe.

It shows how difficult it will be for Aboriginal campaigners and Australian museums to persuade many European institutions to return pieces from their collections. Signatories include the Louvre in Paris, the Hermitage in St Petersburg, the Prado, Madrid, the Metropolitan, Guggenheim, Whitney and Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, and the State Museums, Berlin.

The British Museum, which has a collection of Aboriginal remains, did not sign the declaration, but said its director, Neil MacGregor, supported its intent. Yesterday it was releasing the declaration to British-based media on request. "We don't believe in breaking up collections," said a spokesman, Andrew Hamilton.

The declaration described repatriation as "a disservice to all visitors", though it said requests for specific objects would be judged on an individual basis. "We should acknowledge that museums serve not just the citizens of one nation but the people of every nation," it said.

"We should recognise that objects acquired in earlier times must be viewed in the light of different sensitivities and values, reflective of that era."

Mr Hamilton said the British Museum was a place where "you can come and see the entire history of mankind in one place".

The British Government will soon receive a report on the repatriation of human remains, including Aboriginal ones, from a group of leading historians, museum directors, lawyers, anthropologists and medical specialists. The group, chaired by Professor Norman Palmer, a legal academic from University College, London, is understood to have found that at least two-thirds of British museums hold remains.

European and British museums are believed to hold several thousand Aboriginal bones, and quantities of hair and soft tissues, removed from Australia usually against the wishes of local people or without their knowledge.

Two years ago the Prime Minister, John Howard, and the British Prime Minister, Tony Blair, agreed to speed up the return of human remains between the two countries, but several institutions, including the Natural History Museum in London, oppose the idea.

But there have been some recent repatriations, including the return by the British Royal College of Surgeons of several remains of Truganini, one of colonial Australia's most famous Aboriginal figures.

The Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commissioner, Rodney Dillon, said the repatriation of remains was decided by each institution that held them. "It's very delicate for Aboriginal people and very hard to deal with. We're talking about people's grandmothers and grandfathers."

Source: The Sydney Morning Herald

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