Wednesday, March 01, 2006

Defending unprovenanced artefacts

http://tinyurl.com/fcaet (New York Times)
An article about Philippe de Montebello, Director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art: "In a wide-ranging interview last week, just a day after he returned from signing a final agreement in Rome, Mr. de Montebello made it clear that his philosophy about collecting ? and even the cultural value of an international market in illicit antiquities has changed little in 29 years at the museum's helm. He offered no apologies for the way the Met has built one of the world's greatest Classical collections, often by acquiring works with little knowledge of their origins, to the dismay of archaeologists. And while he stressed that museums should abide by the law, he questioned the wisdom of some cultural-property laws and recent American court decisions that have exposed museums to greater liability for their collecting."
To see the full story, go to the above web page - if you are prompted for a username and password use "egyptnews" in both fields.

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