The Antiquities Mess

http://tinyurl.com/aztb3 (New York Times)

"The question now is whether the Met's tentative agreement with Italy will lend new energy to the claims of other countries seeking to repatriate antiquities. It probably will. The antiquities market has always been notoriously corrupt. Returning major art objects to their native countries, if the legal case is strong enough, will have an important symbolic effect. But it will do nothing, in itself, to bring a halt to what has amounted to ceaseless cultural ransacking over the centuries. Museums are the very public end of an often willful ethical ambiguity that appears at its worst among private collectors and dealers of antiquities. For that reason alone, museums are obliged to get this right. But they should do so on the actual facts, as the Metropolitan appears to have done."

See the full story at the above pag on the New York Times website for more.