Saturday, June 17, 2006

Art Museums Wrestle With Ownership Issue

http://tinyurl.com/hhqne (washingtonpost.com)
Another in a long line of recent articles about the challenges facing museums wishing to aquire antiquities for their collections, and the efforts of governments to repatriate items which, in some cases, should not have been left the country of origin in the first place: "The issue of provenance _ or the history of an artwork's ownership _ has never before been a more debated topic among archeologists and attorneys, collectors and curators, museum directors and donors, nations and cultural groups.
It's occurring as the Metropolitan Museum of Art agrees to return ancient objects to Italy, a former American antiquities curator faces charges of knowingly buying stolen artifacts and museums continue to address claims about artwork stolen by Nazis up to 70 years ago. . . .
Emboldened by Italy, such countries as Peru, Egypt and Turkey are becoming more aggressive in demanding that American museums return disputed items.
Egypt _ led by Zahi Hawass, the country's charismatic and often controversial chief archaeologist _ is particularly pushing the case of a 3,200-year-old funerary mask of a mummy depicting a young lady, which it said disappeared from the Egyptian Museum."
See the above article for the full story.

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