The news articles below were posted to another list, and I thought readers on this list would be interested to see them. Back in 1996, according to other reports at that time, Mr. Smith reportedly hit libraries in Arkansas, Kansas, Tennessee, and Mississippi. Catherine Barnes
Here are the stories:
Former lawyer turns self in in Faulkner letter theft
A man charged with taking six William Faulkner letters from Southeast Missouri State University's rare book room and selling them has turned himself in. Robert Hardin Smith, 43, of Jacksonville, a former lawyer and convicted thief, is accused of taking the letters from the university and selling them to a manuscript dealer in Texas. Smith was arrested yesterday afternoon in Pulaski County and charged with theft of property. He was held on $25,000 bond but will be sent to Cape Girardeau where the theft occurred. Smith also was convicted of the 1996 theft of historic letters from the University of Kansas library, including three letters signed by Civil War-era guerrilla leader William Quantrill. That same year, he was convicted of stealing manuscripts from the University of Arkansas. Smith served nearly two years in a state prison in Arkansas before being paroled in 1999. University police said a man viewed the famed author's letters on Sept. 30. Four days later, Smith sold six Faulkner letters to Noble Enterprises, a manuscript dealer in Rowlett, prosecutors said. The Texas dealer told police that the man said he inherited the letters from his grandmother's estate. Southeast officials learned of the theft on Nov. 11 after a Faulkner collector discovered the documents were being sold on the Internet. All six letters have been recovered, school officials said. (The Associated Press)
December 5, 2002, 5:24 AM EST
NEW YORK (AP) _ Two paintings by artist Lee Krasner Pollock, wife of abstract painter Jackson Pollock, were discovered missing during an August audit of a midtown Manhattan storage facility, authorities said. The value of the paintings and the name of the storage facility were not immediately known, said Det. Carolyn Chew, a police spokeswoman. Police classified the incident as grand larceny, rather than burglary, saying the paintings may have disappeared in transit. No arrests have been made. The investigation is ongoing.
Feds Target Fossil Poachers
FREMONT JUNCTION, Utah, Dec. 4, 2002
"We're not just looking for bones, we're looking for pop cans, beer cans," FBI agent Gib Wilson (CBS) Surrounded by towering Utah bedrock, miles from the nearest real road, the FBI is tracking a criminal. The FBI is here to collect evidence of a crime. It could be a murder scene, it could be a bombing, but in this case, as CBS News Correspondent Sandra Hughes reports, the victim is more than 150- million-years-old: a dinosaur whose skeleton was stolen for profit. "We're not just looking for bones, we're looking for pop cans, beer cans," says FBI agent Gib Wilson. Those clues could lead to the poachers who stole the bones. Fossil theft is a growing criminal industry fueled by affluent collectors and amateur poachers who dig on government land, making it a federal offense Bureau of Land Management paleontologist Laurie Bryant says poachers destroy the archeological record when they steal bones from a site. "I find it heartbreaking," she says. "The source of that bone may have been a complete dinosaur skeleton that was broken up in little chunks (and) sold for a few dollars a piece so that someone could have a souvenir." It was in a remote Utah high desert where the dinosaur team solved it's biggest case, digging up evidence that led to a local poacher and ultimately the Pennsylvania fossil dealer who hired him.
The FBI went all the way to Japan to track an Allosaurus skeleton sold for $400,000 to a museum. They still have the evidence that closed the case: a Pepsi can used as a hammer. "It's great evidence," says Dan Roberts, of the FBI. "A paleontologist would never use a tool like this." But a poacher would. And collectors are willing to pay hundreds even thousands of dollars on the Internet for a fragment of a dinosaur bone or millions for an entire skeleton. "The loss of even a single skeleton is a dramatic loss to science and to the public," says Dr. Scott Sampson, of the Utah Museum of Natural History. That's why Congress has proposed stiffer penalties for poachers and the FBI is out in this desolate desert tracking down criminals before they make dinosaur history extinct.
http://www.cbsnews.com/
King Lobengula's gold necklace disappears from Zimbabwe Natural
Loughty Dube
POLICE in Bulawayo have instituted investigations into theHistory Museum disappearance from the Natural History Museum of Zimbabwe of a gold necklace and two other items belonging to the last Ndebele monarch, King Lobengula, last week amid claims that museum officials are the prime suspects. Matabeleland police spokesperson, Smile Dube, confirmed that police were investigating the case but he would not be drawn into giving details of the investigations or saying whether senior museum staff were under probe.
"We cannot specify the exact nature of our investigations into the matter since this would jeopardise our progress on the case, but we are leaving no stone unturned in the matter," Dube said. The disappearance of the exhibits from the museum has caused a furore among the royal Khumalo clan who have called upon the police to act swiftly to recover the property. The disappearance of the items comes exactly two years after the theft from the same museum of a One Thousand Guinea Gold Trophy valued at US$50 million. One of the stolen items was a priceless gold watch that had belonged to a pioneer missionary, the Reverend Robert Moffat. Sources in the museum told the Zimbabwe Independent that it was impossible to break into the museum considering the tight security in place. "This looks suspiciously like an inside job and considering that senior museum officials were reluctant to bring in the police raises suspicions that they were involved. Chances are very high that they are, since there was no forced entry," said the source. The stolen exhibits were kept in a glass compartment at the museum whose security features include a burglar alarm and a closed-circuit television monitor. Efforts to contact the executive director of the Department of National Museums, Godfrey Mahachi, proved fruitless but an official in the department confirmed the disappearance of the exhibits.
"The Department of Museums is still assessing how the items went missing and is going to investigate what else is missing from our inventory. Once that is done, we will be in a position to comment on the thefts," said the official. A spokesperson for the Khumalo clan, Peter Khumalo, said the family would do everything possible to recover the lost property. "The police should take swift action to recover the royal property and we are going to demand a full list of the remaining artefacts in the museum," Khumalo said.
http://www.theindependent.co.zw/
Dana Drake, Las Vegas One Reporter
Holocaust Survivor Wants Paintings Returned
(Dec. 3) -- After a 30-year battle, a Holocaust survivor may finally get to bring home the paintings that saved her life. Dina Babbitt's artistic talent kept her out of the gas chamber at the Auschwitz concentration camp. Babbitt can only hold pictures of her watercolor paintings, because the Polish government won't release them from the Auschwitz Museum. In 1973, when Babbitt found out her paintings survived the war, she excitedly went to Poland hoping to bring them home. "And then I wanted to put them in my briefcase, and then they grabbed my arm and they said, ‘No! No! No!’" Babbitt said. Since then, Babbitt and her daughter Michele Babbitt-Kane have been fighting to bring the paintings home. Michele contacted Congresswoman Shelley Berkeley in 1998. "We are amazed and so grateful for what she has been able to do for us. She saved our family," said Babbitt-Kane. Berkley authored legislation that was included in the Department of Defense Appropriations Bill. It would start negotiations with Poland to return Babbitt's artwork. It was signed by President Bush in September. "The Polish government and the U.S. have a close relationship, and will do everything they can to return that art," Berkley said. Babbitt credits her paintings for saving her and her mother's life. "Without them, my daughter and my other daughter and three grandchildren wouldn't be alive today. And this the proof," Babbitt said. When she was 20, Babbitt was studying at a graphics art school in Prague. When she learned her mother was being transferred to Auschwitz, she volunteered to go with her.
At the concentration camp, Babbitt watched helplessly as thousands were tortured and killed. She believed she was next. She remembers a conversation with one man just before he walked into the gas chamber. "'I am next. You are going now, and I am going next,'" Babbitt recalled. "He looked at me and said, 'You are going to survive.'" And she did, thanks to her artistic talent. It started when a friend asked her to paint a mural for the camps Jewish children. "The children wanted me to paint Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs," Babbitt said. Babbitt knew every character's face from the Disney film "Snow White." It was one of the only movies she was able to see at the time. "I had seen the picture seven times illegally. Put the Jewish star in my pocket and snuck into the movie," she said. That mural caught the attention of notorious Dr. Josef Mengele. Mengele, known as the Angel of Death, was a member of Hitler’s hierarchy in a position of power and influence at Auschwitz. Mengele kept Babbitt and her mother alive so she could paint the haunting faces of his gypsy and Jewish victims. "He wanted to have portraits that were better than photographs, because the camera wouldn't give him the colors," she said. Babbitt took her time painting the portraits of her seven subjects because she knew they would be executed when she finished. Babbitt will turn 80 in February and hopes her 30-year battle to get back what she calls a piece of her heart -- and her family -- is almost over. "I'm not too happy about constantly being reminded of Auschwitz, but I can't escape now until I have those pictures in my hand," she said. "I want closure. I want to hold them I want to have them."
Babbitt says if she gets the paintings, they will likely make their first public appearance at the Las Vegas Art Museum. After that, she says she'll consider a more permanent display in the Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C.
http://www.klas-tv.com/
DEC 9, 2002
Mob behind Van Gogh thefts?
AMSTERDAM - Fears have been raised that organised crime may be behind two brazen thefts from separate museums in the Netherlands in under a week. Thieves broke into a major Dutch museum and made off with two works by Van Gogh on Saturday, five days after millions of dollars worth of gems disappeared during a diamond exhibition in another museum. The Van Gogh works, dating from the early 1880s and believed to be worth millions of dollars each, are thought either to have been stolen to order for wealthy art lovers with private collections, or to be held for ransom, according to the Sunday Telegraph in London. It said neither had been insured against theft.
Although the Van Gogh Museum was purpose-built in the 1970s to house the world's largest collection of the artist's works, including one of his famous Sunflowers series, the thieves had little difficulty eluding its security system. They climbed on to the roof with ladders and used ropes to enter the building through a skylight. The break-in set off the alarm, but the culprits escaped before police arrived shortly before 8 am. 'This is the worst thing that can happen to any museum,' said its director, Mr John Leighton. Last Monday, thieves raided a diamond exhibition at the Museon in The Hague, about 50 km south of Amsterdam. Officials said millions of dollars worth of gems were taken. Both thefts highlighted the growing threat of organised crime targeting the art world, said the Telegraph. A senior Amsterdam police officer was quoted as saying: 'We are awash with criminals from eastern Europe who certainly know their art works. 'We also have international collectors who will pay millions for a famous artist, even though they will have to keep their collection secret. We need to invest more money and manpower in security.'
http://straitstimes.asia1.com.sg/
Iraqis kept Kuwait treasures
By CORKY SIEMASZKO DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER
Saddam Hussein's forces looted the Kuwait National Museum and set the buildings ablaze before they were sent scurrying back into Iraq more than a decade ago. But before they hightailed it back to Baghdad, they pulled off one of the biggest art heists in history, carting off 7,000 priceless paintings and sculptures, 13,000 historic books, thousands of ancient prayer rugs and royal seals dating to the Babylonian Empire.
Twelve years later, Kuwait's cultural treasure trove is still somewhere in Iraq.
"Nothing has been returned," said Tareq Almezrem, a spokesman for the Kuwaiti Embassy in Washington. "We hear now that priceless pieces of art are in the houses of Iraqi VIPs. We've had reports of people seeing jewelry and paintings in Iraqi private homes." And the treasures are not likely to be returned anytime soon. As part of the United Nations resolution ending the 1991 Persian Gulf War, Iraq was supposed to return everything it stole from Kuwait. But that promise - along with several others that the Iraqi dictator made - went unkept. "I'm not surprised," Almezrem said. "If Saddam hasn't returned 600 of our POWs, why should he return our art?"
Destruction fear
But with another war with Iraq looming, Almezrem said he's worried Kuwait's stolen art again might be in danger. "What happened is our national museum was raped by the Iraqis," Almezrem said. "Now it could be destroyed." It's impossible to put a price on what Saddam's henchmen stole, art experts said. "It is to the Arab world what the Art Institute of Chicago is to this country," one art historian said. Some of the carved ivory, ceramics and jewelry date to the eighth century and represent some of the finest examples of Islamic art. And the royal Babylonian seals are 2,000 years old. The Iraqis also stole some of the oldest Korans in the world, along with books by Napoleon's French soldiers that recount the power-mad Corsican's invasion of Egypt. Before hauling off the booty - which also included prosaic office furniture - in trailers, they burned the ancient Arab dhow, a sailing vessel that had graced the museum entrance. As a final insult, the soldiers used the galleries as toilets and then torched the buildings.
Luckily for Kuwait, some of the country's heritage was spared. The al- Sabah Collection, which consists of more than 120 jewel-encrusted objects and rare ceramics created between the eighth and 18th centuries, was on display in the U.S. while the Iraqis ransacked Kuwait. http://www.nydailynews.com/
Inside the world of art forgery
An expert in fakes, frauds and copies will lecture on the subject today at the National Gallery. Richard Starnes reports.
Richard Starnes The Ottawa Citizen
Sunday, December 08, 2002 CREDIT: Lynn Ball, The Ottawa Citizen Philippe Bensimon is thrilled the National Gallery is, for the first time, letting him lecture on such a touchy subject as art forgery. Philippe Bensimon is a criminologist with a proud passion for a shadowy subject. He likes nothing better than to delve into a world filled with art lovers and multi-million-dollar transactions, with reputable museums and galleries, with unscrupulous salesmen and questionable collectors. "Art forgery is the invisible crime," says Mr. Bensimon, who will be sharing his expertise in the field of fakes today in Ottawa at the first National Gallery lecture ever allowed on the subject. "If you are the victim of an art theft, you know it immediately because the painting is no longer on the wall," he says. "But fakery is very different because often you are the victim and you don't even know." Mr. Bensimon is thrilled the National Gallery is letting him lecture on a such a touchy subject. "This is very difficult for a gallery with their sort of prestige," he says. "But for certain they must have had fakes. The Louvre, the British Museum, the Museum of Contemporary Art in New York all have had their troubles with fakes. Why would the National Gallery be different?" Mr. Bensimon has been fascinated by the world of art fakes since he studied it for his PhD in criminology at the Université de Montreal 15 years ago. His large collection of slides comparing fakes with the real thing serves as the visual centrepiece of his knowledge and allows him to explain the difference between a copy, a fake and fraud. They are slippery differences. "Sometimes you have a true signature but the painting is a fake," he says. "How is that, you ask? For example, Salvador Dali often, and for fun, signed a blank canvas and his friends did the painting. How easy is that to prove? "Sometimes you have an authentic painting and the signature is false. Why is that, you ask? A lot of painters don't always sign their work. After they die, paintings come to light which are not finished and not signed. Someone finishes the work and signs in the name of the dead painter. "Sometimes you have an authentic painting by an unknown artist who was a contemporary of a famous painter. The style is the same, the topic is the same. The painting is signed by the unknown artist and dated 1923, which fits with the time the famous painter died -- 1925. The forger then paints out the name and leaves the date and most are persuaded by the evidence that the painting is authentic." Mr. Bensimon is the first to admit he is a lonely voice in a world in which the truth kills dreams. He says he has been struggling for 15 years to have fake art specifically included in Canada's Criminal Code. "In the Criminal Code, you have 17 articles about fakes," he says. "There are false passports, false money, false stamps -- 17 of them. But not a single one for art. I want them to provide legal rights in the Criminal Code so police can act."
He also has been hunting for ways to put the subject in the public eye. His dream is to persuade galleries across the country to collaborate in an exhibition of fakes that would travel the country. "I want people to see, 'Here's a copy of a Rembrandt' and 'Here's a true Rembrandt.' Here is a true picture and here is a fake." It's an idea that piques the interest of Charlie Hill, curator of Canadian Art at the National Gallery. "A travelling show of fakes," he asks? "That is interesting, definitely. It has been done elsewhere. The Victoria and Albert (Museum in London) did a show on fakes and there have been others. Certainly, it would be extremely instructive. That was part of my intent with the two fakes I had in the Thomson show." Mr. Hill talks openly about why he deliberately included the fakes in the huge Tom Thomson show he organized at the National Gallery this summer. He says the gallery knew the paintings were fake when they were acquired. One had a fake Thomson estate stamp on it and the gallery wanted an impression of the stamp. That appeared in the exhibition. The question of forgeries is most delicate and he is very careful with purchases or donations from collectors. He cites one occasion when the gallery acquired a major collection. "After we acquired it, I kept looking and looking at one painting and I figured in the end it was a fake. So we had to return it to the donor and had the tax receipt amended."
The Ottawa Citizen
Mistrial declared in theft trial of art gallery director
The Associated Press
A mistrial was declared in a case where the director of an art gallery was accused of stealing more than $675,000 worth of art from the facility, but prosecutors vowed to bring the man to trial again. Four jurors voted to acquit the director, Mood Conyers Jr., with two jurors in favor of convicting Conyers on charges of grand theft, insurance fraud and filing a false report.
A new trial date will be set next month.
"I thought we'd have this over, one way or the other," Conyers said. The Duveen Fine Art Gallery was robbed on May 1, 2001, 27 minutes after Conyers maintains he locked the doors for the night. A burglar alarm sounded when the front doors were opened at 11:41 p.m., and Conyers returned to the gallery after the alarm company called him. Assistant State Attorney Erik Lombillo said the burglary was staged by Conyers, who Lombillo said stole the 10 paintings - including one of a Parisian street scene worth $200,000 - earlier that day. "He had the motive. He had the opportunity," Lombillo said.
Two of the stolen paintings, including the valuable Edouard Cortes work called "Boulevard De La Madeline," were recovered at a pawn shop in Miami. No evidence that anyone at the pawn shop had implicated Conyers as the seller was presented during the trial. If convicted of all charges, Conyers faces 30 years in prison.
From: Katrina Burroughs katrina.burroughs@invaluable.com To: "'securma@xs4all.nl'" securma@xs4all.nl
HIGHLIGHTS OF TRACE MAGAZINE, DECEMBER ISSUE 166 LOOTED ART SPECIAL
(with the kind cooperation of The Central Registry on Looted Cultural Property, wwwlootedart.com)
The inside stories
Shauna Isaac of The Central Registry outlines ten crucial case histories that have shaped our awareness of the issue and the future options of collectors museums and legislators
Lucian Simmonds How are the salerooms tackling the issue of Nazi looted art? Profile of the head of the restitution department at Sotheby™s
Looted art and the law Report on the legal remedies from Ruth Redmond-Cooper of the Institute of Art and Law and Norman Palmer, barrister and member of the government™s Spoliation Advisory Committee
The December issue includes thirteen page of images and descriptions of recently stolen art and antiques, detailing any rewards posted and a full page of the latest recoveries. For more details or to subscribe, visit the website at www.trace.co.uk or contact Zoe@invaluable.com
Katrina Burroughs Managing Editor Invaluable Group Ltd Tel: +44 (0)20 7487 3401 Fax: +44 (0)20 7224 6019 email: Katrina.burroughs@invaluable.com
The fate of the Parthenon sculptures in Athens
This is the history of what happened to the sculptures on the Parthenon from early Christian times to the 21st century and the damage to those remaining after Lord Elgin bought the majority of them
By Ellis Tinios
Advocates of the “restitution” of the Elgin Marbles do their best to ignore, belittle or dismiss the fact that the sculptures removed by Lord Elgin’s agents from the Parthenon were spared substantial further damage. Instead, the more intemperate of them suggest that Elgin’s actions represent perhaps the worst assault ever perpetrated upon the building. The history of the degradation and destruction of the architectural sculpture on the Parthenon spans 1,600 years, from the fifth century to the closing decades of the 20th century. In what follows I will seek to place Elgin’s actions in the context of that history before turning to what I regard the central issue in the “Marbles” debate. The first and greatest single assault on the sculpture that ornamented the Parthenon occurred around 500 when the temple was converted into a Christian church.(1) It was at that time that the statues in the east pediment depicting the birth of Athena—the most important decorative element of the main façade of the temple—were removed and destroyed. Approximately 65% of the east pediment sculptures were lost at that time. All that remained in situ of that massive composition were seven of the outermost framing figures. At the same time the metopes of the east, north and west sides of the building were systematically defaced, six frieze blocks, three on the north and three on the south side, were removed in the process of opening windows into the church, and the central block of the east frieze was removed. The late Robert Browning, a staunch advocate of “restitution”, glossed over this assault on the Parthenon in an astonishing manner. He wrote of the transformation of the Parthenon into a church: “The occasional, apparently deliberate, defacement of sculptural figures was probably the work of over- zealous Christians at this time but there was no systematic defacement.”(2) It is incorrect to suggest that the destruction was the work of some “over-zealous” Christian minority. It was part of a wholesale, church/State-sponsored assault on pagan sculpture throughout the late Roman empire. The battered remnants of classical architectural sculpture and the thousands of empty statue bases that litter classical sites attest to the thoroughness and fury of this Christian onslaught on pagan art. Furthermore, the systematic manner in which the Parthenon was assaulted can hardly be described as “occasional, apparently deliberate defacement”. A great deal of organisation and effort went into achieving those results. This militant, iconoclastic Christian strand in the patrimony of modern Greeks deserves wider acknowledgement.
A large series of drawings attributed to Jacques Carrey provides a reliable indication of what sculptures survived the modifications to render the Parthenon fit for Christian worship and still remained on the building in 1674, the year in which he visited Athens as a member of Louis XIV’s embassy to Constantinople.3 The greatest catastrophe to befall the fabric of the Parthenon occurred in 1687 in the course of the Venetian bombardment of the Turkish garrison holding the Acropolis. A direct hit ignited the munitions the Turks had stored in the building. The resultant explosion demolished most of the north and south sides of the building. Fourteen well-preserved metopes that adorned the central portion of the south side and a comparable number of the long-defaced metopes on the north side were destroyed and the central frieze blocks on both the north and south sides of the building were shattered. The sculptural decorations surviving on the east and west fronts were not damaged by the explosion but the west pediment suffered when an officer serving under Francesco Morosini, the victorious Venetian commander, sought to remove Athena’s horses in order to transport them to Venice. This attempt ended in disaster: the equipment used to lift the horses failed; they were dropped and shattered. In the 18th century, the sculpture that survived the Venetians suffered enormous damage and destruction through the piecemeal actions of generations of indifferent locals and souvenir- seeking visitors from Western Europe. The extent of the damage visited upon the Parthenon sculptures in those years may be established by comparing Jacques Carrey’s drawings of 1674 with drawings by Richard Dalton, who was in Athens in 1749, and James Stuart, who was there in the early 1750s, and with casts taken by Louis Fauvel in the late 1780s. In the west pediment Carrey recorded two complete horses and 20 human figures of which eleven still retained their heads. Dalton’s drawing of the west pediment records the survival of eight reasonably complete figures (of which just two retained their heads), two torsos and one badly battered fragment of a figure.(4)
By the time Elgin’s agents arrived in 1801, all that remained of the west pediment sculptures was four reasonably complete figures (all headless and with truncated limbs), one substantial torso and a further six badly battered fragments of torsos. None of the eleven heads recorded by Carrey survived into the 19th century. The east pediment suffered fewer losses in the course of the 18th century: all seven figures shown by Carrey remained, albeit with the loss of extremities and two of the three heads he recorded. The well preserved metopes on the south side of the Parthenon that survived the Venetian bombardment also suffered severe losses in the course of the 18th century. Most of the heads and in some cases entire figures recorded by Carrey were hacked off and carried away in piecemeal fashion. A small number of these fragments survive scattered about Europe.(5) The frieze also suffered serious losses in the course of the 18th century. In the middle of the century Stuart recorded the whole of north frieze block XXX; by 1801 just a chunk of it survived. In addition to the smashing of frieze blocks, numerous heads were hacked off and in some cases attempts were made to chisel off entire figures. The most notorious instance of the latter occurred in the last decade of the 18th century. Moulds made by Fauvel of the right half of east frieze block VI in the late 1780s reveal a wonderfully preserved group of elders standing to the right of the Olympian gods. Little more than the battered outlines of the figures remained in 1801. Destruction on this scale would have continued unabated for several more decades and far less sculpture would survive in readable form today if Elgin had not acted. His cure may have been drastic, but it worked. Those pieces Elgin removed from the Parthenon were not only spared continued piecemeal damage and destruction in the last decades of Ottoman administration of Athens, but also the risks occasioned by the two sieges of the Acropolis that occurred in 1822 and 1827 in the course of the Greek war of independence.
The material removed to London was also spared the certain devastation that befell all the sculptures that remained exposed on the buildings of the Acropolis: dissolution in the increasingly polluted atmosphere of late nineteenth- and twentieth-century Athens. Elgin’s agents left behind the well preserved westernmost north and south metopes, one on each side, and the greater portion of the west frieze because removing them would have required the dismantling of the western end of the structure. They also left all the illegible metopes on the north, east and west sides, and, in the west pediment, the pair of statues known as Kekrops and his daughter and the lower half of a reclining female figure. Those pedimental sculptures were not removed because they were believed at the time to be “Hadrianic replacements”. A shocking instance of post-Elgin loss may be observed on west frieze block VIII. A cast taken from moulds made by Elgin’s agents in 1802 records a heroic, bearded figure reining in a spirited horse. When a further cast was taken from a new set of moulds in 1872, nothing remained of the figure’s face: it had crumbled away (Fig.10). A photograph of the same block taken by Walter Hege in the 1920s reveals its appalling condition.. Further instances of the flaking away of the surface of the west frieze, with the resultant loss of detail, are evident in this and others of Hege’s photographs.(6) A more recent photograph, taken by the Greek Archaeological Service before the block was detached from the Parthenon in 1993, shows subsequent deterioration. All the exposed Parthenon sculptures were subjected to an awful process of disintegration in the course of the 20th century as the growth of Athens led to ever increasing atmospheric pollution. This process is described in chilling terms in a report by the Technical Office of the Acropolis:
The acid pollutants which are dissolved in rain water, i.e. Sulphur dioxide (SO2), Sulphur trioxide (SO3) and Nitrogen dioxide (NO2), attack exposed marble surfaces, turning the marble (limestone) into Calcium sulphate (plaster) or Calcium nitrate. The gypsum is in turn dissolved by rain and the attack continues on the new marble surface with [sic] emerges. This acid attack is extraordinarily devastating to architectural sculpture because the loss of detail results immediately. When surfaces are protected from rain the Sulphur dioxide (SO2) in the atmosphere produces a reaction termed sulphation. The sulphur dioxide (SO2) takes effect in two stages: first it quickly oxidises by catalysis into SO3; the second phase is a slow reaction of the SO3 with the Calcium carbonate (marble). Particles that are either in suspension in the air or have settled on the marble surface complete the process of deterioration.(7) In other words, the surfaces of the sculptures and reliefs crumbled and flaked away. The damage to some of the sculptures in London as a result of unauthorised cleaning in the late 1930s cannot be compared with the loss of detail suffered by pieces that remained exposed until quite recently on the Acropolis.8 Sooty deposits on the surface of the marble were another problem. From as early as 1905 the Archaeological Congress proposed that the west frieze be protected but no meaningful action was taken until the 1990s. It was finally removed to store in 1993 and has not been available to the public or generally available to scholars since. The statues that had been left in the west pediment were removed to the Acropolis Museum in 1977 and stabilised. They are now displayed in cases filled with an inert gas. Viewing their scarred and pitted surfaces for the first time, I could not help but compare them with the reclining male figure in London that originally lay not far from them in the north corner of the west pediment. That figure still retains traces of the original lustre of the polished marble. I was thankful that the latter had been spared their fate. Whatever Elgin’s motives, the result of his actions was the rescue of the majority of the Parthenon sculptures surviving in 1801 from further deterioration and destruction. The removal of the pedimental figures and west frieze blocks from the Parthenon in 1977 and 1993 respectively was necessary and appropriate, no more than a belated continuation of the process begun by Elgin.
Not all the Parthenon sculptures have been removed to a safer environment. The well-preserved westernmost north and south metopes remain exposed. These are not the only fifth-century BC architectural sculptures still exposed to Athenian pollution. The frieze blocks and metopes on the Hephaisteion, an intact mid fifth-century BC temple on the edge of the Agora and within sight of the Acropolis, also remain in situ and continue to deteriorate. (Those prepared to condemn the British Museum out of hand for the unauthorised cleaning of some of the Parthenon sculptures in the late 1930s should recall that the Hephaisteion frieze was, with official and scholarly approval, subjected to an even more drastic cleaning in the 1950s.(9) Unesco guidelines on the restitution of cultural properties call for the return of those objects which are “central to the cultural identity and national heritage of a people”, and whose removal “divests that culture of one of its dimensions”. Do these guidelines apply to the Parthenon sculptures in London? I believe not. The modern Greeks are not the sole heirs to the achievements of the ancient Greeks, and, moreover, those achievements are not the sole or even the most important component of their present-day identity. Nor can it reasonably be argued that modern Greece has been divested of an entire dimension of its national heritage by Elgin’s actions. One particularly strident voice in the Marbles debate insists that “a brilliant frieze that was carved as a unity, and that tells a narrative story, should not be broken in two and exhibited in two separate cities,” and goes on to offer a spurious analogy of a divided Mona Lisa.(10) The return of the Elgin Marbles to Athens would not result in the restoration of the “unity” of a work of art. Nearly one-third of the frieze is lost beyond recall. Nor would we come anywhere near achieving the “unity” of the great compositions that once filled the pediments with the return of the Elgin Marbles. The loss of pedimental sculpture has been even more severe than the losses suffered by the frieze. Any alleged “aesthetic point” that would be made by the return of the London material would be outweighed by the damage such an action would do to great cultural institutions throughout the world.
Some “restitutionists” argue disingenuously that their demand would not result in irreparable damage to the world’s great museums. The Greeks, they assure us, have no claims on any other material beyond their borders. But it is not the Greeks alone who claim theirs to be a special case. Other “restitutionists”, with greater honesty, have admitted their distaste for institutions like the British Museum and make it clear that they would be happy to see them emptied of their “stolen property”. Nigel Spivey recently provided a particularly distasteful example of this argument, calling for the “acceptance of guilt” and a “process of atonement” by the great museums of the world. I find Mr Spivey’s claim that the Elgin Marbles are “object lessons of greed, xenophobia and intransigence” in part incomprehensible and in part deeply offensive.(11) If Mr Spivey and others are affronted by what they regard as the fruits of imperialism, they might remind themselves of the motives behind the construction of the Parthenon itself. It was meant to proclaim Athens the richest and most powerful of all Greek cities. The buildings raised on the Acropolis were the most extravagant temples and subsidiary buildings constructed anywhere in the Greek world in the fifth century BC. The building programme was funded in large part with the gains of empire. The Athenian empire had begun as a defensive league under the leadership of Athens but was quickly transformed into a brutally administered imperium. The distribution of works of art beyond their place of origin is not an unmitigated evil, an absolute crime against culture. “National museums”, when literally that, simply reinforce national prejudices and notions of racial superiority. The contribution of the British Museum and its counterparts to fostering internationalism in the broadest sense deserves recognition, appreciation and respect. The “restitution” of the Elgin Marbles would not significantly enrich the life of the Greek people; it would immeasurably impoverish the lives of all the rest of us. The world’s great museums allow us to grasp the breadth of human artistic achievement and to challenge narrow national conceits. In the British Museum the Parthenon sculptures are not demeaned by being reduced to totems of anyone’s nationality but are freely available to all to be studied and appreciated in a rich comparative context as part of our common heritage.
The Greeks, with international cooperation, have made tremendous efforts over the past three decades to consolidate all the monuments of the Acropolis. Most of the structural damage they have had to repair was the direct result of the catastrophically ill-conceived restorations of all the major buildings on the Acropolis undertaken by Nikolas Balanos in the opening decades of the 20th century. Now the Parthenon and the other structures have been restored out of fragments of their original fabric combined with substantial amounts of freshly quarried Pentelic marble. The surviving sculptures, whether in the Acropolis Museum, the British Museum, the Louvre or elsewhere, cannot be returned to their original locations. That material is not required to achieve the “reintegration” of the Parthenon or any of the other Acropolis monuments. Casts or laser-cut marble facsimiles of all the sculptures that can appear meaningfully on the Parthenon should be placed on it. We would then come as close as possible to a realisation of the lost whole while leaving the originals where history has scattered them. One may be a passionate Philhellene and still believe that the Elgin Marbles should remain in the British Museum.
This article was originally published in the Summer 2002 issue of ArtWatch UK
Footnotes
1 There was a great fire in the Roman period that destroyed the roof and interior of the Parthenon but did not result in any losses to its external sculptural decorations. The fire is likely to have occurred in 267 AD, when the Heruli, a Germanic tribe, invaded Attica and sacked Athens. See Jeffrey M. Hurwit, The Athenian Acropolis: History, Mythology, and Archaeology from the Neolithic Era to the Present (Cambridge, 1999), pp. 283 ff.
2 Christopher Hitchens, The Elgin Marbles: Should they be returned to Greece? with essays by Robert Browning and Graham Binns (London, 1987, revised edition: London, 1999), p.20; p.7 in the revised edition.
3 All of Carrey’s drawings are reproduced in T. Bowie and D. Thimme, The Carrey Drawings of the Parthenon Sculptures, (Bloomington and London, 1971). 4 Richard Dalton, Antiquities in Sicily, Greece, Asia Minor and Egypt (London, 1751-1752).
5 See Frank Brommer, The Sculptures of the Parthenon: metopes, frieze, pediments, cult-statue (Thames and Hudson, London, 1979) for a complete account of survivals.
6 They are published in Walter Hege and Gerhart Rodenwaldt Akropolis (Berlin, 1930).
7 Maria Casanaki and Fanny Mallouchou (based on studies of the Technical Office of the Acropolis), The Acropolis at Athens: Conservation, Restoration and Research, 1975-1983 (Committee for the Preservation of Acropolis Monuments, no date), pp. 59-60.
8 For the cleaning, see Ian Jenkins, “Cleaning and Controversy: The Parthenon Sculptures 1811-1939”, Occasional Paper No. 146, (British Museum, London, 2001), and the British Museum website: www.thebritishmuseum.ac.uk/gr/grparth.html. Note that frieze fragments in the Acropolis Museum itself have been cleaned.
9 See Michael Daley, “Beware Restorers Bearing Chisels”, Art Review, December/January 2000.
10 Christopher Hitchens, “Who really owns culture?”, The Independent on Sunday, 11 November 1999, p.17.
11 Nigel Spivey, “...but we think you ought to go”, Art Fund Quarterly, Spring 2000, pp.13-14.
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