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Museums and the holocaust: law, principles and practice,
Publications Digest
of archaeological sites that much more profitable. In his extended essay, Lord Renfrew draws attention to the crucial importance of the information gained when an object is excavated under scientifically controlled conditions and the data so obtained is published with full scholarly rigour, subject to subsequent peer review. Under ‘Causes for concern’, some of the scandals of recent years, including those surrounding the Getty Kouros, the Lydian Treasure (returned eventually by the Metropolitan Museum of Art to Turkey), the Aidonia Treasure and the Sevso Treasure, which have been explored with relish by the media, are summarised. The horrific looting, for example, of the Djenne´ terracottas sites in Mali and Niger, and the equanimity with which certain dealers have traded in reliefs stolen from Nineveh, are recounted as a prelude to a deeply depressing assessment of ‘Ineffective safeguards and evolving moralities’. In these murky waters the museums are far from blameless and the inability of some American insitutions to renounce the collecting of ‘Ancient Art’, rather than ‘Archeological Specimens’, continues to be counter-productive. Lord Renfew is careful to avoid criticising the collectors of Modern Art, Old Master paintings, etc., although— at last—reliable provenances are increasingly being demanded in those fields before acquiring them. Collecting of unprovenanced archaic marble sculptures presumably obtained from the Cycladic Islands has been driven in no small measure by their fortuitous resemblance to certain products of the Modern Movement, but the massive clandestine excavations— from which most of the known examples are believed to have been derived—have destroyed their archae-
109
ological contexts and irretrievably damaged our understanding of them. Nonetheless, the specimen of ‘Ancient Art’ still benefits from the myth that ‘it speaks for itself’ and that its archaeological context is somehow merely an added bonus. No wonder so many fakes are acquired. To the main text is attached 10 Appendices of ‘Conventions, Resolutions, Documents’: 1. The Unesco Convention (1970); 2. The Unidroit Convention (1995); 3. The Philadelphia Declaration (1970); 4. International Council of Museums, Code of Professional Ethics (1995); 5. Policy Statement by the Trustees of the British Museum (1998); 6. Resolution by the Council of the British Academy (1998); 7. Writ of Summons in the Sevso Case, London (1991); 8. The Treasure Act for England and Wales (1996); 9. European Council Regulation on the export of cultural goods (1992); and 10. The Cambridge Resolution (1999). Nonetheless, the commercial market remains the critical factor and Lord Renfrew offers many insights into how that may be tamed. PII:S0260-4779(01)00031-0
2001.1.26.4 Museums and the Holocaust: Law, Principles and Practice, Norman Palmer, with specialist contributors Leila Anglade, Debra Morris, Emily Pocock, Ruth Redmond-Cooper and Barbara Zeitler, 210×148 mm, xviii+327 pp., with black & white illustrations. Institute of Art and Law, Leicester, 2000 (ISBN (cloth bound) 09531696-5-0; (paperback) 0-9531696-69), £25.00 (museum price). Institute of Art and Law Ltd., Bank Chambers, 121 London Road, Leicester LE2 0QT, UK. Focussing on the works of art taken or displaced during the period 1933 to
110
Publications Digest
1945, Professor Norman Palmer and his team have concentrated mainly on deprivations inflicted by agents of the Holocaust and on museums and galleries which are alleged to have received spoliated material. Other losses suffered between 1933 and 1945 are considered, including those attributable to Allied Forces, and more information is constantly becoming available, although, for example, the origins of the extensive Mimara Museum collections in Zagreb would appear to remain a deep mystery. The volume opens with an account of ‘Art and the Nazi Terror’, before moving on to ‘The Modern Upsurge in Claims’ and ‘The Museum Perspective’. The ‘AntiSeizure Statutes’ enacted in recent decades are reviewed, while the recognition that litigation is a flawed medium for resolving Holocaustrelated claims is covered in ‘The Futility of Litigation’. The ways in which an original title to a chattel may be obliterated by later events are assessed in the chapter devoted to ‘Original but not Enduring Title’, but if a legal claim for the return of a Holocaust-related work, or for damages on the ground of its wrongful acquisition or detention, has been established against a museum in the United Kingdom, the questions arising are considered under ‘Restitution, Recoupment and Indemnity’. Given the inadequacy of litigation, Chapter 8 is dedicated to ‘Solutions other than litigation’, and these are surveyed in ‘Post-war Restitution Laws’ and ‘Current National Initiatives’, country-bycountry. The main body of the text concludes with chapters devoted to ‘A Special Jurisdication: France and the Matte´oli Mission’, ‘A Special Jurisdiction: Australia’, and the ‘Conclusion’. Almost half of the volume is assigned to the 15 Appendices which cover, often in great detail, the rel-
evant national legislations, litigations, statements of principles and guidelines, including the full texts of the decision in City of Gotha v. Cobert Finance, the Schiele Litigation before the US courts and the Gentili di Giuseppe decision against the Louvre. Apart from the ‘Table of Statutes’ and the ‘Table of Cases’ by which the volume is prefaced, the information provided is brought up to date with an invaluable ‘Review of Recording, Retrieval and Tracing Agencies’ (Appendix XIV) and the text of the ‘House of Commons Culutre Media and Sport Committee Report, Cultural Property: Return of Illicit Trade’ of 25 July 2000 (Appendix XV). A comprehensive ‘Index’ is provided.
PII:S0260-4779(01)00032-2
2001.1.27.1 Museum Store Management, Second Edition, Mary Miley Theobald, 228×148 mm, x+265 pp., AltaMira Press for American Association for State and Local History (AASLH), Lanham, MD, 2000 (ISBN 0-7425-0431-X), paperback, £18.95. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers Inc., 4720 Boston Way, Lanham, MD 20706, USA, & Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, 12 Hid’s Copse Road, Cumnor Hill, Oxford OX2 9JJ, UK. When the first edition of Museum Store Management was published in 1991 it could claim to be the only substantial book on the subject then in existence, but subsequently the growing economic importance of museum stores to their cash-strapped parents has spawned a number of new publications in this field. Due account has been taken of them in the preparation of this revised second edition and it includes a short new chapter on mer-
of archaeological sites that much more profitable. In his extended essay, Lord Renfrew draws attention to the crucial importance of the information gained when an object is excavated under scientifically controlled conditions and the data so obtained is published with full scholarly rigour, subject to subsequent peer review. Under ‘Causes for concern’, some of the scandals of recent years, including those surrounding the Getty Kouros, the Lydian Treasure (returned eventually by the Metropolitan Museum of Art to Turkey), the Aidonia Treasure and the Sevso Treasure, which have been explored with relish by the media, are summarised. The horrific looting, for example, of the Djenne´ terracottas sites in Mali and Niger, and the equanimity with which certain dealers have traded in reliefs stolen from Nineveh, are recounted as a prelude to a deeply depressing assessment of ‘Ineffective safeguards and evolving moralities’. In these murky waters the museums are far from blameless and the inability of some American insitutions to renounce the collecting of ‘Ancient Art’, rather than ‘Archeological Specimens’, continues to be counter-productive. Lord Renfew is careful to avoid criticising the collectors of Modern Art, Old Master paintings, etc., although— at last—reliable provenances are increasingly being demanded in those fields before acquiring them. Collecting of unprovenanced archaic marble sculptures presumably obtained from the Cycladic Islands has been driven in no small measure by their fortuitous resemblance to certain products of the Modern Movement, but the massive clandestine excavations— from which most of the known examples are believed to have been derived—have destroyed their archae-
109
ological contexts and irretrievably damaged our understanding of them. Nonetheless, the specimen of ‘Ancient Art’ still benefits from the myth that ‘it speaks for itself’ and that its archaeological context is somehow merely an added bonus. No wonder so many fakes are acquired. To the main text is attached 10 Appendices of ‘Conventions, Resolutions, Documents’: 1. The Unesco Convention (1970); 2. The Unidroit Convention (1995); 3. The Philadelphia Declaration (1970); 4. International Council of Museums, Code of Professional Ethics (1995); 5. Policy Statement by the Trustees of the British Museum (1998); 6. Resolution by the Council of the British Academy (1998); 7. Writ of Summons in the Sevso Case, London (1991); 8. The Treasure Act for England and Wales (1996); 9. European Council Regulation on the export of cultural goods (1992); and 10. The Cambridge Resolution (1999). Nonetheless, the commercial market remains the critical factor and Lord Renfrew offers many insights into how that may be tamed. PII:S0260-4779(01)00031-0
2001.1.26.4 Museums and the Holocaust: Law, Principles and Practice, Norman Palmer, with specialist contributors Leila Anglade, Debra Morris, Emily Pocock, Ruth Redmond-Cooper and Barbara Zeitler, 210×148 mm, xviii+327 pp., with black & white illustrations. Institute of Art and Law, Leicester, 2000 (ISBN (cloth bound) 09531696-5-0; (paperback) 0-9531696-69), £25.00 (museum price). Institute of Art and Law Ltd., Bank Chambers, 121 London Road, Leicester LE2 0QT, UK. Focussing on the works of art taken or displaced during the period 1933 to
110
Publications Digest
1945, Professor Norman Palmer and his team have concentrated mainly on deprivations inflicted by agents of the Holocaust and on museums and galleries which are alleged to have received spoliated material. Other losses suffered between 1933 and 1945 are considered, including those attributable to Allied Forces, and more information is constantly becoming available, although, for example, the origins of the extensive Mimara Museum collections in Zagreb would appear to remain a deep mystery. The volume opens with an account of ‘Art and the Nazi Terror’, before moving on to ‘The Modern Upsurge in Claims’ and ‘The Museum Perspective’. The ‘AntiSeizure Statutes’ enacted in recent decades are reviewed, while the recognition that litigation is a flawed medium for resolving Holocaustrelated claims is covered in ‘The Futility of Litigation’. The ways in which an original title to a chattel may be obliterated by later events are assessed in the chapter devoted to ‘Original but not Enduring Title’, but if a legal claim for the return of a Holocaust-related work, or for damages on the ground of its wrongful acquisition or detention, has been established against a museum in the United Kingdom, the questions arising are considered under ‘Restitution, Recoupment and Indemnity’. Given the inadequacy of litigation, Chapter 8 is dedicated to ‘Solutions other than litigation’, and these are surveyed in ‘Post-war Restitution Laws’ and ‘Current National Initiatives’, country-bycountry. The main body of the text concludes with chapters devoted to ‘A Special Jurisdication: France and the Matte´oli Mission’, ‘A Special Jurisdiction: Australia’, and the ‘Conclusion’. Almost half of the volume is assigned to the 15 Appendices which cover, often in great detail, the rel-
evant national legislations, litigations, statements of principles and guidelines, including the full texts of the decision in City of Gotha v. Cobert Finance, the Schiele Litigation before the US courts and the Gentili di Giuseppe decision against the Louvre. Apart from the ‘Table of Statutes’ and the ‘Table of Cases’ by which the volume is prefaced, the information provided is brought up to date with an invaluable ‘Review of Recording, Retrieval and Tracing Agencies’ (Appendix XIV) and the text of the ‘House of Commons Culutre Media and Sport Committee Report, Cultural Property: Return of Illicit Trade’ of 25 July 2000 (Appendix XV). A comprehensive ‘Index’ is provided.
PII:S0260-4779(01)00032-2
2001.1.27.1 Museum Store Management, Second Edition, Mary Miley Theobald, 228×148 mm, x+265 pp., AltaMira Press for American Association for State and Local History (AASLH), Lanham, MD, 2000 (ISBN 0-7425-0431-X), paperback, £18.95. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers Inc., 4720 Boston Way, Lanham, MD 20706, USA, & Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, 12 Hid’s Copse Road, Cumnor Hill, Oxford OX2 9JJ, UK. When the first edition of Museum Store Management was published in 1991 it could claim to be the only substantial book on the subject then in existence, but subsequently the growing economic importance of museum stores to their cash-strapped parents has spawned a number of new publications in this field. Due account has been taken of them in the preparation of this revised second edition and it includes a short new chapter on mer-