December 08, 2005

Museums and museum goers complicit in art thefts?

Writing for a Critic's Notebook column, the New York Times' Michael Kimmelman calls on museum goers, museums, including the Met, the U.S. and several foreign governments to change the way they treat looted art.

The Met Museum, which is currently negotiating the return of several possibly looted Italian artworks, "has been courting trouble by showing ancient loans from a major donor and trustee, Shelby White. For years, archaeologists have been complaining about the art that she and her late husband, the financier Leon Levy, bought," according to Kimmelman.

Also problematic, the U.S. doesn't have its legal act together, Greece just opened up 10,000 miles of coastline for divers to loot ancient shipwrecks in hopes of boosting tourism, while Italian law allows the government to confiscate any antiquity found on Italian soil -- along with the land -- with no compensation to the findor or landowner.

"Change must happen all around," he writes. "The museum-going public should also be more vigilant in calling on the government to play watchdog."

Earlier: Italy says Met Museum agrees to return looted art
Italians seek meeting with Met Museum on looted art

December 8, 2005 04:25 PM in Museums

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