Stolen Artifacts

In the article “Museums Studying Dealer’s Artifacts” by Robin Pogrebin and Kevin Flynn of the New York Times, the topic of museum collections and accessions are discussed. The article discussed the situation in which many art museums across the U.S. are facing because they received stolen pieces of artwork. Allegedly, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Norton Simon Museum, and the Smithsonian all received stolen pieces art work from art dealer Subhash Kapoor. Federal authorities state that Mr. Kapoor stole various pieces of Asian antiquities, which were believed to be from various temples in India. This is important to understand because the federal authorities are asking American museums to analyze their collections and items received from Mr. Kapoor, in order to locate stolen pieces antiquities either given to or bought by the museum.

The controversy which surrounds this investigation and seizure of these Asian antiquities is that a lot of the items, which some museums received from Mr. Kapoor, were not antiquities, but artwork from other periods. Many museums such as Freer-Sackler who purchased a 20^th century necklace from Mr. Kapoor, argue that since the necklace isn’t an antiquity or a sculpture, it cannot be sized by the government. Similarly, the Metropolitan Museum of Art obtained 81 items, which had been either purchased or donated from Subhash Kapoor. These items were primarily drawings from the 17^th, 18^th, 19^th century that have been on the museums website, which allowed anyone to view the items and dispute the provenance.

This case is very tricky considering the Federal authorities are seizing donated and gifted items to various museums. This is irrelevant considering federal authorities can force an institution to dispose or retain any item accessioned, regardless if it is donated, gifted, or bought. Likewise, many institutions state this in their accession policy and disposal policy. However, some museums like the Metropolitan Museum of Art have a better chance at retaining their items due to the fact that, those items have been available online for anyone to check the items history and provenance.

 
This article is a very important lesson for museum directors and curators who handle collections, which is to beware of people who sell items. The museum needs to be sure that the person they are purchasing the items from and respectable, reputable merchants or private dealers in order to evade situations like this. Secondly, museums need to consistently keep detailed accession logs on each item it receives. This helps track and locate the item and the items provenance, which can also help evade situations such as this one. It may be a good idea to keep these logs online and available to researchers. Thirdly, museums need to keep updated ethical procedures on accessioning gifted items, bequests, or donations. This will help to maintain professional methods for doing things the right way and can avoid precarious situation