[MSN] Minerva: holding back on the detail? It now looks as if some of the material handled by Eisenberg --- but purchased at auction in London --- could have derived from Giacomo Medici.

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Saturday, November 10, 2007
Minerva: holding back on the detail?

Images and links:
http://lootingmatters.blogspot.com/2007/11/minerva-holding-back-on-detail.ht
ml

 
I confess that Minerva: The International Review of Ancient Art &
Archaeology has not been one of my favourite magazines. I have not changed
my views since 1990 when Kevin Butcher and I published a review article of
the first few numbers. 

Its founder, editor-in-chief, and publisher is Dr Jerome Eisenberg. And it
is Eisenberg, wearing his other hat as founder and director of Royal-Athena
Galleries in New York, who has returned eight antiquities to Italy.

It now looks as if some of the material handled by Eisenberg --- but
purchased at auction in London --- could have derived from Giacomo Medici.
The impact of the "Medici Conspiracy" is immense. The last two years have
seen major North American museums agreeing to return objects with little
apparent fight --- and one suspects the evidence was too compelling.

So what does a dealer and magazine editor-in-chief like Eisenberg make of
the returns to Italy? He has helpfully published lists of the returns but
has held back on the detail. There are clear implications for private
collectors. The Fleischman collection, sold or donated to the Getty, has
featured prominently in the returns. And one of the pieces illustrated by
Eisenberg (no. 14) is recorded as coming from the same room as a fragment in
the Shelby White collection. But Eisenberg makes no reference to the link.

And there appears to be no mention in Minerva that some of the antiquities
returned to Italy from Boston and Malibu had passed through the Royal-Athena
Galleries.

Perhaps all that was intended was to provide a simple list and to reassure
the readers of Minerva that the antiquities market was stable. 

But everything has now changed. 

Eisenberg himself is in the spotlight. And he will have the opportunity to
explain the eight antiquities. How was he able to acquire items stolen from
museums in Italy? Had he been suspicious of items surfacing at Sotheby's
(London) in the mid-1980s? What was his due diligence process? Had he
consulted and obtained clearance from the Art Loss Register? 

And is it just coincidence that a red-figured column-krater returned to
Italy by Eisenberg is attributed to the same Geras painter as an amphora
returned from the Getty? (I have noted elsewhere the thread of the Darius
painter running through the other returns to Italy.)

And Eisenberg's explanations need to be convincing. Why?


Over the past 50 years we [sc. Royal-Athena Galleries] have sold more than
600 works of ancient art to many of the country's leading museums, including
the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, the Sackler
Art Museum at Harvard University, the Yale University Art Gallery, the
Princeton University Art Museum, the Newark Museum, the Detroit lnstitute of
Arts the Cincinnati Art Museum, the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, the
Milwaukee Public Museum, the New Orleans Museum of Art, the Virginia Museum
of Fine Arts, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and the J. Paul Getty
Museum, as well as the British Museum, the Louvre, and a number of museums
in Canada, Germany, Greece, the Netherlands, Spain, Switzerland, Australia,
and Japan. (quote from website)

Museum curators and trustees will be wanting to ensure that they made sound
and secure acquisitions.

Reference
Butcher, K., and D. W. J. Gill. 1990. "Mischievous pastime or historical
science?" Antiquity 64: 946-50.
Eisenberg, J. M. 2007. "Italy & the J. Paul Getty Museum Antiquities
Repatriation." Minerva 18: 19-20.
Gill, D. W. J., and C. Chippindale. 2006. "From Boston to Rome: reflections
on returning antiquities." International Journal of Cultural Property 13:
311-31 (abstract).
Gill, D. W. J., and C. Chippindale. 2007. "The illicit antiquities scandal:
what it has done to classical archaeology collections." American Journal of
Archaeology 111: 571-74 (pdf).
Gill, D. W. J., and C. Chippindale. 2007. "From Malibu to Rome: further
developments on the return of antiquities." International Journal of
Cultural Property 14: 205-40 (abstract).

Images and links:
http://lootingmatters.blogspot.com/2007/11/minerva-holding-back-on-detail.ht
ml