[MSN] 1896 Work by Johann Dieter Wassmann calls into question claim that Ban Chiang Pottery was unknown before 1966

[MSN]

This may be of interest to your Readers :

 

http://museumzeitraum.blogspot.com/

 

Pioneering German artist Johann Dieter Wassmann's THE HEAVENS, BAN
CHIANG, 1896 raises unanswered questions over provenance of antiquities.

Questions have surfaced in Leipzig this week raising doubts in relation
to the current controversy in the United States over Ban Chiang
antiquities held in several American museum collections. 

In an article that will appear in this Sunday's New York Times, Jori
Finkel  asserts that Ban Chiang works were only discovered in northeast
Thailand in 1966, by Harvard student Steve Young. As a result, Ms.
Finkel explains, "... antiquities that left Thailand after 1961, when
the country enacted its antiquities law, could be considered stolen
under American law. And since Ban Chaing material was not excavated
until well after that date, practically all Ban Chiang material in the
United States could qualify." 

Curators at MuseumZeitraum Leipzig have pointed out this week, however,
that the pioneering German modernist Johann Dieter Wassmann (1841-1898)
completed an assemblage work in 1896 containing a late-period 400 B.C. -
100 A.D. Ban Chiang pedestal pot. The Heavens: Ban Chiang, 1896 is part
of Wassmann's seminal 33-work Der Ring des Nibelungen (Ring Cycle)
1895-1897 - so-called after Richard Wagner's "Ring Cycle." The work
includes such early surrealist devices as clay pipes and glass eyeballs,
but uses as its central motif the Ban Chiang pot. Each piece in this
remarkable 33-work ensemble takes the form of a pine box, shaped as an
isosceles trapezoid, with the glass front constituting the smaller of
the two parallel planes. When assembled in three groups, 11 boxes are
positioned to form a circle, with the fronts facing inward, toward one
another, rather than outward toward the viewer.

In January, four California museums were raided by federal agents as
part of a federal inquiry into the handling of Ban Chiang artifacts. The
affidavits filed by agents to obtain search warrants go so far as to
make the legal argument that almost all Ban Chiang material in the
United States is stolen property. 

In her article, Ms. Finkel goes on to point out that, "Among the many
American museums with Ban Chiang artifacts are the Metropolitan Museum
of Art in New York; the Freer and Cackler Galleries in Washington; the
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; the Cleveland Museum of Art; the
Minneapolis Institute of Arts; and the Asian Art Museum in San
Francisco."

The prospect that a Ban Chiang artifact reached Europe three-quarters of
a century prior to the Thai export ban raises unanswered questions about
the provenance of works in U.S. collections. 

Wassmann traveled through southeast Asia in 1887 after visiting
Australia, where the German engineer and part-time artist had been
contracted to design a sewerage management system for Sydney. Failure of
the New South Wales government to pass the required appropriations
funding led to Wassmann's early departure from Sydney in July 1887.
Seasonal trade winds required returning to Europe via the 'tea routes'
of the Asian archipelago. 

Wassmann's diary from these travels indicate his purchase of, "a small,
but exquisite pot of fine geometric design, formal, while exhibiting a
light but generous presence of the artist's hand." The purchase appears
to have been made from villagers on the Thai coast. It seems unlikely
Wassmann traveled any deeper into Thailand to reach Ban Chiang in the
northeast, suggesting local trade in these antiquities was active in the
late 19th century. 

For enquiries, or a reproduction quality colour jpeg of The Heavens: Ban
Chiang, 1896, please contact MuseumZeitraum Leipzig director Sophie
Vogt.

 

Peter K. Tompa 

Dillingham & Murphy, LLP

1155 Connecticut Avenue, NW

Washington, D.C. 20036

Telephone: (202) 835-9880

Facsimile: (202) 835-9885

pkt at dillinghammurphy.com

IMPORTANT/CONFIDENTIAL: This message from the law firm of Dillingham &
Murphy LLP is privileged, confidential and exempt from disclosure under
applicable law. If you are not the intended recipient (or authorized to
act on behalf of the intended recipient) of this message, you may not
disclose, forward, distribute, copy, or use this message or its
contents. If you have received this communication in error, please
notify us immediately by return e-mail and delete the original message
from your e-mail system. Thank you.