// essays //
February 16, 2016
Removing the Varnish:
Ethical Quandaries of Stolen Art on Display
Rebecca Jedwab
With a desire to expand my limited background in the fine arts, and a sudden urge to try something new, I elected to take “Introduction to Art History” during the first semester of my freshman year at Barnard College. Over the course of the semester I made regular trips to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, where I encountered the museum in a purely academic setting. In my eyes, the Met was an idyllic space devoted entirely to the conservation and appreciation of some of the most valued artwork in human history. It was seemingly untouched by politics and external influences—a cultural center held to the highest ethical standards, and entrusted to preserve items of cultural and historical significance for generations. It never occurred to me that it is precisely parts of those items’ cultural and historical significance that are hidden from the public eye.
My blissful view of the “art museum” was shattered the following semester with new discoveries in the second half of Introduction to Art History, and when “Woman in Gold"—the now ubiquitous story turned blockbuster film about Maria Altmann’s success in retrieving a priceless Gustav Klimt painting that the Nazi regime stole from her family home in Vienna decades earlier—premiered in theaters. About the same time that the movie hit theaters, a reading was assigned in class about the controversy surrounding the Elgin Marbles, a collection of classical Greek marble structures that were removed from the Parthenon in the 1800s and later sold to the British Museum, where they remain on public display. The discussion that followed during my recitation section about the Elgin Marbles and the attempts by Greek authorities to reclaim them raised important questions about the role of museums and the ownership of art. However, the choice to focus this discussion solely on a work of art that is chronologically and geographically distant from most Barnard students seemed strange, especially when “Woman in Gold” was concurrently receiving a lot of media attention and the piece in question was on display at the Neue Galerie on the Upper East Side.
Perhaps more importantly, the class discussion failed to acknowledge the fact that many of the works on display at the Met—the most frequently visited and revered museum for Barnard art history students—were stolen works of art. A course that requires students to visit the Met multiple times throughout a semester and, in doing so, fosters an appreciation for the museum among students, cannot exclude the museum itself from a discussion about repatriation when in reality, it is at the forefront of politics surrounding the issue. Art history students at Barnard must be exposed to the controversy regarding the provenance of the art on display in the Met’s collections, whether in lecture, in discussion sections, or during a required tour of the Met’s galleries. Even if the professor chose not to discuss Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I, there are a myriad works at the Met that could have been mentioned in a discussion about repatriation—works that are more recent and more relevant than the Elgin Marbles, especially for art history students at Barnard. Overlooking such details perpetuates an idyllic image of the Met, and art museums in general, rather than a realistic one, giving students an incomplete understanding of the art that they study and the museums that they come to appreciate.
Similarly, the Met bears a responsibility to be transparent about the histories of the stolen art that remain in its collections. If museums are truly apolitical, if they take seriously the high ethical standard to which they are held, they would proactively research the provenance of contested works in their collections and cooperate with parties seeking to reclaim them. However, the rare success of repatriation embodied by the Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I marks an anomaly; the ordeal required significant financial support, and even the decades-long controversy surrounding the ownership of the Elgin Marbles has yet to be resolved. Rather than dwell on what would be an uphill battle, perhaps the focus should instead be on what museums must do when they do not repatriate or in the event that they strike agreements that allow certain works of art to remain in their collections. At the very least, museums have an obligation to provide visitors with an accurate description of the controversy surrounding the pieces’ provenance.
When provenance research reveals that historically invaluable works arrived at the Met through illegal practices, and the museum retains these works, the museum bears an obligation to make information readily available to its visitors about the provenance of such works and the questions regarding their ownership. For example, in 2006 the Met negotiated a settlement with the Italian government under which the museum agreed to relinquish ownership of the Euphronios Krater to the Italian government, a vessel that was illegally excavated from a tomb near Rome. The museum trustees also agreed to return other valuable antiquities to be rotated between the Met and the Italian government every four years. However, the fact that some of the stolen art remains in the Met’s collection based upon an agreement with the Italian government is not regularly discussed during gallery tours. Furthermore, the labels that accompany the pieces that were exchanged for the Euphronios Krater and those that rotate between the Met and Italy do not include any information relating to the agreement, neither in the museum nor online.
Just as art history professors bear a responsibility to address the Met’s association with art repatriation, the museum itself has an obligation to its visitors to make information readily available to them about the provenance of contested works of art and the dispute surrounding their ownership. Such information must be explicitly mentioned on museum labels, during gallery tours, and on the museum’s website. To disregard or omit such a crucial aspect of an artwork’s history is to misinform those who rely on the Met to communicate an accurate historical narrative.
As an art history student with an idealized view of the Met, it was unsettling to learn that the Met is, in fact, intimately involved in the politics surrounding art repatriation. A conversation about the ownership of art, specifically at a school like Barnard that is located in New York City, cannot begin and end with the Elgin Marbles when so many other pieces on display just a few blocks away are the subjects of great debate. It is the responsibility of museums and professors alike to ensure that students have a realistic and accurate understanding of the art they study as well as the museums they visit, even if that means exposing the flaws of museums that are otherwise perceived as institutions with strong ethical values. And if they don’t, isn’t it our responsibility as students to ask?
My blissful view of the “art museum” was shattered the following semester with new discoveries in the second half of Introduction to Art History, and when “Woman in Gold"—the now ubiquitous story turned blockbuster film about Maria Altmann’s success in retrieving a priceless Gustav Klimt painting that the Nazi regime stole from her family home in Vienna decades earlier—premiered in theaters. About the same time that the movie hit theaters, a reading was assigned in class about the controversy surrounding the Elgin Marbles, a collection of classical Greek marble structures that were removed from the Parthenon in the 1800s and later sold to the British Museum, where they remain on public display. The discussion that followed during my recitation section about the Elgin Marbles and the attempts by Greek authorities to reclaim them raised important questions about the role of museums and the ownership of art. However, the choice to focus this discussion solely on a work of art that is chronologically and geographically distant from most Barnard students seemed strange, especially when “Woman in Gold” was concurrently receiving a lot of media attention and the piece in question was on display at the Neue Galerie on the Upper East Side.
Perhaps more importantly, the class discussion failed to acknowledge the fact that many of the works on display at the Met—the most frequently visited and revered museum for Barnard art history students—were stolen works of art. A course that requires students to visit the Met multiple times throughout a semester and, in doing so, fosters an appreciation for the museum among students, cannot exclude the museum itself from a discussion about repatriation when in reality, it is at the forefront of politics surrounding the issue. Art history students at Barnard must be exposed to the controversy regarding the provenance of the art on display in the Met’s collections, whether in lecture, in discussion sections, or during a required tour of the Met’s galleries. Even if the professor chose not to discuss Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I, there are a myriad works at the Met that could have been mentioned in a discussion about repatriation—works that are more recent and more relevant than the Elgin Marbles, especially for art history students at Barnard. Overlooking such details perpetuates an idyllic image of the Met, and art museums in general, rather than a realistic one, giving students an incomplete understanding of the art that they study and the museums that they come to appreciate.
Similarly, the Met bears a responsibility to be transparent about the histories of the stolen art that remain in its collections. If museums are truly apolitical, if they take seriously the high ethical standard to which they are held, they would proactively research the provenance of contested works in their collections and cooperate with parties seeking to reclaim them. However, the rare success of repatriation embodied by the Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I marks an anomaly; the ordeal required significant financial support, and even the decades-long controversy surrounding the ownership of the Elgin Marbles has yet to be resolved. Rather than dwell on what would be an uphill battle, perhaps the focus should instead be on what museums must do when they do not repatriate or in the event that they strike agreements that allow certain works of art to remain in their collections. At the very least, museums have an obligation to provide visitors with an accurate description of the controversy surrounding the pieces’ provenance.
When provenance research reveals that historically invaluable works arrived at the Met through illegal practices, and the museum retains these works, the museum bears an obligation to make information readily available to its visitors about the provenance of such works and the questions regarding their ownership. For example, in 2006 the Met negotiated a settlement with the Italian government under which the museum agreed to relinquish ownership of the Euphronios Krater to the Italian government, a vessel that was illegally excavated from a tomb near Rome. The museum trustees also agreed to return other valuable antiquities to be rotated between the Met and the Italian government every four years. However, the fact that some of the stolen art remains in the Met’s collection based upon an agreement with the Italian government is not regularly discussed during gallery tours. Furthermore, the labels that accompany the pieces that were exchanged for the Euphronios Krater and those that rotate between the Met and Italy do not include any information relating to the agreement, neither in the museum nor online.
Just as art history professors bear a responsibility to address the Met’s association with art repatriation, the museum itself has an obligation to its visitors to make information readily available to them about the provenance of contested works of art and the dispute surrounding their ownership. Such information must be explicitly mentioned on museum labels, during gallery tours, and on the museum’s website. To disregard or omit such a crucial aspect of an artwork’s history is to misinform those who rely on the Met to communicate an accurate historical narrative.
As an art history student with an idealized view of the Met, it was unsettling to learn that the Met is, in fact, intimately involved in the politics surrounding art repatriation. A conversation about the ownership of art, specifically at a school like Barnard that is located in New York City, cannot begin and end with the Elgin Marbles when so many other pieces on display just a few blocks away are the subjects of great debate. It is the responsibility of museums and professors alike to ensure that students have a realistic and accurate understanding of the art they study as well as the museums they visit, even if that means exposing the flaws of museums that are otherwise perceived as institutions with strong ethical values. And if they don’t, isn’t it our responsibility as students to ask?
// REBECCA JEDWAB is a Sophomore in Barnard College. She can be reached at [email protected]. Photo courtesy of Flickr user Douglas Pearce.