Financial Times on Investing in Antiquities (Again)

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The Financial Times has an article 'Antiquities: the war of art', by Stephen Wilmot (23/6/11) discussing the "attractions and risks associated with investing in antiquities". Every so often the financial papers produce such cringe-worthy texts which invariably miss out any discussion whatsoever of the moral aspects of the no-questions-asked commerce in antiquities which they are advertising. This article is no exception, though it has a surprise ending. It seems vaguely to focus on the market for Chinese artefacts for some reason. There is a discussion of China's efforts to get looted material back home, Neil Brodie is quoted as asking whether these efforts may be increased as China gains influence in the world economy:“At the moment people can afford to ignore Chinese claims, but will that still be the case in 10 or 20 years’ time?” he asks. the nearest the article gets to discussing the ethics of the trade is when it points out that investigating culture crime requires the investment of considerable resources, which is where countries like Italy have an advantage over poorer countries (Greece and Egypt are cited) where less resources can be devoted to this effort. This part of the discussion is entirely object-centred.

Costas Paraskevaides, director of ArtAncient, a website that sells historical objects, says “there is little doubt the market is very buoyant right now”. He cites the emergence of mainland Chinese buyers as a key reason. Two years ago, he sold roughly one item a month to a mainland Chinese buyer. Now, he says, they snap up pieces at all price ranges almost every other day.

As one of the 'posities' in 'investing in antiquities', the size of the market is stressed, and the article points out it is an expanding one.

Jonathan Stone, international business director of Asian art at Christie’s, believes the well of buyers is deep enough. “We’re not dealing with a handful of people – the breadth and depth of the market now is something very new,” he says.

But of course an expanding number of people after a finite resource (the number of licitly-obtained artefacts on the market) is one full of dire portent, because it will increasingly draw illicitly-obtained material onto the market to make up the shortfall, and as prices rise so does the incentive for looting. This of course is an aspect totally omitted by the Financial Times' one-sided discussion of the "investment value" of antiquities.

The article points out that some antiquities lose value [Brodie is again quoted here], that they may be over-priced at the time of sale due to aggressive bidding from a small number of greedy people for a particularly coveted item (I'd say the Crosby Garrett helmet is a good example of this). the article warns there are a lot of fakes around, and "the risk that the piece has been illegally imported" (should be "exported" shouldn't it FT?). There is no proper mention of the need for responsible collectors to ensure they have documented title to objects through verifiable and documented collecting histories and proof export formalities were fulfilled, or that it is collections of such artefacts which are most worth 'investing' in.

All this has made other ways of investing in emerging-world culture more popular, particularly Chinese contemporary art. “You need very specialist knowledge to collect the past, whereas the appeal of contemporary art is visceral – it’s about how you feel about it, what it does to you,” says Strauss. “Antiquities are far more problematic.”

Indeed they are, and it is to be noted that achieving "intercultural understanding" and cosmopolitanism (that's "globalisation" over here) is one of the main motives US (mainly) "cultural property internationalist" authors have been ascribing to their collecting and commercial activities. Why however concentrate on dead cultures of a foreign region at the expense of contact with the living one?

Vignette: money, money, money.