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Nord Wennerstrom asks, probably rhetorically:
Nord Wennerstrom asks, probably rhetorically:
"If leading museums won’t buy these antiquities – why would you?"The answer is of course that those who buy such things, for various reasons consider themselves above all the concerns of the sort that beset those that make artefacts available to the hoi polloi. The same goes for those that sell such items to such people.
2 comments:
"why would you"?
A,because im not a museum.
B,the pieces that %99.9 of collectors buy museums wont even take a second look at.
this line in the sand of 1970 paul is fine when we are talking about the getty griffins or the euphronios krater but not for every single insignificant piece that may be ligitimate but has just lost its paper work over the decades.i myself have bought pieces from provincial auction houses which just by chance had papers with them,not even mentiond in the catalogue.if they didnt have papers,they would be labled as illicit,they just happend to have letters from the bm dated 1947.i bought an egyption mummy mask from lots road auction 4 years ago with no paperwork other than it was from an estate of a german archaeologist who fled nazi germany in the 30s,on any other occasion that could have been "fabricated provenance"but at the sale was the ladys grandaughter,with old photos of her grandmother holding some of the pieces on sale.there is stuff out there,just last week we had the roman sarcophagus found in the garden of a stately home coverd in thick bushes that was spoted by chance by an auctionear who visited the property to value some paintings.it turned out his auction house sold the piece in the 1920s.as a collector myself i try to collect as ethically as i can but if i had to stick to the 1970 rule[as museums do]i wouldnt be buying anything.if i have a verifyable provenance going back 25-35+ years at least i know the piece wasnt looted yesterday. im afraid thats as good as it gets in most cases because in the 1970s-1990s provenance,keeping a paper trail was not as important as it is now,buying bog standard antiquities in the early 80s was like buying a morcroft vase or a piece of claris cliff pottery,reciepts/records were rarely kept.
i believe that looted goods are still supplying the market and buyers should be asking questions.a no provenance purchase now by a collector,even a small piece,is inexcusable,it must have come from somewhere,there is no excuse for not keeping proper records now but this is 2012 not 1982.
kyri.
I think you miuss the point. Why should private collectors NOT strive to match the standards of the museums?
Because it is too difficult? But that surely is the point I was making.
We are going to get nowhere unless all collectors agree to adopt some stringent standards and not expect exceptions to be made for them personally.
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