Fincham on Barbier-Mueller Sale

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This just about sums up the current state of the no-questions-asked antiquities market:

"On Friday and Saturday in Paris Sotheby's auctioned a number of allegedly Pre-Columbian objects from the Barbier-Mueller collection"

(Derek Fincham, "A Hollow Victory for Mexico in the Barbier-Mueller Sale")Fincham notes the power of public opinion - suggesting that this is an area auction houses need to invest more effort by providing fuller collecting histories for a greater number of pieces. Fincham summarises that the sale was "yet another example of the complex web of legal rules and norms which apply to the antiquities trade".