As my readers will know, I consider many of the antiquities dealers I come across in my perusal of the international market, slimy toads at the best of times. So this from one of them, does not really surprise:
As to where this US dealer's thoughts really are is revealed at the bottom:
Sometimes the veiled nastiness of the antiquities trade just makes you want to vomit.
This ad seems to be doing the rounds and I too was appalled. The calculating use of a recent death to create an advertisement camouflaged as fake sympathy "with the people of Thailand" has got to be sheer hypocrisy at its most sickening.
ReplyDeleteThe true purpose of the ad is curiously phrased as "Please join us in celebrating artwork from this region ...".
"Celebrating"? What, like Colgate is "celebrating" toothpaste or McDonald's is "celebrating" hamburgers?
I guess the dealer is as incapable of dropping the smarmy doublespeak and simply saying "Please buy our stock and give us your money" as he is of avoiding the stomach-churning use of mock sympathy to drum up sales.
And tell me, how many DEALERS and other COLLECTORS are similarly moved to voice their opposition to this dealer-smarm? Would that be zero? What does that tell you about that milieu?
ReplyDeleteIt tells me much the same as it does about the "milieu" of most archaeologists and others who remain silent when detecting rallies are advertised or detecting finds are triumphantly announced in the media. A huge majority of the human race tend to bury their heads below the parapet rather than challenge anything remotely controversial.
ReplyDeleteIn truth, it would be simplistic to think of every person who deals in antiquities or collects them as forming a homogeneous "milieu"; they are far too diverse. Neither is the use of crass and tasteless advertising unique to the commodity that interests them.
Rather, the real danger is that inappropriate advertisements or announcements are so commonplace in the general media that, unless the imagery or wording literally breaks the law, they have become regarded as not only inevitable but acceptable.