TEFAF Challenged, Will They Step up and Accept?

Egypt trolls TEFAF (in letter obtained by American Cmte for Cultural Policy), asks the participating antiquities dealers to prove legality by asking to review collecting histories for Egyptian artefacts if the artifacts were legally acquired it should be an easy request to fulfill. Katie A. Paul ‏@AnthroPaulicy notes, 'It seems that TEFAF isn't a fan of the bad press around looted artifacts. On Nov 5 it announced a new vetting policy - one that leaves dealers an auction houses out of the equation'  "The change followed a review of legal issues relating to vetting, particularly good governance and assessment of liability, which led to advice that vetting panels should comprise experts with as little commercial interest in the art market as possible".

Dodgy and careless dealers are at a bit of a disadvantage because Egyptian antiquities (though found outside the modern country) are pretty distinctive, making them easy to identify even if dealers and collectors have thrown away every piece of the paper trail to anonymise them. The next step would be for TEFAF, put in a corner by demands like this from source countries, not to allow dealers to peddle antiquities at the event that do not have a full dossier of legitimising paper trail. Keep up the pressure.

Hat tip, Katie Paul