The Antiques Trade Gazette is reporting that two bronzes sold at the YSL-Pierre Bergé sale last month are at the center of a cultural repatriation controversy. The bronzes, two zodiacal figures that formed part of the water clock looted from a Chinese palace by English forces in the Opium Wars of the mid- 19th century, were bid for successfully by a dealer in China for €28,000,000- nearly 10% of the sale total- who now says his winning bid was an effort to prevent the pieces from going elsewhere, other than repatriation to China. The bidder says he has no plans to pay for the purchased lots. Will litigation ensue? Probably not for the moment, as Pierre Bergé, who along with Yves St Laurent had acquired the pieces in good faith, will just keep them. Any subsequent attempt at sale will doubtless be, shall we say, problematic.
The phenomenon of cultural icons travelling far afield from their place of origin is hardly new. Rome is spiked with obelisks looted millennia ago from Egypt. These constitute trophies of empire that achieve a different, and probably no less potent iconic status in the hands of the victor. Imperialism just doesn’t work if it isn’t accompanied by tangible symbols of the vanquished. Fortunately, Egypt seems to have been long on obelisks, as Great Britain found them handy for conspicuous imperial display, too.
It’s interesting, and pervasive, the notion that an imperial power has not only a political but also a moral right to foreign objects acquired through conquest. The notion of the white man’s burden continues to plague our own country, with our moral certainty that ancient centers of civilization have long-since de-civilized, and we are, somehow, the spiritual inheritors of the mantle of civilization- and the rightful possessors of any and all local resources including cultural artifacts. It should not be surprising that some other nations and ethnic groups- the Chinese, for instance- tend to take issue with this, and argue, reasonably enough, that they have a history of wisdom and learning many thousands of years older than ours in the west, and demand therefore the return of items taken from them during a comparative brief period in their history when they were in political turmoil. The United Nations resolution that covers stolen cultural artifacts limits claims for their repatriation to only 50 years from the time of their purported theft. The Chinese government, representing as it does one of the world’s oldest nation-states, and now one of the world’s strongest nation-states, is unwilling to accept that, for purposes of repatriation, the statute has run.
Of course, not every displaced cultural artifact is a spoil of war. The Parthenon marbles in the British Museum that the Greek government seeks every minute of every day to have returned, were in fact legally purchased by Lord Elgin from the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire, the then-rulers of modern-day Greece. With the support given by the British in the struggle of the Greeks for independence, it might be thought surprising that the then newly acquired Parthenon marbles were not immediately returned. But perhaps not- British ethnocentrism was never as pronounced as it was in the 19th century. That God was an Englishman there was no doubt, and the British Museum was a temple, both in appearance and function, celebrating the worldwide cultural bounty that God had given the British people.
In fairness, it is sadly in the nature of all armies to loot, but, given the recent tragedy of the Baghdad Museum, there should now exist internationally a greater sensitivity to the need for repatriation. With all that, as an American dealer in mostly English antiques, any argument for wholesale repatriation would, if carried to its logical extreme, cause me to empty my shop and return my goods to- whom? Certainly, most material that was owned by others and/or offered for sale in the trade has been acquired through regular art market channels and although representative of, is not central to, the cultural life of its country of origin. In my experience, no one has ever suggested there was anything wrong with what is essentially purchasing items that others do not esteem and selling them to those who would value them.
Still, a 50 year limitation on making a claim for repatriation doesn’t seem like a very long time, does it? I doubt that anyone will be after us about a Georgian bureau we may have acquired at a country auction, but art looted by the Nazis is still regularly making its presence known. And the Chinese bronzes? Expect to hear more about them.