WASHINGTON — The director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art on Monday accused foreign countries seeking the return of looted antiquities of targeting museums in the United States without examining the practices of institutions in other nations.
Philippe de Montebello, the museum's longtime director, spoke at a luncheon at the National Press Club addressing some of the issues raised in the current debate over cultural patrimony. The Met recently agreed to return 21 looted artifacts to Italy, including the Euphronios krater, a 6th century BC painted vase prized by the museum, after Italian authorities claimed the piece was stolen from an Etruscan tomb.
"I must say I am puzzled at one thing, which is the absence of claims against collectors and museums in Germany, Spain, the U.K., Switzerland, Denmark and Japan, among others," De Montebello said. "They were buying from dealers at least as much as the dealers now under indictment in the United States. I think we should reflect on why only the U.S. is being the target of claims."
According to De Montebello, there is a need for "source countries" of works of art to develop a "licit market" to stop the flow of looted objects to museums abroad.
"The Japanese model is an excellent and proven one by which some objects have been declared national treasures," De Montebello said. "There is no looting in Japan."
Under this model, he said, objects declared "redundant" -- those for which there is a significant sampling in Japan -- can be sold and exported legally. This legal market, he maintained, undercuts black-market traffic.
The world has entered an "era of pronounced nationalism," De Montebello said, in which nations have increasingly declared art and antiquities to be the property of the state.
In part as a result of this, he said, international treaties and laws passed in the United States have hampered museums' efforts to obtain new art objects.
In addition, under the United States' National Stolen Property Act, "foreign patrimony laws could be the standard for determining that objects removed from their source country were indeed stolen," De Montebello said.
The Met could have invoked a statute of limitations when dealing with the Italian authorities, he added, but chose to take the high road and not do so.
"We're grateful to Italy's willingness to accept a framework based on the principle of reciprocity and compensation," he said. "We're grateful they continue to make antiquities found on their soil available to our visitors."
