Today, Saturday July 2nd 2022, on the BBC’s one o’clock News, the Director of the V&A, Tristram Hunt, was quoted as saying that the de-accession instruments, preventing the return of those objects from British Museums that should be returned when requested, have to be changed. They are ’No longer fit for purpose’ he said.
Big words, true words. This, the most significant statement yet made by the Director of a very major British museum, must have consequences. Who cares if our light-weight Prime Minister, who, like the Vicar of Bray, whistles the tune that suits the prevailing political singsong, has forgotten his once youthful outrage about the injury done to the Parthenon by Lord Elgin? Those days of Boris Johnson telling the truth are long gone. Although it is a joy to read how strongly he once felt about the stealing of the Marbles and well done to Yannis Andritsopoulos for uncovering the story.
But now the Trustees of the British Museum must get their heads together and break the shackles preventing the just return of Greece’s precious heritage to Athens. The time is come.
Janet Suzman, Chair for the BCRPM
To listen to Tristram Hunt speaking about Cultural Diplomacy at Art for Tomorrow's panel in Athens last month, kindly follow the link here.
More on Tristram Hunt's call for for UK government to be stripped of its power to block the return of objects looted during the colonial era in The Times, article by Arts Correspondent David Sanderson, also on Saturday, 02 July, 2022.
The British Museum Act 1963 prohibits it returning objects, although the government has disputed this and has said it is up to the museum’s trustees.
Restitution claims are being made to British cultural institutions whose collections contain thousands of artefacts taken under duress or by force during the colonial period. Britain and Greece continue to dispute the division of the sculptures from the Parthenon, which have been in the British Museum for more than two centuries and with no official permission granted by the Ottomans for Lord Elgin to remove what he did during the start of the 19th century. Originally destined for his ancestral home, these sculptures were sold to the UK government in 1816 and contnue to be displayed inwards, in Room 18, the Duveen Gallery of the British Museum. The BCRPM has campaigned for nearly 4 decades that these sculptures deserve to be reunited with their other surviving halves in Athens. On 20 June 2022, the Acropolis Mueum celebrated its 13th anniversary. At the May 2022, UNESCO's ICPRCP meeting held in Paris, Deputy Director of the DCMS, Helen Whitehouse and the deputy director of the British Museum, Jonathan Williams firmly supported the current division of the sculptures.
The British museums declined to confirm to The Times how many restitution claims have been made by nations wishing to assert their rightful ownership of items held in UK collections. In April Glasgow city council voted to return 17 Benin bronze artefacts looted in west Africa in the 19th century.
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