The Turkish authorities claim that 18 valuable items that are now in the permanent collection of the New York Metropolitan Museum, were taken to America illegally

former director of the Metropolitan Museum in New York, Philippe de Montebello (Phillipe de Montebello) at the time had to go through a difficult trial around the stolen artifacts from Greece, which he overcame with dignity, by inventing a wise strategy, "we will - artifacts, and you are us - the exhibits on loan ". Now it seems that his successor, Thomas Campbell will have to disentangle such a mess, this time brewed Turkey. And the atmosphere is heating up day by day.

statue of the goddess with a child. Around 1400 BC. e. Hittite Empire, Central Anatolia Gold, 4.3 cm Norbert Schimmel Collection, Metropolitan Museum of Art (One of the artifacts, which requires Turkey to return) Source: Riton in the form of a deer. Around 1400 BC. Oe. Hittite Empire, Central Anatolia silver, inlaid with gold. 18 cm Norbert Schimmel Collection, Metropolitan Museum of Art (One of the artifacts, which requires Turkey to return) Source:

In early March, the Turkish government moved to take decisive action to return to their homeland of artifacts that were allegedly stolen. Turkey has banned its cultural institutions to provide rental exhibits such respected institutions as the British Museum, the Victoria and Albert Museum and the Metropolitan , referred to as long as the museum did not return to Asia Minor controversial subjects. Website Art Newspaper wrote about 12 artifacts from the collections of the Metropolitan, involved in the dispute, but yesterday the blog Chasing Aphrodite told nothing of the 18 subjects, many of which have been described.

in the number of disputed artifacts, 16 of which are mentioned on the site Chasing Aphrodite separate list , are Some items from the Met exhibition, devoted to the Middle East in ancient times. This, in particular, gold Hittite figure XIV - XIII centuries. BC. Oe., Early Bronze Age ware, filigree metal containers in the form of a bull and a deer. The Turkish authorities claim that all these objects have been excavated and removed from the country illegally, bypassing adopted in 1906 a law on the recognition of the State all rights to these findings. All of the disputed artifacts come from the collection of Norbert Schimmel (Norbert Schimmel), from the 1950s until his death in 1990, consisting trustee of the Metropolitan Museum. Schimmel bequeathed the museum his collection of 102 items in 1989, a year before his death.

set of vases. Around 2300 BC. e. northwestern Anatolia Electrum, silver, gold-plated silver Norbert Schimmel Collection, Metropolitan Museum of Art (One of the artifacts, which requires Turkey to return) Source: buckle in the shape of a bird. About VIII. BC. Oe. State of Urartu Bronze, 8.2 x 11.6 cm Norbert Schimmel Collection, Metropolitan Museum of Art (One of the artifacts, which requires Turkey to return) Source:

representative of the Metropolitan Goltser Harold (Harold Holzer) commented on the demands of Turkey: "Last fall we were contacted by representatives of the Ministry of Culture of Turkey in connection with 18 works from our collection. The Ministry required to provide information about the provenance of works, and now we are engaged in collecting these data. Because now we are in active negotiations with the Turkish government in this case, to provide further comment, we can not yet. The only thing worth mentioning is the fact that Turkey has for years been very valuable to us for important artifacts supplier of temporary exhibitions at the Metropolitan, and we sincerely hope to continue this cooperation ».

Prepared by Mary Onuchina, AI

Sources : artinvestment.ru