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13.06.2024
Antikensammlung
Returning antique vases acquired through archaeological looting: 25 archaeological objects of questionable provenance from the Antikensammlung in the Altes Museum of the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin are being restituted to Italy. The restitution agreement will reinforce the museum’s ongoing cooperation with Italy. Long-term loans from the Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Napoli (MANN) and the archaeological sites at Paestum and Velia have also been negotiated.
SPK President Hermann Parzinger signed an agreement on the return in the presence of Claudia Roth, Germany’s Federal Commissioner for Culture and the Media, and Italy’s Minister of Culture Gennaro Sangiuliano at a ceremony organised by Ambassador Armando Varricchio at the Italian Embassy in Berlin. The voluntary restitution comprises a collection of 21 Apulian vases – craters, amphorae, a hydria, skyphos and plates from the 4th century BCE, which the West-Berliner Antikenmuseum acquired as a set from the Swiss art market in 1984 – as well as four other individual artefacts: an Attic skyphos, an Attic kylix, a Lucan bell-crater and a tondo featuring a depiction of Venus and Cupid. In the case of all the pieces in question, the SPK now believes with a high degree of certainty that the items were acquired via archaeological looting.
The restitution echoes the position paper of the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin regarding antiquities, in which the SMB’s archaeological collections pledged to ensure transparency when dealing with their holdings and to engage in a critical examination of their provenance.
“The Apulian vases have been a highlight of our exhibition for years. They will be replaced by long-term loans from a selection of different Italian museums. We have worked closely with our Italian colleagues to select objects, the likes of which were previously not featured in our holdings, or were significantly underrepresented.”
Andreas Scholl, Director of the Antikensammlung
An agreement was reached with the Italian Ministry of Culture and the National Archaeological Museums of Naples and Paestum to facilitate the several-year loan to Berlin of two painted stone slabs from Lucan tombs depicting warriors, and bronze weapons – a suit of armour and helmet – from the 4th century BCE. The items in question illustrate the extensive and often belligerent interactions between the Greeks and indigenous Italic peoples living in the southern Apennine Peninsula at the time. Paintings in particular were previously not represented in the holdings of the Berlin Antikensammlung, and their addition will enrich the collection enormously.
In 2023, the archaeological collections of the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin published a joint position paper in which they pledged to a transparent handling of their archaeological holdings and to engage in a critical examination of the provenance of the items in their collections. The collections house an inventory of artefacts that is internationally unparallelled in terms of both scope and size. The provenance of these items will be scrutinised in greater depth over the coming years.
The Position Paper Issued by the Staatliche Museen Zu Berlin on Dealing with Its Archaeological Collections and Their Provenance Histories (PDF, 324 KB) marked the beginning of a joint research initiative by the SMB’s archaeological museums, which aims to establish the provenance of all archaeological collections, from their acquisition to their introduction into the museums. This will facilitate a deeper insight into not only the artefacts themselves, but also into the acquisition policies and institutional history of the museums. When evaluating the provenance of archaeological objects today, a number of factors must be taken into account: political, legal and economic, as well as ethical considerations. Research and appraisal also takes into consideration current outside perspectives: the museums work together with partners and institutions from the items’ respective countries of origin, as well as with members of national and international civil society and the scientific community.
The project “Legal – Illegal?”, funded by the German Lost Art Foundation (DZK), which has been underway since March 2023, investigates the context surrounding the excavation and export to Berlin of archaeological objects from the Ottoman Empire during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. For the first time, the Antikensammlung, the Museum für Islamische Kunst and the Vorderasiatisches Museum, under the direction of the Zentralarchiv of the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin in cooperation with the Research Center for Anatolian Civilisations (ANAMED) at Koç University in Istanbul, are researching this issue on the basis of three archaeological sites: Sam’al, Didyma and Samarra. With the assistance of an international team of experts, the project aims to establish guidelines for defining questionable contexts of acquisition and for specifying criteria and methods for researching collections procured in such contexts. The guidelines are intended to provide a reference point for future research conducted by national and international museums into the provenance of their archaeological collections with regard to questionable archaeological finds from the early 20th century.