Daily Express - Beware the risks of political repatriations

Daily Express, 15/05/2025

Repatriation of illicitly trafficked cultural items is a routine matter for our museums, and the 1970 UNESCO convention has been a marked improvement in the way the art market works. What is less beneficial is the proliferation of repatriation claims based on botched historical narratives, often ideologically motivated, and invariably unaccompanied by the relevant evidence.

When these repatriations are performed, the museums responsible cease to be the scientific establishments we all cherish and pay for, and become mouthpieces for political propaganda. Take the case of the Elgin Marbles, whose famous ‘theft’ remains unproven. The lack of solid scientific ground does not prevent unstudious activists from promoting the claim, nor does it stop a foreign government from sponsoring psy-ops on British soil aimed at convincing our legislators to change our laws. 

Restitution does not test just our legal framework, but also our moral compass: look at the Benin Bronzes, claimed by the heirs of the very rulers who created these wondrous works of art with the metal they received in payment for the slaves they were selling. Should we be handing back to the heirs of a slaver the fruit of his crime?

Would we have the same uncertainty if the heirs of Nazi officials were claiming the gold confiscated from the prisoners of Dachau? Sometimes the picture is even more muddled. Would the Louvre have to send the Stele of Hammurabi to Iraq, where it was created, or to Iran, where it was excavated? Cultural objects move, acquire new meanings, have a life of their own, and the reasons that brought them to our museums are just as worthy a page of history as the moment of their creation.

We should respect this cultural fact, endeavour to understand its ramifications, and disseminate this knowledge within our museums. “Retain and explain” is infinitely more virtuous than “take the knee and ship back".

(originally published here: https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/2055272/Antiques-Repatriation-Debate-Elgin-Marbles)