Looted Art. It’s More than Finders Keepers Part 1

We see beautiful art from all over the world in museums. But a lot of those artifacts have complicated histories. Countries those artifacts are from have been asking for their return. We take a look at some of the artifacts and see what their background. 

Transcript

Season One, episode eight. looted art. It's more than Finders keepers. Part One. 

Hi, everyone, and welcome back to the art history buy luxury podcast. I'm your host Anu or Lakshmi, whichever you prefer. And I'm glad you stuck it out with me so far.
If you're new here, I'm a professional artist, and I have a passion for history, linguistics, politics and art. And I like to talk about those subjects a lot. Hence the podcast. A little shameless plug. Before we begin today, check out my paintings and prints at art luxury.com. That's art, la kshm.com. And if you have something to say about this episode, or want to interact with me about art history, or just want to talk to me about something or the other that you thought would be relevant. Find me on twitter at art underscore by underscore Lakshmi. 

Let's start this episode with a shout out to Ananya Singh, who has a podcast called on record with Ananya. She doesn't shy away from anything. She discusses relevant issues, reviews pop culture, sometimes she just goofs off with her friends, and basically just discusses anything under the sun. Really, you should seriously check it out. She's available wherever you get your podcasts.

I've been feeling very unwell the past few weeks and had a lot going on. So I haven't been able to upload weekly. And I think I'm going to change my policy of uploading my podcast every Tuesday to just any random day of the week. But definitely still try and get one in every week. Until things calm down a little bit. I think that's going to be my approach. Hopefully one day, I can move into a more organized space with my podcast. But fair warning, I'm waiting to be organized with everything in my life. So the wait might be long.

Over the weekend, I happen to watch a clip from a James Bond movie. I forgot which one and I was reminded of why I love that movie franchise so much fast cars amazing action sequences. And yes, the glamour too. And since the pandemic has me in sweatpants for about a year now, I thought I could infuse a little bit of James Bond action and glamour into our lives in this podcast episode. To do this, we're going to do a little bit of time travel.

We're not going all the way to the Upper Paleolithic and we're not going to Ancient Greece or Rome. And we're leaving behind tire. We're gonna stay a little bit close by we are going to the year 2011. It's before the era of Tiktok before Kim Kardashian and Kanye West, destroyed our faith in love by getting a divorce. It's a simpler, more hopeful time. And imagine that you're in Sweden, in Stockholm to be exact. You are a security guard at the Drottningholm palace, you notice a fire outside the building, and it's spreading and getting closer. You call for help and the police and firefighters come to your aid. The firefighters put out the fire, Thank God you were there, or else the whole fucking building would have burnt down and you would have lost all the precious art that was in there. You go back inside and look around. Something doesn't feel right. And then it hits you something's missing. Some of the art is missing. It's not the most expensive piece of art in the museum. It's not going to fetch as much as some of the other stuff would fetch in auctions. But the art that was stolen was Chinese art, and that Chinese art was taken from China during the sacking of the Summer Palace.
Where did the artifacts go? And why were only the Chinese artifacts stolen?

Well, it turns out our personal little James Bond like adventure was a real incident. And Chinese art was stolen from Drottningholm palace, and only Chinese art was stolen from there. Not the more expensive or more famous stuff. And that art found its way back into China and even shows up in exhibitions from time to time, by the way.

And this little heist didn't just happen in Stockholm. No, there were several highs all over Europe. It happened in Norway multiple times actually, an even in France. The Chinese were stealing art back that was stolen from them. Now a lot of people speculate about the role of the Chinese government and what it plays in these heists. But the point remains that the art that was stolen was initially stolen from China and brought back and that's what this episode is about. Art looted by colonial powers. I'm not going to go into the morality and ethics of it. I'm just going to talk about the stories behind those artworks that were looted. And I'd love to know what you think should happen to those works. Let me know how you feel about the way those artworks were acquired, and what we should do with them today.
And because this subject is so vast, and there are so many stories to be told about these artworks, I'm going to do it in multiple parts again. So this is part one.

Countries have been asking, pleading, begging for the return of their artifacts for many years now. The museums in Europe and in the United States have made a shit ton of money through looted art. And now the countries where those artifacts were stolen from our like, give it back, it's ours. And most of the time, but not always, the museum's responses have ranged from we let you borrow your own art that we looted from you if you ask us nicely to Finders keepers, losers. weepers. Not in those exact words, but you get the gist. That's not to say that no art has been repatriated, that's untrue. But for the most part, stolen art remains stolen.
So let's start our tour of artifacts acquired through looting and pillaging by going to the famous Benin bronzes. These bronzes were surprised arise, acquired through murder and mayhem. 

The Benin bronzes are not actually from the country of Benin. Now they come from the ancient Kingdom of Bunny, which is in southern Nigeria. And because that couldn't be confusing enough. The Benin bronzes are actually made largely of brass and detail around the 16th and 17th century. And they were once attached to the pillars in Boone's royal palace, and how were they taken from the palace. That's where the murder and mayhem comes in.
The Kingdom of Guinean had trade relations with Europe, from the 15th century, they traded stuff like palm oil, rubber and ivory for guns and other European commodities, and so that the European countries would leave them alone. But all that went to hell, when in late 19th century, England was like, What are you people doing being your own rulers, you need to join us whether you like it or not. And guess what the king of binning did, he fucking resisted, and thereby, he sealed his own fate. 

In December 1896, the British Consul General James Robert Phillips, led a small expedition to meet the king. James Robert Phillips was like, I'm not gonna hurt you. I swear. I'm just trying to talk trade with you. We're buddies. This doesn't have to get ugly. And if you're hearing alarm bells, screaming, don't fall for it. Don't fall for it, King. You're right. Because Phillips, his intent was to overthrow the king. Typical right? And to pay for his murder expedition. Phillips had a great idea. It was I'll just plunder the shit out of the king's palace. The Kingdom had highly skilled artisans who made 1000s of metal and ivory Plexus sculptures, depicting people and events. These are the winning bronzes that we're talking about. And they were used to adorn the palaces and they were used in ancestral altars. Phillips wrote about this a year before he went to overthrow the king to the British Foreign Office by saying, quote, I have reason to hope that sufficient ivory may be found in the King's House to pay the expenses in removing the Kim from his to end quote, you see where this is headed.

The British fought and defeated the Kings armies and in February 1897, British troops were burned large parts of money. The king was forced into exile. And then the British forces pillaged the king's palace, they looted almost 3000 to 4000 brass and ivory figures from the palace, and they were shipped off to London. We don't have an exact count of the amount of brass figures that were looted. But this seems to be a pretty good estimate from London. These bronzes either ended up in the British Museum or went up for auction. Some ended up in private collections, like Picasso's, but eventually most of the bronzes found their way into museums in Germany, pretty much all over Europe, as well as in museums in the United States. 

So what did people think of these beautiful bronzes that they had just looted? Well, they couldn't believe how intricate and beautiful these bronzes were, how artisans had perfected the method of lost wax casting. curators at the British Museum compared the burning bronzes at the time, with the best of Italian and Greek sculpture. Germany has returned some of the winning bronze is back to Nigeria, and the British Museum isn't following suit. This is going to be an ongoing theme, by the way with the British Museum. While Nigeria has asked for a long time now to have these bronzes returned, the British Museum has stuck with it's responsive. I'd love to loan you some of the artifacts. You can keep them for a little bit but they're ours. finders keepers, I'm paraphrasing here.

Let's leave the Beninin bronzes for a little bit and go for a walk to see the art from the Aboriginal tribes of Australia. We'll find a shield called the gweagal shield. It's an undecorated, elongated oval form with pointy ends, and it's slightly convex. It's made of wood, and it has a rough looking surface. Some parts seem lightly blackened, and there's traces of white kaolin on the outer side. Pay attention to the center when you're looking at it. By the way, there's a pierced hole. There's also a smaller hole near one of the other ends. The gweagal Shield gets its name from the gweagal clan who are an Aboriginal tribe in Australia.

During his first voyage of discovering places that were already discovered and populated by an indigenous people, James Cook landed at Botany Bay on 29th of April 17 70. He met to Aboriginal warriors from the gweagal clan, cook and his mates tried to ask for water and offered the two warriors nails and beads. One of the Warriors ended up wounded, but they both ran for their fucking lives, leaving behind the spears and shield.

That particular shield is called the gweagal  shield, and it was one of many cook brought back with him after his first voyage. And up until 2018. It was believed that the shield in the British Museum with the shield dropped by the warrior who was wounded when cook first arrived to Botany Bay, and that the hole in the middle of the shield was caused by the bullet firing from the musket.

The Shield was given on loan to the National Museum Australia in Canberra for an exhibition. And this exhibition took place from November 2015 to march 2016. But it backfired and shit hit the ceiling. One of the descendants of the warrior who dropped the shield decided to campaign to get the shield back. But here's where things get a little bit more fucked up. There's another shield at the ethnological Museum of Berlin. That is also thought to be the shield drop on that fateful encounter between cook and the gweagal warriors.

So now you have two shields, and a whole lot of confusion. So what did the British Museum do? They decided, you know what? I know we've been saying this is the shield that cook picked up from the Gregor warrior. But no, let's get it tested. So the British Museum conducted a bunch of tests to figure out everything they could about the shield. The hole in the middle apparently wasn't from a gunshot, but from a spear. And the wood that was used to make the shield was from Red mangrove. Apparently, this wood was available only 400 kilometers north of Botany Bay, it would not be available in the area that cook landed. But the museum doesn't want to approach the topic of trade which could possibly have allowed a wiggle warrior the opportunity to have a shield made from Red mangrove wood. It might not be the same shield from Cook's first encounter with the gweagal warriors. But it's still a part of Aboriginal culture. And that's how people who advocate for the return of the shield perceive this. And it's also the early surviving shield used on Australia's east coast. And where are we with regards to talks on repatriating the shield? I'll let you guess. I think the British Museum says yeah, okay. You know what, you're right. We totally took this. Here you go. No, that's not what happened. The British Museum says, Sorry, it's not from crooks encounter. And we can't really say that it's yours. So we're keeping it. 

A little further into another exhibit. We see yet another few gazillion stolen artifacts. But let's focus on one particular one. It's the amaravathi sculptures from India. It's not just the Greenwood that was looted. There are many artifacts that were taken during the British Raj. The amravati sculptures are a collection of early Buddhist art. The sculptures consist of over 120 different pieces made from limestone. Most of the figurative sculptures are in bar relief, and they show scenes from the stories of the jataka tales. These stories describe the previous lives of the Buddha.

The sculptures were taken from a stupa that was built in the third century BC and amaravathi in the Guntur district of Andhra Pradesh umrao it was a really popular, prominent center for put this culture up until the 14th century. But after that, it declined. And eventually, people forgot about the stupa altogether, and it became covered by dust debris, and it was erased from people's memories. The mount the stupa, was covered under was discovered in 1796 by the Raja of Chintalapally, a British Army officer called Colin Mackenzie came upon the site a year later and became The first to document the stupa, and he was also the first to start looting it. Mackenzie removed a bunch of sculpted stones from the site, most of which were transported to London and some were given to the Asiatic Society of Bengal. And from then on one person after the other took ship from the stupa and send it back to London. The idea was that heat was not good for the preservation of the stone and art, nevermind that it was built there and remain there for centuries.

In 1830, the collector of Masulipatnam, Fw Robertson, also collected many sculpted stones from the site. And eventually some of these pieces were taken by our Alexander, a British officer, and he wanted to use them to beautify his garden, and those stones that he used to adorn his gardens are now completely lost to us. However, the greatest plunder of amaravathi was carried out by Sir Walter Elliot. He was the Commissioner of control. Much like McKenzie Elliott knew fucking nothing about archaeology. He conducted some reckless excavations on the site in 1845. He managed to transport a total of 121 sculptural pieces from the site to London in 1860. The pieces he managed to send back to London were displayed in an exhibition in Paris in 1867. But the blunder of amravathi wasn't complete yet. 

Because excavations, air quotes and eyeroll needed for the word excavations in this regard, renewed under Robert Sewell, a British collector, Sue was told explicitly that anything that he found lying around this debris that was remotely connected to the stupa, was to be sent home. And you think the plunder of amaravathi was done? Like they fucking took everything? But no, there's still stuff left. The last part of the looting was conducted by Jay g. horsfall, who was the collector of the kissner district, and Was he an archaeologist that understood the need to carefully excavate an archaeological site? Of course, not course, false looting was hasty and careless during the excavations. I'm giving your huge iral and a huge sigh for calling it excavations. horsfall perhaps discovered one of the most amazing things in the stupa, which was a relic casket, which had a tooth and a few bones inside it. Do we know anything about the whereabouts of that little casket? Nope. That information is all gone and we are not able to trace it. Was that really casket thrown out? Probably. Can we ever hope to find it with all the stuff inside it? I think the chances of the British Museum repatriating amaravathi sculptures are higher. Which brings us to where the museum stands with calls to return the amaravathi sculptures. You probably guessed it, but the answer is a big fucking No. 

The British Museum has made a nicer display section for the sculptures, and it's better lit so you can see the beautiful sculptures, but they won't be going back to India. Any time, sir.
So the next time you're touring a museum, it's very possible that that art was looted during colonial times. And all those artifacts have a long and complicated history.

Next week, we're going to take a look at a few more artifacts that have had very interesting, if not controversial, origin stories, and how the museum's acquired them. I hope you liked this week's episode. And if you did, be sure to subscribe and review me on iTunes that would really, really help and until next week, stay safe.