The diplomatic fallout between the UK and Greece has made one factor apparent: for the primary time within the long-running dispute over the Parthenon Marbles, Bloomsbury and Westminster appear to be at odds. They’d for therefore lengthy been in lockstep, going again to 1983 when Greece made its first diplomatic declare for restitution. They agreed that the marbles had been lawfully acquired, that they had been greatest located on the British Museum and that the legislation forbad their return to Greece. Added to this was the acquainted Catch-22: the federal government mentioned it was a matter for the museum whereas the museum mentioned that altering the legislation was as much as the federal government. And so it went… till very just lately.
Spurred on by the surprising openness of its chair, George Osborne, the museum has been in high-level talks with Greek counterparts for the previous two years, in search of an answer to the issue that might work for each side.
It’s now clear how such pragmatism is seen by the UK authorities, which at greatest treats it with suspicion. This was evident when the UK’s prime minister, Rishi Sunak, cancelled a gathering along with his Greek counterpart in November on the final minute. It may be seen within the arts minister’s dismissiveness within the Home of Lords in December in direction of any try at putting a deal on the marbles. The standard slogan of “supporting the British Museum trustees” appears to have fallen by the wayside.
This seems to mirror a deeply held perception that any shift in the established order, regardless of how justifiable, is to not be countenanced. An settlement on the marbles, it’s felt, may tempt international locations in every single place to demand their share of the British Museum, which may ultimately bleed the nice museum dry. As Michelle Donelan, the then secretary of state for tradition, put it final 12 months, to return items from museum collections would “open a can of worms” and be a “harmful highway to go down”. Or as the previous prime minister Boris Johnson colourfully put it in March: “In the event you give again the Elgin Marbles to Greece then… above all you haven’t any reply within the years forward to the theoretical claims for restitution from Egypt and Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Turkey, Nigeria—in every single place whose treasures are housed in Bloomsbury.”
‘Theoretical claims’ pose no menace
Is that this a rational place? It above all displays a worry of the unknown. One wonders what menace the urged “theoretical claims” actually do pose to these within the corridors of energy. Regardless of the metaphor used—can of worms, harmful highway, slippery slope—arguments alongside these traces are virtually all the time fallacious, as they have a tendency to eschew well-established ideas of equity, evidence-based reasoning and customary sense.
Within the case of the British Museum, even the numbers don’t maintain up: the museum has eight million assortment objects and, over the previous decade, has obtained fewer than ten restitution requests. The overwhelming majority of the gathering was, in any occasion, legitimately acquired. It boggles the thoughts how striving to acquire a good compromise for comparatively few morally problematic elements would put the whole inventory in jeopardy. And, at any given time, the British Museum can solely show round 1% of its assortment at its premises.
Searching for a good decision on the marbles can hardly be mentioned to open the floodgates. To start with, the marbles are as near distinctive a case as doable: it’s troublesome to consider different items as integral to the enduring image of 1 specific nation’s cultural heritage, and the place a sculptural scheme has been cut up in two by the vicissitudes of historical past. Standalone sculptures, particular person work and the panels of altarpieces hardly evaluate. Secondly, any deal negotiated on the marbles can be case-specific, involving a sequence of loans or comparable transfers that will keep throughout the phrases of the British Museum Act 1963. It could hardly encourage a free-for-all.
And, in any occasion, museums trying to have interaction on restitution don’t function in a vacuum. They act in an moral panorama that has developed over the previous era, one which prompts museums to interact brazenly and pretty with international locations of origin. That is mirrored within the Worldwide Council of Museums (Icom) Code of Ethics and Arts Council England steerage on restitution and repatriation.
An try to interrupt by the blockage of the longstanding matter is—and may all the time be—welcome. It deserves all of our help, even from these on excessive.
• Alexander Herman is director of the UK-based Institute of Artwork and Legislation. He’s the creator of the guide The Parthenon Marbles Dispute: Heritage, Legislation, Politics (Hart/Bloomsbury, 2023)
