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The Greek tradition minister, Lina Mendoni, says that the controversy over stolen objects from the British Museum means there are questions over “the credibility of the museum”. Crucially, the continuing furore “reinforces the everlasting and simply demand of our nation for the reunification of the Parthenon Marbles on the Acropolis Museum in Athens”, she provides.
Her feedback got here after Peter Higgs, a senior curator of Greek and Roman artwork who was employed on the British Museum for 30 years, was recognized in UK press experiences because the individual alleged to be chargeable for stealing priceless artefacts from the museum’s assortment. Higgs’s household has denied the allegations towards him.
Current experiences state that the variety of objects taken is believed to whole greater than 1,500. A spokesperson for the British Museum advised The Artwork Newspaper: “We cannot be commenting on any particulars of the thefts whereas they’re topic to a police investigation.”
In an interview with the Greek newspaper To Vima, Mendoni mentioned that “the loss, theft, [and] deterioration of objects from a museum’s collections is a particularly critical and notably unhappy occasion”, stressing that the tradition ministry is fastidiously monitoring developments. “When such incidents happen, there’s clearly a query of security and integrity [around] the entire museum’s reveals,” she provides.
Based on the Unbiased, the top of the Affiliation of Greek Archaeologists, Despina Koutsoumba, additionally raised issues, saying her colleagues had been “anxious” about what number of Greek objects are lacking from the museum.
However a Conservative MP hit again at claims the establishment shouldn’t be secure following the alleged thefts. Tim Loughton advised the BBC Radio 4 At present programme: “What is especially damaging is [the] blatant opportunism of the Greeks and others saying, ‘Oh no, the British Museum shouldn’t be secure’… It’s extremely uncommon that issues go lacking.”
The fifth-century-BC statues have been housed within the British Museum since 1816 after they had been faraway from the Parthenon temple on the Acropolis in Athens by brokers working for the Scottish nobleman Lord Elgin, the then ambassador to the Ottoman court docket. The sculptures went on show within the British Museum in 1817.
Mendoni additionally criticised the situation of the Greek galleries on the British Museum which home the celebrated marble sculptures. In 2021, the shoddy state of the galleries fuelled Greek calls for for his or her restitution.
“With the Parthenon Sculptures specifically, allow us to keep in mind the extremely problematic scenario with rainwater of their exhibition rooms in 2019 and 2021, [reflecting] the abandonment of the British Museum constructing,” she says.
Mendoni goes on to doc the “abuse” of the marbles within the British Museum’s care. “From 1816 and for a century or so that they remained uncovered not solely to London’s excessive air air pollution, however to a room the place they burned coal in chimneyless heaters. This resulted within the blackening of their floor and its corrosion,” she says, including: “Within the Nineteen Thirties Lord Duveen used wire brushes and chemical compounds to take away the traditional patina [on the marbles].”
Duveen, a rich artwork seller, was funding a brand new gallery to show the marbles, and he thought they need to look whiter. The two,500-year outdated sculptures had been due to this fact “cleaned” with copper chisels and carborundum. The British Museum was contacted for remark.
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