Traffic of works of art: report formulates tracks to secure acquisitions of national museums

Commissioned in June by the Minister of the Cuture Rima Abdul-Malak following the antiquity traffic scandal at the Louvre Abu Dhabi, the document exhibits forty-two proposals to improve practices.

by Roxana Azimi

How to avoid the acquisition of works from illicit traffic? The question is currently concerned the museums, shaken by the shock wave of an international survey around the looting of antiquities. In France, the purchase of seven Egyptian objects of questionable provenance by the Louvre Abu Dhabi, who led to the indictment of conservatives, has become a state affair and a hook in the hexagonal cultural soft power in the Middle East . In parallel with the current judicial investigation, the Minister of Culture, Rima Abdul-Malak, therefore considered urgent to order in June a report to improve the procedures for acquiring national museums. This 73-page document written by Christian Giacomotto, Marie-Christine Labourdette and Arnaud Oseredczuk, to whom the world has had access, formulates forty-two proposals to promote good practices.

The editors agree in the preamble: “Zero risk does not exist.” No one is immune to a mishap, especially since the threat today takes very sophisticated forms. Failing to eradicate the danger, it is nevertheless possible to stem it by treating the problem at the root. First recommendation of the report, strengthen the initial and continuous training of the Conservatives. Several avenues are offered, notably the creation by the Louvre School of a Master on issues related to provenances.

The mission admits it, the acquisitions of acquisition in museums have improved significantly since 2017, and even more after the broadcast in November 2020 of a vade-mecum produced by the Musées de France service. They are nonetheless highly perfectible. “In certain establishments, which are not those where the risks are the most reduced, the acquisition files are, systematically, very little documented, and sometimes are content to refer to the presentation of the room provided by the house of Sales during a recent previous auction, itself incomplete on issues of origin, “said the rapporteurs. The procedures, different from one museum to another, would also benefit from harmonizing. The report thus recommends a systematic collegial examination of works by internal conservatives as well as the use of secret ballot voting. 2> unpublished collegiality of ministries

Each ministry must also take its share to break the traffic chain. This unprecedented collegiality should materialize in an ad hoc interministerial commission, bringing together the ministries of culture, interior, foreign affairs and economics, devoted to the treatment of so -called “sensitive” acquisitions of archaeological objects and Extra-European. A “provenance cell”, intended to verify the correct instruction of the files, is also on the agenda. Hosted by the Musées de France service, it would be made up of agents from repression and control services, such as the Central Office to Combat Cultural Property (OCBC), as well as foreign affairs.

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