The PRNewswire has picked up on a story first aired by Fabio Isman, writing for the Art Newspaper, and now being disseminated and further investigated by David Gill on his Looting Matters blog. It concerns the serious allegation that "a number of antiquities acquired by the National Museum of Archaeology in Madrid appear to feature in the dossier of Polaroid photographs seized from dealer Giacomo Medici." The investigation has revealed that in 1999, the museum purchased 181 pieces from "Spanish financier Jose Luis Varez Fisa" for $12 million, boasting about the "great leap forward" this purchase would make to their collection. However, the work of the journalist, in conjunction with archaeological and photographic-assessment experts, have cast the original "surfacing" conditions of 22 of these artifacts into doubt, tentatively identifiable as they are within the Medici dossier, some still covered in soil or pre-restoration. As followers of this blog and Looting Matters will know, this is certainly not the first case of Medici objects surfacing again long after the legal case has finished. I doubt it will be the last. We eagerly anticipate further developments as this investigation moves forward.
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2 comments:
You should note that PRNewswire is a paid service and stories are "picked up" for a fee. Prof. Gill's funding for this PR effort remains a mystery as is the source of at least some of the photos with which he plays his game of "gotcha" on collectors and museums. Perhaps some transparency would be in order on his end as well.
Sincerely,
Peter Tompa
I would want to draw attention to John Hooker's assertion that I pay "a rate of $400 per 400 words for [my] frequent PR Newswire releases". Hooker has yet to reveal the basis of this statement.
For a discussion of Tompa of my PR Newswire releases see here.
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