New York’s Met Museum to probe possibly looted art

NEW YORK – New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art said on Wednesday that it would examine the provenance of “several hundred or more” objects that were possibly stolen from their countries of origin, and then return them where necessary.

The move comes as Manhattan prosecutors work to

repatriate hundreds of artefacts worth millions of dollars

to dozens of countries across the world.

The Met will hire additional “provenance” researchers to study some of the museum’s 1.5 million works of art, director Max Hollein told staff in a letter published on the institution’s website.

“We will broaden, expedite and intensify our research into all works that came to the museum from art dealers who have been under investigation,” he wrote.

Mr Hollein said most of the suspect pieces were acquired between 1970 and 1990, “when there was less information available and less scrutiny on the provenance of many of these works”.

The Met has been cited in court cases related to stolen works.

On Tuesday, the Manhattan district attorney returned to China two 7th-century stone carvings worth $3.5 million that were smuggled out of the country in the early 1990s.

The authorities had earlier in 2023 seized the artefacts from the Met, where they had been since 1998.

The carvings were among 89 antiquities from 10 countries purchased by Ms Shelby White, a private art collector in New York and a Met trustee.

Since January 2022, the district attorney has returned more than 950 antiquities worth more than $165 million to 19 countries.

“The Met has a longstanding history in the rigorous review of our collection and, when appropriate, the return of art,” said Mr Hollein, citing returns to Egypt, Greece, Italy, Nepal, Nigeria, Turkey and India. AFP