via New York Times, 09 May 2023: The Metropolitan Museum of Art has announced a major new effort to review its holdings and policies and has decided to hire a provenance research team to build upon its existing curators and conservators with the aim of returning items with problematic histories, in response to increasing calls to repatriate works from foreign governments and law enforcement officials who say it has no right to hold them.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, facing increasing scrutiny from law enforcement officials, academics and the news media over the extent to which its collection includes looted artifacts, announced on Tuesday a major new effort to review its holdings and policies with a view toward returning items it finds to have problematic histories.
The core feature of the new plan is the museum’s decision to hire a provenance research team that is as robust as any in place at an American museum.
The moves come as the Met — one of the largest museums in the world, with more than 1.5 million works from the past 5,000 years in its holdings — has been buffeted in recent years by increasing calls to repatriate works that law enforcement officials and foreign governments say it has no right to.
Source: After Seizures, the Met Sets a Plan to Scour Collections for Looted Art – The New York Times
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