Victoria Reed is the curator of provenance at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. She researches the histories of the art that the museum holds or plans to purchase and determines if the pieces were stolen or acquired unethically.
Brown Political Review: Do many museums have a position like yours?
Victoria Reed: Other American museums are conducting provenance research, but each institution has handled the issue differently based on their needs, so there may not be a position completely analogous to mine.
BPR: What are the best practices for acquiring and displaying art ethically, and what decision rules do you use?
VR: We have a two-page, 21-question form that curators are required to fill out for every acquisition. It comes down to risk assessment…The most important thing in making an acquisition is to do so being fully aware of what has been asked, what issues exist, where the object has been and to be fully transparent about the object’s collecting history. All of our new acquisitions become a part of our collection database online where we post provenance information and update it. That is what is great about American museums: their commitment to transparency.
BPR: What are the key points among those 21 questions?
VR: Is it something unique? Can it be traced? Is it one of 500 candlesticks or prints? Is the value of the object such that we have to be concerned about the way it was declared when it was imported? Certain objects will present import issues. We have import restrictions with a number of countries through the US Department of State, or, for financial reasons, through the Treasury Department. We also need to be aware of the export legislation of the countries these objects came out of. If the object is ancient or archaeological, that presents certain concerns. If the object could have been in Europe during the Nazi era, that presents concerns.
BPR: Do you think that as our concept of ethics evolves we need to think of displays of art from around the world as colonialist?
VR: One of the great things museums can do is present objects from around the world. We have to build these collections legally and ethically. Bringing provenance information into the galleries is important. Objects leave their origins in a variety of ways, some of which are problematic by today’s standards, if not deplorable. I don’t necessarily think that everything needs to be repatriated, but museums can be places to discuss or even problematize the ownership histories of these objects.
BPR: Are there situations where an object belongs elsewhere, but cannot be kept safely there?
VR: If we have made a determination that we are not the legal owners of an object, or that it is stolen property, it’s really not up to us to decide how it is displayed and cared for. Most countries of origin, if they were not in a position to safely keep [the art], would delay their request in asking for it back. I don’t know of any instances in which sending an object back has jeopardized its history. Some people questioned that when we returned [bronze sculptures of the Benin people] to Nigeria, but I don’t think Nigeria would have asked for them if they could not properly keep them.
BPR: You’ve said that the global art market is largely unregulated. Is there a need for an international convention regarding art?
VR: In an ideal world, yes. In reality, it’s unlikely. In American institutions, most repatriations are based on an understanding of US law, accompanied by the desire of museums to uphold a high ethical standard. If we are dealing with things that are stolen, under US law we cannot hold them. US law is very different from European law. A basic tenet of US law is that you cannot convey title. Once something is stolen, it remains stolen. The thief can sell it, and the buyer can buy it in good faith, but it remains stolen. In other countries, the title can be acquired if the purchaser acquires an object in good faith. We also don’t have the concept of cultural property in the US. We don’t have a minister of culture. In many countries in Europe, pieces of art attain the status of cultural property. For example, a couple of years ago, we were returning an object to a European institution because it was stolen property. They had asked for it back because it was their cultural heritage. The end result was the same, but we had very different reasons.
BPR: Does it continue to surprise you that so many years after WWII so many claims remain unresolved surrounding Nazi-looted art?
VR: The Berlin wall fell 25 years ago, which wasn’t really that long ago. A lot of documentation and artifacts have come to light since that time. Just when you think we have kept track of everything that is out there, 1,200 pieces of art are found in an apartment in Munich that no one has seen in decades. For countries that were once under Soviet rule, there was not a lot of research being done. It is a topic that was neglected for many decades, and only in recent years have people become aware again that not all of these claims have been resolved.
BPR: What are your greatest accomplishments in terms of acquisitions that did not go through or works that were repatriated?
VR: One was the case of a pendant offered at the Maastricht Fine Art Fair that, after doing a little bit of digging, we found was stolen out of a museum in former East Germany, probably in 1945. We notified the dealer, who sent it back. It wasn’t that hard to figure out that it was a war loss, but the pendant had been on the market for decades. No one had asked the questions. The Nazi claims can be very time-consuming, so to see them resolved is very satisfying. We reached a financial settlement with the heirs of a Jewish art dealer who was persecuted during WWII and reclaimed a Dutch panel painting, and the research for that took eight years.