THREE years ago, the directors of some of the world's top museums, meeting in Munich, commiserated over a major annoyance: the growing demands from countries such as Greece and Italy that they return ancient artefacts.
What emerged was a defiant statement defending their collecting practices. Signed by the directors of 18 museums - from the Louvre in Paris to the Hermitage in StPetersburg to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York to the J.Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles - the document argued that encyclopedic museums have a special mission as treasure houses of world culture, and that today's ethical standards cannot be applied to yesterday's acquisitions.
Not a bad article, thought it kind of flips between how museums might deal with current illegally acquired objects and older collections which, as the museum directors' statements note, have in some cases were acquired in ethically uncertain fashion. Read the whole thing.