Data Bases • Custom Term Papers • Free Term Papers • Free Research Papers • Free Essays • Free Book Reports • Plagiarism? Links • Top 100 Term Paper Sites • Top 25 Essay Sites • Top 50 Essay Sites • Search 97,000 Papers @ DirectEssays.com • Search 101,000 Papers @ ExampleEssays.com • Search 90,000 Papers @ MegaEssays.com Free Essays • Term Paper Sites • Chuck III's Free Essays • Free College Essays • TermPaperSites.com • My Term Papers • Get Free Essays • Essay World • Planet Papers	Search Lots of Essays Back to Subjects - Art Legal Ownership of the Parthenon Marbles Legal Ownership of the Parthenon Marbles The controversy began almost one hundred years ago. Between 1801 and 1812, Thomas Bruce, 7th Earl of Elgin and British Ambassador to the Ottoman Empire, removed several sculptures from the Parthenon in Athens and shipped them to England, where he sold them to the British Museum in 1816. 167 years later, Melina Mercouri, Greek Minister of Culture, requested that the “Elgin” Marbles be returned. This request sparked one of the greatest debates the art world has ever known. For the past two decades, people have argued over who has the rights to these Marbles. The Greek position is certainly understandable from a cultural and emotional point of view. However, from the standpoint of legality and logic, it is hard to make a solid case against the Marbles’ continued presence in Britain. Legally, Greece could call for the return of the Parthenon Marbles if it could prove that they were wrongly taken and never belonged, legally or morally, to the British. If Lord Elgin’s title were proven defective, then the same would hold true for England’s title. In order to determine whether or not this is the case, the first question that must be raised is whether the Ottomans (then the recognized government of Greece) had the authority to transfer property rights to Elgin. Under international law at the time, acts of Ottoman officials with respect to property under their authority were valid. Even if those actions were not widely supported, they were still legal. The Ottoman officials had a solid claim to authority over the Parthenon because it was public property, which the successor nation acquires on change of sovereignty. Therefore, it is clear that the Ottomans had the power to give Elgin property rights. The next question that must be raised is whether or not they did. This has proven to be slightly less clear. Elgin obtained from the Ottoman government in Constantinople a formal written instrument called a firman. This document states: “It is incumbent on us to provide that they [i.e. Elgin’s party] meet no opposition in walking, viewing, or contemplating the pictures and buildings they may wish to design or copy; and in any of their works of fixing scaffolding ... around the ancient Temple of the Idols, or in modeling with chalk or gypsum the said ornaments and visible figures ... or in excavating when they find it necessary the foundations in search of inscriptions among the rubbish; that they be not molested by the said Disdar nor by any other persons.” Most experts agree that this document appears to give Elgin authority principally over measuring, drawing, and making casts of the sculpture of the Parthenon. That was also the interpretation privately held by several members of Elgin’s party. However, a different attitude was taken publicly, and the party set to work removing and packing pieces of the Parthenon. In all, they took 247 feet of the frieze (FIG. 1), 15 metopes (FIG. 2), and 17 pedimental figures (FIG. 3), damaging a substantial portion of the adjoining masonry in the process. This would seem to create a good argument for the Marbles’ return to Greece, as Elgin had exceeded his authority, and damaged the structure of the Parthenon, all without officially obtaining the property rights. However, there is evidence that the Ottoman Government twice ratified what Elgin had done. Documents have been recovered indicating that Lord Elgin convinced the Sultan to issue several additional firmans in which he generally sanctioned what had been done. The Ottomans further demonstrated support of the removal when a large shipment of sculpture was held up in Piraeus (the port of Athens) because the Voivode refused to give his permission for their embarkation. Eventually, the Ottoman government gave written orders to the Athenian authorities to permit the shipment. Together, these two events offer a strong indication that the Ottoman government did, in fact, ratify the removal of the Parthenon sculptures. Therefore, under international law, Elgin’s title -- and Great Britain’s as well -- was legal, and England is entitled to keep the Marbles. Of course, had the Greeks wished to challenge the legality of Elgin’s actions, the Greek government could have brought suit in an English court for the sculptures’ return. However, in the more than 150 years since Greece gained their independence, they have never pursued such an action, and Mercouri’s request that the Marbles be returned was in fact the first official response that the Greek government ever issued. Therefore, with no legal claims to the Parthenon Marbles, it falls on Greece to prove that these sculptures would actually be better off there than in London, something which it has not been overly successful at accomplishing. The restitutionist movement has come up with several arguments over the past 20 years advocating the return of the Elgin Marbles to their country of origin. One of the more popular of these arguments is that the presence of these sculptures in any place other than Greece is an offense to the Greek nation. However, while it is true that they are Greek in origin, these sculptures have been in England for more than a century and a half, and have become a part of British culture as well. Furthermore, there are numerous other works of Greek origin in various museums scattered all over the world. Is this not also offensive to the Greek nation? Yet the level of attention paid to these disowned works is not even comparable to that of the Elgin Marbles. The truth is that economic factors play just as important a role in this debate as do issues of national pride. Possession of the Marbles in a nation’s public collection nourishes that country’s tourism. Still, a Greek argument based on economic value would simply be re-raising questions of property law, an issue already settled in Britain’s favor. Another, more popular argument involves considering the intact Parthenon as one integrated work of art, where the parts together have more beauty and significance than they have when considered as separate works. However, this argument is flawed as well. The Marbles could not be reinstalled on the building, and even if they could they would be subjected to certain damage from smog and the elements. Restoration is, in fact, not the Greek proposal at all. The Greek government wishes to put the Marbles on display in a museum in Athens, near the Acropolis. While this proposal would put the sculptures geographically closer to the Parthenon, they would be no more integrated with the building than they are in London. In addition, it would be impossible for the proposed museum in Athens to house all of the sculptures associated with the Acropolis monuments, further discrediting the “integrated aesthetic” argument. The final argument for the Marbles’ return involves their protection and preservation. The Greek restitutionists argue that Britain has failed to preserve the sculptures of the Parthenon and have instead actually damaged them. The central focus of this argument is the notorious and controversial cleaning of the Elgin Marbles performed in the 1930s. In the late 1930s the art dealer Lord Duveen offered the Trustees of the British Museum a purpose-built gallery to house the Marbles. In 1937-1938, while the sculptures of the Parthenon were being prepared for installation into this gallery, an unauthorized cleaning of some of the sculptures took place. Of course, the marbles had been cleaned several times prior to this, but it was the method of cleaning in this case which posed a problem. In 1936, Frederick Norman Pryce became keeper of the sculptures, along with his assistant Roger Hinks. The next year, the unauthorized cleaning of the sculptures began. 15 months later, it was revealed to the Board of Directors that Foreman of Masons Arthur Holcombe had used hammers, chisels, wire brushes and copper tools to clean some pieces of the sculptures, despite the fact that he had received no instruction to do so. It was also later revealed to the Board that Lord Duveen had in fact bribed Holcombe to clean several of the Marbles more drastically in order to make them more showy for his new gallery. The museum held an internal Board of Inquiry which found evidence of dereliction of duty on the parts of Pryce, Holcombe, and Hinks, and all three ceased to work at the museum as a result. In what later proved to be a critical error, the Board decided that no public statement should be made regarding the cleanings. Word, however, leaked to the press, and on March 25, 1939, the Daily Mail published the story, “Elgin Marbles Damaged in Cleaning.” This led to a colossal reaction from the press and general public outrage. Finally, the museum was forced to issue a public statement. It did so in The Times newspaper, acknowledging the “unauthorized methods” of cleaning and ensuring that “to anyone but an expert their effect is imperceptible.” This was evidently at least somewhat true, as art critic T.W. Earp reported later that month in The Daily Telegraph that he found the damage to be decidedly noticeable, pointing out that “this is especially the case in the procession of Athenian Calvary on the north side of the frieze. Removal of patina [the change, mainly in color, of the surface which tends to occur with age] has left their incongruity of stone as bright as though it had been freshly quarried.” The museum responded by pointing out that the calvary of the north frieze were actually among those pieces that they knew for a fact had not been touched. While no one denies that the method of cleaning used and the subsequent decision to try and cover it up were undoubtedly enormous mistakes, the degree of damage the pieces suffered was wildly exaggerated by the press at the time. Only a microscopic comparison between the Marbles as they appear today and a set of full-size photographic enlargements of their old surfaces could reveal the actual damage. In the midst of the controversy surrounding the cleanings, Lord Duveen died at the age of 69. The press interest in the event died down soon after, and was only revived recently through the emergence of the restitutionist movement. One of the most vocal among current critics of the British Museum is Christopher Hitchens. Hitchens claims that the argument that the sculptures are safer in London than they would have been in Athens is undermined by the 1930s cleanings. He fails to point out, however, the damage that has been done to the sculptures which remain in Greece. The level of damage done to the Elgin Marbles is negligible in comparison to the damage done to the portions of sculpture that remained at the Acropolis, including the Caryatids of the Erechtheion (FIG. 4), and the battle friezes of the Temple of Athena Nike (FIG. 5). These sculptures have been extensively damaged by continued exposure to the weather. Many of them, such as the Parthenon’s west Ionic Frieze, have only recently been taken down. Hitchens also fails to discuss the cleaning of marbles in Athens in the 1950s using chisels and wire brushes. The sculptures remaining in Greece compare in no way favorably to those in England. In fact, the majority opinion seems to be that the museum in London has indeed preserved the sculptures. Melina Mercouri herself has publicly acknowledged the “excellent care given to the Marbles by the British Museum.” While the Greek position in the debate over the Parthenon Marbles is certainly understandable (and some would argue, culturally favorable) it is nevertheless difficult to build a powerful case against their continued stay in Britain. Still, the arguments continue to thrive, and probably will for the foreseeable future. However, this is perhaps not a bad thing. It is hard to overstate the importance of this debate in relation to the art world. This argument represents more than a brawl between two nations. New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Louvre in Paris, and all other western museums contain vast collections of work from other parts of the world. These marbles symbolize the cultural property in all of the world’s museums, and this debate affects them all. Bibliography: BIBLIOGRAPHY Daley, Michael. “Phedias Albion,” Arts Review Volume 52 (2000): 34-35. Goldsmith, John. The Gymnasium of the Mind, The Journals of Roger Hinks 1933 – 1963. Salisbury: Michael Russell Publishing, 1984. Hitchens, Christopher. The Elgin Marbles: Should They be Returned to Greece? London; New York: Verso, 1998. Jenkins, Ian. “The 1930’s Cleaning of the Parthenon Sculptures in the British Museum,” The British Museum (2001): http://www.thebritishmuseum.ac.uk/parthenon/ Kurtz, Donna (ed.). Bernard Ashmole 1894-1988, An Autobiography. Oxford: Oxford Books, 1995. Merryman, John Henry. Thinking about the Elgin Marbles: Critical Essays on Cultural Property, Art, and Law. London: Kluwer Law International Ltd, 2000. St. Clair, William. “The Elgin Marbles: Questions of stewardship and accountability,” International Journal of Cultural Property Volume 8 Issue 2 (1999): 391-521. Word Count: 2024
Copyright © 2005 College Term Papers, INC All Rights Reserved.