She Reigns at the Met, She Kept 71 Stolen Artefacts.
She Reigns at the Met, She Kept 71 Stolen Artefacts.
The exhibition was a significant one, showcasing about two hundred ancient artefacts from all around the world. These artefacts ranged from Neolithic marbles to imposing Roman bronzes, and the exhibition’s title, “Glories of the Past,” was as grandiose as its contents.
Philippe de Montebello, who was the director of the Metropolitan institution of Art at the time, remarked in his opening to the 1990 show, “These are not the holdings of a large museum. In fact, a panoply of treasures assembled with relentless perseverance, according to a very personal vision.”
In point of fact,
they had all originated from the same private collection that was owned by Shelby White and her husband Leon Levy, both of whom would go on to play even more significant roles in the operation of the museum in the near future.
In the same year, White joined the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Advisory Committee on Acquisitions, which led to his election as a trustee at the Met. Most notably, she and her husband made a donation of $20 million to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. As a result, in 2007, four years after Levy’s passing, the museum unveiled a mammoth new gallery for Greek and Roman art. This gallery is known as the Leon Levy and Shelby White Court.
But as of late, there has been a lot of attention focused on the pair because of how they acquire things. In the past two years, investigators from the office of the Manhattan District Attorney have removed 71 looted artefacts from White’s home. However, they have not alleged that White or her husband deliberately purchased stolen antiquities.
In point of fact, investigators would later express their gratitude to White, who is now 84 years old, for her cooperation, as a result of which artefacts were sent back to a number of different nations, including Yemen, Turkey, and Italy. But at six in the morning on June 20, 2021, they turned up to her large apartment on Sutton Place in Manhattan, armed with a search warrant, completely unannounced.
The interior of the building was crammed with antiquities,
many of which had been acquired from merchants who, at a later date, were said to have been involved in the illegal trade of artefacts. Many were shown off in their very own niches or cabinets, which were illuminated in a way that accentuated their aesthetic value.
“It is literally a museum,” said Matthew Bogdanos, the head of the Antiquities Trafficking Unit for the district attorney’s office, which made multiple trips to the flat throughout their investigation.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art was the location where detectives took another 17 antiques that were on loan from White and claimed that they, too, were stolen. One of them was a Chinese burial artefact that had been stored away in the museum for almost twenty years but had never been put on exhibit. When the investigators opened the package containing the artefact, it was still caked with dirt. Bogdanos stated that this was a clear sign that the artefact had been stolen.
Not only because the objects had a combined value of almost $69 million,
but also because they were taken from White, the seizures were a serious blow. She has a shown fervour for preserving the treasures of the past and advancing a greater understanding of the ancient world, and as a result, she is considered to be one of the most recognised philanthropists of her generation. Critics, however, asserted that in light of her history, the couple’s gathering methods constituted either naiveté or carelessness on their part.
“There is no way,” Elizabeth Marlowe, the director of the museum studies programme at Colgate University, stated, “that someone at her level of the market and her depth of collecting and her prominence at the Met, there is no way that someone at that level did not know they should be asking for things like export licences.”
The criticism is not taken seriously by White’s many friends and supporters, and her attorney has described it as being unfair. However, the museum is in an uncomfortable position because its own collection has been subject to numerous seizures in recent years. White has continued to play a big role at the Met museum in recent weeks, despite the fact that the museum has been in the process of announcing a thorough study to guarantee that its ancient collections do not include any additional artefacts that were stolen.
As an emeritus trustee, she continues to serve on the organization’s acquisitions,
buildings, and finance committees, but instead of casting votes, she provides advice to the relevant bodies. The collection of the museum is still comprised of dozens of artefacts that she gave to the institution or allowed it to borrow. And only a few short weeks ago, when the Met launched its new, more stringent initiative on antiquities,
White was appointed to a 12-member task committee of trustees that will offer “their experience and counsel” to assist develop the museum’s collecting practises and other policies with relation to cultural property issues. This appointment came shortly after the Met unveiled its new, more stringent initiative on antiquities.
