Posted on 05/31/2005 12:22:05 AM PDT by nickcarraway
IT WOULD be illegal for the British Museum to return art- works looted by the Nazis to a Jewish family, despite its "moral obligation" to do so, a High Court judge ruled yesterday.
Vice-Chancellor Sir Andrew Morritt ruled that the British Museum Act - which protects the collections for posterity - cannot be overridden by the ethical merit of a claim involving plundered art.
The heirs of the art's original owners, Dr Arthur Feldmann, a Czech lawyer, and his wife Gisela, who died at the hands of the Nazis, said they were "very upset" at the ruling.
They called on the government to introduce legislation that would allow the pieces - four Old Master drawings stolen from the family home in Brno by the Gestapo in 1939 - to be returned to them swiftly.
Lawyers for the British Museum, which had agreed in principle three years ago to the restitution of the drawings to the family, also said they were "disappointed" by the outcome of the test case.
Lord Goldsmith, the Attorney General, had asked for clarification of the law after warning that if a moral obligation to restore such objects could override the act, it might allow Greece to reclaim the Elgin Marbles.
However, the judge said this case would have no implication for other claims.
Anne Webber, the co-chair of the Commission for Looted Art in Europe, which is representing Dr Feldmann's heirs, said the ruling had "prolonged the agony of a family who have already suffered".
She said: "The looting of these drawings was over 60 years ago, the claim was three years ago and the British Museum acted with alacrity. They never expected it would take so long.
"The family are very upset by the outcome but nevertheless they have confidence in the British Museum's commitment to restitution. The government needs to move swiftly."
The museum's trustees had asked the Attorney General if they had permission to return the artworks under the terms of the Snowdon principle - a legal test that permits charities to give back items judged wrong to keep.
Ms Webber said the ruling was significant for all claimants of looted art from the Nazi era, as it set aside any possibility of restitution being achieved without further legislation.
Sir Andrew said in his judgment that neither the Crown nor the Attorney General had any power to dispense with "due observance" of acts of parliament.
A spokesman for the Department of Culture, Media and Sport said: "We welcome clarification in this important area, which will contribute to our consideration of a Spoliation Advisory Panel recommendation that the Secretary of State consider legislation to return the spoliated items.
"The case confirms that legislation is necessary. We will now look urgently at this issue."
Dr Feldmann was tortured and murdered by the Nazis and died in prison.
Mrs Feldmann died at Auschwitz, but their children survived.
The drawings, for which the museum paid a total of nine guineas in 1946 at auction, are now estimated to be worth £150,000.
Exactly right, LL, and do not legislate from the courtroom. Yes, the artworks should be returned to the Feldmann family. No, the court should not violate the law as written.
And if it was your private property, you would be free to do that. But this is public property. The British Museum should not be free to do whatever they want with the items in their possession.
I honestly don't get how you can advocate the museum keeping someone's stolen property. That's amazing.
Newsflash the marbles were on the walls of the acropolis, elgin had his henchmen chisel them out.
The argument of museums in general is that if you keep stollen or looted property long enough you get to keep it.
If the original owner dies, then the museum inherits the stollen items.
They do not live by the practice/law of a thief can never pass clear title to personal property.
Wow that's amazing. I didn't know that. I still think they should do the right thing and return it.
They are not "their" items. They are stollen. If someone obtains/ buys your stollen car, it does not make it mine. It just makes it a YOUR car in possession of someone else. You have the ownership right to YOUR car.
(otherwise bank robbers get to keep the cash.)
If you gave back all the "stolen" property in the British Museum, you would have a lot of empty rooms with mismatched paint rectangles on the walls and velvet ropes around bare spots on the floor. Everything was "stolen" at one point or another, depending on how you look at it.
The British Museum saved certain artworks from oblivion in the chaos of Post-War Europe. This is what they should have done. They were not stealing, they were conserving.
You said: But this is public property. The British Museum should not be free to do whatever they want with the items in their possession.
This art is in the public possession, but it is not public property. If the property was stolen, it can never be validly conveyed to anyone by the thief, or those to whom the thief sold it. I have only been practicing law for 17 years, but I don't think you can convey greater title to property than you have. If I am not mistaken (and I may be, wouldn't be the first time, for sure), stolen property is recovered from pawn shops all the time, and the pawn shops are not paid for it. They have to go after whoever pawned the goods. The British public never had, and doesn't now have, clear title to these works of art, IMHO.
I am pretty sure that if somebody stole my car today, my grandchildren would not be able to sue to get it back in 2065. Statutes will have run, after all.
What we are talking about here is the British Museum wanting to "give back" public property because it would make them feel better to do it. They have no legal obligation to do so, so they should not be able to convert a public asset into a balm to make themselves feel better.
If the Queen wants to write these folks a cheque for $250,000, I am sure she'll never miss the money.
different statute of limitations regardless.
Stollen is stollen. The fact the person bought stollen property only puts them in the same shoes as the thief.
In the case of the Greek Marbles, returning the 90 stones would actually settle title to HUNDREDS of other pieces in the British Museum since as part of the deal the Greeks would relinquish any claims to all of those.
If the Greeks want them, they can come and get them. They may have to fight their way through a couple hundred thousand British troops, however.
If the museums are not allowed to purchase items at post-war garage sales, how will these items ever be conserved? What is the public policy benefit of consigning these items to oblivion?
Besides, I don't know of any Statutes of Limitations on anything besides murder that lasts for 65 years. After a certain amount of time passes (and it varies from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, to be sure) title will revert to the possessor. Obviously, this is the case here. That is why the items cannot be returned under British law.
I would take it a step further and say that the "moral obligation" that these folks are beating there breasts over is poppycock, as well. The British Museum did nothing wrong here, and they don't owe anything to anybody. If these items had not been conserved by the British Museum, they would almost certainly have been lost forever. The person who bought them had the knowledge to recognize them, and did the work necessary to procure them. The British Museum has preserved them for all these years. It is altogether right and proper that they be allowed to keep them.
See my tagline.
For Lord Elgin to chisel them off the walls, he'd have to have put them back up!
Additional "marbles" were found in the area that'd probably been removed in the days when the building was kept as a mosque, a Christian church, or whatever.
The Rosetta Stone got broken up anyway.
The Nazis wiped out the business.
No doubt there were bank accounts, but the family lost track of them. I keep my eye on all this stuff.
Maybe so many Jews will stop calling for disarming the masses. Maybe they will realize that they should defend themselves and their pproperty in the first place.
The marbles are a dramatically different issue, and your car will likely be junk in 2065. If someone steals the artwork off your wall, in most states the statute of limitations (3-7 years) will kick in when the identity of the then current "owner" is known and you've made a request for it's return, which the new "owner" denied. Your grandchildren will be able to sue, though it's unlikely high profile art will remain under cover that long. Most likely it will leave the US.
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