We read with great interest and attention a report entitled \u201cStolen Ethiopian Saint John Turns Up at Paris Auction\u201d which was published by the Museum Security Network and other websites. (1) The report states that a 17th century Ethiopian painting representing Saint John that had been stolen from the Mus\u00e9e de l\u2019Homme, Paris, in 1989 turned up at an auction at Drouot, Paris.nAccording to the report, the painting had been in an Ethiopian Coptic Christian church, Abba Antonios, in Gondar, former capital of Ethiopia but was, with eleven others, collected in 1932 by the French ethnologist, Marcel Griaule during the Dakar-Djibouti Expedition (1931-33). Griaule had been able to persuade the church authorities that the Abba Antonios church was not suitable for these paintings and obtained from the local ecclesiastical authorities the permission to replace the original paintings with copies supplied by the artist of the French mission.nAccording to the report, the Ethiopian Foreign Ministry had complained about the removal but the Emperor had decided in favour of the French.nAfter the work had disappeared from the Mus\u00e9e de l\u2019Homme in 1989, it was bought by the wife of a painter at the Vanves flea market in Paris in the 1990s. The painting will now join the other eleven that are held in the Mus\u00e9e du Quai Branly which inherited works from the Mus\u00e9e de l\u2019Homme and the Mus\u00e9e des Arts Africains et Oceaniens in Paris.nI was very uneasy with the report as presented. It seemed unspecific, referring to the emperor at that time, without giving the name of the emperor who was Haile Selassie. I got more suspicious as I read that the recovered work with eleven others had been acquired by Marcel Griaule during the notorious Dakar-Djibouti Expedition. Readers will recall that this rapacious mission went through the former French colonies taking, looting, stealing and seizing artefacts it thought useful for understanding those countries and their cultures, armed with the authority of a French government decree.nThe methods used by this expedition have been detailed by the secretary-archivist of the mission, Michel Leiris in his fundamental book, Afrique Fant\u00f4me. (2) Members of the expedition did not shrink from using bribery, intimidation, corruption, blackmail, threats, undue pressure and plain stealing in obtaining objects they desired.(3) Michel Leiris wrote in his dairy of the expedition:n12 November
\u201cYesterday, we were refused with shock several statuettes which were used to cause rainfall, as well as a statuette with raised arms, found in a sanctuary.nTaking away these objects would have been like taking away the life of the country, said a young man who, even though had been in the army, had remained faithful to his customs, almost crying at the thought of the disasters that our impious gesture would have provoked, and opposing our evil design with all his strength, had alerted the old men.nFeeling like pirates: saying good-bye this morning to these affectionate old men, happy that we had spared them a disaster, we kept an eye on the huge green umbrella which was normally used to protect us but was today carefully bound.nThere was a strange bulge looking like the beak of a pelican: it contained the famous statuette with raised arms which I had myself stolen at the foot of the earth mound which served as its altar. I first hid it in my shirt\u2026 and then I put it in the umbrella\u2026 pretending to urinate in order to divert attention.nThis evening, at Touyogou, where we are camping at a public place, my chest is full of earth:my shirt served again as a hiding place for a kind of double edged blade, as we left the cave of masks of this village.\u201d (4)nThe recovered painting apparently will be returned to the Mus\u00e9e du Quai Branly without any compensation or payment to the consignor, the artist whose wife had bought the painting at the flea market. This is interesting. We will probably never know the whole truth about the deal between the consignor and the museum. If the consignor or his wife bought the painting in good faith, he surely could expect some compensation from the museum.nAnyone buying such a piece of work in Paris would know where to look for help if they were not sure of the origin of the work and its history. The museum is, of course, not very interested in a general discussion on the origin and history of any of its works since this would involve discussing the sources of the works from the Mus\u00e9e de l\u2019Homme and the Mus\u00e9e des Arts d\u2019Afrique et de l\u2019Oceanie which are largely due to colonial plunder and deceit.nMade curious by the vague and very general reports and the mention of the notorious Dakar-Djibouti Expedition which brought some 3500 looted\/stolen artefacts including 70 skulls from Africa to France, I decided to read a little more for I had the impression that there was more in this matter than meets the eye.nI consulted Afrique Fant\u00f0me by Michel Leiris. To my surprise, Leiris who is usually prolific about the itinerary and activities of the expedition, giving details about whom the group met and what precisely was taken, was not very forthcoming this time. Commenting on the account of Leiris of the activities of the mission\u2019s acquisition of objects at Gondar, H\u00e9l\u00e8ne Joubert, Senior Official responsible for the African section in the Mus\u00e9e du Quai Branly writes;n\u2018The acquisitions in the region of Godsr in mid-July are shrouded in mystery.\u2019\u2019 (5) But what Leiris wrote was enough to convince that the group did not hesitate to resort to its usual unorthodox methods of intimidation and deception. (6)nThe corruption used by the Dakar-Djibouti Expedition comes out clearly in a passage from Leiris in which he writes that villagers who had wanted to help in removing the canvases from the church did not turn up; no doubt instructed by a chief who had not received the bribe he had expected. (7)nThe expedition seemed to have favoured most of the time deception and dissimulation; Marcel Griaule and Roux packed the painting like ordinary materials and were decided to show only part of their loot to customs. (8)nDissimulation is obviously, the preferred method of the French expedition. Michel Leiris wrote that the group had spent a whole morning packing items in such a way that custom officials may not discover the paintings and other items they had in their bags. (9)nThe conduct and acts of the expedition as described by Michel Leiris do not reflect the conduct of persons who had received permission from the local authorities and the Emperor to carry away religious paintings. Why should they dissimulate the paintings at customs? Would it not have been logical and natural to expect them to tell all who wanted to know that they had permission from the local authorities and ecclesiastical authorities as well as from the Emperor to take them away? The overall impression one gets from the account of Michel Leiris is that of a marauding looting party of scholars.nI looked at the interesting book of Claire Bose-Tiess\u00e9 and Ana\u00efs Wion,nPeintures sacr\u00e9es d\u2019\u00c9thiopie: Collection de la Mission Dakar-Djibouti. (10)nAccording to the authors, the expedition\u2019s artist, Gaston Loius Roux, demonstrated to the local church authorities the resistance to rain of the oil painting he had done by throwing water on the work whereupon the churchmen agreed to the expedition taking down all the old paintings and replacing them with new paintings by the artist.nWhen the expedition tried to do the same at another church, there was resistance and the matter was reported to the governor of the province and the Emperor. However serious political problems in autumn 1932 pushed the matter to the background and thus there was no decision from either the governor or the Emperor that would have allowed us to assess how far the expedition was authorized to remove the old religious paintings that had been in the church for centuries. (11)nWe also looked at \u00c9thiopie Millinaire; Pr\u00e9histoire et Art Religieux , catalogue of an exhibition in 1974 with some pages on the paintings from Abba Antonios church. The issue of authorization is not discussed in the catalogue but the authors state that if the Dakar-Djibouti Expedition had not taken those paintings away, they would have been destroyed. (12) This is of course the classic defence of many Westerners when discussing looted artefacts but this does not justify illegal acquisition of artefacts. In an article entitled \u2018\u2019Conjuring tricks\u2019\u2019 Clementine Deliss describes the tricks used by the expedition to intimidate and pressure the local clergy. The author states that Griaule secured the deal to remove the old paintings and replace them with new ones by threatening the clergyman with imprisonment. (13)nSo it does not seem that any political authority and certainly not Emperor Haile Selassie gave any authorization for removal of religious paintings. But where did the Figaro article, translated into English and reproduced at various websites, get the notion that the Emperor at that time sided with the French against his own Ministry of Foreign Affairs? (14)nIn view of what has been said above, it would be enlightening to receive more precise information on the following;n1. How did the French expedition manage to persuade the local church and the ecclesiastical authorities to allow them to take away 12 canvas paintings of the saints, 60 square meters of religious material that had been in the church for hundreds of years and replace them with copies made by a member of the expedition?n2. How did the French expedition manage to have the Emperor of that time, as the report puts it, back the French against his Foreign Ministry that was opposed to the removal of religious paintings from the Coptic Christian church?n3. Did the Mus\u00e9e de l\u2019Homme advertise widely the loss of the painting in 1989nbefore the establishment of the Mus\u00e9e de Quai Branly in 2006?n4. Has anyone seen a written authorization of Emperor Haile Selassie or his representative to the expedition? Ethiopians were used to writing long before many other nations and by 1932 most authorities would issue such important decisions in writing, to be shown where necessary.n5. Has anyone thought of returning the original canvas painting of Saint John as well as the other 11 paintings to Ethiopia as requested by several United Nations and UNESCO resolutions? (15)n6. Has the Mus\u00e9e du Quai Branly that has as motto \u2018the \u201cplace where cultures dialogue\u201d, (l\u00e0 o\u00f9 dialoguent les cultures) been in dialogue with Ethiopian authorities with regard to these paintings that are more relevant to the culture and history of Ethiopian Coptics than to the culture and history of the French?nKwame Opoku, 4 August 2014.<\/i>nFirst published on Modern Ghana<\/link>nNOTES
1 MSN:17690] Stolen Ethiopian Saint John Turns Up at Paris Auction – artnet<\/i>nhttps:\/\/www.facebook.com
www.anonymousswisscollector.com
www.diretube.com
www.addistar.com
2. Gallimard, Paris 1934. Another edition of Afrique Fant\u00f4me may be found in Michel Leiris, Miroir de l\u2019Afrique, with other writings of Leiris edited and annotated by Jean Jamin in 1996.<\/i>n3. K. Opoku \u2018\u2019Benin to Quai Branly: A Museum for the Arts of Others or for the Stolen Arts of the Others?\u2019<\/i>nhttp:\/\/www.museum-security.org
4. Afrique Fant\u00f4me, p. 156. Translations from the French are by K. Opoku.<\/i>n5. H. Joubert :
\u201cLes mentions d\u2019acquisitions dans la r\u00e9gion de Gondar a la mi\/juillet<\/i>nrestent envelopp\u00e9s de myst\u00e8re` in Nicol\u00e1s S\u00e1nchez Dura and Hasan G. Lopez Sanz (eds.) La Misi\u00f3n etnogr\u00e1frica y ling\u00fc\u00edstica Dakar-Djibouti y el fantasma de \u00c1frica, p. 287.<\/i>n6. \u201c Il a \u00e9t\u00e9 d\u00e9cid\u00e9 que nous irions remplacer les peintures de Gondarotch Maryam comme si de rien n\u2019\u00e9tait et comme si nous ignorions les deux phonogrammes que l\u2019alaga Sagga a envoy\u00e9s. Mais, pour parer \u00e0 tous incidents, .nous partons en force: une douzaine d\u2019achkars arm\u00e9s de sept fusils, Griaule,Larget,Roux,Lutten et moi, tous arm\u00e9s, plus Abba J\u00e9r\u00f4me avec son habituel parapluie.\u2019<\/i>nD\u00e8s que nous sommes arriv\u00e9s, Griaule, apprenant que l\u2019alaqa Sagga se trouve l\u00e0, l\u2019envoie chercher. Les paysans, bien que nous les traitions avec am\u00e9nit\u00e9, ont tr\u00e8s peur. Abba J\u00e9r\u00f4me, de son cot\u00e9, n\u2019est nullement assur\u00e9. Il est visiblement ennuy\u00e9 d\u2019\u00eatre embarqu\u00e9, en tant que repr\u00e9sentant officiel du gouvernement dans une pareille histoire. Il sait que Griaule a l\u2019intention si l\u2019alaqa Sagga se pr\u00e9sente et refuse de laisser remplacer les vielles peintures de l\u2019\u00e9glise par les peintures neuves que nous avons apport\u00e9es,de traiter l\u2019alaqa Sagga de fourbe e d\u2019exiger de lui un garant, pour le proc\u00e8s qu\u2019il lui intentera \u00e0 Addis Abeba.\u2019\u2019<\/i>n.Michel Leiris, op. cit. p 450.
7. Aucun des hommes qui \u00e0 l\u2019origine \u00e9taient venus eux-m\u00eames demander \u00e0 Griaule de s\u2019occuper du remplacement des peintures, n\u2019est l\u00e0. C\u2019est \u00e9videmment un coup mont\u00e9 par l\u2019alaqa Sagga qui devait s\u2019attendre \u00e0 un fort pot-de-vin et est furieux de n\u2019avoir encore rien re\u00e7u. \u2019Leiris, ibid. p.451.<\/i>n8. \u2018M\u00e9thodiquement, Griaule et Roux mettent les peintures d\u2019Antonios en ballots. Une partie seulement sera exhib\u00e9e aux douaniers. Le reste est roul\u00e9, entour\u00e9 de papier et emball\u00e9 dans des peaux. Les paquets ne seront pas diff\u00e9rent des charges d\u2019abou-g\u00e9did que transportent les caravanes.\u2019\u2019<\/i>nLeiris, ibid p. 580.
9. \u2018Toute la journ\u00e9e s\u2019est passe\u00e9 \u00e0 dissimuler des peintures: un triptyque a \u00e9t\u00e9 simplement rev\u00eatu de papier portant, dessin\u00e9s et colori\u00e9s par Roux, les motives m\u00eames des ses propres panneaux; cela passera pour une copie. D\u2019un diptyque \u00e9galement recouvert de papier, Griaule s\u2019est fait un joli portefeuille dans lequel il a rang\u00e9 des timbres et diff\u00e9rents papiers. Un grand tableau, enfin, a \u00e9t\u00e9 cach\u00e9 (sous du papier d\u2019emballage coll\u00e9) au fond d\u2019une caisse qui contiendra des oiseaux empaill\u00e9s.\u2019\u2019<\/i>nLeiris, ibid., p. 584.
10. \u00c9ditions S\u00e9pia, 2005, Paris.
11, Bose-Tiesse, and Ana\u00efs Wion op cit. pp 83-84.
12. Petit Palais. Paris, November 1974-February 1975 p. 263.<\/i>n13. Clementine Deliss, \u2018Conjuring Trikcs \u2019centropecci.it<\/i>n14. Un \u00abSaint Jean\u00bb vol\u00e9 au mus\u00e9e de l’Homme refait surface<\/i>nwww.lefigaro.fr
\u2018C’est en juillet 1932 que le grand ethnologue Marcel Griaule avait fait halte sur le site. Constatant l’\u00e9tat tr\u00e8s d\u00e9grad\u00e9 de l’\u00e9glise, en particulier sa toiture, et les risques encourus par le d\u00e9cor mural datant du dernier tiers du XVIIe si\u00e8cle, il avait obtenu des autorit\u00e9s eccl\u00e9siastiques l’autorisation ce d\u00e9poser celui-ci et de le faire remplacer par des copies \u00e0 l’huile ex\u00e9cut\u00e9es par le peintreGaston-Louis Roux, membre de la mission Dakar-Djibouti. La mission avait gard\u00e9 les originaux. Une plainte \u00e0 ce sujet avait \u00e9t\u00e9 d\u00e9pos\u00e9e par le minist\u00e8re des affaires \u00e9trang\u00e8res \u00e9thiopien mais l’empereur avait tranch\u00e9 en faveur des fran\u00e7ais. Au mus\u00e9e de l’Homme, les toiles avaient \u00e9t\u00e9 restaur\u00e9es d\u00e8s 1933.\u2019\u2019<\/i>n15. K. Opoku,\u2019\u2019Did Germans Never Hear Directly or Indirectly Nigeria\u2019s Demand for Return of Looted Artefacts?\u2019\u2019http:\/\/www.modernghana.com<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
We read with great interest and attention a report entitled \u201cStolen Ethiopian Saint John Turns Up at Paris Auction\u201d which was published by the Museum Security Network and other websites. (1) The report states that a 17th century Ethiopian painting representing Saint John that had been stolen from the Mus\u00e9e de l\u2019Homme, Paris, in 1989…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[95,107],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1430","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-afrikanische-perspektiven","category-kolonialismus-und-dekolonisierung"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n