{"id":95147,"date":"2019-11-12T17:18:26","date_gmt":"2019-11-13T00:18:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=95147"},"modified":"2019-11-12T17:18:26","modified_gmt":"2019-11-13T00:18:26","slug":"rijksmuseum-laments-dutch-failure-to-return-stolen-colonial-art","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2019\/11\/12\/rijksmuseum-laments-dutch-failure-to-return-stolen-colonial-art\/","title":{"rendered":"Rijksmuseum laments Dutch failure to return stolen colonial art"},"content":{"rendered":"

Courtesy: The Guardian (UK)<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n

One of the Netherlands\u2019 most\nvenerated institutions, the Rijksmuseum, has described the country\u2019s failure to\nreturn artefacts stolen from former colonies as a disgrace\u201d as it opened talks\nwith Sri Lanka and Indonesia<\/a><\/strong>.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\nmuseum in Amsterdam is discussing the return of around 10 objects to their\nplace of origin but there are thought to be about 1,000 stolen pieces in its\ncollection.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\npioneering move comes amid a debate in museums and\ngalleries across Europe<\/a> about the provenance of its exhibits.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\nDutch National Museum of World Cultures (NMWC) published guidelines last month\nfor countries who wish to make a claim on stolen art or an artefact of\nsignificant cultural significance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Advertisement<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s\na disgrace that the Netherlands<\/a> is\nonly now turning its attention to the return of the colonial heritage,\u201d Taco\nDibbets, the Rijksmuseum\u2019s director, told the Dutch newspaper De Trouw. We\nshould have done it earlier and there is no excuse.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\nobjects likely to be returned to Indonesia and Sri Lanka<\/a> include a Banjarmasin diamond\nthought to have been the property of Sultan Panembahan Adam of Banjarmasin, now\nSouth Borneo, colonised by the Dutch in 1856, and a ruby-encrusted cannon taken\nfollowing a military campaign in 1765.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dibbets\nsaid he was starting by sending his head of history, Martine Gosselink, to Sri\nLanka to discuss the provenance of some of the 4,000 colonial objects exhibited\nat the Rijksmuseum.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He\nsaid: It is not possible to arrange matters from the Netherlands. You have to\nsit down with the people there, see it on a case-by-case basis. Gosselink is\nalso going to Indonesia later this spring. Different factors play a role in every\ncountry, with each country is different.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\nNMWC guidelines have been criticised for failing to force museums into take\npreparatory steps ahead of the issuing of claims by former colonial countries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jos\nvan Beurden, a researcher at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, said: The NMWC\nuses a typical Dutch approach. Even before negotiations have started,\nconditions are already on the table.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In\nFrance, Belgium, Germany and the UK, the debate over colonial artefacts has\nraged in recent months with varying levels of engagement by implicated museums.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A\n108-page report published last November by the French academics B\u00e9n\u00e9dicte Savoy\nand Felwine Sarr on the restitution of African cultural heritage prompted the\nFrench president, Emmanuel Macron, to commit to their return.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\nAfrica museum in Brussels, a former colonial institution, is in talks with the\nCongolese government about returning objects to be put on display in a new\ninstitution being built with funding from the South Korean government.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In\nBerlin and London, the debate is seemingly less advanced but Monika Gr\u00fctters,\nGermany\u2019s minister of state for culture, signalled a shift in policy this\nJanuary.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Just\nwaiting passively for someone to want something back is not the way to\nreconcile our colonial past,\u201d she said. We should actively approach the\ndescendants ourselves.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Last\nOctober, the British Museum<\/a> in\nLondon launched an initiative intended to tackle the perception that its collections\nderive solely from looted treasures.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\nmonthly Collected Histories\ntalks<\/a> offered information on how artefacts entered the\ncollection. The museum has been criticised for refusing to return a range of\nlooted treasures, including the Parthenon Marbles<\/a>, Rosetta Stone<\/a>,\nand the Gweagal shield<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2022 This\narticle was amended on 15 March 2019 because an earlier version said the\nBanjarmasin diamond might be returned to Sri Lanka. Indonesia would be its\ndestination.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Courtesy: The Guardian (UK) One of the Netherlands\u2019 most venerated institutions, the Rijksmuseum, has described the country\u2019s failure to return artefacts stolen from former colonies as a disgrace\u201d as it opened talks with Sri Lanka and Indonesia. The museum in Amsterdam is discussing the return of around 10 objects to their place of origin but there […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-95147","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95147","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=95147"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95147\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=95147"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=95147"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=95147"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}