In October 1860, during the Second Opium War, British and French forces attacked the Summer Palace near what was then Peking. Built of jade and marble and filled with treasures crafted exclusively for the imperial family, it had been described as a “dazzling cavern of human fantasy”. Three days of looting left it a smoking ruin. Eyewitnesses told of soldiers carrying off strings of pearls and pencil cases set with diamonds. The empress’s pekinese was also taken and, tactlessly renamed “Looty”, presented to Queen Victoria.
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Keeping Their Marbles – ‘an outstanding achievement… wide-ranging and incisive.’
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“Courageous and well argued.” Henrik Bering reviews Keeping Their Marbles
But what concerns Ms. Jenkins is not so much the legal arguments but something deeper: From the early days of private curio cabinets and onward, the underlying idea of a museum was a desire to understand the world, an ambition to tell a common story. Thus the Enlightenment espoused the notion of a common civilization of mankind— Voltaire saw man as being “always what he is now.” It is this idea of universalism, the museum as a place of shared experience, that has come under attack.
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Who Owns Culture? Start the Week, BBC Radio 4
On Start the Week, Tom Sutcliffe discusses who owns culture. The writer Tiffany Jenkins tells the story of how western museums have come to acquire treasures from around the world, but dismisses the idea of righting the …
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Does one ethnic group own its cultural artefacts?
Objects that once adorned display cases in museums around the world are disappearing from view. In recent decades, dramatic wooden Iroquois face masks, crafted by the nations and tribes of indigenous people of North America, have been taken off the shelves. Article on Aeon.
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The Western production & disposition of knowledge is the best way to research history & culture
Museums’ quest for knowledge is today under strain, amid angry debates over who owns culture.
