Netherlands Also Returns Stolen Treasures to Sri Lanka
- BBC.uk.co
“I think the way that the museum world used to look at this debate in the 20th century was very much about the concern to preserve objects for generations to come, and obviously museums in Europe have the facilities to do that,” she said.
“But what changed is our viewpoint: these objects are to tell the stories of our countries, of our shared history of peoples. So what we see now as our mission is to have the objects in the places where they are best able to tell the stories that are important,"
She dismissed concerns that the new policy would mean European museums losing collection highlights, which until recently played a role in considering restitution claims on Nazi-looted art in the Netherlands.
“I don’t really think that is going to happen, because I expect countries of provenance and museums here in Europe will have a discussion about which objects will go back, and not all of them will be,” Smeulders said.
“But what we will gain, all of us, is more knowledge about these objects, how they came into our possession, their background, what stories are we able to tell. So in the end we’ll have an enrichment of what we do instead of empty galleries.”
The collection of objects repatriated to Indonesia will not include human remains of the “Java man,” which are displayed at the Naturalis Biodiversity Center in Leiden as some of the earliest specimens of the extinct early human, Homo erectus.
A spokesperson for the Dutch government said that no decision regarding the “Java man” remains had been reached.
“Nothing has been declined, but some things take longer than others,” the spokesperson said.
Gert-Jan van den Bergh, a specialist in art law at the law firm Bergh Stoop & Sanders, told The Art Newspaper that the repatriation effort was “an important first step, but just a first step.”
