Ancient/Now - Progress or repackaged patriarchy?
The confused case of the Getty Museum's "Victorious Youth"
The Confused Case of the “Victorious Youth”
At a glance, the ever-growing trend in museums to acknowledge the colonialist cultural kleptomania and shady (and in some cases outright illegal) collecting practices of the past feels like progress, but oftentimes in reality settling issues of cultural patrimony is simply a rebalancing of patriarchal ownership norms—Patriarchy Lite, if you will. While this is not true in every case—particularly those dealing with antiquities belonging to still living cultures—there are cases that quite obviously are. One excellent example is the legal dispute over the ownership of an ancient Greek bronze statue known as “Victorious Youth,” which has been in the J. Paul Getty Museum’s collection since 1977.
In a recent opinion piece for The New York Times, anthropologist Adam Kuper discusses the history and prolonged legal dispute over the ownership of an ancient bronze statue between the Getty Museum and the Italian government. Wait, the Italian government, you ask? Why is the Italian government pursuing ownership of an ancient Greek statue? It has to do with the circumstances of Victorious Youth’s discovery as well as some rather thinly stretched historical and cultural arguments presented by the Italians. As Kuper explains,
The statue had been landed at an Italian port by an Italian-flagged vessel and had remained on Italian soil for several years. Some arguments depended on historical interpretation: When the statue was created, the judge said, “the artist had most probably visited Rome and Taranto.” The judge added, “At the relevant time, Greece and Rome had enjoyed good relations, and thereafter, Roman civilization developed as a continuation of Hellenic civilization.” These considerations were, in the judge’s view, sufficient to establish a “significant connection” with Italy, a state that came into existence in 1861. In May, the European Court of Human Rights upheld Italy’s right to seize the statue.
Italy appears to be arguing that, first of all, finders keepers! And also, the artist who cast the statue probably visited places that are now part of the modern nation-state of Italy. And also—just for good measure—they are six-degrees of Kevin Bacon away from being card-carrying Hellenes. They are practically Greek! What is interesting about this dispute over Victorious Youth is that instead of solely relying on arguments based on whether or not the statue was acquired legally by the Getty Museum, Italy wants to make a cultural claim to it as the patrimonial heirs to the ancient Greeks via the ancient Romans.
There is widespread agreement, even in museums, that questionable pieces in collections should be returned. But returned to whom? If a statue cast in Greece 2,000 years ago is discovered off the coast of Italy, is it part of the heritage of modern Italy? The Italian courts seem to think so. If a statue cast in Rome 2,000 years ago is discovered in Greece, Cyprus or Turkey, would it belong to one of those states, or would Italians have a claim over Roman antiquities on the ground that they share a culture — whatever that may mean — with ancient Romans? Is the modern Italian Republic the heir to the multiethnic Roman Empire, which spanned most of Europe, the Near East and parts of North Africa for more than four centuries?
Now, we are not here to make a pronouncement as to who “should” or should not own Victorious Youth. What we are here to do is provide a reminder that, in these times in which patriarchal norms are being challenged more broadly in society, patriarchy clothed in the guise of equity, progressiveness, or freedom can be just as insidious and damaging as imposed authoritarian patriarchy. (For another museum-related example, see Kuper’s discussion of the new developments in the case of the Benin bronzes in the same article cited above. For a non-museum, social example see the case of Hannah Neeleman, a.k.a. Ballerina Farm, a story that is currently blowing up on TikTok, about how a beautiful dancer whose labor is owned by her patriarch.) For the Getty and many other museums across the globe, the reckoning with the consequences of past collecting practices has remade their ancient art galleries over the past decade—as it should—but let’s take care not to allow our critical, anti-patriarchal lens to be clouded and mistake cases of repackaged patriarchy for progress.
What else were we reading this week?
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A eucharist of sourdough or wafer? What a thousand-year-old religious quarrel tells us about fermentation
Researcher uses machine learning to help digitize ancient texts from Indus civilization
How Medieval Women Expressed Their ‘Forbidden’ Emotions
Archaeologists are now finding microplastics in ancient remains
Why archaeologists must speak up for Gaza
Archaeologists in Egypt Uncover a 4,000-Year-Old Tomb With Rare Inscriptions
Understanding Trade and Power in Early Egypt: A Geopolitical Approach
Stressed About Taxes? Blame the Ancient Egyptians
'Exciting' New Insight Into Ancient Egyptian Astronomy and Mythology
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