The British Museum has revealed the types of treasures that have been stolen from its vaults and unveiled its strategy for reclaiming them.
Sixty of the 2,000 missing objects have now been returned, with 300 more items identified and due to be handed back “imminently”, the museum confirmed today.
A webpage has been launched detailing the kinds of artefacts that have been lost, separating them into two categories: classical Greek and Roman gems, and jewellery from the late Bronze Age, Hellenistic and Roman periods.
An online tool includes high resolution photographs of “the types of objects that are missing” in order to make the public “better able to identify whether they might have come in contact with any of the stolen items”.
Precise details of the missing items have been shared privately with the Art Loss Register, the world’s largest private database of lost, stolen and looted art and antiquities, which is assisting with the recovery operation.
A spokesman for the register said the strategy enabled dealers and collectors around the world to check the provenance of items they suspect have been stolen.
Providing too much detail publicly “risks playing into the hands of those who might act in bad faith” to avoid detection, he said, as they might choose to sell the items through channels “where fewer questions are asked” or simply destroy the pieces.
Identification of specific items of jewellery, for instance, might increase the chances that holders would “melt down the gold mount” to realise the scrap value without detection.
The museum has also established an international panel of experts made up of leading recovery specialists in the field to aid the identification and recovery of objects.
The members include James Ratcliffe, director of the Art Loss Register, Lynda Albertson from the Association for Research into Crimes against Art, and 12 other gems and jewellery specialists based in the US and Europe.
Their meetings will be held in London, with some members expected to participate remotely.
George Osborne, the museum’s chairman, disclosed in August that “around 2,000” objects had been taken from the storerooms, as a result of an alleged theft by a museum curator.
All the items are believed to have come from the Greek and Roman department and include gold jewellery and pieces of semi-precious stones and glass dating from as long ago as the 15th century BC.
On its new webpage, the museum described the missing gems, cameos or intaglios as “small objects, often set in rings or other settings, or left unmounted and unfinished”.
They may be made of semi-precious stone, for example sard, sardonyx, amethyst or glass and may be cast from a mould or engraved by hand.
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The majority of gems, which are of various quality and may be fragmented or damaged, are from the Hellenistic and Roman world, but some may also have been “made in modern times in imitation of ancient gems”.
The artefacts are likely to feature images of famous individuals from the classical past, of mythological scenes, animals or objects.
Separately, the public has been asked to look out for gold rings, ear-rings and other pieces of jewellery.
These date from “across antiquity”, according to the museum, especially from the Late Bronze Age (about 15th to 11th century BC) and the Hellenistic and Roman periods.
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A major problem facing the museum’s recovery drive is that many of the objects were not properly catalogued. Records, therefore, do not include photographs or full descriptions of the pieces, which is likely why they were targeted. This may also partially explain the museum’s reluctance to publish details of any individual losses.
Lucy D’Orsi, joint chairman of the independent review, said it was continuing “to work closely with the British Museum, other organisations and specialists in this area to recover stolen items and return them to the British Museum’s collection. We are very grateful for the support we have received”.
She added: “We have seen an encouraging start to the recovery programme and have been particularly impressed by the hard work and dedication of the British Museum staff working with us.”
Ratcliffe said: “The British Museum’s approach has carefully balanced the need to provide information to the public to assist the recovery efforts with the fact that providing too much detail risks playing into the hands of those who might act in bad faith.
“Thanks to our position as the principal due diligence resource for the art market, and experience in the recovery of stolen art and cultural property, the Art Loss Register has an unrivalled ability to assist with the museum’s recovery programme.
“We are delighted to provide our assistance on a pro bono basis to the excellent team at the museum to support their efforts.”
Antiquities dealers help recovery
The Times understands that some of the now recovered items were tracked down thanks to support from dealers in the antiquities community. The museum’s new panel of specialists have spent weeks monitoring the arts market and encouraging information-sharing among the “close knit” network of traders.
This has helped to “raise the profile” of objects believed to the missing and prompt people to come forward.
Dealers are understood to be motivated to assist with the returns process as they do not want to be in possession of ill-gotten goods.
However, the museum’s move to only publish details of the “type” of lost artefacts, rather than exact accounts of what is missing, has drawn criticism.
Dan Hicks, professor of contemporary archaeology at the University of Oxford and the curator of the Pitt Rivers Museum, told The Times: “The normal course of action when a museum suffers a theft is for full details and photographs of the item or items to be published to assist with a swift recovery. The absence in this case of even a basic provisional list raises further concerns over the museum’s ongoing handling of this matter.
“A sustained lack of transparency lies at the heart of the scandal — the lack of basic record keeping for our national collections, where over half of the perhaps eight million objects in its care are not on a public database. At this point there is no justification for anything other than total clarity about what is known, and what is not. If we simply don’t know what was stolen, let’s admit it.”
