The indiana jones era is over for museums, says the New york tIMES.
In Philadelphia, the Franklin Institute’s 1933 acquisition of Grover Bergdoll’s Wright Brothers airplane is now questionable because, in April 2023, the museum abruptly changed its decades-long-presented method of the airplane’s acquisition. I’ve outlined the facts of this situation in the Blogpost-Grover Bergdoll’s Wright Brothers airplane.
“Prodded by law enforcement, and pushed by foreign governments, American museums are increasingly returning artifacts to countries of origin, but critics wonder at what cost,” wrote Graham Bowley in June 2023 for The New York Times.
“Today many U.S. museums are facing a reckoning for their aggressive tactics of the past. Attitudes have shifted, the Indiana Jones era is over, and there is tremendous pressure on museums to return any looted works acquired during the days when collecting could be careless and trophies at times trumped scruples, explained Bowley.
You may read the entire article here, pending your NYTs subscription services.
New York Times: Indiana Jones era is over for museums
While it’s not suggested that the Bergdoll Wright Brothers airplane was looted, the lack of a signed ownership transfer document for the airplane as the museum has presented to the public for decades that it possessed, when it didn’t, makes the transaction questionable. Astoundingly, after 90 years, the museum now says it does not have a written agreement depicting the acquisition of the airplane but that it was an oral agreement with Bergdoll when he was hiding in Germany. Furthermore, the museum contends the oral agreement was with a third party who then gave the airplane to the museum.
A recent situation that might be considered similar to the Bergdoll airplane acquisition is portrayed in The New York Times in November 2023, with a judge ruling against a family that challenged part ownership of Norman Rockwell drawings that had been loaned to the White House by an ancestor, President Franklin Roosevelt’s press secretary, Stephen T. Early. The drawings were still hanging in the White House in 2017 and were valued at $8 million.
Above, President Roosevelt’s press secretary Stephen T. Early, the man who loaned the Rockwell drawings to the White House.
By reading the article here, Court Ruling over Rockwells at the White House, you can determine that property law fell on the side of the direct heirs of Press Secretary Early, full owner of the artifacts, despite their display longevity at the White House and challenges by other Early family members claiming part ownership.