Admission Tickets for gods and graves

[deepad]

Occasionally, Shrivastava’s research produced vivid illustrations of what was lost when a religious relic was smuggled out of India. He stumbled across a series of beautiful Matrika, or mother goddess, statues from outside Tanesar, a village near Udaipur. Originally, there were a dozen of the statues, each about two feet tall, carved from dark-green schist, and dating to the fifth century. They depicted graceful, broad-hipped women, each in a different stage of motherhood: one pregnant, one breast-feeding an infant, one cradling a toddler, one walking a child. An Indian archeological journal had published photographs of the Tanesar Matrikas in 1961. Sometime thereafter they were stolen and smuggled out of the country. In the late nineties, one of the statues appeared in a Sotheby’s catalogue, and in February, 2003, Shrivastava assembled some photographs of the sculptures and travelled to Tanesar.

When the police contingent arrived at the village, a crowd formed. Shrivastava’s men asked whether anyone remembered a series of statues of women that had once stood nearby. “We got hold of a person who was now eighty years old,” Shrivastava told me. “Long white hair. Old guy.” Shrivastava asked the man if he remembered the Matrikas, and after a moment the man said, “Oh, yes, I recall, seven or eight idols were there of a lady, a lady feeding her child.” Shrivastava took out the pictures of the Matrikas. The old man stared at them for a moment. Then he began to weep.

I asked what had become of the Matrikas, and Shrivastava told me that they had ended up in various museums in England and the United States. Today, one is at the British Museum, one is at the Cleveland Museum, and one is at the Met.

-- from this old New Yorker story

Comments

[bossymarmalade]

Augh, this hit me in the heart. Especially the reminder of how we learn to live when pieces of our culture are taken away from us, burying it all so well that we even startle *ourselves* to remember them.

Also, hello again. :)

[deepad]

Yeah, reading it reminded me of the deep feelings of loss and horror I feel when walking through museums in the West.

Hello to you too :)

argh

[naad]

so why the hell aren't those august and esteemed and supposedly politically sensitive institutions like the British Museum (where i've been, btw) concerning themselves with restitution of looted property?

Re: argh

[deepad]

Because it would not be in their interests to dirty their hands with such messy business?

Re: argh

[(Anonymous)]

Often, it's in the British Museum's best interests to actively discourage repatriation.

When I went to see the Parthenon Marbles (AKA Elgin Marbles) in the British Museum in the summer of 2009, they had docents that literally stood near the entrance handing out little half-sheet flyers that listed bullet points of why it wasn't in the best interest of ANYONE for them to return the looted Parthenon Marbles to Greece because they "are part of everyone's shared heritage and transcend cultural boundaries", and, by the way, it's not like Lord Elgin ACTUALLY looted the sculptures in the first place, he had permission! They just conveniently neglect to mention that Elgin didn't have permission from any Greek authorities or anything about what the Parthenon Marbles mean to the Greeks.

Deepa, I didn't mean to take your heartfelt post about India's struggles with looted artifacts and turn it into a discussion of the Parthenon Marbles, I only meant to show that the British Museum is NOT a politically sensitive institution at all. Most of the time, you are right, museums mostly just turn a blind eye to the nastiness of the business and plead ignorance to the provenance of their exhibits; but sometimes, even when it becomes a huge media spectacle and an international incident, the museum just doubles down, like David Wilson in 1983, then director of the British Museum, who is on record as saying, "We have absolutely no intention of ever returning the Elgin Marbles" and even that through the passage of time, the Marbles have somehow become MORE a part of the cultural heritage of BRITAIN than of the country of origin.

Re: argh

[deepad]

Oh, no worries, I am always interested in more reminders of how colonialism affects other cultures and countries. That story about the pamphlets is particularly disturbing. ::cringe::.

I think most museums function as shareholders of the powerful and upholders of the dominant culture.

Thanks for commenting, Anonymous!