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“Since this object apparently has no provenance prior to the 1980s, we can’t know anything about the context in which it was removed from its country of origin.”
Our no-provenance provenance Qur'an gets the attention of @TheArtNewspaper in this article. https://www.theartnewspaper.com/news/quran-sells-for-record-price
Our no-provenance provenance Qur'an gets the attention of @TheArtNewspaper in this article. https://www.theartnewspaper.com/news/quran-sells-for-record-price
@Yael_Rice and I wrote several threads about this Qur'an before its sale, starting with Yael's brilliantly biting bit of meme-ified satire https://twitter.com/Yael_Rice/status/1273352899549167619?s=20
I laid out the overall problem with the sale of objects that lack transparent provenance information like this Qur'an here: https://twitter.com/stephenniem/status/1275238292884197377?s=20
In this thread, @Yael_Rice takes on the question of why manuscripts in particular need complete provenance information: https://twitter.com/Yael_Rice/status/1277671619637530629
And here, I argued that though legal statutes allow the sale of such manuscripts, we should be asking questions about the ethics of such sales. Transparency benefits collectors, dealers, and museums - which is why many museums have adopted UNESCO 1970. https://twitter.com/stephenniem/status/1277052203413495809
This is not the first time I've criticized Christie's for the sale of manuscripts with questionable provenance - there's a consistent pattern at Christie's of disregarding a growing international ethical consensus on this issue. https://twitter.com/stephenniem/status/986983042102251520
And just last year, as @TheArtNewspaper article notes, Christie's sold dispersed pages from another Persian manuscript - see this critique from Christiane Gruber https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/arts-and-books/gruber-figure-frieze-folio-islamic-art-christies
@Yael_Rice and I have an an op-ed on the sale of this 15th c. Qur'an - hoping @josephharker will pick it up. We need dealers, collectors, and auction houses to adopt more complete provenance standards for all antiquities. They're an important bulwark against theft and looting.
Very grateful to @TheArtNewspaper for covering this story - we can't hold auction houses to account without journalists, who shine a bright light on these questionable practices.
@Yael_Rice and I will be speaking to Harvard's Virtual Islamic Art History Seminar about the sale of this Qur'an next Thursday, July 16 - stay tuned for details and thank you to @MXSchwerda for the invitation!
