Saturday 23 February 2013

Fragments of Love

The AAMD Object Registry has an interesting entry: the 2011 acquisition of 27 pot fragments or groups of pot fragments by New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art from Iris Love. Iris Love appears in the Beazley Archive as the owner of a number of pieces acquired during the 1960s. But these fragments appear to be different:
The 27 Greek vase fragments and groups of fragments acquired as a gift from Iris Love join or belong to the same vases as fragments acquired by the Metropolitan Museum through the large study collection donated by the late Dietrich von Bothmer (TR. 572.2011). The Ministry for Cultural Heritage and Activities of the Italian Republic consented to the Museum accepting the Bothmer gift as a resource for research, publication and display. A major consideration in the Museum’s acceptance of the Bothmer gift was to contribute to the reunification of pieces that belong together and had become dispersed. The gift from Iris Love is consistent with this purpose. As the material is accessioned, it will become available for study.
The acquisition was made prior to the return of part of the Bothmer collection to Italy. Do any of the Love fragments link to any of the returned Bothmer fragments? And what were the common sources for Bothmer and Love?

More important, why had the pots represented by the Bothmer fragments been broken and the fragments dispersed? When will the Met issue the full details of the return along with information about the pots that they join? How did Bothmer acquire the pieces that were returned?

And should the AAMD Object Registry publish all 27 images? And why not the joining fragments in the Bothmer collection?


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