As own goals go, the revelations about the disappearance of artefacts from the British Museum that led to Friday night’s resignation of its director, Hartwig Fischer, are eye-popping. Most of the missing objects might not be of great value: nearly a thousand came from a bequest made by the family of an 18th-century collector, and had been stored away in a drawer without even being individually catalogued.
But the narrative is devastating. When the drawer was opened, it has been reported, only seven items remained. The museum had been warned in 2021 that objects from its collection had been turning up for sale, but Mr Fischer said that, after an internal investigation, he was confident all had been accounted for. It was only when the board of directors was alerted that further action was taken. By the time the thefts were made public last week, a senior staff member had been sacked and the Metropolitan police called in. Now the director himself has gone, too.
Days later, the head of the Association of Greek Archaeologists pounced, saying the museum could no longer maintain that it was better than Greece at protecting Greek cultural heritage. Despina Koutsoumba was, of course, referring to the long-running dispute over ownership of the Parthenon marbles. Greece’s culture minister, Lina Mendoni, told the newspaper To Vima that the incident “reinforces the permanent and just demand of our country for [their] definitive return”.
It will not have gone unnoticed by George Osborne, the chair of the British Museum trustees and former chancellor of the exchequer, that this is the language of a diplomatic pounce. He was reduced to feebly parrying that the incident “only reinforces the case for the reimagination of the museum we have embarked upon”.
Details of this billion-pound “reimagination” – which include a major rebuild and a commitment to become a net zero carbon museum – are due to be revealed this autumn. But the framework, laid out by Mr Osborne in a speech to trustees last year, made it clear how impossible it is for any such vision to float free of claims for restitution of, in his words, “the treasures we hold in trust for all humankind”.
Pending the results of the police investigation, it is impossible to know how extensively this trust has been broken. Tim Loughton, chair of the all-party parliamentary group on the British Museum, accused Greece this week of “blatant opportunism.” But the rumour mill has been churning, with anecdotal reports that insider theft from UK museums has been widespread for years.
The vast majority of staff are undoubtedly honest and dedicated to a vocation that is about research as well as display: cataloguing is an exhaustive and ongoing process, and the museum has said that many of the missing objects were held mainly for academic purposes. But Ms Koutsoumba has a point. The case draws attention to the problems of responsibly caring for and curating a collection of more than 8m objects from all over the world, some of which should be returned.
This is now a defining crisis for the 21st-century British Museum. The choice of Dr Fischer’s successor is pivotal. The museum will need to be seen to put its house in order swiftly and decisively if it is to persuade others to follow its reimagining of itself as – in Mr Osborne’s words – a custodian of our common humanity.
