The Krater in Her Cupboard: Shelby White and the Grey Side of Private Antiquities Collections

October 27, 2023

Handover of antiquities to Italy, featuring several pieces seized from Shelby White’s collection. (source: Manhattan DA)

By Roxana Wang

Shelby White is exactly the person you would expect to have invaluable kraters in her cupboard. The 85-year-old investor, philanthropist, collector, and trustee of the Metropolitan Museum of Art was highly invested in antiquities. One of her major contributions to the studies of antiquities is her generosity to the MET: in 1995, she and her husband donated $20 million to the MET for the construction of its Greek and Roman Art gallery.^{^[1]} This is how the gallery, opened in 2007, became “the Leon Levy and Shelby White Court.”^{^[2]}

April 2022 Shelby White search Warrant, issued by Supreme Court of the State of New York

White’s dazzling public figure was dimmed by the shady side of her private antiquities collection. Between June 2021 and March 2023, the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office seized 89 stolen antiquities from White, valued at $69 million and originating from 10 different countries.^{^[3]} This is not the first time White’s treasure got into trouble. In 2008, White returned 10 rare Greek and Etruscan pieces to Italy and Greece.^{^[4]} The dubious provenance of her loans to the MET also raised doubts as early as 1990. Shelby White’s case is a good setting to discuss the obligation of private antiquities collectors and of the museums embracing their loans and donations.

Good-faith Buyer Turned Enabler, or Vice Versa

In a statement from 2008, Shelby White remarked that her collection “was purchased at public auction and from dealers we believed to be reputable.”^{^[5]} White’s attorney also claimed that White purchased “in good faith.”^{^[6]} The question thus arises: who were those “reputable” dealers, and how does it matter that a private purchaser like White is in good faith?

White’s dealers were “reputable” until they were found out to be traffickers. For example, in 2008, it was revealed that several pieces returned to Italy by White were linked to the notorious European traffickers Giacomo Medici and Robert Symes. Photos of antiquities freshly excavated and encrusted with dirt were found in a raid on Medici’s warehouse in 1995. White purchased some of those pieces through London dealer Robert Symes.^{^[7]} Another controversial piece in her possession was the “Weary Hercules,” which was smuggled out of Turkey in the 1980s.^{^[8]} Before that statue’s repatriation to Turkey in 2011, White had for a long time opposed its repatriation, claiming that it was acquired “in good faith.”^{^[9]}

It seems that “good faith” is a convenient response to suspicion about White’s collection. Given the global scale of the circulation of antiquities, the concept of “good faith” can be complex, especially since the law applying to transferable properties is the law of its current location (lex situs). Different legal systems differ in their treatment of good-faith purchasers. Civil law countries like Switzerland and France often favor good faith purchasers, allowing purchasers to gain title from anyone, as long as the statute of limitation (which starts when the object is stolen from those countries) has run.^{^[10]} On the other hand, common law countries like the US and UK uphold the principle of Nemo dat quod non habet (“no one gives what they do not have”), which means that the purchaser has no more right to a transferred property than the seller. A purchaser, therefore, cannot obtain good title to the stolen property regardless of whether they know about its true provenance.^{^[11]} Establishing its legal framework for prosecuting antiquities trafficking, the Manhattan DA’s Office relies on the criminal law principle of “once stolen, always stolen,” which entails that “a good-faith purchase does not render a stolen antiquity legal.”^{^[12]} By virtue of her being in New York, White has no legal right to many of her precious antiquities.

The legal concerns aside, even if Shelby White invoked “good faith” to dissociate herself from the shady origin of her collection, it is implausible that a seasoned collector like herself knew nothing about provenance research or export certificates. In fact, one does not need in-depth research to be suspicious about some of her antiquities. In May 2023, the Manhattan DA repatriated to China a funerary platform White loaned to the MET 25 years ago. The funerary platform, which was never formally displayed, was encrusted with dirt, a most obvious sign that it was excavated through unprofessional and most likely illicit means.^{^[13]} According to David Gill, honorary professor in the Center for Heritage at the University of Kent, White’s claim is representative of that of wealthy, irresponsible collectors: “I’m sure they would say they’ve acquired things in good faith. But the scale of looting that we know—they needed to have done their due diligence before they acquired it.”^{^[14]}

Buyer Turned Lender

The major reason why the provenance of Shelby White’s antiquities could be quickly exposed is that she loved to display her private collection. In 1990, more than 200 antiquities from her and her husband’s collection comprised an exhibition at the MET, called “Glories of the Past: Ancient Art from the Shelby White and Leon Levy Collection.”^{^[15]} This exhibition actually showed the public the far-from-glorious past of many antiquities. A study by David Gill and Christopher Chippindale showed that 93% of the antiquities exhibited had no clear provenance.^{^[16]} Given the close tie between White and the MET, we should also discuss what museums must do with the antiquities of private collectors.

According to the 1986 ICOM Code of Ethics, which applied to the MET when the “Glories of the Past” exhibition was staged, a museum should not accept or acquire any object unless its officers are certain that a valid title can be obtained.^{^[17]} The enforcement of this requirement is up to individual museums, and the MET has a history of not fulfilling this duty. A famous instance of such was the acquisition of the Euphronios Krater in 1972. In 1971, one year after the MET participated in the ICOM discussion on cultural property protection, its acquisition committee adopted a policy of sending letters of inquiry to a country’s ministry of culture when provenance information of an object from that country is insufficient. However, no such caution was taken prior to the acquisition of the krater —the acquisitions committee claimed the provenance “satisfactorily” established based on two letters between the dealers, Robert Hecht and Dikran Sarrafian, in which Sarrafian states that his family had owned the krater for over 50 years.^{^[18]^[19]} The MET thus acquired a three-decade scandal.

Interestingly, Shelby White also owned a Euphronios krater, which, different from the legendary “hotpot” acquired in 1972, depicts Ganymede and Herakles rather than the wounded Greek hero Sarpedon. White acquired this krater at the unprecedented price of $1.76 million at an auction in 1990 and sent it to the MET.^{^[20]} The krater was repatriated to Italy in 2010. Responding to the repatriation, the MET commented indifferently that “just as she hasn’t commented on the Met’s discussions with Italy, we can’t comment on the discussion that she may be having.”^{^[21]} Given the intimate link between a museum and its trustee, it was curious how the MET lightly shrugged off her troubles.

Shelby White’s Euphronios Krater was repatriated two years after AAMD passed its landmark Guidelines on the Acquisition of Archaeological Material and Ancient Art. The 2008 AAMD Guideline, later revised in 2013, stipulates that antiquities to be donated to a museum must have documented history stretching back past 1970, and that museums should publish online documentation of its acquisitions.^{^[22]} The stricter regulation of antiquities acquisition made it harder for private collectors to pitch their unprovenanced collections to major museums. According to a study by the Cultural Policy Research Institute (CPRI) in 2009, immediately after the AAMD guideline’s adoption, over 100,000 privately owned ancient Greek, Roman, and related Classical objects in the United States would be barred from most museums.^{^[23]} While the statistics might have shown some improvement in major museums’ integrity, they also hint at the enormous wealth of antiquities in private hands—how much value was lost when unprovenanced antiquities are hidden from public scrutiny?

While the MET is still constantly in trouble with its antiquities in recent years, its acquisition policy has tightened. The MET’s current acquisition guideline clearly emphasizes the necessity to conduct provenance research on antiquities in accordance with the AAMD guideline.^{^[24]} Earlier this year, the MET also announced the plan to form a four-person team to investigate suspicious works in its collections.^{^[25]}

The Illustrious Target: New Trend in Cracking down Antiquities Crime?

Sympathizers of Shelby White maintain that she did not deserve to be “targeted.” Some compared her to Marion True, the Getty curator of Greek and Roman art who was trialed in Italy for acquired looted antiquities because her fame made her a conspicuous target.^{^[26]} In the same way that some say Marion True “sacrificed herself on behalf of other museum directors in America,”^{^[27]} Carlos Picon, former ancient art curator of the MET, dismissed White’s critics as “so unworldly and so uninformed that they think that attacking Shelby and making graphs of her acquisitions […] is going to change the field.”^{^[28]}

Shelby White cannot be compared with Marion True—she was never prosecuted (maybe thanks to her social status). Her “good faith” excuse, despite its inability to retain her treasure, was sometimes partially recognized by foreign officials: in 2008, the Greek Ministry of Culture acknowledged that White purchased Greek antiquities “in good faith,” though it refused to drop its claims on Shelby’s collections.

However, what happened to White’s collection is reflective of recent trends in the antiquities field—major private antiquities collectors are increasingly scrutinized. In December 2021, retired hedge-fund giant Michael Steinhardt surrendered $70 million worth of stolen antiquities to the Manhattan DA.^{^[29]} In 2022, the Lindemann family returned $20 million worth of looted antiquities to Cambodia.^{^[30]} The tactic of targeting illustrious collectors might have a sound rationale. Afterall, “the high end of the antiquities market is fairly narrow, with a limited number of dealers selling to a limited number of collectors.”^{^[31]}

Conclusion: “Glories of the Past”

Shelby White once wrote that her motivation for collecting antiquities was “not only the joy of possessing a beautiful object but the fascination of discovering the links between that object and its place in history.”^{^[32]} This is an elegant articulation of the mentality of many antiquities collectors. As Donna Yates wrote in her recent paper “Crime, Material and Meaning in Art World Desirescapes”, the antiquities market is not just defined by the balance between “supply” and “demand,” but by the entrancing interconnection of objects and how they compel people to act against their rationality.^{^[33]} In the past decades, we have repeatedly heard curators and directors of the MET proudly declaring that they have assembled the best collection of antiquities, regardless of their shady provenance. The modest gleam of marble and bronze is enticing, but perhaps more so is the idea that a collector, by gaining an assemblage of antiquities, is piecing together the “glories of the past.” Glories of the past, however, cannot be reconjured with money, so collectors should make a wise choice between taking antiquities home, sending them to museums, or keeping them in their original context.