Jason Felch

I read this book in anticipation of visiting the Getty Museum. I had a plane ride from Seattle to Southern California and I found this online at the Kindle store.

Before reading this I never really thought too much about how museum's obtain their collections. I mean I did realize that over the centuries this or that country had plundered another country's art--I had seen the Egyptian obelisks all over Europe. But I never really tho0ught about what goes on behind the scenes at American museums.

Apparently a lot of wheeling, dealing and dubious bits of shadiness--especially in antiquities! The book focuses on some acquisitions made over the years by key Getty figures who living the good life and also some tax schemes by LA's finest and famous. Someone was just telling me the other night that there is a lot of money being made by individuals in non-profits and foundations. This book proves that!

The book was written by two LA Times journalists who uncovered and followed the story over a number of years.

According to the book, there has been a lot of reform in the past decades amongst the major museums and countries who have previously turned blind eyes to plundering. It's hard to imagine in the globally connected world we live in that it would be easy to hide and obfuscate the origons of a piece of art.

This is a great read if you are interested in art, history, culture and in seeing people with bad ethics meet their karmic justice.… (mehr)

This book read like a thriller. It provides many insights into the workings of major museums and the conflict between the desire of those museums to acquire the best antiquities and that of the countries those antiquities come from to preserve their cultural patrimony. While this story focused on the Getty Museum and Italian and Greek antiquities, the problem continues today with looted objects from the Middle East and other countries. There are two sides to this arguments, but there is indeed a "bright line" between wanting to protect an object and engaging in criminal activity.… (mehr)

This book focuses on the infighting and shady dealing of the Getty Museum in looted antiquities, mainly from Greece and Italy. But it also exposes the problem museums and private collectors generally create by supporting what, at least until recently, was a very poorly regulated area. Because museums and other collectors would pay almost any amount for the right statues, pottery etc. a huge market created an incentive to loot tombs, archaelogical sites, anyplace the material could be dug up. Thus, the much of the art's value as a record of the past was irretrievably lost as no record was kept of its provenance, date etc. The author seems to feel some pity for some of the museum curators, esp. the Getty's curator, Margaret True, who got caught and had to pay some of the legal penalties. I can't say I feel the same way. These people took something that belonged to all of us, our cultural heritage, and in exchange they lived lavish lifestyles and pretended they were doing something to enrich our intellectual life.… (mehr)