Category: england

Postcard from Istanbul, Turkey: Tooting horn about restitution of artifacts

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Above: Stag rhyton, Milas, Turkey, 400 BCE, displayed in the Istanbul Archaeological Museum

The elegant stag rhyton pictured above must have been quite a status symbol for its owner in ancient Turkey. Today’s value of the combination wine aerator and drinking vessel, $3.5 million, probably made it even more so for the billionaire American collector who acquired it without verifiable provenance.

For decades, Michael Steinhardt displayed a rapacious appetite for plundered artifacts without concern for the legality of his actions, the legitimacy of the pieces he bought and sold, or the grievous cultural damage he wrought across the globe. His pursuit of ‘new’ additions to showcase and sell knew no geographic or moral boundaries, as reflected in the sprawling underworld of antiquities traffickers, crime bosses, money launderers, and tomb raiders he relied upon to expand his collection.”

Cyrus Vance, Jr., District Attorney of Manhattan, December 2021 Statement

Now it is part of a growing collection of repatriated stolen antiquities proudly showcased in the Istanbul Archaeological Museum.

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Postcard from London, England: Globe-spanning collection ignites imagination

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Above: “Tippoo’s Tiger,” Tipu Sultan’s automaton seized from Seringapatam, Mysore, South India, by the East India Company in 1799, eventually ending up displayed in the Victoria & Albert Museum.

It’s a giant mechanical tiger… and I just was so enchanted by it. Because I’d seen British propaganda – you know, cartoons and ethnographic representations of Indians – but I’d never seen Indian art depicting the colonizer or the English…. I think Tipu Sultan, who commissioned it… was so contemptuous of the British and so determined to drive them out of India…. This was a gift to his sons, who had been taken hostage by the British.”

Tania James, author of the novel Loot, interviewed in 2023 by Ari Shapiro for All Things Considered on NPR

By chance, I had recently read Tania James’ Loot when we visited Victoria & Albert Museum last year. Spying the 18th-century automaton tiger one grasps how it sent the author’s imagination flying back into history to investigate the tiger’s origins. The soldier-mauling tiger serves as a mighty symbol of conquered nations’ contempt for their colonizers.

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Postcard from London, England: Italian, Philippine, seafood and cheese, please

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Above: All-you-can-eat cheese on conveyor belt at Pick & Cheese Seven Dials

Restaurant listings arranged alphabetically might not prove user-friendly in a city as sprawling as London, but I’m stubbornly persisting in that practice. As in the earlier part one, these are scattered all over the map.

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