The Case of the $4 Million Gold Coffin (Update)

How did a freshly looted Egyptian antiquity end up in the Metropolitan Museum of Art? Why did it take Kim Kardashian to crack the case? And how much of what you see in any museum is stolen? (Part 1 of “Stealing Art Is Easy. Giving It Back Is Hard,” first published in 2023.)
 

• SOURCES:
  • Andrea Bayer, deputy director of collections and administration at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
  • Matthew Bogdanos, assistant district attorney in the Manhattan District Attorney's Office and chief of the Antiquities Trafficking Unit.
  • Patty Gerstenblith, professor emeritus of law at DePaul University College of Law.
  • Jim Marrone, staff data scientist at StubHub.
  • Victoria Reed, Bettina Burr chair for provenance at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston.

• RESOURCES:
  • "Is the Metropolitan Museum of Art Displaying Objects That Belong to Native American Tribes?" by Kathleen Sharp (ProPublica, 2023).
  • "More Than 1,000 Artifacts in Metropolitan Museum of Art Catalog Linked to Alleged Looting and Trafficking Figures," by Spencer Woodman, Malia Politzer, Delphine Reuter, and Namrata Sharma (International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, 2023).
  • "The Art Market 2022: An Art Basel & UBS Report," by Clare McAndrew (2022).
  • "The Tomb Raiders of the Upper East Side," by Ariel Sabar (The Atlantic, 2021).
  • "Kim Kardashian’s Met Gala Photo Helped Solve Looted Gold Egyptian Coffin Case," by Samantha Ibrahim (New York Post, 2021).
  • "Tracking and Disrupting the Illicit Antiquities Trade With Open-Source Data," by Matthew Sargent, James V. Marrone, Alexandra Evans, Bilyana Lilly, Erik Nemeth, and Stephen Dalzell (RAND Corporation, 2020).
  • "Provenience and Provenance Intersecting with International Law in the Market for Antiquities," by Patty G. Gerstenblith (North Carolina Journal of International Law, 2020).

• EXTRAS:
  • "The Hidden Side of the Art Market," series by Freakonomics Radio (2021).

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