The British Museum is now going through its most severe disaster for many years. On 28 July got here the shock announcement that the museum’s director, Hartwig Fischer, was to “depart his put up” subsequent 12 months. Then, on 16 August, there was the surprising information that an undisclosed variety of gadgets, together with historical jewelry, had been stolen, with an unnamed member of employees being dismissed.
A day later, the press revealed that it was Peter Higgs, a trusted senior Greek and Roman curator, who had labored on the museum for over 30 years. In 2021-22 he served as performing keeper (head) of the division, which means that he was really promoted after the primary allegations had been made—and he continued to move the division after additional proof was given to the director. George Osborne, the chairman of the trustees, has stated that the museum has now “used all of the disciplinary powers out there to us to cope with the person we imagine to be accountable”.
On 24 August a Metropolitan Police spokesperson stated: “A person [unidentified] has been interviewed by investigating officers. No arrests have been made. We have now labored intently with the British Museum and can proceed to take action. Inquiries proceed.”
A current report in The Day by day Telegraph cites an uncorroborated supply who claims that greater than 1,500 objects—presumably “nearer to 2,000”—have gone lacking or have been destroyed. The gadgets are stated to be price “tens of millions of kilos”. They have been in a museum retailer, not on show, and have been taken over a interval of years.
All this comes on the worst attainable second, because the museum is making ready to launch its masterplan for the entire refurbishment of its constructing and a full redisplay of its assortment. This much-needed challenge will price many lots of of tens of millions of kilos and is unlikely to be accomplished till after 2050.
Publication of the masterplan has been delayed on a number of events, and till Fischer’s alternative arrives—maybe subsequent summer time—the museum will in follow have a management missing full authority. Fischer’s exit additionally comes at a time when restitution points are extremely controversial, significantly over the Parthenon Marbles and the Benin Bronzes.
Severe questions
In the meantime, the museum should cope with the instant difficulty of the theft. Severe questions are already being requested about why Fischer, his deputy Jonathan Williams, and the museum chair George Osborne and his predecessor, Richard Lambert, apparently dismissed allegations of theft in 2021 and 2022, and did not correctly examine. The Division for Tradition, Media and Sport (DCMS) instructed The Artwork Newspaper that it “was knowledgeable in January [2023] that the museum was wanting into attainable irregularities in sure collections”.
Fischer, a German citizen and beforehand the director of Dresden State Artwork Collections, took over as director of the British Museum in April 2016, following the departure of Neil MacGregor. His principal process was to develop a complete masterplan for the constructing and its redisplay.
A 12 months after his arrival, Fischer gave an interview to The Artwork Newspaper, setting out his imaginative and prescient. Admitting that for guests to the museum “it’s not straightforward to get a complete understanding” of key cultures, he identified for example that Egyptian sculptures are on the bottom flooring and mummies on the higher stage. Some geographical areas, significantly Oceania, Australia and Latin America, are “partially or practically wholly absent” within the presentation. Fischer needed a long-term challenge to refresh and rethink the shows, to current a extra world somewhat than a European and Mediterranean view of tradition.
In his interview, Fischer prompt that a lot would change throughout his directorship however, greater than seven years on, the masterplan has nonetheless not been revealed. Progress proved slower than anticipated, exacerbated by the beginning of Covid-19 restrictions in March 2020 and, extra just lately, by the theft.
The announcement of Fischer’s departure adopted a closed session of the trustees’ assembly on 29 June, when the common annual analysis befell on the director’s goals and remuneration. However the assembly was dominated by a confidential dialogue concerning the theft, ensuing within the departure assertion six weeks later. Among the many trustees is Mary Beard, a distinguished classicist, who will need to have been extraordinarily disturbed about losses from the Division of Greece and Rome.
On 16 August it was publicly introduced that gadgets have been “lacking, stolen or broken”, together with “gold jewelry and gems of semi-precious stones and glass courting from the fifteenth century BC to the nineteenth century AD”.
The assertion added: “A member of employees has been dismissed, and the Museum will now be taking authorized motion towards the person. The matter can be underneath investigation by the Financial Crime Command of the Metropolitan Police.” Our understanding is that Higgs was dismissed in early July.
When the loss was first introduced on 16 August a museum spokesperson acknowledged that “within the curiosity of working alongside the Metropolitan Police, we is not going to be commenting any additional on this case at this stage.”
Nonetheless, every week later Fischer did make further feedback: “When allegations have been delivered to us in 2021 we took them extremely significantly, and instantly arrange an investigation. In 2022 we launched into a full audit – which revealed an even bigger drawback. I reported my issues to the trustees, and collectively we agreed to name within the police. At each step my precedence has been the care of the unimaginable British Museum assortment.”
The unique allegations have been reported to the museum’s deputy director Jonathan Williams in 2021
Photograph: Mattis Kaminer/Alamy Inventory Photograph
Impartial evaluation
An unbiased evaluation has now been arrange, led by Nigel Boardman—a lawyer and British Museum trustee till 2017—and Lucy D’Orsi, chief constable of the British Transport Police. They’ll “kickstart—and help—a vigorous programme to get better the lacking gadgets”, in addition to making suggestions for future safety preparations.
Amongst its duties might be to look at the museum’s written “Process for the Reporting of Unlocated and Misplaced Objects”, to see whether or not it was correctly carried out—and whether or not it ought to be reworded to deal extra rigorously with suspected losses.
The allegations concerning the theft have been first made by the Danish gem professional Ittai Gradel, who reported the matter to Williams in February 2021 and 4 months later to Fischer. On a matter of this gravity, the museum chairperson (then Richard Lambert) presumably ought to have been knowledgeable, since possession of the gathering is vested with the trustees.
After Gradel’s issues have been seemingly largely ignored by the museum, he wrote in October 2022 to Osborne, who had taken over as chairperson in October 2021. Gradel was then instructed that “there isn’t a proof to substantiate the allegations”.
It may need been thought that by this time the DCMS, which is the museum’s principal funder, ought to have been knowledgeable. Beneath the “Administration Settlement”, the museum will need to have “efficient controls to forestall fraud and theft” and has an obligation to report back to the DCMS “all instances of tried, suspected or confirmed fraud… as quickly as they’re found.” However it was solely in January 2023 that DCMS was knowledgeable, though it had absolutely been suspected earlier.
It comes as a shock that Osborne acknowledged within the 16 August theft announcement that he and his fellow trustees solely “learnt earlier this 12 months that gadgets of the gathering had been stolen”. Osborne had been warned concerning the theft earlier, by October 2022.
In January 2023 Tom Harrison arrived to take over from Higgs, then performing keeper, as the top of the Division of Greece and Rome. Harrison has due to this fact been thrust into serving to to cope with the theft and its damaging ramifications for his division.
Unusually, no particulars of the gadgets misplaced have been launched. Usually pictures of stolen gadgets are revealed after a museum theft, to alert the commerce and public, thereby growing the possibilities of a restoration. There could also be particular elements that will make it imprudent to take action within the British Museum case, nevertheless it appears extra doubtless that the curators are merely unsure about what precisely has gone due to a scarcity of complete data. The few recognized gadgets may very well be the tip of the iceberg.
Though the theft is now being investigated by the Metropolitan Police, it ought to be burdened that nobody has but been arrested or charged, suggesting that the scenario is complicated. Higgs’s son Greg instructed the media: “I don’t suppose it [his departure] was honest. I don’t suppose there may be even something lacking so far as I’m conscious.”
Osborne stated within the announcement of the theft: “Our precedence is now threefold: first, to get better the stolen gadgets; second, to search out out what, if something, may have been carried out to cease this; and third, to do no matter it takes, with funding in safety and assortment data, to verify this doesn’t occur once more.”
Lacking masterplan
The theft will undoubtedly have a unfavourable affect on progress with the masterplan, which till final 12 months had been dubbed the “Rosetta Challenge”. (As The Artwork Newspaper reported in Might 2023, this title was quietly dropped due to Egyptian restitution requires the Rosetta Stone.)
In July 2022 Osborne acknowledged within the museum’s annual report that particulars concerning the masterplan could be revealed “later this 12 months”. In November he introduced: “Three weeks in the past the trustee physique agreed to a masterplan that can see the entire reimagination of the British Museum. The main points might be revealed subsequent spring.”
Spring then handed and the masterplan “might be revealed this autumn”, in response to the 28 July assertion on Fischer’s departure. One can solely speculate, however Fischer and Osborne might nicely have felt that this summer time would have been an inauspicious second to launch the challenge and its large fundraising marketing campaign.
The masterplan might be extremely bold due to the sheer dimension of the museum’s Bloomsbury constructing and its monumental assortment (with simply over 50,000 objects on show). The announcement on Fischer’s departure says that it will take “a number of a long time” and be a “multigenerational challenge”.
That is more likely to be the most important UK museum enterprise within the first half of this century. No less than within the brief time period, elevating funds is now more likely to show much more difficult. The controversies over Sackler and BP have emphasised the sensitivities that include company funds; Covid-19 has made fundraising harder; and Putin’s invasion of Ukraine guidelines out most potential Russian donors.
Osborne has been hoping for presidency monetary help for the masterplan, within the type of a one-off grant. Discussions on this have proved sluggish and the March trustee minutes, obtained by The Artwork Newspaper underneath the Freedom of Data Act, discuss with “the challenges across the launch of presidency funding and the associated threat”.
Though nobody may very well be extra educated about authorities funds than Osborne, a former Chancellor of the Exchequer (2010-16), the Treasury might be reluctant to help the museum till the theft difficulty has been satisfactorily resolved.
Potential personal and company donors are additionally more likely to be involved about supporting a museum that allowed its assortment to be threatened. It’s going to due to this fact be troublesome to start severe fundraising till the unbiased evaluation into safety has been accomplished—and any vital reforms launched.
Regardless of the timing of the masterplan announcement, Fischer is not going to now be liable for its supply. That must primarily await the arrival of his successor, presumably subsequent summer time.
Following the masterplan announcement, a world competitors might be launched to pick out an architect. The primary space of the museum to be tackled is more likely to be the western galleries on the bottom flooring, which at current show Egyptian, Assyrian and Greek antiquities.
Left: George Osborne, chair of the British Museum’s trustees, claims he was solely made conscious of the thefts this 12 months, however a gem professional wrote to him with issues in October 2022 / Proper: the thefts are more likely to strengthen the resolve of the Greek authorities to push for the return of the Parthenon Marble
George Osborne: PA Pictures/Alamy Inventory Photograph. Marbles: Clem Rutter
Parthenon implications
One other long-standing difficulty that continues to be unresolved is the Parthenon Marbles, the place a gulf might have opened up between Fischer and Osborne. Final February Osborne prompt {that a} mortgage partnership could be negotiated with Greek museums: “There’s a manner ahead the place the sculptures may very well be seen each in London and in Athens, and that might be a win-win for Greece and for us.”
Fischer has been much less vocal concerning the Marbles, seemingly sharing the imaginative and prescient of his predecessor, MacGregor: a group of and for the world, to be stored collectively in perpetuity. Beneath the British Museum Act of 1963, de-accessioning is often prohibited. Fischer has usually put much less emphasis on restitution and extra on worldwide collaboration and loans. For him, the masterplan represents a chance to make the museum extra of a worldwide establishment, “by way of dialogue”.
Progress on the Marbles has been sluggish and little doubt the theft will strengthen the resolve of the Greek aspect. Lina Mendoni, the tradition minister, has already stated that the controversy over the stolen gadgets means there are questions over “the credibility of the museum”. And that the continued furore “reinforces the everlasting and simply demand of our nation for the reunification of the Parthenon Marbles on the Acropolis Museum in Athens”, she added.
The British Museum’s different main restitution difficulty is the Benin Bronzes. Progress has once more been sluggish, due partly to the fragile query of whether or not any loans ought to be to the Nigerian state or the Benin oba (king). It now appears that the Nigerian state might cede this privilege to the oba.
When it comes to media protection of the museum throughout Fischer’s interval, the query of BP sponsorship has loomed massive. The vitality firm’s long-term sponsorship settlement got here to an finish earlier this 12 months and was not renewed, in all probability by mutual settlement. Questions are nonetheless being raised over whether or not the BP Lecture Theatre, opened in 2000, ought to be renamed.
Apparently, Fischer says that after leaving he hopes to work on the difficulty of museums and local weather change, suggesting that he personally feels strongly concerning the significance of the topic, even when not sharing the views of the protesters’ goals and ways. He has additionally pushed for the British Museum to turn into greener, utilizing extra sustainable vitality sources.
On reflection, Fischer’s principal long-term achievement is more likely to be seen because the creation of the British Museum’s new storage facility, changing its present one at Blythe Home, in west London. Constructed with £50m of presidency cash, it’s 40 miles away in Shinfield, simply south of Studying. To be referred to as the British Museum Archaeological and Analysis Assortment (BM_ARC), it’s now anticipated to open late subsequent 12 months, a number of months after Fischer’s departure.
And what are Fischer’s private plans? Within the departure announcement he commented: “I’m excited concerning the subsequent section of my profession, shifting past the institutional framework of a single museum to interact within the rescue and preservation of cultural heritage in instances of local weather disaster, battle, battle, and violence”.
Recruitment for Fischer’s successor will start within the subsequent few weeks, following the following trustees’ assembly in early October. The search might be worldwide, and the British Museum may nicely find yourself being headed by one other European. The brand new director’s principal process might be to be certain that safety has been tightened, paving the best way to maneuver ahead with the masterplan.
UPDATE 25 August: Hartwig Fischer introduced at this time he was resigning with “instant impact”.
