Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-mlc7c Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-10T03:02:54.454Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

What We Talk About When We Talk About Provenance: A Response to Chippindale and Gill

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 October 2016

Elizabeth Marlowe
Elizabeth Marlowe*
Affiliation:
Department of Art and Art History, Colgate University; Email: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract:

In an influential article published in 2000, David Gill and Christopher Chippindale devised a scale to assess the quality of the provenance information provided for the antiquities displayed in seven recent high-profile exhibitions or collections. This article critically reviews Chippindale and Gill’s provenance scale, arguing that the values it encodes legitimize some of the more intellectually harmful practices of dealers and curators. The scale also fails to differentiate between more intellectually responsible methods of hypothesizing provenance and those that merely generate houses of cards. An alternative model for assessing how antiquities are discussed in museum scholarship, focusing on epistemological precision and reflexivity, is offered.

Type
Discussion Article
Information
International Journal of Cultural Property , Volume 23 , Issue 3 , August 2016 , pp. 217 - 236
Copyright
Copyright © International Cultural Property Society 2016 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Cavaliere, B., and Udell, J.. 2012. Ancient Mediterranean Art: The William D. and Jane Walsh Collection at Fordham University. New York: Fordham University Press.Google Scholar
Chippindale, C., and Gill, D. W. J.. 2000. “Material Consequences of Contemporary Classical Collecting.” American Journal of Archaeology 104: 463–511.Google Scholar
Chippindale, C., Gill, D. W. J., Salter, E., and Hamilton, C.. 2001. “Collecting the Classical World: First Steps in a Quantitative History.” International Journal of Cultural Property 10, no. 1: 1–31.Google Scholar
Errington, E., and Cribb, J., eds., with Claringbull, M.. 1992. The Crossroads of Asia: Transformation in Image and Symbol in the Art of Ancient Afghanistan and Pakistan. Cambridge: Ancient India and Iran Trust.Google Scholar
Felch, J., and Frammolino, R.. 2011. Chasing Aphrodite: The Hunt for Looted Antiquities at the World’s Richest Museum. New York: Houghton Mifflin.Google Scholar
Gill, D. W. J., and Chippindale, C.. 1993. “Material and Intellectual Consequences of Esteem for Cycladic Figures.” American Journal of Archaeology 97: 601–59.Google Scholar
Godart, L., and de Caro, S.. 2007. Nostoi: Capolavori ritrovati. Ancona, Italy: Tecnostampa.Google Scholar
Joyce, R. A. 2012, “From Place to Place. Provenience, Provenance and Archaeology.” In Provenance: An Alternate History of Art, edited by Feigenbaum, G. and Reist, I., 48–60. Los Angeles: Getty Publications.Google Scholar
Jucker, I. 1991. Italy of the Etruscans: Archaeological Finds from the First Millennium BCE. Jerusalem: Israel Museum.Google Scholar
Kleiner, F. S. 1990. “On the Publication of Recent Acquisitions of Antiquities.” American Journal of Archaeology 94: 525–27.Google Scholar
Kyrieleis, H. 2000. “Die Position des Deutschen Archäologischen Instituts.” In Bewahren als Problem: Schutz archäologischer Kulturüter, edited by Flashar, M., 163–66. Freiburg, Germany: Rombach.Google Scholar
La Rocca, E. 2014. Auguste. Paris: Réunion des musées nationaux.Google Scholar
Lyons, C. L., Benett, M., and Marconi, C., eds. 2013. Sicily: Art and Invention between Greece and Rome. Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Press.Google Scholar
Manchester, K. 2012. Recasting the Past: Collecting and Presenting Antiquities at the Art Institute of Chicago. New Haven: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Marlowe, E. 2013. Shaky Ground: Context, Connoisseurship and the History of Roman Art. London: Bloomsbury Academic Press.Google Scholar
Marlowe, E. 2014. “Said to Be or Not Said to Be: The Findspot of the So-Called Trebonianus Gallus Statue at the Metropolitan Museum in New York.” Journal of the History of Collections 27, no. 2: 147–57.Google Scholar
Mattusch, C. C. 1996. Fire of Hephaistos: Large Classical Bronzes from North American Collections. Cambridge: Harvard University Art Museums.Google Scholar
Muscarella, O. W. 2000. The Lie Became Great: The Forgery of Near Eastern Cultures. Groningen, Netherlands: Styx Publications.Google Scholar
Norman, N. J. 2005. “Editorial Policy on the Publication of Recently Acquired Antiquities.” American Journal of Archaeology 109: 135–36.Google Scholar
Ortiz, G. 1994. In Pursuit of the Absolute: Art of the Ancient World from the George Ortiz Collection. Berne, Switzerland: Benteliwerd.Google Scholar
Shapiro, H. A., Picón, C. A., and Scott, G. D., eds. 1995. Greek Vases in the San Antonio Museum of Art. San Antonio: San Antonio Museum of Art.Google Scholar
True, M., and Hamma, K., eds. 1994. A Passion for Antiquities: Ancient Art from the Collection of Barbara and Lawrence Fleischman. Malibu: J. Paul Getty Museum.Google Scholar
von Bothmer, D., ed. 1990. Glories of the Past: Ancient Art from the Shelby White and Leon Levy Collection. New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art.Google Scholar
Watson, P., and Todeschini, C.. 2006. The Medici Conspiracy: The Illicit Journey of Looted Antiquities from Italy’s Tomb Raiders to the World’s Greatest Museums. New York: Perseus Press.Google Scholar