Opinion
Moral Considerations in the Art-Restitution Lawsuit Between the Armenian Church and the Getty Museum
By Michael Toumayan
On Nov. 4, a Los Angeles Times article, written by Mike Boehm, reported that in an effort to get back the Canon Tables of the 13th-century Zeyt’un Gospels from the Getty Museum, the Armenian Diaspora has inaudibly put its weight behind the Armenian Orthodox Church’s quest to repatriate the allegedly stolen illuminated manuscripts back to Armenia, where the rest is housed at the Mesrop Mashtots Institute of Ancient Manuscripts.
Already a subscriber?Log in here
This story is FREE for you...
Create a free account to access this and four more articles, and get more sent to you with our e-newsletter.By submitting your email address you agree for Hairenik Association, Inc. to send you communication by email.
Re: “the Getty’s concern in the preservation of world artistic heritage… ”
What right does the Getty – or anyone else, for that matter, have to assume that their interest and ability in preserving Armenian artistic heritage is superior to that of Armenians themselves?
What exactly is “the murky history” of these manuscripts? Even those with the most basic understanding of manuscript art know that Armenian Illuminated Manuscripts are substantially different from those of any other country in the world. Who would the Getty suppose were the original owners of those manuscript pages? Does anyone think that the original owners tore them out of a manuscript and sold them?
The Armenian museum,having the body of the Gospel, should be sufficient proof that the pages were removed without any permission.
Armenian church is the owner of ALL ancient manuscripts. Remember the stolen books from Jerusalem’s Armenian Patriarchate?
Getty directors,cough up the stolen pages and restore your good reputation.
Dear Michael Toumayan,
Glad to see you are back and indeed I commend your very good reporting as to above important issue. I trust to hear /see more of your posts here on site,as well as in the press.
Best rgds,
Gaytzag Palandjian
Thank you for this article on mediation and the benefits we as a community can reap through this process. However, as a law student I must question the real ownership of these pages. Did the former owners really “own” these documents when they sold them?
The rule is “no one [can] give what he does not have” is a legal rule, sometimes called the nemo dat rule, states that the purchase of a possession from someone who has no ownership right to it also denies the purchaser any ownership title (yeah, I used Wiki, sorry).
So, in general terms, if you do not own a good, and yet you sell it, the new buyer doesn’t own the object any more than you did when you sold it, REGARDLESS of them knowing you were the real owner or not.
There are other important legal questions not addressed here: how much money has the Getty made in displaying or reproducing this work in books, calendars, cards etc.? Do these funds also belong to the Armenian Patriarchate? Can all those who were in possession of these works after they were removed from the rightful owners be charged with being in possession of stolen goods? It stretches credibility to ask us to believe that anyone thought the Church voluntarily removed these pages and sold them. Many thousands of pages of our treasured art is gone. This art is stunning in its originality, its sophisticated use of colour, its indication of well understood methodology. It was made in faith under times of great duress. Great sacrifices were made in order to aquire the ingredients for the the paints. Lives were lost in attempts to protect and preserve these works. They are not only a recording of our faith, but also of our culture. It is highly offensive that the plunder of genocide should enrich any museum or individual today.
As for the comment: “…90 years later, one cannot rule out the Getty’s possible legal possession and title to the disputed manuscripts.” What on earth does 90 years, or 900 years have to do with it? If you take works that belong to the Getty and they don’t locate them for 90 years, they still belong to the Getty. And they will demand that they be returned. These Illuminated Manuscripts belong to all Armenians everywhere. They are our heritage. We want them back. We want them returned to us from every museum and private individual in the world who is holding them.