Comments on Stolen Property at Seattle Art Museum, Too?

This subject just keeps spreading, and it's not just Ban Chiang objects, and it's not just Asian objects. We're hearing about Asian stuff because of the increased economic importance and confidence of Asian countries, but the truth is, the trade in ALL antiquities is completely riddled with thieves, and has always been organized around thievery; it's basically a front. All of it. Everybody. That's how it started, two hundred years or more ago in Greece and Rome -- a deep and shady series of layers of agents designed to conceal where the stuff was really coming from.

Art dealing has always been a fundamentally secretive, corrupt practice, and no area has a worse record than antiquities. Look at the friggin' Elgin Marbles, for chrissakes. Most of what you see in American and Western European museums was purchased from people who didn't own it.

In addition to what the esteemed Mr. Fnarf said @1:
I would like to add that the Vatican has been suppressing the truth about the bloodline of Jesus for centuries. There have been clues scattered troughout western art and history. It all has to do with the Chalice and Priory of Sion and the Knights Templar; it's such a compelling subject... I wish there was a book or movie deal about that stuff.

Eat me, Mr. Brown.

Don't do it Mr. Brown - it his his fetish, having his ass sucked. Keep him dangling and then make him give back .....oh, yes.

A Matisse displayed at the Picasso and his influences show at SAM about 10 years ago was found to have been a Nazi-appropriated work and awarded back to the heirs of the original owner. So it is not the first time this has touched a Seattlemuseum. Fnarf has a point, art and ancient objects command a lot of money and where there is money there is crime.