Interview‘Researchers Should be Transparent about Open Questions’

6 January 2025

How should researchers deal with objects of unclear provenance? As a lawyer, teacher, and scholar specialising in art and cultural heritage law, Leila Amineddoleh offers expert advice on this issue. In our interview, she talks about the most common questions researchers ask her.

Leila Amineddoleh possesses an unusual combination of skills: as a lawyer specialising in art, cultural heritage, and intellectual property law, she represents major art collectors, museums, galleries, dealers, non-profits, artists, estates, foundations and foreign governments. She has been involved in matters related to multi-million-dollar contractual disputes, the recovery of stolen art and antiquities, complex fraud schemes, authentication disputes, and the purchase and sale of hundreds of millions of dollars of art and collectibles.

At the same time, she is also a highly esteemed teacher and scholar in the field of art and heritage crime and law. She frequently presents for legal and academic audiences, at institutions including Columbia Law School, Harvard Business School, and Yale University, has appeared in major outlets such as the New York Times, The Guardian, and the Wall Street Journal, and has published numerous scholarly articles in legal journals, arts publications, and books.

In December 2024, she spent several days at the CSMC to meet with and talk to researchers at the Cluster, give a seminar for graduate students, and deliver a Thursday Lecture on ‘The ABCs of Art and Cultural Heritage Law’. During her visit, we talked to her about some aspects of her work, the advice she has for researchers dealing objects of unclear provenance, and the specific issues that arise in the case of written cultural heritage.  

Cultural heritage objects are fascinating to study, but working with them can lead researchers into thorny territory, both legally and morally. How do you prepare them for possible scenarios in your lectures and seminars?

It is important for researchers to know who to turn to if a difficult situation arises. If they come across a stolen object or become aware of cultural heritage objects being offered for sale in a dubious manner, very practical questions arise: How do I react in such a case? Who can I call? Who will support me if I have to legally protect myself?

Many of the researchers I advise have little or no previous knowledge of the law. My lectures and seminars on this topic often begin with a historical overview of how art law has developed over the last 2,000 years. And I talk about case studies from different countries because national legislations vary considerably.

A third aspect I discuss with researchers is the relationship between law and ethics. These dimensions do not always coincide. In fact, there are many cases in which objects have been acquired in a way that is legally sound but raises ethical issues that should at least be discussed.

What kind of problems do researchers typically come to you with? What are the most common questions?

There are two questions in particular that I often hear in one way or another. One of them is related to the topic I just mentioned: How do I respond if I might be dealing with looted goods? The personal circumstances of the researcher often play an important role in this context: Is it someone relatively high up in the hierarchy, for example a curator, who has some control over ownership? Or is it an early-career researcher who is entangled in personal dependencies? How does someone like that communicate such a finding to their superiors? Who should contact the relevant authorities and when? I provide legal advice on navigating these issues.

The second question concerns publications. Unfortunately, there is no simple solution for the problem of how to deal with publications on objects with unclear provenance. We must look at each individual case and the motives behind publishing. In some cases, it is plausibly about legitimate scholarly interests. In other cases, financial incentives dominate or the publication may be an attempt to improve the poor reputation of a collection.

Can you give an example of this?

One case that I discussed with the researchers here is the Museum of the Bible, which opened in 2017 and is run by a very wealthy family in the United States. Within about a decade, they acquired thousands of artefacts, most of them from the Middle East, to tell a history of the Bible that corresponds to their own religious interpretation. A large number of objects had to be returned to Iraq and Egypt because they were looted. Many of the objects were also forgeries. However, prior to opening the museum, the family had hired a group of scholars to research the history of the objects and pen publications on them, increasing their values considerably. A controversial discussion broke out among experts about what to think of such publications and the scholars who wrote them. Of course, the impression arises that this is primarily about whitewashing a collection that was put together irresponsibly.

If an object allows researchers to address important questions, it would be almost tragic if it were forever considered untouchable because of mistakes made in the past.

Under what circumstances do you consider a scientific publication on an object of dubious provenance to be justifiable?

Researchers often come across fragments, which have been in a collection for decades, for which there is simply insufficient documentation about their acquisition. If this object allows researchers to address important scholarly questions, it would be almost tragic if it were now forever considered untouchable because of a mistake made in the past. Given that the object is not going to be sold in the foreseeable future, that a publication is clearly not intended to increase the market value of the collection, or that there is no sister object elsewhere whose price is to be driven up, publication should at least not be categorically excluded. After all, we must also consider how important it is for researchers to share their insights with the scientific community and to make available the results of what is sometimes years of work.

Nevertheless, even in such cases, we can’t just pretend that there is nothing is wrong.

That’s right. One possibility, which I have also discussed with the researchers here, is to preface publications on such objects with a passage that makes the open questions transparent. Researchers should identify where there are gaps in the provenance of the object and explain why, in view of all the circumstances, they have nevertheless decided to share their research. In my opinion, adding such a disclaimer to the publication is a reasonable compromise.

As a lawyer, you primarily deal with art objects, but also with written artefacts. Are there specific problems that arise when dealing with written cultural heritage?

A very important difference between written artefacts and art objects is that the former are mostly found in libraries and archives rather than in museums. This has important consequences for how these objects are stored, exhibited, and protected. Of course, we all know magnificent illuminated manuscripts that are proudly displayed and carefully secured. But the vast majority are stored under much simpler circumstances, which is also reflected in public perception. Presumably, many people do not appreciate the value of an original manuscript: After all, we have a scan of it, so why do we still need the original? At the same time, no one would think of saying: We have a photo of this Picasso painting, so why should we keep the original? Manuscripts are often less well protected than works of fine art or antiquities. For this reason, it is easier for those items to go missing and circulate on the illicit market. As a result, it is essential for collectors to confirm a work’s provenance before purchase. Also, it is necessary for researchers to thoroughly investigate provenance and present problematic information to their institutions prior to publication, even if those publications include disclaimers. The art market and academic institutions operate optimally when all participants work to procure valuable information and share that knowledge broadly.