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Tag: Herakles

  • Boston Museum Returns Bust to Turkey

    Boston Museum Returns Bust to Turkey

    By JAMES C. MCKINLEY JR.

    After two decades of negotiations, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston has returned the broken-off bust of a famous statue of Herakles to Turkey, where it will be reunited with its lower half, the museum announced.

    Turkey has long maintained that the top of this second-century A.D. statue, known as “Weary Herakles,” was stolen from an archaeological site in the Mediterranean and smuggled into the United States. The legs and lower body of the work are on display at the Antalya Museum in southwestern Turkey.

    “The ‘Weary Herakles’ is a great work of art and we believe it should be back in Turkey where it can be made whole once again,” the director of the museum, Malcolm Rogers, said.

    The Turkish prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, told reporters that he carried the bust of the statue back on his plane on Sunday night after the Boston museum agreed to release it as “a goodwill gesture.”

    The bust was handed over to Turkish cultural authorities late on Thursday after the museum signed an agreement with the Turkish government. Under the agreement, the Turks dropped claims that the museum engaged in wrongdoing when it obtained the statue from a German dealer in 1981.

    It was not until 1990, when the bust was on loan to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, that a scholar noticed that it seemed to be part of the same broken work on display in Turkey. The Turkish government claimed ownership and tests done in 1992 showed that the two pieces fit together.

    Subsequent negotiations dragged on for years without a resolution, in part because the museum only owned a half-interest in the piece. In 2004, the museum acquired full ownership from the collectors Leon Levy and Shelby White, and restarted talks with the Turks.

    The piece is a Roman statue in marble from the Hadrianic or Antonine period, and appears to be a copy of a famous bronze made in the third century B.C. by the Greek master Lysippos of Sikyon. It depicts Herakles leaning on his club in a fatigued pose.

    via Boston Museum Returns Bust to Turkey – NYTimes.com.

  • Boston Museum To Reunite Statue’s Top Half With Bottom Half In Turkey

    Boston Museum To Reunite Statue’s Top Half With Bottom Half In Turkey

    The bottom half of “Weary Herakles,” a nearly 2000-year-old sculpture, will be reunited with its top half soon, reports the Boston Globe. The Turkish museum that houses the statue’s legs has petitioned for the Boston Museum of Fine Arts (MFA) to return its top half, and the MFA recently stated that it planned to carry out the repatriation.

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    In the video below, Geoff Edgers reports on the statue for the Boston Globe, detailing the piece’s history as well as his personal experiences with it. He recalls visiting the statue’s legs in Turkey, and notes that “There’s a giant poster on the wall next to the bottom half saying, you know, ‘give us this top half back.’”

    In this case, the statue itself is not especially valuable, but the drama of its double existence is enough to make headlines.

    It’s not uncommon for classical-era sculptures to be missing limbs or other components, and prominent pieces such as Winged Victory At Samothrace and Venus de Milo have historically met with acclaim, even in their incomplete forms.

    Repatriation of artworks has traditionally been a delicate issue, with innuendo about worsening diplomatic relations between countries sometimes entering discussions that would normally address cultural heritage and accessibility. The British Museum is currently resisting two major calls for repatriation, with Greece asking for the return of the Elgin Marbles and Egypt seeking the Rosetta Stone.

    via Boston Museum To Reunite Statue’s Top Half With Bottom Half In Turkey.