A government-appointed advisory committee led by Jonathan Fine, the scientific director of the Weltmuseum in Vienna, called for a permanent, “intellectually and culturally diverse” evaluation board to submit recommendations on returns of objects acquired in the colonial era to the government.
The government would then decide on the basis of its findings; returns should be dealt with on a “state-to-state basis,” the committee recommended in its report released today.
Fine said there is currently no estimate for the number of items in Austrian national museums that could be eligible for restitution but that he believes “very many” of the 200,000 objects in the Weltmuseum’s collection were taken in a colonial context.
The advisory commission defined objects eligible for return as those whose owners “did not wish to part with them at the time they were collected” – encompassing, for instance, those lost “under conditions of violence, looting, theft, coercion or by deceptive means.”
Among the members were Golda Ha-Eiros (National Museum of Namibia), Emmanuel Kasarhérou (Musée du Quai-Branly), Henrietta Lidchi (Wheelwright Museum of the American Indian), Barbara Plankensteiner (MARKK, Hamburg), Walter Sauer (University of Vienna), Anna Schmid (Museum der Kulturen, Basel, Switzerland), Katrin Vohland (Naturhistorische Museum Vienna) and Miloš Vec (University of Vienna).
Central in the recommendations is that objects should be returned on a state-to-state basis if the wrong context can be proven.
A strengthening of provenance research in the federal museums is recommended. When a permanent return is not possible, opportunities such as permanent loans or joint research projects should be created.
State Secretary Mayer, accepting the advice, announced that a corresponding draft law will be prepared and that the annual funds for postcolonial provenance research will be increased from 160,000 euros to 320,000 euros.
