The director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York (Met) promised on Thursday to return several works of art to countries that were victims of looting, the museum decided to join the fight against the international trade in antiquities, AFP and Agerpres reported.

“You will see and hear from the Met not only more results from our research (on the provenance of the works), but above all more restitution and cooperation with these countries,” said Max Hollein during a meeting at the museum with foreign journalists.

“We don’t want to have in our collections even the smallest object that came to us illegally,” the Austrian art historian, who has been the head of one of the world’s largest museums since 2018, is convinced.

“There are times when … we’re not the proper owners,” Hollein admitted.

In recent years, the Metropolitan and other prestigious museums have agreed to return numerous works and pieces from international art circulation, especially after thefts and looting between 1970 and 1990 in countries affected by wars or revolutions.

The New York State Attorney’s Office for the District of Manhattan has been campaigning for the return of the artwork since 2017.

Countries that received artifacts from New York authorities

Under Attorney General Alvin Bragg, who will serve from 2022, more than 1,000 exhibits worth $190 million have been returned to 19 countries, including Cambodia, China, India, Pakistan, Egypt, Iraq, Greece, Turkey and Italy.

In May, Max Hollein announced the creation of a commission of researchers to study the provenance of certain artifacts from the Met’s extraordinary collection (1.5 million items) in order to return them to their countries of origin if stolen or looted.

“We are increasing our investment in the research of our collections and in terms of transparency about the provenance of the objects we own,” he stressed on Thursday.

Recently, the authorities of New York confiscated several exhibits from the Metropolis and private collectors of this capital of finance and art.

For example, Shelby White, 85, a philanthropist and member of the Met’s board of directors, had 89 works of questionable provenance donated in 2021 and 2022, worth a total of $69 million, according to the records. to the Manhattan Prosecutor’s Office.

And other countries, such as France, the Netherlands or Germany, have also announced in recent years that they will return artefacts and works of art to the countries from which they were taken, in many cases their former colonies.