#museum-restitution

#museum-restitution

The Helmet of Cotofenesti, a priceless gold artefact from Romania, was stolen in January 2025 during a robbery at the Drents Museum in the Netherlands.

Curt Goldschmidt's fate is shared with many Jewish collectors and patrons. With this restitution, we honour Jewish collectors and remember victims of Nazi persecution.

Ambulance for Monuments operates through a collaborative network of organizations and volunteers, redefining the role of the architect in heritage preservation by involving professionals, students, craftsmen, and local communities.

A commemorative bronze head, from around 1850, is a representation of the ancestor of a chief and would have been placed in the king's ancestral shrine.

The significant number of ancestors held in UK museums is extremely distressing and symbolic of the colonial origins of these collections. We hope that the responses gathered by The Guardian will be shared with the relevant communities to support them in bringing their ancestors home.

Bregman claims, 'Today the whole of Europe risks turning into one big Venice, a beautiful open-air museum. A great destination for Chinese and American tourists. A place to admire what was once the centre of the world.' This statement encapsulates the concern that Europe is losing its cultural significance.

In a white and sterile office that could belong to any one of the warehouses that dot this industrial strip between Brisbane's airport and horse-racing precinct, a young woman is engrossed in a puzzle. Only this puzzle comprises, perhaps, three different sets, each almost (but not quite) identical to the other and none likely to be completed. Emily Totivan wears blue plastic gloves. She is an archaeology student helping to catalogue artefacts.

On Tuesday, French President Emmanuel Macron appeared before the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland the annual Alpine gathering of the global elite to declare that now is not a time for new imperialism or new colonialism. This, of course, was a reference to the current ambitions of Macron's counterpart in the United States, Donald Trump, who, in addition to recently kidnapping the president of Venezuela and repeatedly threatening to seize the Panama Canal,

In the lawsuit filed last year, Jacobson sought C$5m ($3.6m) from the estate in general, aggravated and punitive damages. He alleged Morrisseau reached into his pants and touched him on the buttocks after Morrisseau's assistant suggested he could heal Jacobson's back pain. In an affidavit filed last September, Jacobson acknowledged that Morrisseau suffered from Parkinson's disease, but claimed he was "still able to use his arms and hands in 2006, with assistance".

When Thomas Jefferson wrote about the "inalienable" rights of man in the US Declaration of Independence 250 years ago, it's possible he lifted the term from the French. And long before it was ever used as an adjective to describe human rights, it defined royal property. To this day, "inalienability" remains a cornerstone of public collections in France-and many other countries-impacting museums and their ability to deaccession, including for purposes of restitution.

After more than 25 years of debate and delay, we have moved beyond words and into action. This commission is not just a technical body; it is a commitment to historical integrity and a long-awaited bridge to justice for those whose heritage was stolen.