Legal Ownership of the Parthenon Marbles

Legal Ownership of the Parthenon Marbles

The controversy began almost one hundred years ago. Between 1801 and 1812, Thomas Bruce, 7th Earl of Elgin and British Ambassador to the Ottoman Empire, removed several sculptures from the Parthenon in Athens and shipped them to England, where he sold them to the British Museum in 1816. 167 years later, Melina Mercouri, Greek Minister of Culture, requested that the “Elgin” Marbles be returned. This request sparked one of the greatest debates the art world has ever known. For the past two decades, people have argued over who has the rights to these Marbles. The Greek position is certainly understandable from a cultural and emotional point of view. However, from the standpoint of legality and logic, it is hard to make a solid case against the Marbles’ continued presence in Britain.

Legally, Greece could call for the return of the Parthenon Marbles if it could prove that they were wrongly taken and never belonged, legally or morally, to the British. If Lord Elgin’s title were proven defective, then the same would hold true for England’s title. In order to determine whether or not this is the case, the first question that must be raised is whether the Ottomans (then the recognized government of Greece) had the authority to transfer property rights to Elgin. Under international law at the time, acts of Ottoman officials with respect to property under their authority were valid. Even if those actions were not widely supported, they were still legal. The Ottoman officials had a solid claim to authority over the Parthenon because it was public property, which the successor nation acquires on change of sovereignty.

Therefore, it is clear that the Ottomans had the power to give Elgin property rights. The next question that must be raised is whether or not they did. This has proven to be slightly less clear. Elgin obtained from the Ottoman government in Constantinople a formal written instrument called a firman. This document states:

“It is incumbent on us to provide that they [i.e. Elgin’s party] meet no opposition in walking, viewing, or contemplating the pictures and buildings they may wish to design or copy; and in any of their works of fixing scaffolding ... around the ancient Temple of the Idols, or in modeling with chalk or gypsum the said ornaments and visible figures ... or in excavati...

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...ons. New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Louvre in Paris, and all other western museums contain vast collections of work from other parts of the world. These marbles symbolize the cultural property in all of the world’s museums, and this debate affects them all.

Works Cited

Daley, Michael. “Phedias Albion,” Arts Review Volume 52 (2000): 34-35.

Goldsmith, John. The Gymnasium of the Mind, The Journals of Roger Hinks 1933 – 1963. Salisbury: Michael Russell Publishing, 1984.

Hitchens, Christopher. The Elgin Marbles: Should They be Returned to Greece? London; New York: Verso, 1998.

Jenkins, Ian. “The 1930’s Cleaning of the Parthenon Sculptures in the British Museum,” The British Museum (2001): http://www.thebritishmuseum.ac.uk/parthenon/

Kurtz, Donna (ed.). Bernard Ashmole 1894-1988, An Autobiography. Oxford: Oxford Books, 1995.

Merryman, John Henry. Thinking about the Elgin Marbles: Critical Essays on Cultural Property, Art, and Law. London: Kluwer Law International Ltd, 2000.

St. Clair, William. “The Elgin Marbles: Questions of stewardship and accountability,” International Journal of Cultural Property Volume 8 Issue 2 (1999): 391-521.