Toledo Museum of Art partners with Ethiopian Heritage Authority to find solutions for ‘objects in limbo’
Through the new partnership, the museum is already in the process of returning five artefacts from a private collection to Ethiopian authorities
The Toledo Museum of Art (TMA) has entered a new partnership with the Ethiopian Heritage Authority (EHA) to find solutions for "objects in limbo" - artworks that lack proper documentation and cannot be traced to their rightful owners. The collaboration sees five objects from a private collector's collection being returned to Ethiopia.
Bob McCarthy, a collector specializing in medieval art, approached TMA about donating these objects so they could be repatriated. However, the absence of provenance documents made determining the objects' custodians challenging.
The Unesco 1970 Convention against "illicit acquisition of cultural properties" was the first legislation addressing such cases, but in the 30-year gap between 1970 and 2000, the black market for antiquities expanded significantly. In 2008, the American Alliance of Museums adopted the 1970 Convention as an institutional best practice, prompting a shift towards diligent provenance research.
Adam Levine, TMA's director and chief executive, explains that there is a gap in the art world where millions of artworks have been collected in good faith since 1970, lacking the proper provenance research. The Cloister gallery's reinstallation, set to complete next year, will focus on displaying objects with documented provenance. However, the larger goal of the partnership with EHA is to research and eventually repatriate objects without documentation.
The term "objects in limbo" is used by Levine and Ong to show respect to these artworks, as their missing documentation does not indicate their actual origin but rather the lack of a trail of legitimate movements. For instance, two manuscripts and three crosses known to be in Ethiopia post-1970 are part of this category.
The partnership aims to forge a good faith international relationship that can serve as a model for other museums. It will continue for the next 20 years, with the first decade focusing on research, capacity building, and restitution, and the second on the long-term disposition of each object returned to Ethiopia. Levine emphasizes that the goal is to move towards a position of stewardship rather than ownership, with Ethiopia's contributions to art history being shared with the world.
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