The bigger picture: arts under attack

By Ivan Macquisten

The EU has legislated new import licencing regulation to cover art and antiques. These will be fully enforced from 2025.

The regulations pose serious risks to those who trade in artworks. They also raise serious questions about citizens’ rights to personal property.

The new regulations will see art traders required to produce definitive documentation or otherwise be presumed guilty of importing an illegally exported object. This is problematic because this documentation is not always easily available. For example, Germany, with its existing stricter rules, has already seen dozens of items left in limbo as customs frets over what to do with them, having neither the information nor the expertise to decide.

At the heart of this issue are often orphan works, items acquired that either did not require or no longer have documentation verifying their sale and export from their historic countries of origin. The absence of paperwork is commonplace and understandable: the passage of time means much of it has been lost as works changed hands over the decades or centuries. Original export licences (where they existed) were mostly discarded and lacked the sort of detail or photographs demanded to prove their validity today.

Lying behind this issue is the wider context around restitution of artworks from museums to their countries of origin. The Benin bronzes, looted during military actions in the 19th century, are just one example. The countries of origin want their cultural property back. But how can we know what was sold off legally and what was looted? The answer is that mostly we can’t, but this on the other hand is proving no barrier to claims.