Unknown
Storage Amphora
Terracotta
33 in
Gift of James G. Pepper ’65
The Hellenistic storage amphora on display in the Guest House was donated to the Van Every/Smith Galleries in 2010 by James G. Pepper along with a truckload of other pieces of art. Amphorae are storage vessels, usually ceramic, with long, narrow necks, two handles, and pointed bases. They are designed for ease of storage and transportation of dry or liquid products like grains, oil, or wine. The slim shape and pointed base allow the containers to be easily packed together and moved about without breakage. Andrea Berlin, Hellenistic pottery expert, identified our amphora as a Brindisi amphora dating to the second century BC[1] It was probably used to carry olive oil or wine, and amphorae of this shape are usually found in the eastern Mediterranean.
We don’t know much more about this specific amphora than what we can tell from looking at it. The piece’s documentation tells us Mr. Pepper acquired the amphora at an auction house in 1995, having been donated to the auction by Brian T. Aitken of Acanthus Ancient Art in New York. Before that, the trail runs cold on its provenance.
Unfortunately, this sort of incomplete documentary history is not uncommon for ancient art. Mr. Pepper acquired the amphora from an accredited auction house and gave it to Davidson legally but historians and archaeologists have become increasingly wary of collecting pieces with uncertain provenance.
W. R. Grey Professor of Classics and History, Dr. Peter Krentz, explains “the trade, in antiquities encourages looting of archaeological sites. When you remove items from an archaeological site by looting rather than excavating them, you lose their context.” Without context such as where an object was found, how it was placed, or what kinds of items were discovered nearby, there is only so much we can learn from it about the past, which is really the point of archaeology.
Many countries have passed laws intended to stop looting to little effect, so the next step has been to put policies in place to govern the acquisition of antiquities. Krentz asks, “if we can eliminate the desire to purchase the stuff that has been looted, then what would be the point of looting?” The idea is that if museums and institutions refuse to accept pieces without provenance, whether or not they’re likely to have been looted, looters will have so much trouble selling stolen pieces that there will be no reason to loot.
With this goal in mind, the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) adopted a convention in 1970 on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export, and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property. The convention, which the US ratified in 1972 and implemented thirteen years later, calls states to protect against the removal or transfer of “cultural property” objects, important to the “archaeology, prehistory, history, literature, art or science” of a people or state. It took the US 13 years to enact, but we are bound by it today.
There are still, of course, plenty of pieces of cultural property floating around in countries that should not have them. For this reason, much of the onus of ethical collecting falls on institutions that acquire or display cultural property. The Association of Art Museum Directors (AAMD), taking seriously this responsibility, approved a set of guidelines in 2008 on the Acquisition of Archaeological Material and Ancient Art, revised to be even more comprehensive in 2013.
The AAMD’s guidelines include instructions that member museums “thoroughly research the ownership history of a Work prior to its acquisition,” and “normally should not acquire a Work unless provenance research substantiates that the Work was outside its country of probable modern discovery before 1970 or was legally exported from its probable country of modern discovery after 1970.” The guidelines recognize that “even after the most extensive research, many Works will lack a complete documented ownership history,” and the most substantial addition to the 2013 guidelines stipulate that if that is the case, the work should be posted to the AAMD Object Registry with an explanation of its acquisition.
Not every gallery, though, is bound by the AAMD’s guidelines. Lia Newman, Director and Curator of the Van/Every Smith Galleries, explains that “accreditation is an arduous process.” For the small budget and staff size of a gallery like ours or those of other colleges and universities, it might not be worth the cost or the time. “In many ways, the main benefit is credibility,” Newman says, “which instead we have tried to build through good relationships with artists, galleries, and museums.”
In 2010 when the Pepper amphora arrived at Davidson, the Van/Every Smith Galleries, not governed by the AAMD’s guidelines, were also without their own written acquisition policy. This meant the Galleries did not have clear criteria for turning down a gift, so the amphora’s incomplete history did not raise flags. In 2012, the Art Collection Advisory Committee set out to fix this problem. With the input of Davidson Art and Classics faculty, as well as Frank Lord ’89, Elena Paul ’85, Ralph Blakely ’67, alumni with experience in antiquities and art law, and Sarah Phillips ’01, the college’s General Counsel, the Committee wrote and adopted the Fine Art and Antiquities Collections Management Policy.
The policy names the Collection’s primary purpose: “to support the academic mission of the College, enrich the curriculum, and serve as a resource for student and faculty research.” It also cites the Galleries’ intent to uphold the missions of the AAMD’s guidelines and the UNESCO Convention of 1970 in all acquisitions, which should be accompanied by “evidence of authenticity and satisfactory provenance.”
Were the Pepper amphora donated today, the gallery staff would be faced with a choice. While its incomplete documentary history does not include the sort of evidence of provenance the quoted stipulation calls for, no evidence suggests the amphora was looted or imported illegally, and we’re not likely to prove either possibility with the information available.
With no documentation beyond the auction where the donor acquired it, there is also no obvious place to return the amphora, even if we wanted to. So what should be done with it?
Dr. Shaw Smith, Joel O. Conarroe Professor of Art History and Humanities, holds that the best decision is to use the amphora for the Collection’s stated primary purpose: education. He writes, “We will keep the amphora as a pedagogical opportunity to study it as an object in and of itself but also we will use it to create a dialogue to discuss the ethics around objects of all kinds.”
Krentz thinks the storage vessel is relatively unremarkable in craftsmanship and aesthetic beauty, having seen an abundance of amphorae in his time. He agrees with Smith that it is most valuable to our institution as a tool to facilitate conversation about looting, the trade of antiquities, and ethical collection.
When Newman arrived on campus, the amphora was on display in the VAC offices. “I wanted to put it in a more public location,” she says, not only for easier access to viewers, but in accordance with the AAMD’s guidelines, which state that an object of uncertain provenance should be visible in order for claims to be made upon it.
Since the Galleries are not AAMD accredited, they do not have access to the AAMD Object Registry, where the amphora might be listed if they did. Other resources, like the Art Loss Register for stolen items, are difficult to navigate from the found side, especially for an object like an amphora, mass-produced all over the ancient world and unlikely to have someone looking for it. Displaying the object on campus and the Galleries’ website is the easiest way to increase its visibility and enable interaction with it.
Krentz would go even more public, saying “if we were interested in using it for the teaching of students, we wouldn’t put it in the Guest House,” which few students have occasion to visit. To that end, he suggests the amphora might be better displayed in a more visible campus location with a plaque or tray of pamphlets outlining its uncertain history for students and passersby. But for Newman few public campus locales come to mind that could accommodate the large case required to display and protect the amphora.
Frank Lord, a Davidson alum, art lawyer, and member of the Art Collection Advisory Committee, agrees that the amphora should be not only displayed, but discussed. “Whatever value it has now is lost if it’s not seen,” he says, “but all seeing is done in context, and just putting it out is insufficient.” Wouldn’t it be at odds with the mission of an institution like Davidson, which ascribes such a high value to ethics and honor, to ignore the implications of our possession of the amphora?
The amphora is on view in the Carnegie Guest House; the space is currently closed to the public, serving as housing for students in quarantine or isolation.
-Caroline Webster ’21
[1] Personal email to Peter Krentz, 5 December 2020.