When Thomas Bruce, Seventh Earl of Elgin, arrived in the city he knew as Constantinopletoday’s Istanbulin November 1799, he had every reason to hope that his mission as Britain’s ambassador
Read the history of the Elgin Marbles and how they ended up in the British Museum. Carefully consider the arguments for and against keeping the marbles in Britain and post your opinion in the discussion board. Respond to at least 5 of your classmates posts with why you agree or disagree with their opinion on the case.
Among disputes over removed cultural objects, perhaps few are better known than that concerning what were formerly known as the Elgin Marbles, which even the British Museum now prefers to call the Parthenon sculptures.
When Thomas Bruce, Seventh Earl of Elgin, arrived in the city he knew as Constantinopletoday’s Istanbulin November 1799, he had every reason to hope that his mission as Britain’s ambassador to the Ottoman sultan would be a spectacular success.
A year earlier, Napoleon had invaded Ottoman Egypt, and Britain hoped to become the sultan’s main ally in reversing the French conquest. The dispatch from London of a well-connected diplomat descended from the kings of Scotland was itself a gesture of friendship toward the Turks. Then 33 years old, Elgin was an experienced statesman who had previously served as a British envoy in Brussels and Berlin.
As well as competing in geopolitics, the British were vying with the French for access to whatever remained of the great civilizations of antiquity. On this front, too, Elgin was confident of faring well. His marriage in March 1799 to a wealthy heiress, Mary Nisbet, had given him the financial means to sponsor ambitious cultural projects. While traveling through Europe en route to Constantinople, he recruited a team of mostly Italian artists led by the Neapolitan painter Giovanni-Battista Lusieri. Their initial task was to draw, document and mold antiquities in the Ottoman-controlled territory of Greece, thus preserving these ancient treasures on paper and canvas, in part for the edification of Elgin’s countrymen, most of whom would never otherwise see Athens’ statues, temples and friezes.
From the start, though, the artists’ mandate was shrouded in careful ambivalence. Elgin declared that simply capturing images of the treasures would be “beneficial to the progress of the fine arts” in his home country. But in more private moments, he didn’t conceal his determination to decorate his home in Scotland with artifacts extracted from Greece. “This … offers me the means of placing, in a useful, distinguished and agreeable way, the various things that you may perhaps be able to procure for me,” he wrote to Lusieri.
The initially cloudy mission of Elgin’s artistic team culminated in a massive campaign to dismantle artworks from the temples on the Acropolis and transport them to Britain. Elgin’s haulrepresenting more than half of the surviving sculptures on the Athenian citadelincluded most of the art adorning the Parthenon, the greatest of the Acropolis temples, and one of the six robed maidens, or caryatids, that adorned the smaller Erechtheion temple. Large sections of the Parthenon frieze, an extraordinary series of relief sculptures depicting a mysterious procession of chariots, animals and people, numbered among the loot.
Among critics, the removal of the so-called Elgin Marbles has long been described as an egregious act of imperial plunder. Greeks find it especially galling that Elgin negotiated the removal of such treasures with the Ottoman Empire, a foreign power that cared little for Hellenic heritage. Calls to return the sculptures to Athens began in Elgin’s own day and continue now: While in London in November 2021, Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis stated plainly that Elgin “stole” the ancient artworks. (The British Museum, for its part, has always insisted that its mandate of displaying its collections for the purpose of public education does not allow it to simply give objects away.)
What is your opinion of this debate? In the discussion board, answer the following questions in complete sentences. Respond to at least five of your classmates posts as well. Do you agree with your classmates or can you see the reason for their difference in opinion?
1. Many have advocated for the reunion of all the pieces so that the Parthenon and Acropolis can be fully appreciated. And architectural features like the frieze can be appreciated as intended, in one piece. Proponents also maintain that the removal of the marbles was ultimately illegal and should be returned to their rightful place. Did Elgin “steal” the marbles from the Parthenon or was his removal of them legal?
2. As the British Museum’s website states, Lord Elgin “acted with the full knowledge and permission of the legal authorities of the day.” When many in Britain questioned the legality of this action when the Marbles first arrived, a Parliamentary Select Committee investigated the claims and subsequently found in 1816 that the purchase was entirely legal. Do you agree with this argument?
3. According to some proponents of keeping the marbles in Britain, had the marbles remained in Athens, they likely would have shared the same fate as other ancient sculptures that were destroyed and mutilated. The Parthenon itself has experienced significant architectural and cultural alterations throughout the centuries. Is this a good justification for the removal of the marbles from Greece?
4. It wasn’t until the marbles could be seen up close at the British Museum that their artistic genius was fully recognised by the modern public. Thus it is argued that their removal and subsequent installation at the British Museum is one of Britain’s most significant contributions to our understanding of ancient Greek history. Furthermore, it is impossible to measure how the marbles have inspired generations of artists and historians who have steered the course of art history ever after. Does the cultural impact of the marbles justify allowing them to stay in the British museum?
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