The Art Institute of Chicago announced yesterday that it plans to restitute to Nepal one of the objects looted from it. The looted object, Buddha Sheltered by the Serpent King Muchalinda, (Reference Number 2014.1030) was gifted to the AIC by its trustee Marilynn Alsdorf in 2014.
One may recall the Nazi looted art case filed by the heirs of Carlota Landsberg for the Picasso Woman in White that Marilynn Alsdorf acquired from art dealer Stephen Hahn in 1975 with the provenance "Private Collection, Paris."
Or one may recall the investigations by Crain’s Chicago Business and ProPublica into "at least nine objects once owned by James and Marilynn Alsdorf that have been sent back to their countries of origin since the late 1980s".
Or one may simply be intrigued by hundreds of objects in a major US museum that still lack clear provenance despite a history of acquiring looted objects by their donors. Or, perhaps, the curious way the story is told by the museum when forced to return an obviously looted object.
RESEARCH DATASET
The following dataset includes objects linked to James or Marilynn Alsdorf with the basic object information, credit line and provenances published by the Art Institute of Chicago on its website in June 2024.
VIEW DATASET
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Description
This file contains provenance information related to artworks associated with the Alsdorf collection. Here are the key details:
- Rows: 317 entries
- Columns: 14
- Main Fields:
RetrievalDate: All entries have the same date, "19June2024".Url: Direct links to the artworks on the Art Institute of Chicago’s website.Artist: Names of artists where available (only 44 entries have this).Title: Titles of the artworks.Medium: The materials used in the artworks.Credit Line: How the artwork was acquired or credited (e.g., "Gift of Marilynn B. Alsdorf").Acc Num: Accession numbers of the artworks.Provenance: Historical ownership information, partially available (161 entries have data).Exhibitions: Exhibition history (120 entries have data).References: Completely empty column.Date Created: The estimated or known date of creation.Dimensions: Physical dimensions of the artworks.Publication History: Records of where the artwork has been published (136 entries have data).Status: Mostly empty, but one entry states: "Loot-Deaccessioned for repatriation to Nepal Museum".
