Egypt

The curious case of the St Louis Art Museum

Safe Corner

In a highly unusual legal maneuver by a U.S. museum seeking to retain recent acquisition, the St. Louis Museum of Art (SLAM) filed a complaint in federal district court on February 15, 2011 asking for a declaratory judgment to prevent federal authorities from seizing a 19th Dynasty Egyptian mask popularly known as Ka-Nefer-Nefer. Attorney Ricardo St. Hilaire has posted a helpful summary of SLAM’s complaint and legal arguments, in which he points out important ownership information that is missing from SLAM's complaint. According to St. Hilaire, "the museum essentially argues that the US government cannot legally take the mask because the statute of limitations has run out and because there is no reason to believe that the mask is Egyptian property or that it was illegally stolen or smuggled into the United States." Looting Matters also discusses the complaint and questions whether SLAM is adhering to the American Association of Museum Directors' Code of Ethics, which says “A museum director should not knowingly acquire or allow to be recommended for acquisition any object that has been stolen, removed in contravention of treaties or international conventions to which the United States is a signatory, or illegally imported in the United States.”

Here are some known facts about the controversy.

- New Details Of Theft Claim In St. Louis Art Museum Ka Nefer Nefer Mask Forfeiture
Cultural Heritage Lawyer (Rick St. Hilaire) Prosecutors in the case of United States v. Mask of Ka-Nefer-Nefer today filed a Reply in Support of Its Motion to Reconsider. The U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Missouri hopes to reverse a...

- Update On The Lady Ka-nefer-nefer (st Louis) Mask
Bizjournals (Matthew Hibbard) With photo of the mask A 3,200-year-old mummy mask located in gallery 130 inside the St. Louis Art Museum isn’t going anywhere soon. U.S. District Court Judge Henry Autry made that decision earlier this week, according...

- More Disputes In Ka-nefer-nefer Mummy Mask Case
Cultural Heritage Lawyer (Ricardo St Hilaire) In the latest round of legal papers filed in the case of United States v. Mask of Ka-Nefer-Nefer, the St. Louis Art Museum (SLAM) says that its possession of the ancient Egyptian mummy mask cannot be likened...

- St Louis Mask - Us Claims Slam Lacks Legal Standing
Cultural Heritage Lawyer (Rick St Hilaire) In the latest round of papers filed in court last week, lawyers for the US Attorney’s Office in St. Louis sought to strike the St. Louis Art Museum’s legal claim in the federal lawsuit involving the mummy...

- St. Louis Art Museum Files Suit
Google / The Canadian Press The St. Louis Art Museum has filed a federal lawsuit to try to keep a 3,200-year-old mummy mask that Egypt wants returned, claiming it was stolen. The museum says the U.S. government is trying to seize the 20-inch (51-centimetre)-long...

Egypt