Examination of witnesses (Questions 155
- 159)
TUESDAY 18 APRIL 2000
MR JAMES
EDE and MS
JOANNA VAN
DER LANDE
Chairman: Could I first apologise to
members of the public for the fact that we are so squeezed in
this room and that a number of you cannot find seats. I am very
sorry indeed about this. It is due to some bureaucratic rule imposed
by officials in this place, without consulting me, whereby if
a Committee is not being televised it gets a smaller room. I did
not know this House of Commons existed in order to be televised.
I do apologise for the discomfort that some of you are enduring.
I will say that it is, at any rate, gratifying that there is such
large public interest in this inquiry. I am not quite sure what
press interest there is. There was a great deal of press interest
in our visit abroad but deliberations at home do not seem to attract
the same kind of excitement. After that tirade, I will now welcome
the representatives of The Antiquities Dealers Association to
what is, I repeat, a very important inquiry since both the police
and those who have knowledge of the trade tell me that after drug
dealing this is the biggest illicit trade in the world valued
at billions of pounds. Mr Fearn?
Mr Fearn
155. Good morning. You argue that London dealers
and auctioneers have made great efforts in the last decade to
distance themselves from the illicit trade in antiquities. Why
have you adopted this approach?
(Mr Ede) If I might first thank you for allowing us
to put our point of view which is very important because we need
to very much address some of the inconsistencies you have heard
in the evidence so far. We talk about billions of pounds. Let's
put it into context. The London trade, by our calculations, and
these are a matter of public figures, is about £30 million
a year. For Christies it was .04 per cent of turnover, for Bonhams
about a million and there are about a dozen other dealers. So
we need to get this whole thing into perspective and argue against
the idea that this is some massive conspiracy centred on London.
The London market has shrunk a great deal in recent years. It
was the leader of world trade because of our historical power
in the 19th century when people were collecting these things all
over the world—soldiers, diplomats and so on. The illicit
trade in London is much smaller than has been suggested. Indeed,
licit trade is much smaller than has been suggested, which is
sad for us. Nonetheless, we accept that there is a problem with
illicit trade and we wish to carry on our business of selling
objects which are legally on the market. We have to make it very
clear to you that there is a very long and honourable trade in
antiquities which has been going on since the Romans collected
antiquities.
156. Where has the centre of the trade shifted
to? It was London, where is it now?
(Mr Ede) By a rich irony it has been suggested that
UNESCO is the answer to all our problems and America, which has
signed up to UNESCO, is by far the largest market in the world
followed by Switzerland, followed by Paris and London on a level
pegging. Beyond that there is Brussels, Amsterdam, and there are
a number of centres in Europe all of which are roughly level pegging.
157. Talking of your Association now or probably
your own experience, I do not know, would you buy or sell an antiquity
which you thought might have been exported illegally from the
country of origin?
(Mr Ede) Absolutely not. This is one of the problems
we have. Countries like Italy allow trade in antiquities and there
are legal dealers in Athens and it is not illegal to own an antiquity
in that country or buy and sell it. It is however effectively
impossible to export it. This is producing a two-tier structure
of prices which encourages people to break the law and to take
things that belong to them, which are not stolen but to illegally
export them from these countries in search of the best world price.
It happens to me quite a lot. People walk in. You have to say,
"Where has it come from?" "My family has had it
in Rome or Sienna for years," and I have to say, "I
am sorry, I cannot buy it. Out of the question." We deal
with many museums round the world. Our reputation is the most
important thing to us that we have. I have been dealing with antiquities
for 25 years and my father 25 years before that.
158. Ms van der Lande was about to say something.
(Ms van der Lande) We do of course ask certain questions,
as Mr Ede has said, when people bring things into us and on anything
that you take in there is going to be a certain level of trust
as there is with anything. You have to use your judgment. We all
abide by codes of conduct[2]
in the auction houses and trade associations and all the dealers,
etcetera, and we have to ask certain questions.
159. What sort of questions?
(Ms van der Lande) How long have you had the piece
for? Where have you acquired it from? That sort of thing.
2 Note by Witness: The Antiquities Dealers Association
has adopted recently a variant of the Code of Due Diligence prepared
by the Council for the Prevention of Art Theft. Back
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