BlogBack: Max Anderson on the Getty and Its Fleischman Collection

Maxwell Anderson, director of the Indianapolis Museum, responds to CultureGrrl‘s previous post, identifying him as “a key advisor to Barbara and Lawrence Fleischman, whose extensive collection of ancient art was later given to the Getty”:
While serving as a curator in the Metropolitan Museum’s Greek and Roman Department until 1987, I actively encouraged the Fleischmans to donate their collection to the Met (certainly not to the Getty!). Even after leaving the Met to become a museum director, I wrote entries for the touring exhibition of their collection, believing then as now that objects lacking provenance are no less deserving of being published.
But I also believe it’s important to distinguish between past practices, which were inadequately rigorous in pursuing provenance, and improved current practices, which the Getty was instrumental in fostering (even if, admittedly, after acquiring the bulk of the Fleischman collection, most of which was unprovenanced).
Leading U.S. museums once made a distinction between antiquities already in private collections and antiquities bought directly from the trade. That distinction has, over the last few years, become viewed by many of us as arbitrary, and a growing number of art museum professionals today believe that a bright line must be drawn when considering acquisitions from any source, so as not to unintentionally foster looting or the illicit trade.