From the desk of Roland Rocchiccioli – 4 December

To the thief: possession is nine-tenths of the law, but what about the victim. What are their rights?

THE annals of history are filled tales of looting and plundering.  The adage tells us, ‘to the victor belong the spoils’. Is that acceptable?

What was looted during the Second World War is incalculable. Still, to this day, plunder is missing. The systematic dispossession of the Jewish people, and the transference of their homes, businesses, artworks, financial assets, musical instruments, books, and even home furnishings, to the Reich, was an integral component of the Holocaust.

The excellent film, Woman in Gold, starring Dame Helen Mirren, is a biographical drama based on the story of Maria Altmann, an elderly Jewish refugee living in Los Angeles. For almost a decade, Mrs Altmann fought the Austrian Government for the restitution of Gustav Klimt’s iconic portrait of her aunt, Adele Bloch-Bauer. The work was stolen from her relatives by the Nazis in Vienna, prior to World War II. Reluctantly, and after employing every possible legal tactic, the Austrian Government was forced to return the picture to its rightful owner.

Currently, the Art Gallery of New South Wales has in its possession 140-centermetre high gold and bronze sculpture of a Buddhist guardian from the Chinese Ming dynasty, dating back to between 1368 and 1644. Historically, it does not belong to the gallery.

In 1900, at the request of the British Empire, Captain Francis Hixson, a British naval officer based in the colony of New South Wales, set sail from Sydney to Beijing to help quash the uprising known in history as the Boxer Rebellion.

Tens of thousands of people, Chinese and foreign, died. The Boxer Protocol was signed in Beijing on 7 September 1901. The ruling Qing Empire, who had supported the Boxers, capitulated to the foreigners. They were forced, under the terms of the protocol, to arrest and publicly execute senior Boxer rebels.

The gallery contends it is difficult to know for certain, but it is conducting ongoing work to determine the statue’s provenance. In a statement to the ABC, it said, “While the exact site from which the object was taken is not known, its removal during a time of conflict requires careful consideration and consultation.”

Its statement also highlighted its obligations under a 1970 UNESCO convention, prohibiting the illegal import and export of cultural property, and the 1986 Protection of Movable Cultural Heritage Act.

A 1905 Sydney Morning Herald article reported, unambiguously, Captain Hixson would be donating to the national art gallery, “An ancient bronze statue found beneath the ruins of the Palace of 10,000 Years near Peking [Beijing].”

Platitudinous rhetoric espousing the rights and wrongs of stealing from another country serves no purpose, except to stall the process; to suggest a lack of willing to return what is not, legally, their property. The statue left during a period which is known to the Chinese as the ‘Century of Humiliation’ at the hands of other nations.

The statue should be enveloped in bubble wrap, packed in a crate, and returned to its rightful owner, together with a letter of apology. That would be the proper thing to do.

Be assured – it is not the end of civilisation! 

The departure of identifiable personalities from television shows is not cause for concern. We are, all of us, only filling-in until some sacks us!

An award-winning actress friend said of television, “A goat could do it if you trained it!”  She is right. It could!

Roland can be contacted via [email protected].