Destroying artwork

[kai]

Hello Ariel,

I just looked briefly at the recent Czerny's catalogue: plenty of ivory, openly defined as such. If our paranoia is so real, how will they send it to the overseas customers? Why were they braver ( or less prudent) than Bonhams?

International auction houses (including Bonhams) continue to offer ivory pieces; they follow CITES procedures and can legally send items with the necessary papers to overseas customers. However, auctioned/traded African elephants' ivory can't enter nor leave the US due to self-imposed current legislation; also Bonhams SF will probably have to stop auctioning it when California laws change in July AFAIK.

I don't think we can blame Bonhams UK: From what I understand (from admittedly very limited info), this vandalism happened in transit and Bonhams just received the pieces as auctioned; they maybe should have declined to auction them but that is probably asking too much of a commercial enterprise.

At the very least, transferring these pieces across state borders was a really bad decision of the consignee; since this appears to have been a professional, it's hard to conceive this as anything but blatant ignorance and possibly greed. Once held up in transit, I'm not sure wether there even was the alternative option of donating the pieces to a museum rather than mutilating them. Maybe even no-one cared to consider/suggest such a move.

Regards,
Kai