Saturday, March 15, 2025

Chrysler Museum Will Return Sculpture After Many years-Lengthy Battle – ARTnews.com

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A decades-long battle over a statue generally known as The Wounded Indian has come to an finish, with its proprietor, the Chrysler Museum of Artwork in Norfolk, Virginia, agreeing to return the work to the Boston-based, Paul Revere–based Massachusetts Charitable Mechanic Affiliation (MCMA), the New York Occasions experiences.

Sculptor Peter Stephenson crafted the work in 1850 out of a single piece of white Vermont marble. He donated it in in 1863 to the MCMA, the place it was on displayed on the group’s headquarters for 65 years.

In 1958, amid a interval of what the Occasions described as “monetary hassle,” the MCMA bought their 300,000-square-foot Boston property. Through the transfer to their new location, the MCMA was informed The Wounded Indian was destroyed.

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Chrysler Museum Will Return Sculpture After Decades-Long Battle

Nonetheless, after years of believing their transfer had price them the sculpture, the MCMA present in 1999 that The Wounded Indian was on show on the Chrysler Museum of Artwork. The museum claims to have purchased the work from a New York collector and seller in 1986, with the seller allegedly claiming that the work “had been deserted and was his rightful property.”

Since then, the MCMA has labored to have the article returned, claiming that the statue is definitely stolen property. Their basic council, Paul Revere III, a descendant of the Revolutionary Warfare hero who began the MCMA, and an legal professional for the affiliation, Greg Werkheiser, have since entered in negotiations with the museum, although no headway was made. 

That’s, till just lately, after the MCMA reached out to each the Washington Publish and the FBI’s Artwork Crime division as a tactical transfer to place strain on the museum to relinquish the sculpture.

The Wounded Indian is as Boston a bit of artwork as something could be,” Revere stated in a press release to the New York Occasions. “The folks of Boston deserve to have the ability to go to and admire this a part of their heritage.”

Earlier than lengthy, the museum raised the white flag and agreed hand the sculpture over to the MCMA by the tip of August. Erik H. Neil, director of the Chrysler Museum, stated in a press release he “is happy with the amicable decision.” The MCMA complimented the museum’s “knowledge and collaboration in reaching an amicable and moral decision of this matter.”

The FBI even chimed in, in response to the Occasions: “[We are] “proud to have been capable of assist facilitate the return of this Nineteenth-century statue to its rightful proprietor.”

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