British Museum Director Resigns After Worker Fired for Theft

Just days after the British Museum introduced that it had fired an worker who was suspected of looting its storerooms and promoting objects on eBay, the museum’s director introduced Friday that he was resigning, efficient instantly.

Hartwig Fischer, a German artwork historian who had led the world famend establishment since 2016, stated in a news launch that he was leaving the submit at a time “of the utmost seriousness.”

Mr. Fischer, 60, stated that it was “evident” that below his management the museum didn’t adequately reply to warnings {that a} curator could also be stealing objects. “The responsibility for that failure must ultimately rest with the director,” Mr. Fischer stated.

A number of hours after Mr. Fischer’s resignation, the museum introduced that its deputy director, Jonathan Williams, had additionally “agreed to voluntarily step back from his normal duties” till an investigation into the thefts was full.

Trouble has been brewing on the British Museum because it introduced final week that objects had been stolen from its assortment. The museum didn’t say what number of objects have been taken, or how useful they have been. But it stated that the lacking, stolen or broken items included “gold jewelry and “gems of semiprecious stones and glass” relationship from way back to the fifteenth century B.C.

Ever since, a stream of revelations across the museum’s dealing with of the thefts undermined Mr. Fischer’s place. On Tuesday, The New York Times and the BBC printed emails exhibiting that Mr. Fischer had downplayed considerations raised by Ittai Gradel, a Denmark-based antiquities seller, about potential thefts.

In an electronic mail to a trustee in October 2022, Mr. Fischer stated that “the case has been thoroughly investigated” including “there is no evidence to substantiate the allegations.”

Mr. Fischer initially defended his response, saying in an announcement Wednesday that his dealing with of the allegations had been sturdy and that the museum had taken the warnings “incredibly seriously.” The extent of the issue solely turned clear later, he stated, after the museum undertook “a full audit” of its collections.

His protection did little to quell criticism in Britain. On Wednesday, The Times of London wrote that the thefts have been “a national disgrace, calling into question the museum’s own claims for its stewardship of cultural treasures, and for which it needs to give a full accounting.”

The unfolding drama was additionally watched carefully in international locations which can be searching for the return of items within the British Museum’s huge assortment, which incorporates greater than eight million objects, many from Britain’s former colonies. Lawmakers in Greece and Nigeria used the thefts as a chance to name for the return of contested artifacts.

Lina Mendoni, Greece’s tradition minister, stated in an interview Monday with To Vima, a Greek newspaper, that the case reinforces her nation’s calls for for the return of the Parthenon Marbles, a sequence of sculptures and frieze panels, generally referred to as the Elgin Marbles, that after adorned the Parthenon in Athens. The thefts raised questions concerning the “safety and integrity of all of the museum’s exhibits,” Ms. Mendoni stated.

And on Thursday, Nigerian officers reiterated their longstanding name for the British Museum to return a group of artifacts referred to as the Benin Bronzes, which British troops looted in 1897.

Mr. Fischer’s time on the museum coincided with a sea change in attitudes over what rightfully belongs within the West’s museums, and a rise within the quantity and depth of restitution calls for. He took over on the British Museum in 2016, having previously run the State Art Collections of Dresden, a prestigious assortment of museums in Germany.

In late July, shortly earlier than the news broke that the museum had fired a employee suspected of theft, Mr. Fischer introduced that he would step down from his function subsequent 12 months. But because the disaster on the museum deepened this week, his place seemed more and more untenable.

The turmoil has come at “a very bad moment,” stated Charles Saumarez Smith, a former director of the Royal Academy of Arts, in London. The British Museum is anticipated to announce a significant renovation undertaking that The Financial Times has reported will price £1 billion, or about $1.26 billion, and the present uncertainty might make fund-raising way more troublesome, he stated.

The resignation was “an act of symbolic bloodletting,” Mr. Saumarez Smith stated, however it might not finish the British Museum’s woes. There are clearly “bigger issues that need to be resolved” on the establishment, he added, together with the questions on whether or not it has a deal with on its stock.

Mr. Fischer stated in his assertion that he anticipated the museum to “come through this moment and emerge stronger” however that he had “come to the conclusion that my presence is proving a distraction.”

“That is the last thing I would want,” he stated.

George Osborne, the museum chair, stated within the launch that the board had accepted Mr. Fischer’s determination. “I am clear about this: we are going to fix what has gone wrong,” Mr. Osborne stated. “The museum has a mission that lasts across generations. We will learn, restore confidence and deserve to be admired once again.”