“This organization, as of today, will cease its cooperation with the Louvre for violating its commitment,” said Hamid Baghai, who heads the Iranian Cultural Heritage and Tourism Organization (ICHTO).
The state television website quoted him as saying, “Based on our agreement, this museum should have sent us some artifacts in order to set up an exhibition here. But for unknown reasons they have not.”
There has been some concern in the West about damage to or theft of loaned artifacts during street protests in the Middle East. That fear was exacerbated after the protesters in Cairo broke into the Egyptian Museum a few months ago and broke some Pharaonic artifacts.
But Baghai described the problem as Western arrogance, rather than Western fears. “In the cultural field, we do not accept that European countries look down on us,” he said. “In this field, those who carry the title of being scientific but act politically should be confronted.”
The friction with the Louvre is not new. In January, Baghai warned the Louvre that cultural ties with all of France—not just the Louvre—would be cut off if the museum failed to set up an exhibition of Persian artifacts in Iran as agreed to long ago. However, Monday Baghai only spoke of severing cultural ties with the Louvre, not with all of France.
Under an agreement between Iran and France, “years ago we set up exhibits in the Louvre in exchange for them exhibiting their Persian artifacts here,” he said in January.
“But the Louvre officials did not take any steps. The officials at the Louvre have until the end of the 1389 [March 20, 2011] to precisely tell us when and what they are going to set up here,” he said then. His remarks Monday suggest the Louvre never responded.
This is not the first time that Baghai has brawled with a world-renowned museum. In February 2010, he said Tehran had severed ties with the British Museum to protest repeated delays in lending the Islamic Republic the world-famous Cyrus Cylinder, a 2,600-year old clay item found near Baghdad and bearing a cuneiform inscription of a decree by Cyrus the Great.
The British Museum sent Iran the Cyrus Cylinder in September 2010 and later extended the original three-month loan. Exchanges between Baghai and the British Museum have all been very polite since then.
In each case, the issue was the same. Iran had already loaned artifacts to the museum in question and was awaiting a reciprocal loan. In the case of France, Iran loaned artifacts from the Safavid Dynasty (1501-1736) to the Louvre for an exhibition it held in 2007-08. That exhibit closed three years ago.