The Mexican government called on France on Tuesday to stop the sale of 30 pre-Hispanic relics, the latest offensive in Mexico’s battle to stop what it previously called the “illegal trade in cultural goods”.
The artifacts, which include Mayan and Teotihuacan pieces with a total value of between $79,000 and $127,000, are set to be auctioned on May 13 by auction house Cornet de Saint-Cyr in Paris.
Of the 358 items in the set, great permanent character (250-650m) is expected to achieve the highest bid with an estimated selling price between $26,000 and $47,000. The 13-inch green schist statue was shown in the 2012 exhibition “El Quinto sol: Artes de México” at the Musée Quai Branly-Jacques Chirac in Paris. It is not known exactly how the piece ended up in France; However, according to the auction house, it comes from a private collection.
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Mexico’s Minister of Culture, Alejandra Fraustro, has called for the sale TweetDemanding the auction house “stop selling 30 items that are part of Mexico’s cultural wealth.”
In France, laws regulating the sale and auction of cultural property leave recovery decisions to the discretion of the private owner, limiting the scope of government legal action.
Mexico’s historical and artistic heritage has been affected by centuries of looting. In February, the Mexican Embassy in France – along with Ecuador, Guatemala, Panama, Peru, and the Dominican Republic – opposed a similar event, but to no avail.
“We deplore the continuing practices of the illicit trade in cultural goods that undermine the heritage, history and identity of our indigenous peoples,” they said in a joint letter.
“Auctions promote the pillage, pillage, illicit trafficking and laundering of goods perpetrated by international organized crime; they deprive the pieces of their cultural, historical and symbolic essence, reducing them to simple decorative objects for individuals and giving rise to a counterfeit market.”
Andrés Manuel Lopez Obrador, who became Mexico’s president in 2018, has prioritized recovering stolen artifacts as a political cornerstone. Over the past three years, through the “My Heritage Is Not For Sale” campaign, the country has recovered more than 5,000 pre-Hispanic artifacts.
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