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Protested Sale of Hopi Works Brings $1.2 Million Protested Sale of Hopi Works Brings $1.2 Million
(about 1 hour later)
PARIS — A French judge ruled on Friday that a major auction of ancient Native American masks and other artifacts could proceed despite a request by the American ambassador that the sale be delayed until the legal status of the items could be determined. The ruling came just hours before the sale was to begin. A contested auction of sacred Hopi Indian artifacts went forward on Friday in Paris and generated more than $1 million in sales, despite the presence of protesters inside and outside the auction house who urged patrons not to take part.
The Hopi tribe of northeastern Arizona had challenged the auction of around 70 elaborately painted masks and headdresses, saying that they were sacred, communally owned objects that they believe may have been obtained illegally more than a century ago. One featured item, a headdress known as the Crow Mother, drew intense interest. Bidding on this 1880s artifact, which had a high estimate of $80,000, soared to $210,000, drawing applause from a crowd of some 200 people in the sales room and protest from a woman who stood up and shouted: “Don’t purchase that. It is a sacred being.”
“This is a very unfortunate outcome, as these objects will now be sold and dispersed, and the likelihood that they will eventually return to their true home amongst the Hopi is severely reduced,” Pierre Servan-Schreiber, a lawyer representing the tribe, said in a statement after the judge’s ruling. “It also probably means that French institutions are still not fully aware of the devastating consequences that such mercantile fate for truly sacred objects may have on tribes who have already suffered so much.” Earlier, a woman who stood and began to cry out against the sale had been escorted rapidly from the room, which had tight security.
Reached by telephone, Mr. Servan-Schreiber said that he had filed a last-minute motion with the French regulator that oversees auction houses to request the sale be suspended. But he conceded that it was unlikely that the regulator would “have the appetite” to intervene. The sale of American Indian artifacts generated $1.2 million, including the buyer’s premium (the auction house’s fee), according to a spokeswoman for the seller, Néret-Minet Tessier & Sarrou. That is roughly what the house had estimated the sale would bring before the Hopi tribe lodged its complaints and the auction became the object of international scrutiny and diplomatic talks between the United States and French officials.
Néret-Minet Tessier & Sarrou, the auctioneer organizing the sale, welcomed the court’s decision. "It is important not to create a precedent validating the prohibition of the sale of any object of a sacred nature, regardless of the culture concerned," the auctioneer said in statement. "Our goal has always been to showcase Hopi culture and make it accessible to the largest number of people and in strict compliance with the law.” Five of the 70 items did not sell, and many pieces sold below the low estimate, but whatever hesitancy buyers showed toward some items was offset by the enthusiasm shown toward the featured piece.
The case has drawn criticism from a number of high-profile Americans sympathetic to the cause of the Hopi nation, which numbers just under 20,000 people. A few hours before the sale, a Paris municipal court judge had ruled that it could go forward, finding that the masklike objects, despite their divine status among the Hopis, could not be likened to dead or alive beings. A lawyer for the Hopis had argued that the tribe believes that the works embody living spirits, making it immoral to sell them under French law.
Late Thursday, Charles H. Rivkin, the American ambassador to France, had urged that the sale be suspended given “the importance of these sacred objects to the Hopi Nation” to allow time to determine the provenance of the items. Mr. Rivkin expressed his disappointment with the ruling Friday. The Hopis say the artifacts, known as Katsinam, or “friends,” were stolen from tribal lands in Arizona. Many are more than a century old. The auction house has said that a French collector obtained them legally decades ago.
In a statement in French on Twitter, Mr. Rivkin said he was “saddened” by the judge’s ruling. In a statement, the Hopi tribal chairman, LeRoy N. Shingoitewa, said: “Given the importance of these ceremonial objects to Hopi religion, you can understand why Hopis regard this — or any sale — as sacrilege, and why we regard an auction not as homage but as a desecration to our religion.”
While the United States has agreements with numerous foreign governments to help them retrieve antiquities found to be in American hands, Washington has no such reciprocal arrangements overseas. Moreover, American laws that restrict illegal sales of Native American artifacts in the United States are not typically recognized by the authorities abroad. Before starting, the auctioneer, Gilles Néret-Minet, told the crowd that the sale had been found by a judge to be perfectly legal, and that the objects were no longer sacred but had become “important works of art.” He added, “In France you cannot just up and seize the property of a person that is lawfully his.”
Néret-Minet, the auction house, had estimated that the Paris sale would be one of the largest ever of Hopi artifacts ever and could bring in as much as $1 million. The objects for sale range in price from $2,000 to $32,000 each. Bo Lomahquahu, a Hopi tribe member and university exchange student who stood outside the auction, said the atmosphere inside was “very surreal and heartbreaking.”
The auction house says that the artifacts were bought legally by an unidentified collector in the United States over a period of 30 years beginning in the 1930s. “They are truly sacred to us; we feed and care for them,” he said in a cellphone interview. “And to see people walking out with them in bags, like some object, I felt really helpless and hurt.”
Historians say many Hopi artifacts were originally taken from tribal lands in the late 1800s and early 1900s — either by missionaries or by people who found them in shrines and on altars across the American Southwest. Others were sold by Hopi members themselves. Hopi leaders have challenged those sales, however, arguing that they are communal property. The United States ambassador to France, Charles H. Rivkin, said through a spokesman, “I am saddened to learn that Hopi sacred cultural objects are being put up for auction today in Paris.”
Robert Redford, the American actor and director who maintains close relations with the Hopi, called the planned sale a “sacrilege” that would have “grave moral consequences.” The auction house said that one of the artifacts was purchased for $4,900 by a foundation that intends to return it to the tribe.
“These ceremonial objects have a sacred value and belong to the Hopi and only the Hopi,” Mr. Redford said in a letter of support published on Thursday. Monroe Warshaw, an art collector from New York who bought two pieces for about $36,500, told The Associated Press that he did not believe that the artifacts had been stolen from the Hopis and praised the anonymous collector for preserving them.
But Pierre Servan-Schreiber, a lawyer from Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom who represented the tribe pro bono in the court case, said that the outcome was “very disappointing, since the masks will now be dispersed” and that the Hopis will most likely never see them again.