ABSTRACT
This past year was another eventful one for the art market. The message to market participants to proceed with caution is finally being received, particularly by the antiquities trade. Antiquities, in fact, strongly dominated 2008’s headlines, with Holocaust-related issues also appearing frequently. Two trends were most pronounced in 2008. First, American museums and private collectors returned a significant number of objects-most of which had passed through the art market at one time or another-to European nation claimants. The flow of artifacts to their countries of origin to the east has been slowly increasing over the past few years, as source countries, especially Italy and Greece, have ramped up efforts to document, locate, and reclaim their cultural property; 2008 in particular has been a busy one for international antiquities shippers. New museum association acquisition guidelines, announced in 2008 in an effort to halt the practices that contributed to these many returns, are already being felt by the marketplace as poorly provenanced objects have become less desirable, while well-documented pieces now sell for a considerable premium.
