Lost and Found:
The Journey of Looted Art and the Road Home
Each artifact has a voice. When it is in its homeland, that voice sings. I invite you on a journey — a storytelling journey about lost art and inspiring efforts to bring cultural treasures back where they belong. This is a true story of looted art: artifacts stolen in war conflicts, through colonisation, or even given away under naïveté by indigenous peoples – and of the people striving to return these treasures home.
Looting of art and antiquities has occurred on a staggering scale across continents. It’s as old as history – from Roman legions despoiling Greece, to conquistadors melting down Inca gold – but the 20th century put looting into overdrive. We will discuss three of the most famous looted art pieces worldwide, and see why it’s never about the actual price of art that makes it a target.
But why do people loot art in the first place? Some motives are as old as war: conquerors take what is valuable to enrich themselves or display their dominance. Other times it’s opportunistic thieves amid chaos, or unscrupulous dealers feeding a lucrative international art market. Cyprus has lost a countless number of art pieces from monasteries and churches through the times, with its high point occurring 50 years ago.
How exactly do we get looted art back? The journey is often long and complex, but it can have a happy ending. With knowledge, empathy, and persistence, we can transform “lost and stolen” into “found and returned,” one treasure at a time.
_________________
Aleksandra Poliakova earned her Bachelor's degree in Middle Eastern History (the Faculty of Oriental Studies at the St. Petersburg State University), specializing in the History of Turkey. She also completed a four-year art course at the State Hermitage Museum, where she co-authored a collection of articles exploring the history of the St. Valerie reliquary housed in the Hermitage. In the years followed, Aleksandra furthered her education with courses at the University of Leeds, KLC School of Design, and the Università Bocconi, Milan. Aleksandra served as an assistant curator for the Larnaca Biennale 2023 and several international exhibitions in the Netherlands over the past two years, including the North Sea Jazz Festival 2024 in Rotterdam.