Sotheby’s Sale Of Disputed Pre-Columbian Art Falls Flat

“Four Latin American nations – Mexico, Peru, Guatemala and Costa Rica – had objected to the sale, and the controversy was publicized heavily in the European media. About half the items from the Barbier-Mueller collection sold in the face of assertions by the four nations that more than 100 of the 313 lots had been illegally exported in the 1900s.”