The Empty Showcase Syndrome: Tough Questions about Cultural Heritage from Colonial Regions

European countries, including the Netherlands, are increasingly more willing to return looted art to their former colonies. In doing so, however, they are confronted with hard choices. In The Empty Showcase Syndrome, Jos van Beurden explores three of the toughest questions that countries and governments face. First, former colonial powers often hesitate to relinquish control over the provenance research into the looted items to their former colonies. Secondly, most private owners keep quiet about their collections, while these collections should also be included in the restitution debates. Finally, many former colonies struggle with the question of where exactly the returned collections should go: to their national museums or to the old royal houses or indigenous communities from which these collections were stolen. In this book, Jos van Beurden uses many examples from the Netherlands, which has recently returned stolen art to Indonesia and Sri Lanka.

Dr. Jos van Beurden is a senior researcher colonial cultural collections and restitution (Free University, Amsterdam). His most recent publications are: Treasures in Trusted Hands - Negotiating the Future of Colonial Cultural Objects (Leiden 2017) (nominated for the NWO Boekman Dissertation Price), and The Return of Cultural and Historical Treasures - The Case of the Netherlands (Amsterdam 2012).
For his merits in the cultural heritage field, Van Beurden was appointed Officer in the Order of Orange Nassau. Jos van Beurden is founder of the news-clipping service RM* (restitution matters).