Inter alia, a piece in the New York Times asks a question about the Museum Case which has been bugging me for a while:

But why the focus on American museums? The simplest answer would appear to lie in when and how they acquired their collections.

For instance, the British Museum, the Louvre and the Pergamon in Berlin built their collections in the 19th and early 20th centuries when European explorers and archaeologists played a central role in rediscovering ancient civilizations. The results of the first excavations were often shipped directly to Northern European capitals. Only later were finds shared with host countries.

"Our works were acquired in a legal way according to the practice at the time," Henri Loyrette, the Louvre's director, said, noting that there are currently no claims on any of the museum's pieces. "Today, the situation is quite different. The finds evidently now stay in the countries. The issue today relates to the acquisition of new pieces."

This is where American museums come in. Many have relied on donations or purchases of collections assembled by private individuals who have acquired antiquities at auctions or from dealers. Further, while European museums today have modest acquisition budgets, some American museums, notably the Getty but also the Met, can still afford to buy valuable antiquities.

"European museums got lots of stuff 100 years ago so they can take the moral high ground," said Neil Brodie, research director of the Illicit Antiquities Research Center in Cambridge, England. "But if you establish a new museum like the Getty, you have to stock it."

In this, he said, American tax incentives play a key part. "If a private collector gives to a museum, he can claim back taxes," Mr. Brodie said. "So they work together. The museum has an interest in the private collector and even advises what to buy. So you can't separate private collectors and museums because of the tax situation."

Certainly, among the works mentioned in the case against Ms. True, there are 12 objects from among over 300 masterworks of Greek, Roman and Etruscan art collected by Lawrence and Barbara Fleischman and bought by the Getty in 1996. Similarly, some antiquities of concern to the Italian authorities belong to the Levy-White collection, which has other pieces on loan to the Met. Shelby White, the widow of Leon Levy, is a Met trustee.

... the whole thing. I guess that's also why there has been scant mention of the Elgin/Parthenon Marbles in relation to this thing ...