The Contested Crown
Repatriation Politics between Europe and Mexico
9780226802060
9780226802237
The Contested Crown
Repatriation Politics between Europe and Mexico
Publication supported by the Neil Harris Endowment Fund
Following conflicting desires for an Aztec crown, this book explores the possibilities of repatriation.
In The Contested Crown, Khadija von Zinnenburg Carroll meditates on the case of a spectacular feather headdress believed to have belonged to Montezuma, emperor of the Aztecs. This crown has long been the center of political and cultural power struggles, and it is one of the most contested museum claims between Europe and the Americas. Taken to Europe during the conquest of Mexico, it was placed at Ambras Castle, the Habsburg residence of the author’s ancestors, and is now in Vienna’s Welt Museum. Mexico has long requested to have it back, but the Welt Museum uses science to insist it is too fragile to travel.
Both the biography of a cultural object and a history of collecting and colonizing, this book offers an artist’s perspective on the creative potentials of repatriation. Carroll compares Holocaust and colonial ethical claims, and she considers relationships between indigenous people, international law and the museums that amass global treasures, the significance of copies, and how conservation science shapes collections. Illustrated with diagrams and rare archival material, this book brings together global history, European history, and material culture around this fascinating object and the debates about repatriation.
In The Contested Crown, Khadija von Zinnenburg Carroll meditates on the case of a spectacular feather headdress believed to have belonged to Montezuma, emperor of the Aztecs. This crown has long been the center of political and cultural power struggles, and it is one of the most contested museum claims between Europe and the Americas. Taken to Europe during the conquest of Mexico, it was placed at Ambras Castle, the Habsburg residence of the author’s ancestors, and is now in Vienna’s Welt Museum. Mexico has long requested to have it back, but the Welt Museum uses science to insist it is too fragile to travel.
Both the biography of a cultural object and a history of collecting and colonizing, this book offers an artist’s perspective on the creative potentials of repatriation. Carroll compares Holocaust and colonial ethical claims, and she considers relationships between indigenous people, international law and the museums that amass global treasures, the significance of copies, and how conservation science shapes collections. Illustrated with diagrams and rare archival material, this book brings together global history, European history, and material culture around this fascinating object and the debates about repatriation.
Download the free, open-access text at BiblioOpen.org.
200 pages | 27 halftones | 6 x 9 | © 2022
Anthropology: Cultural and Social Anthropology
Art: Art--General Studies
History: European History, Latin American History
Reviews
Table of Contents
Introduction
Chapter 1: Writing as Listening
Chapter 2: El Penacho
Chapter 3: The View from the Vitrine
Chapter 4: The Real and the Replica
Chapter 5: Collecting and Catastrophe
Chapter 6: Monuments and Exile
Chapter 7: Relational Ethics and the Future of Museums
Acknowledgments
Notes
Bibliography
Index
Chapter 1: Writing as Listening
Chapter 2: El Penacho
Chapter 3: The View from the Vitrine
Chapter 4: The Real and the Replica
Chapter 5: Collecting and Catastrophe
Chapter 6: Monuments and Exile
Chapter 7: Relational Ethics and the Future of Museums
Acknowledgments
Notes
Bibliography
Index
