Auction site Catawiki under fire for trading in archaeological finds

The police want the well-known auction site Catawiki to stop offering archaeological objects if their provenance is unclear. The auction site has little internal control and transparency regarding these objects, making the risk of illegality significant, the Dutch police’s Art Crime Department and archeological experts told the Telegraaf, calling Catawiki an “absolute danger” to archeological treasures.

Cultural heritage offered in the art trade must include provenance documentation to show they were legally obtained. In 2015, art expert Mike van der Steenhoven studied antiquities from Egypt offered on the site and found that less than 17 percent of the objects had a statement of origin supported by appropriate documents. Catawiki has done nothing with his recommendations since then, Van der Steenhoven told the newspaper.

“The major problem with these antiquities is that it is difficult or impossible to determine whether they have been obtained legally,’ Richard Bronswijk of the police’s Art Crime Team told the newspaper. “A huge number of objects are illegally extracted or exported in countries like Egypt or Iraq. Catawiki is not careful about clarity and control of the origin.”

According to Bronswijk, traders often work under a profile name, and only Catawiki knows their identity. “It is very difficult for investigators to identify them. Catawiki risks auctioning looted objects from conflict areas through their podium and thereby being complicit in crimes against humanity.”

Catawiki has “experts” tasked with assessing pieces and providing a hallmark for legality. But according to Lynda Albertson, head of the Association for Research into Crimes against Art, it is impossible to assess objects from a distance. “I analyzed ten auctions in one month with more than a thousand ancient objects. It is impossible for a handful of experts to properly check so many objects in a few weeks. Moreover, they don’t even have a real archaeological background,” Albertson said. She called the site an “absolute danger’ to archeological treasures.

In a response to the Telegraaf, Catawiki pointed out that Van der Steenhoven’s research is eight years old, focused only on Egyptian objects, and its conclusions are difficult to verify. Catawiki said it has a zero-tolerance policy for illegal trading.

“Unlike most other marketplaces, we employ hundreds of qualified experts to select and check each item against strict guidelines and applicable regulations before it goes on sale,” the auction site said. “Every year, our experts reject thousands of archaeological objects that do not meet our guidelines, and issues are, therefore, extremely rare on Catawiki. We take questions about the provenance of objects very seriously.”