Print ArticleWas Seinfeld right, is Joseph Garnish more than what he seems?
I vaguely recalled an episode of Seinfeld in 1997 where Jerry tries to convince his girlfriend Celia that the idea behind putting a sprig of parsley on a plate was the brainchild of one Joseph Garnish. She said he´s making it up, and in the same scene Jerry spots some classic toys of hers. She says her dad was a collector, she inherited them.
Wow! said Jerry. What a collection!
Wow! said I, when I saw an item from a web site that tracks stolen antiquities. It described some pottery made in 3,000 B.C. stolen from an Egyptian museum that showed up for sale at Bonhams, a posh London auction house in their October 2004 ´Antiquities´ sale. (The McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, Downing Street, Cambridge, UK, www.mcdonald.cam.ac.uk)
Luckily they were recognized, the sale stopped and the pieces returned to Egypt. The site goes on to explain that, hmm...
"The vessels were said to have been sold to the consignor by the grandson of one Joseph Garnish, who was said in turn to have acquired them while working in Cairo for a mining company in the 1930s."
Suspicious, I said to wife. Like Celia, she says, "You´re making this up."
No, I´m not making it up, and further on in the site they explain, "...it has the appearance of a false provenance constructed to cover the entry onto the market of material illegally exported from Egypt, and any object bearing that provenance must be viewed as suspect."
I´ll say.
Then in February on NewYorkTimes.com and Bloomberg.com, a story pops up about an Army helicopter pilot, CWO Edward Johnson, once stationed in Egypt, who is charged with wire fraud and selling dozens of stolen Egyptian artifacts. More details surface and we learn he´s accused of selling ancient pottery that he claims were acquired by his grandfather, who had worked in Egypt for a mining company, the name of the grandfather... wait for it... Joseph Garnish.
Johnson, grandson of Garnish, will be appearing in the U. S. Southern District Court in Manhattan on August 25 and at that time we´ll find out more. Till then keep an eye on any sprig of parsley that shows up on your plate, or better yet keep an eye on your plate!
I vaguely recalled an episode of Seinfeld in 1997 where Jerry tries to convince his girlfriend Celia that the idea behind putting a sprig of parsley on a plate was the brainchild of one Joseph Garnish. She said he´s making it up, and in the same scene Jerry spots some classic toys of hers. She says her dad was a collector, she inherited them.
Wow! said Jerry. What a collection!
Wow! said I, when I saw an item from a web site that tracks stolen antiquities. It described some pottery made in 3,000 B.C. stolen from an Egyptian museum that showed up for sale at Bonhams, a posh London auction house in their October 2004 ´Antiquities´ sale. (The McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, Downing Street, Cambridge, UK, www.mcdonald.cam.ac.uk)
Luckily they were recognized, the sale stopped and the pieces returned to Egypt. The site goes on to explain that, hmm...
"The vessels were said to have been sold to the consignor by the grandson of one Joseph Garnish, who was said in turn to have acquired them while working in Cairo for a mining company in the 1930s."
Suspicious, I said to wife. Like Celia, she says, "You´re making this up."
No, I´m not making it up, and further on in the site they explain, "...it has the appearance of a false provenance constructed to cover the entry onto the market of material illegally exported from Egypt, and any object bearing that provenance must be viewed as suspect."
I´ll say.
Then in February on NewYorkTimes.com and Bloomberg.com, a story pops up about an Army helicopter pilot, CWO Edward Johnson, once stationed in Egypt, who is charged with wire fraud and selling dozens of stolen Egyptian artifacts. More details surface and we learn he´s accused of selling ancient pottery that he claims were acquired by his grandfather, who had worked in Egypt for a mining company, the name of the grandfather... wait for it... Joseph Garnish.
Johnson, grandson of Garnish, will be appearing in the U. S. Southern District Court in Manhattan on August 25 and at that time we´ll find out more. Till then keep an eye on any sprig of parsley that shows up on your plate, or better yet keep an eye on your plate!
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