Today, while sitting in the middle of a normal law faculty meeting, I received an exciting text message. The (in)famous Romanian Helmet of Coțofenești, stolen last year from a temporary loan to the Drents Museum here in the Netherlands, had not been melted down like I, and most people, thought. It had been recovered! Well done everyone who worked on the recovery. PRESS CONFERENCE AT 2pm!

Unfortunately I had a meeting with a master’s student at 2pm, but fortunately she is a native Dutch speaker who is well aware of her professor’s strong interest in theft and return of gold artefacts. We settled down to watch the press conference, putting our talk about ecocide in Suriname aside for a moment.

What we saw was a classic security show, with some “oo-aah” art effects. Art is display. The return of art is theatrics. The response to an embarrassing lack of security that allowed theft is a weird performance of security for the cameras. It’s probably best I just post some of the screen shots that I took.

Before the start and throughout the event, two masked, armed, and terrifying police officers in riot gear stood guard. None of the museumy people or reporters were in riot gear, this didn’t really seem like a riot gear situation. But we’ve seen this level of security coded police in various art return ceremonies. The outfits not only signal the value of the art, they signal protection…protection that was clearly lacking at one key point in the objects’ past, but won’t be lacking again. This time, this time, they’ve got guns…

When it came time to reveal the helmet, they did a cloth lift reveal. Ta-da! There was even a “Drie…twee…een!” The reveal was followed by silence, then some slow and uneasy applause. Was this a clapping moment? No one seemed to know. Uncertain. Fair enough.

I know nothing more about the case at the moment, but the show was there to watch. Uncertain.