Tiny French town demands the restitution of a religious reliquary from the Met

ARTNET NEWS

Reliquary bust of Saint Yrieix (ca. 1220–40). Gift of J. Pierpont Morgan to the Met in 1917. Public domain.

A commune in the Nouvelle-Aquitaine region of France is asking for the restitution of an 11th-century reliquary bust that has been in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York since 1917. Last Wednesday, January 10, Daniel Boisserie, mayor of the small town of Saint-Yrieix-La-Perche in west-central France, sent a letter to the Met via the Ministry of Europe and Foreign Affairs, and the French Embassy in the United States, officially asking for the return of the artifact: A gold and silver, jewel-encrusted bust of Saint Yrieix, which once contained the skull bones of the saint. [More]