A Colorado auction house is selling Mexican antiquities. That nation's leaders say they're stolen

DENVER — The Mexican government is calling for a Colorado art gallery and auction house to return a selection of cultural items that representatives says were looted from their country.

Alejandra Frausto Guerrero, Mexico’s secretary of culture, demanded in a post on the social media site X on Tuesday that the Artemis Gallery in Louisville “stop the sale of pieces that belong to the cultures of Mexico.”

“There is nothing more immoral than (putting) a price on the heritage of a nation,” Frausto wrote, using the government’s hashtag #MyHeritageIsNotForSale.

Mexico’s first lady, Beatriz Gutiérrez Müller, also sounded the alarm over Thursday’s auction, writing in Spanish in a post on X that the pieces were “illegally stolen from our territory.”

Mexican officials flagged 25 pieces of pre-Columbian pottery in the Artemis auction that came from their country, with five of them deemed to be fakes, said Miguel Barradas, consul for protection and legal affairs in Mexico’s Denver consulate. The remaining 20 need to be repatriated to the country, he said.

“The burden of proof rests on the buyers, not on us,” Barradas said in an interview Thursday. “If they cannot prove they have an export certificate, we presume those pieces were looted and illegally trafficked.”

Mexico, like many other countries, has laws on the books concerning the sale of cultural property. Since 1897, no Mexican archaeological heritage can be subject to commercial transactions. The law stipulates that all archeological remains are property of the country, and their exportation is controlled by export certificates.

But, importantly, Mexican legislation carries no legal weight outside the country, meaning international auction houses and private dealers have no legal obligation to capitulate to Mexico’s demands.

“A a colonial argument that we don’t like”

Bob Dodge, Artemis’s owner, said the Mexican artifacts come from the estate of a deceased collector who contracted with his company to auction the objects. He would not name this individual.

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