Hartwig Fischer has stepped down after admitting the 270-year-old institution was facing a situation of the “utmost seriousness”.
from its collection, admitting the institution was facing a situation “of the utmost seriousness”.
Fischer, who became director of the museum in 2016 and was the first non-British head of the institution since 1866, had been strongly criticised in past days over his handling of warnings by Dutch art dealer Ittai Gradel in 2021 that objects had been stolen from the museum and were for sale on eBay.
Peter Higgs, a senior curator at the museum who had worked there for 30 years, was sacked in July this year after the museum was told that priceless treasures had vanished. Staff and conservators who “loved the objects” were “in tears” after an internal investigation revealed the scale of the losses,On Thursday police said that a man had been interviewed after the alleged thefts of ancient artefacts.
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