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No stone unturned in erasing Sackler at the British Museum

An inscription of the beleaguered family's name is set to be removed from a stone lintel

The Art Newspaper
1 September 2023
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The Sackler name is being erased from the British Museum

Photo by Paul Hudson, via Flickr

The Sackler name is being erased from the British Museum

Photo by Paul Hudson, via Flickr

The British Museum's woes pile up.... and the Sackler funding saga rolls on with the London museum set to remove an inscription bearing the family name from a stone lintel within the museum. Last year, George Osborne, the museum’s chairman, announced that an agreement had been reached that “the Sackler name will be removed” (the name has become indelibly linked to the opioid epidemic that some members of the family profited from via their company Purdue Pharma). A planning application was recently submitted to Camden Council, as required for a listed building: “20mm of existing stone depth to be carefully removed” from the lintel. Looks like even a name set in stone is not set in stone...

DiaryBritish MuseumSackler familyPhilanthropy
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