February 7, 2000

CONTENTS:

Mudslide threat to Peruvian art

Greece offered deal for Elgin Marbles

GREECE offered a secret compromise in the row over the Elgin Marbles by asking for just a handful of the carvings in exchange for dropping its claim for the entire collection held in the British Museum, according to newly released documents. The Elgin Marbles: the Athens government said it would drop its claim to the carvings in return for a small number of pediment figures The Athens government said it would drop its long-standing claim to the 2,500-year-old carvings, removed from the Parthenon by Lord Elgin in 1801, if Whitehall and the British Museum would discreetly return a small number of pediment figures to Athens. The claim will weaken Greek demands that all the carvings "plundered" by Lord Elgin should be returned home. It may also pave the way for a deal to end the dispute. The Greek compromise was made in 1994, according to private British Museum documents shown to Art Newspaper this week as part of the museum's new policy to be less secretive. In July 1994, the then Department of National Heritage wrote to Dr Robert Anderson, director of the British Museum, relaying a conversation between its minister, Baroness Trumpington, and Thanis Mikroutsikos, a composer and Greek Minister of Culture. Mr Mikroutsikos was reported as saying Athens "would consider agreeing to the low-profile return of certain free-standing figures from the Parthenon rather than continue to press for the return of all fragments". The Greek embassy in London said it could not confirm or deny the offer until it had heard from Athens. A spokesman stressed that the official line was that all the marbles should be returned. more at:
1 December 1999: ] Curator comes clean over Elgin Marbles 1 December 1999: ] Museum in stew as Greeks object to an Elgin entrée 29 November 1999: ] Museum to come clean over Elgin Marbles 27 October 1999: ] Museum permits Greeks to inspect Elgin Marbles 21 October 1999: [Features] It's a can of worms - but maybe one worth opening 28 July 1999: ] Elgin marbles 'staying' 27 July 1999: ] Plan to return the Elgin Marbles 8 June 1998: Cleaning 'scarred' Elgin Marbles 3 April 1996: ] Elgin Marbles could go home

Lawrence University Suffers Theft of Rare Books

Arrests Made in Irish Theft

N.C. Museum Has Nazi-Looted Art

RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) - A North Carolina art museum has concluded that a 16th-century German painting in its collection was stolen by Nazis from a Jewish collector. In making the announcement Thursday, North Carolina Museum of Art Director Lawrence Wheeler said he hoped the heirs of Philipp von Gomperz of Vienna, Austria, would allow the painting, ``Madonna and Child in a Landscape,'' to stay at the museum. ``We would certainly like to discuss with them the possibility of the painting remaining in Raleigh, where it has been a much-loved treasure ... for 16 years,'' Wheeler said. Last March, the World Jewish Congress advised the museum that two elderly Viennese sisters - Marianne and Cornelia Hainisch - claimed their great-uncle had owned the painting by Lucas Cranach the Elder prior to World War II. The case was one of a number to emerge in recent years in which museums were alleged to be holding artworks plundered by the Nazis. The North Carolina museum then worked with the sisters' representatives - the Holocaust Claims Processing Office of the New York state Banking Department - to prove their ownership. Last month, the museum confirmed the painting - one in a series of devotional images of the Madonna and infant Jesus produced in Cranach's workshop around 1518 - was the same one stolen from Gomperz, a wealthy industrialist. According to German documents, the painting was seized by the Gestapo in 1940. Gomperz had fled Austria in 1938 after it was annexed by Nazi Germany, but was forced to leave some of his collection behind. The documents also record its ``sale'' in 1943 to Baldur von Schirach, the Nazi governor of Austria. Following the collapse of the Third Reich in 1945, the painting vanished, then reappeared in the hands of several New York art dealers, who sold it to George and Marianne Khuner. The museum obtained the painting from Marianne Khuner's estate in 1984. Wheeler, in a letter faxed Thursday to the Holocaust Claims Processing Office, wrote that ``we are pleased that in the end we are able to effect a decision that so perfectly accords with the dictates of basic human justice.'' Monica Dugot, deputy director of the Holocaust Claims Processing Office, did not immediately return a phone call seeking comment on whether the sisters would consider letting the museum continue to exhibit the painting. Ronald Lauder, chairman of the Commission for Art Recovery, said the case was the first he knew of where an American museum has agreed to Holocaust-related claims without a lawsuit.
``It's extremely, extremely good news,'' he said Friday. ``What's so special about this case is the museum looked at the facts, understood the case and did the right thing,'' he said. ``I think this ids a very, very important case.''
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/ap/20000204/us/nazi_loot_1.html

A Book By Copernicus Stolen From Saint Petersburg Library

Re: STOLEN: De Revolutionibus Orbium Coelestium

Reporting on damage to artifacts

Historic one-room school torched

Painting in hallway was Old Master worth GBP.2m

A PICTURE which hung almost unnoticed in the hallway of a family's home has been identified as a 17th century Italian Old Master worth up to GBP.2 million. The anonymous couple who inherited the painting 20 years ago called in a valuer from Sotheby's when their household contents insurance policy needed renewing. But the painting in the hallway was not the one which they regarded as important. They asked Sotheby's for a valuation on two 19th century pictures hanging in their living room which turned out to be of modest worth. However, the valuer decided to take a photograph of the painting in the hall as well as of the two in the sitting room and sent the photo to Richard Charlton-Jones, a director of Sotheby's Old Master paintings department in London. He recognised the picture in the hallway as a beautifully preserved and previously unknown work by the Italian Baroque artist Orazio Gentileschi, who became court painter to Charles I of England in 1626. The Holy Family with the infant St John the Baptist is expected to fetch GBP.1.5 million to GBP.2 million in Sotheby's auction of Old Masters in London on July 6. "The photograph dropped on my desk and I almost dropped off my chair," said Mr Charlton-Jones. "It is one of the most exciting discoveries I have ever made. It only took about a second to recognise it. He has an individual style which can be identified very quickly."
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/et?ac=000540194043784&rtmo=aTqd4BhJ&atmo=KKKKKKHM&pg=/et/00/2/7/npic07.html