- U.S. returns smuggled artwork, asks Italy to combat piracy
- Pillagers of ancient site jailed
- O'Keeffe Dealer Has Doubts
- U.S. museum finds painting handled by Nazi dealer
- http://www.nationalmuseums.org.uk/spoilation.html
Spoliation of works of art during the Holocaust and World War II period First Progress Report on Provenance Research for the Period 1933-1945
U.S. returns smuggled artwork, asks Italy to combat piracy
ROME (February 29, 2000 1:16 p.m. EST http://www.nandotimes.com) - The United States returned a 2,450-year-old golden plate that had been smuggled out of Italy, but asked Italy in return Tuesday to clamp down on modern-day pirates. U.S. Ambassador Thomas Foglietta praised Italian police and U.S. customs workers for tracking down the artifact, but urged Italy in turn to crack down on pirated American goods at a ceremony marking the return of the Greek-inspired vessel. "The works of genius of living artists may seem more prosaic, but they also need to be protected from theft," Foglietta said, referring to unauthorized copies of music CDs and computer software widely sold in Italy and other nations. Italy's culture minister said the return of the solid gold platter, which dates from 450 B.C., when Sicily was ruled by Greece, marked a step forward for repatriation of cultural artifacts. "In the future, when treasures are stolen, they must be returned to their country of origin," Culture Minister Giovanna Melandri said at a news conference displaying the glittering plate together with a Roman fresco returned from Switzerland. The plate was excavated illegally during construction work near Palermo, Sicily around 1984, spirited to Switzerland in 1991 and then bought by a Manhattan collector. The collector fought a five-year legal battle to retain possession but eventually lost out when the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear his appeal against a July 1999 repatriation order. The fresco depicting a peacock, dating from first-century Pompeii and missing since 1957, was returned following its discovery by officials examining a private Swiss collector's catalogue.
Pillagers of ancient site jailed
By Arieh O'Sullivan
- The Jerusalem Magistrate's Court yesterday sentenced two men to one year in jail each for destroying an ancient Jewish site in their search for coins and other artifacts. The ruling came as archeologists said there is a marked rise in the theft of antiquities and damage to ancient sites due to the expected rush of Christian pilgrims expected. They said antiquity merchants have been "ordering" antiquities so they can stock their shelves. In October, agents from the Antiquities Authority's Unit for the Prevention of Theft of Antiquities caught the two men red-handed, as they were rummaging through an ancient hilltop village in the Elah Valley. They had dug up and damaged the Second Temple-era ruins of Raboa near Moshav Aderet. The men had a sophisticated metal detector worth some $1,500, knives and digging equipment. The two, from Nuba and Harath in the West Bank, told the agents they were looking for rare coins from the time of the Bar Kochba revolt (113 CE). These coins are sought after by collectors and some are worth tens of thousands of dollars. "The one-year prison sentence is bound to deter and retard pillaging," said Amir Ganor, head of the Antiquities Authority unit that captured the men. Ganor said they could have been jailed for up to three years, but that jail terms for antiquities thefts are rare. "Still, we are satisfied with the sentence. I think it is a deterrent and will reduce the phenomena. We had six gangs operating in the Judean hills and the moment they hear of this punishment it will have an effect," Ganor said.
http://www.jpost.com/Editions/2000/02/23/News/News.3082.html
O'Keeffe Dealer Has Doubts
Journal Staff and Wire Reports
A Santa Fe art dealer who had defended the authenticity of some Georgia O'Keeffe watercolors he sold to a Kansas City museum now says he has his own doubts about at least some of the paintings. The dealer, Gerald Peters, took back the paintings, part of the Canyon Suite, after the collection was left out of a catalogue of O'Keeffe's work put together by art experts. Experts from the National Gallery of Art in Washington, who put together the "catalogue raisonne" of 2,000 works by the painter, deemed the collection inauthentic because the age of the paper on which the works were painted was not consistent with the 1916-18 dates attributed to the watercolors. They also concluded the types of paper differed from those normally used by O'Keeffe, who died in New Mexico in 1986. Peters said in January he would refund $5.5 million to the museum. The 24 vividly colored paintings were purchased by Kansas City banker R. Crosby Kemper and displayed in his museum, the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art. Peters had defended the authenticity of the works. But late Friday, his executive assistant, Ja Soon Kim, said "several things have happened recently that made us feel that the catalogue raisonne people are partially correct." She said that Peters believes that some of the paintings may prove to be authentic, but others may not. She said Peters feels "horrible" and reiterated that he has agreed to make "our client whole." A onetime protegé of O'Keeffe in January filed a copyright claim asserting that some of the series of disputed watercolors are his own work and that others are the result of collaboration between him and the world-famous artist. Jackie Suazo, a 64-year-old retired state employee who lives in Santa Fe, has yet to say which of the paintings he believes are his. Suazo, who grew up in Abiquiu and was tutored by O'Keeffe in the late 1940s and '50s, said he left hundreds of paintings at O'Keeffe's compound there. The situation is being investigated by the FBI, said Doug Beldon, supervisory special agent in Albuquerque. "At the moment, all I can tell you is we are taking a preliminary look into the factual and legal issues concerning those paintings," Beldon said.
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U.S. museum finds painting handled by Nazi dealer
By Joan Gralla NEW YORK, Feb 29 (Reuters) - The National Gallery of Art in Washington has found that one of its paintings went through the hands of a well-known Nazi art dealer, which means it might have been looted from Jews, a U.S-based Jewish advocacy group said on Tuesday. The work, called "Still Life with Fruit and Game" by the noted 16th century Flemish painter Frans Synders, was red-flagged because it was handled by Karl Haberstock, whom the World Jewish Congress called "one of the most notorious of Nazi art dealers." U.S. museums in mid-1998 promised to check their collections to see if they had any of an estimated 600,000 artworks stolen by the Nazis. But the WJC has faulted the museums for waiting for works to be claimed, instead of publicly announcing that they have suspect art. The advocacy group on Tuesday praised the National Gallery for putting the provenance of all its artworks on the Internet to make it easy for people to find out if it has works that the Nazis stole from their families. "The National Gallery itself undertook an inventory of its holdings to look for problematic works," Elan Steinberg, WJC executive director, told Reuters. "Today, it reported to the commission that it is even improving its Web site to let people plug in, in the case of a Nazi art dealer or the name of a particular family, to make the job infinitely easier and more logical." Steinberg was referring to the Presidential Advisory Commission on Holocaust Assets in the United States, which is chaired by WJC President Edgar Bronfman. The commission was set up to to explore how the United States handled Holocaust assets, and to review the research being conducted by other groups. Steinberg said that at its meeting on Tuesday, the commission was told some 400,000 pages of documents, a new treasure trove of material on the Holocaust that had been classified, had been handed to the National Archives. "The documents are central to uncovering the truth about that period," Steinberg said. He added the reports will help the Commission locate and return to Holocaust survivors the valuables that were stolen from them. The reports, which all relate to the Holocaust era, were prepared by: the CIA, the FBI, the National Security Council, the departments of justice, state and defense, and other agencies. Most of the documents -- some 300,000 pages -- deal with the ex-Nazi scientists who were brought to the United States to help it win the space race, Steinberg said. Other reports focus on gold looted by the Nazis from European central banks and Holocaust victims, plundered art, and so-called enemy assets -- which lumped together property owned by Nazis and Jewish victims. Separately, the top U.S. negotiator in Holocaust restitution talks with Germany told lawyers who represent survivors that the Austrian government, in addition to its industry, plans to contribute to a new compensation fund. A spokeswoman for U.S. Deputy Treasury Secretary Stuart Eizenstat said he was not immediately available. Austria has been shunned by the European Union, Israel and the United States since early February, when its coalition government shared power with the anti-immigrant Freedom party. Its leader, Joerg Haider, appeared to downplay the importance of Nazi atrocities. Though Haider now has resigned, Austria still is being scrutinized by Western governments to see if it has renounced his views.
REUTERS
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Spoliation of works of art during the Holocaust and World War II period
First Progress Report on Provenance Research for the Period 1933-1945
Background
In June 1998 the National Museum Directors' Conference (NMDC) established a working group to examine the issues surrounding the spoliation of art during the Holocaust and World War II period and draw up a Statement of Principles and proposed actions for member institutions. The Statement was finalised and adopted by the NMDC in November, 1998 and presented to the Washington Conference on Holocaust Assets in December 1998. Its recommendations included a proposal that each national museum, gallery or library should draw up an action plan setting out their planned approach to research into the issue of provenance. A similar statement was issued by the Museums & Galleries Commission in April 1999, as guidance for non-national museums and galleries. An external advisory committee is reviewing progress and advising on the actions necessary to fulfill the statement of principles.
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