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May 25, 2000

CONTENTS:




- Trace is now Invaluable (Free magazine for Museum Security Network subscribers)
- Re.: Sprinkler systems/fire suppression systems in museums
- Britain wins support over Elgin Marbles
- Academics at war in Marbles forum
- Mexico's Femsa brewer to shut down art museum
- Saving Imperiled Sites (The World Monuments Fund Spreads $1 Million Around the World)

From: "Katrina Burroughs" kbtrace@kbtrace.free-online.co.uk
Subject:

Trace is now Invaluable

Trace is now Invaluable

Invaluable magazine, formerly known as Trace, is the full-colour monthly publication that goes to private collectors, auctioneers, museums and galleries, loss adjusters, insurers and law enforcement agencies, worldwide. It is the only magazine of its type in the world. Invaluable magazine is part of a comprehensive stolen search service, called Invaluable Protect, which matches objects coming up at auction and in dealers' stock every day against our secure database of over 100,000 stolen items and operates an investigation and police liaison team of several ex-Art and Antiques police officers led by Dick Ellis, who recently left the Art Squad at New Scotland Yard. The company also operate an auction search service for dealers and collectors, called Invaluable Finder, to help them replace stock or complete a collection. For further details of Invaluable products and services, for auction information, sale and exhibition reviews and daily art market news, go to http://www.Invaluable.com
Free year's subscription to Invaluable for Museum Security Network subscribersEmail quentin@thesaurus.co.uk for a year's free subscription to the magazine or visit Invaluable.com for full details.

From: Ryo Yasui zakvaran@POP12.ODN.NE.JP
Subject:

Re.: Sprinkler systems/fire suppression systems in museums

Nohmi Bosai Ltd. in Tokyo Japan is the leading expert in sprinkler systems and fire suppression systems. Their homepage is:
http://www.nohmi.co.jp/eigo/eigo.html
I hope this helps !
Ryo Yasui
Lecturer in Museum Studies
Obirin University
POB 13, Turukawa
Machida-shi 195
Japan

Britain wins support over Elgin Marbles

FROM JAMES PRINGLE IN ATHENS
BRITAIN received unexpected support for its retention of the Elgin Marbles at the first international conference to discuss their fate. A Dutch scholar said that Greece's arguments on why the Marbles should be returned "were not those of a modern nation". Professor Anton van Hoof, of Nijmegen University told some 200 academics at the Grande Bretagne Hotel in Athens: "The British have done a good job of protecting the Marbles. Mistakes have been made [by the British) but they have been made in good faith. It is not yet the time to bring the Marbles to an Athens Museum."
Professor van Hoof added: "There is no doubt that the Marbles have made a bigger impact in London than they would have done in Athens. "Great art is not one nation's property. I was happy to see an American admiring a painting by the great Dutch painter, Vermeer, when I visited a museum in New York. It made my national pride swell and the Greeks should feel the same about having the Marbles at the British Museum." He was warmly applauded by an audience that included a good number of Greek academics but Professor Nikolaos Cholevas of the National Polytechnic School in Athens disagreed. He said that the British Museum might be reluctant to give up the Marbles, which have been on show since 1817, because of the revenue it would lose.
He said that Greece had the knowledge and the means to preserve the Marbles and asked: "Could Tony Blair be looking for financial remuneration in order to return the Marbles to Greece?" Professor Cholevas said that Thomas Bruce, the 7th Earl of Elgin, had "massacred" the Marbles when he transported them from Athens. They had also suffered damage in the British Museum. "The argument that the sculptures are better protected in London is not justified any more." The British historian William St Clair said that there were arguments both ways. He had found "absolutely overwhelming" evidence of the erosion of the Parthenon before and after Elgin was there. "Fragments of the Parthenon turned up all over the place in 19th century Europe, and in gardens in England," he said. "Sailors calling at the port of Pireaus with money in their pockets would buy or just chop of part of a nose, and there were heads and legs missing. If Elgin had not taken what he did those particular slabs might have been eroded further." But Mr St Clair said that public opinion in Britain and in British Parliament "seemed to be moving in favour of the Greek claim". His book Lord Elgin and the Marbles claimed that the Marbles were scraped at the British Museum in the 1930s so that their honey-coloured patina changed to white, the colour that the public thought they should be.
The British Musuem has admitted that the Marbles were "affected" by cleaning in the Thirties.
(Times London)

Academics at war in Marbles forum

FROM JAMES PRINGLE IN ATHENS

IT WAS almost like the Peloponnesian War all over again when academics clashed here yesterday on the second day of an international conference over the return of the Elgin Marbles to Greece. Feelings were running so high that one distinguished British figure even referred to the British Museum, currently home to the Marbles, as "the enemy". Graham Binns, chairman of the British Committee for the Restitution of the Parthenon Marbles to Greece, was speaking at the first ever international conference on the Marbles, removed from the Parthenon by Lord Elgin at the beginning of the 19th century. "We know we are winning," he said. "The enemy has just to recognise that it has lost." However, William St Clair, the British historian who first exposed the British Museum's scraping of the marbles in the late 1930s in his book Lord Elgin and the Marbles, said: "Talk of war is completely inappropriate. This is not Kosovo or Sierra Leone." Anton van Hoof, a Dutch classicist, who caused the biggest stir when he said that the British had done a good job looking after the Marbles, added in an interview that speakers who supported their return were repeating the same old arguments. He said that some people at the conference had applauded his alternative point of view. David Hill, a member of the Australian delegation, told the conference: "The overwhelming majority of people here have supported the return of the Marbles." Conference organisers said that the British Museum had been invited to attend the session but had declined.

(Times London)

Mexico's Femsa brewer to shut down art museum

MONTERREY, Mexico, May 24 (Reuters) - Mexican brewer and bottler FEMSA (NYSE:FMX - news) said on Wednesday it plans to shut down the oldest museum in the northern industrial city of Monterrey, which it housed and sponsored for 22 years. FEMSA, Mexico's second largest brewer, said it planned to shift the emphasis of its philanthropic efforts toward education, helping the poor and protecting the environment, but that it will continue to sponsor some cultural events. The Monterrey Museum, located in one of Femsa's breweries, has been a local showcase for the works of artists such as Pablo Picasso, Salvador Dali, Rufino Tamayo and Yoko Ono and entry was free. It will close on Sunday, local media reported. FEMSA did not say how much the museum costs to run, but said the closure was not related to the company's financial performance.

Saving Imperiled Sites

The World Monuments Fund Spreads $1 Million Around the World

by Robert Locke Egypt's fabled Valley of the Kings is overwhelmed by tourists. Mexico's eighteenth-century Santa Prisca Parish Church was battered by earthquakes. An ancient rock-art giraffe in Niger suffers from time and weather. These are among 20 historic and prehistoric sites receiving preservation grants from the World Monuments Fund and American Express Company. American Express, in 1995, pledged $10 million over 10 years to launch the Fund's World Monument Watch. The program issues its list of the world's 100 Most Endangered Sites to draw attention, support, and money to important cultural sites in danger of destruction. It also uses the American Express funding to directly help some of those sites with grants. This year's grants: Robert Locke is Executive Editor of Scientific American Discovering Archaeology.
http://www.worldmonuments.org/