October 16, 2000
CONTENTS:
- International Journal of CULTURAL PROPERTY
- International Symposium CLAIMS FOR THE RESTITUTION OF LOOTED ART
- Man Who Knew of Stolen Art is Freed
- Don't return artefacts to Nigeria
(Leading expert on Nigerian antiquities warns that government and museum officials in the country are involved with the illicit trade of artefacts to the West)
- Filonov drawings stolen by curators returned to Russia by Pompidou Centre
(Guggenheim representative applies legal pressure on French government)
- Chinese books stolen from Harvard
- Stolen art may be in Sydney
- Search for Nazi ghosts in gallery
- McKenney & Hall volumes stolen
- Have a Captain Cook at these gems - for a price
- Balkan art news
- Picassos, or Maybe Not Picassos, Surface in Turkey
- Vandalism and Theft at a World Heritage Fossil Site
- The Art Newspaper.com (http://www.theartnewspaper.com); this week's top stories
- Catastrophies and catastrophy management in museums International Congres, Sarajevo, April 17 - 21, 2001
International Journal of CULTURAL PROPERTY, Volume 9 (2000) number 1.
Oxford University Press.
The International Cultural Property Society.
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Contents Vol. 9, number 1, 2000
ARTICLES:
- Site Management at Giza Plateau. Master plan for the conservation of the site.
- The Ooverty of Documentary Heritage in Nigeria
CASE NOTES:
- Second Circuit Holds that False Statements Contained in Customs Forms Warrant Forfeiture of Ancient Gold Phiale - Hotly Contested Foreign Patrimony Issue Not Reached by the Court: United States v. An Antique Platter of Gold.
DOCUMENTS:
- American Association of Museums Guidelines Concerning the Unlawful Approprition of Objects during the Nazi Era.
- The Problem of Unpublished Archaeological Excavations.
plus: CONFERENCE REPORTS, and BOOK REVIEWS.
International Symposium CLAIMS FOR THE RESTITUTION OF LOOTED ART.
Geneva Art-Law Centre symposium November 10, 2000.
One day symposium.
Speakers:
- Clemens Toiussaint
- Michail Piotrovsky
- Connie Lowenthal
- Manlio Frogoi
- Kurt Siehr
- Stephen Urice
- Norman Palmer
- Leila Anglade
- Maritza Rigou
- Andrea Rascher
- Luc Thévenoz
Register:
Art-Law Centre
120b rue de Lausanne
1202 GENEVA (fax: +41 22 7311261)
Price: CHF: 450,00
email: alc@art-law.org
Man Who Knew of Stolen Art is Freed
By THEO EMERY, Associated Press Writer
BOSTON (AP) - A former antiques dealer who has had an intriguing link to a decade-old museum heist, the still-unsolved theft of art work worth $300 million, is out of jail and says he still intends to claim a reward for the stolen pieces. William P. Youngworth III, who once asked for $50 million in exchange for helping return the masterpieces snatched from Boston's Isabella Stuart Gardner Museum, was released Friday after the Supreme Judicial Court threw out a pending 1997 charge that he was a ``habitual offender.'' He had completed a three-year prison term unrelated to the museum theft. ``They tried to force me into the darkest corner possible to extort my information,'' Youngworth told The Associated Press. ``Norfolk County officials tried to do everything they could to keep me from being released.'' Youngworth said his attorney, Lisa Siegel Belanger, has been talking with museum officials and federal investigators, and he hopes the paintings can be returned so ``we can put this all behind us.'' In March 1990, two thieves posing as police officers brazenly entered the museum and made off with 13 art works, including three Rembrandts, a Vermeer, a Manet and five works by Degas, the costliest theft in U.S. history. Museum spokeswoman Tiffany Kehayoglou said the museum is anxious to get back the artwork. The museum has left the walls empty in the spots once occupied by the missing works. ``This is a matter for the investigators,'' Kehayoglou said. ``The museum continues to cooperate with the investigation in the hopes of getting the artwork returned.'' Youngworth grabbed the spotlight in 1997 when he claimed he could help the museum recover 11 of the 13 pieces. In return, he wanted cash - at first requested the museum's $5 million reward, but later asked for $50 million - plus immunity from prosecution and early release from prison for his friend, Myles J. Connor Jr., a convicted art thief who was serving time in federal prison. Both men were both in custody when the heist took place. At one point, the two men arranged to have paint chips they claimed were from one of the stolen paintings sent to a reporter at the Boston Herald. Tests eventually determined the chips could not have come from the stolen artwork. After Friday's release, Youngworth said he still intends to claim the reward and seek immunity. ``I've been assured that there are certain financial remunerations for the return of the artwork. I don't know how else to say that,'' he said. ``There have to be assurances that my involvement won't put me right back where I was.'' Youngworth, 41, had been released from state prison on Sept. 19 after serving a three-year sentence for conspiring to steal a van. But a judge immediately ordered him held in lieu of $25,000 bail pending trial on the charge of being a habitual offender - which prosecutors hoped would keep him in jail another 12 years. An appellate judge ruled Thursday that the habitual offender statute was not correctly applied, tossed out the charge and ordered Youngworth released. A spokeswoman for the U.S. Attorney declined to comment about Youngworth's release. David Traub, spokesman for the Norfolk County District Attorney's office, said prosecutors had not yet decided whether to appeal the case. Traub dismissed Youngworth's claim that he was jailed in order extract information about the paintings. ``This office has never made overtures of that kind and never solicited that kind of information,'' Traub said.
Don't return artefacts to Nigeria
Leading expert on Nigerian antiquities warns that government and museum officials in the country are involved with the illicit trade of artefacts to the West
By Martin Bailey
LONDON. The most distinguished specialist on Nigerian antiquities is now urging that looted and stolen artefacts should no longer be returned to Nigeria, because of endemic corruption in the country. Frank Willett, former director of the Hunterian Museum in Glasgow, says he has adopted this position with great reluctance. Writing in the latest issue of the Journal of Museum Ethnography, he explains: "It is indeed depressing that having spent the last forty years trying to demonstrate that the peoples of Nigeria have a history and an artistic heritage of which they can be proud, to find that those who now hold the roles we once did are not only not taking care of their heritage, but are exploiting this irreplaceable material by allowing its illicit export to dealers and collectors in the West." Professor Willett points to thefts in recent years from museums at Abadan, Abeokuta, Esie, Jos and Owo. Among the most recent cases he has uncovered is a famous ancient bronze stool, the greatest treasure of the Ife University Museum of Art, which was stripped of its collection in a series of thefts in 1993-94. Professor Willett reveals that it has now turned up in America, "accompanied with what appears to be a valid official Clearance Permit issued on 20 June, 1994 and signed by an officer of the National Commission for Museums and Monuments as 'examined and found to be non-antiquity'." He concludes: "One wonders whether the authorisation of this export is due to incompetence or to corruption." The International Council of Museums (ICOM) has recently been pressing museums, collectors and dealers not to acquire looted items on its "Red List" (including Nok terracottas, Ife terracottas and bronzes, Esie stone statues and Sao terracottas and bronzes), and for them to be returned to their country of origin. Pressure was also exerted by ICOM on the Louvre not to display two ancient Nok terracottas bought by the Musée du quai Branly from a Belgian (see article). But Professor Willett believes that returning "Red List" artefacts to Nigeria would now be misguided: "I have been keeping an eye on the art market and attempting to arrange for the return of pieces stolen from Nigerian museums ever since I left the paid service of the Nigerian Government in 1963, yet here I am recommending that objects should not be returned." This view is backed by John Picton of London's School of Oriental and African Studies, who in the same issue of the Journal of Museum Ethnography describes Professor Willett's forceful assessment as "entirely accurate". Picton adds that "thefts and illegal excavations constitute at least as serious a tragedy as the looting of the art of Benin City by British forces in 1897." Professor Willett's article concludes with what he describes as one hopeful straw in the wind: "It has just been reported that charges of embezzlement have been brought by the new [Nigerian] regime against one member of staff of the National Commission for Museums and Monuments."
http://www.theartnewspaper.com/news/article.asp?idart=3414
Filonov drawings stolen by curators returned to Russia by Pompidou Centre
Guggenheim representative applies legal pressure on French government
By John Varoli
ST PETERSBURG. Seven drawings by Pavel Filonov, stolen nearly twenty years ago from the State Russian Museum and subsequently purchased by the Pompidou Centre in Paris, were handed back by the French government on 27 September after ten years effort by the Russians to establish their claim. "We are very thankful to the French Ministry of Culture and the Pompidou that they took the decision to return to Russia what belongs here," said Anatoli Vilkov, head of the Culture Ministry's department for Preserving Cultural Valuables. Pompidou Centre president, Jean Jacques Aillagon, said in a Russian Culture Ministry press statement, "The return of the drawings is a manifestation of fulfilling a high moral duty and we hope that other museums will follow our example." Filonov (1882-1941) was one of the leaders in Russia's Avant-garde and was known for his style called "Analytical Art". He welcomed the 1917 Bolshevik seizure of power, and flourished under the new regime in the 1920s. With the rise of Socialist Realism in the 1930s, however, he fell into disfavour, obscurity and poverty. He never sold any of his works, but upon his death in 1941 during the siege of Leningrad, he bequeathed them to his sister, Elena Glebova, who, in turn, donated them to the State Russian Museum in 1977. Since most of his works are in Russia, with a few in Germany, their appearance in France was remarkable. The return of the seven, A4-sized, black and white drawings dating from just after the Revolution puts to rest one of the most embarrassing chapters in the history of the State Russian Museum. The Culture Ministry believes the drawings were stolen by several high ranking museum officials working there, probably between 1978 and 1981. The current museum curators admit they know the identity of the culprits, but have kept this quiet. The exact date of the theft of seven Filonov drawings is unknown because the originals were switched with finely executed copies, but the drawings were purchased by the Pompidou in 1983 from a Paris antique dealer of Russian descent for FFr62,500 (about $11,000 at the time). The crime was discovered in 1985 when Yevgeny Kovtun, the leading art historian and foremost avant-garde specialist at the State Russian Museum, saw a copy of Cahiers du Musée d'Art Moderne, published by the Pompidou in 1983, with photos of the stolen drawings. After a careful inspection she concluded that the ones in the Russian museum's possession were forgeries, but the case was hushed up; a criminal investigation only began in 1991. When the Russian Museum held its Filonov exhibit at the Pompidou in 1990, the stolen Filonov drawings were in the show as belonging to the Pompidou, even though Russian and French museum officials knew the truth about their origins. The stolen drawings would never had been returned, however, had it not been for the efforts of Nikolas Iljine, a French citizen of Russian descent who is the European representative of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation. A year ago, when Mr Iljine saw that Russian efforts to convince France to return the drawings had stalled, he took the initiative to hire a lawyer, who subsequently proved to the French government that the drawings were indeed stolen. On 24 July the French Culture Minister, Catherine Tasca, signed a decree revoking French ownership of the drawings. Documents, whose accuracy were confirmed by the Russian Culture Ministry, have been shown to The Art Newspaper which clearly indicate that in 1993 French officials knew the Filonov works were indeed stolen. According to these documents, former Pompidou director Germain Viatte, brought the Filonov drawings to St Petersburg in September 1993 through the agency of Michel Taran, an official at the French consulate, who conveyed the drawings into Russia via diplomatic bag. The drawings were then shown to the State Russian Museum director, Vladimir Gusev, and his specialists confirmed authenticity. However, the drawings were packed up the same day and returned to France, again by diplomatic bag, with the State Russian Museum taking no action to stop them leaving Russia. "The French, of course, violated Russian law by taking cultural valuables, especially stolen ones, out of the country in 1993," said Mr Vilkov, who added that the Culture Ministry was not aware that the drawings had returned for one day. Museum director Gusev defended his actions by saying that, "We had no proof that the French had violated Russian law." When asked whether or not the State Russian Museum had acted properly, Mr Vilkov replied, "It was their right to do as they felt best", adding that the actual return of the drawings was more important than the issue of past culpability.
http://www.allemandi.com/TAN/news/article.asp?idart=3494
Chinese books stolen from Harvard
Oct. 07, 2000 | BOSTON (AP) -- Forty-one centuries-old Chinese books and two scrolls worth over $1 million are missing from Harvard-Yenching Library, which houses the largest collection of East Asian books outside Asia. A rare book specialist at the Harvard University-owned library discovered in March that the books and scrolls -- among the library's most prized possessions -- had been snatched from their protected perch in the rare book room. "These are works of huge historic and literary importance," Nancy Cline, head librarian of Harvard College, told the Boston Globe in Saturday's edition. "It's very difficult to estimate their loss." When she learned of the theft, Cline contacted the FBI. Neither the museum nor law enforcement authorities publicly acknowledged the theft or issued a statement. This summer, however, the collection was registered in the Stolen Art File, an FBI Web site designed to alert potential buyers to purloined artworks. Neither investigators nor Harvard officials will say much about the investigation's progress or how the works were stolen. The university now faces the challenge of developing sufficient security procedures that don't impede the central purpose of a major research library: allowing people to mine the vast stacks on their own. The stolen works cover a variety of arcane subjects in the Song, Yuan, Ming and Qing periods of Chinese history -- from the years 960 to 1911. Without them, Cline said, there's a glaring omission in the library's collection of about a million books. "When books like this are taken, the break in the collection has a far-reaching impact on scholarship," Cline said. "Its effect is worldwide."
Stolen art may be in Sydney
By GEOFF MASLEN
Tuesday 10 October 2000
Victorian police believe four pictures that went missing from the National Gallery of Victoria last November have been stolen. They say the thief or thieves may be trying to sell them in Sydney.
Detectives from Melbourne recently interviewed a Sydney picture-framer who was alleged to have had the most valuable of the works in his shop - a $40,000 painting by the English-born artist Julian Ashton. But the framer denied even seeing or handling the work and that has aroused police suspicions. Last year, the gallery moved its collection of 60,000 artworks to a storage site in North Melbourne, pending its refurbishment. During this time of massive upheaval someone seized the opportunity to steal four little paintings. As well as the Ashton, the others were by Horace Brodsky, Josephine Muntz-Adams and Murray Griffin. It took the gallery six months to publicly reveal the theft - six months, according to a senior curator, of desperate searching through the entire St Kilda Road complex and double-checking all the works that had arrived safely in storage. Only then, in May, did deputy director Frances Lindsay announce that five pictures had gone missing before the move. The next month, Ms Lindsay said one of the paintings, by Aboriginal artist George Mung-Mung, had been located at the North Melbourne offices. Although "thrilled" with the find, she believed the others were not in the gallery's possession. With a collection worth billions of dollars and many small but highly valuable paintings, why were works by such little-known artists taken? One of the detectives working on the case said: "Who knows the mind of a thief?" But the senior curator explained: "I had a dream, a nightmare really, that one of our tiny but priceless paintings had gone. So I rushed in the next morning to make sure it was still there. It was but the others weren't. "We were very worried by the chaos caused during the renovations so we kept a close watch on the most valuable of the small objects which could have been removed. We were in an unusually vulnerable situation with very little control over people's movements. Think of moving everything out of a big house and multiply that by 10,000." As the myriads of objects were unpacked in North Melbourne, the discovery that some works were missing caused a panic. The most valuable pictures and items were first double-checked to ensure they had arrived safely, then the search was extended. Back at St Kilda Road, posses of anxious peekers went through the building, peering in cupboards, down elevator shafts and searching every dark corner - any place where a bundle of small pictures may have been secreted. Fortunately, gallery staff had spent the last seven years updating records kept since the 1860s. Down the decades, as paintings and other art objects were acquired or loaned out, the documentation had been filled in by a succession of directors, curators and secretaries. Along the way paintings were given differing titles and often the dimensions were slightly changed. Finally sorting out this mess meant it was relatively easy to identify which pictures had been in the gallery but had not made the journey to North Melbourne. Apart from the spectacular theft (and eventual return) of Picasso's Weeping Woman in 1986, the gallery has lost few of its artworks since it was founded almost 140 years ago. Even a portrait of Sir Henry Bolte that former premier Jeff Kennett inadvertently took home when he vacated Spring Street last year was tracked down.
Search for Nazi ghosts in gallery
By DARRIN FARRANT
Thursday 12 October 2000
The National Gallery of Victoria will list 24 paintings from its collection on its website tonight in a bid to clarify who owned the paintings during the Nazi Germany era. The move is part of a wider plan to ensure the gallery owns no works stolen, mostly from Jewish households, by German looters between 1933 and 1945. The move comes amid allegations that many leading Australian art galleries are not doing enough to ensure they do not have looted works. The gallery's list of 24 paintings, and ownership histories, has been made available in the hope scholars and collectors can shed light on their history. Gallery director Gerard Vaughan told The Age yesterday he was extremely confident that no works the gallery owned had been stolen by Nazi looters. "This is about being open and transparent. We have no evidence at all to suggest (they were stolen). These are simply works for which there is a possible gap during that period," Dr Vaughan said. The 24 works, with dates ranging from the 14th century to 1915, include paintings by Robert Delaunay, Jan Steen and Maurice de Vlaminck. They are part of the gallery's extensive collection of works by European masters. Dr Vaughan said the gallery was following internationally accepted protocols dealing with the return of looted artworks. But the website move is believed to be an Australian first. "We are absolutely in step with the world. If any evidence were to come to hand about the works, we would follow the correct procedures." said Dr Vaughan. The gallery is one of several prominent Australian galleries criticised in allegations to be aired on ABC-TV's The Arts Show tonight. Only the National Gallery of Australia in Canberra is signatory to the Art Loss Register, an international body that traces missing artworks. A spokeswoman for the British-based Art and Law Institute, Ms Sharne Thomas, said she was amazed at the indifference of Australian galleries to the issue. The gallery is using the register to help trace artworks that disappeared during gallery renovations.
From: "The Philadelphia Print Shop, Ltd." PhilaPrint@PhilaPrintShop.com
Subject: McKenney & Hall volumes stolen
Centre College Library in Danville, KY has informed us that the following set was stolen from their collection on Saturday, October 7, 2000: Thomas McKenney. History of the Indian Tribes of North America, with biographical sketches and anecdotes of the principal chiefs. Philadelphia, D. Rice and J. G. Clark, 1838-1944, 3 vols., folio. Binding in poor shape, contents in good condition. The main perpetrator was a white male, approximately 6' 4" tall, slim to medium build, in his 30s or 40s. He was very distinctive looking, with an elongated face, dark hair pulled back in a pony tail, long straight nose with flared nostrils, perhaps a slight mustache. Twice in the course of conversation, he used the word "Amen". An accomplice was the same age, approximately 5'8" tall, stocky, with brownish-grey hair and some facial hair. Of course, another accomplice of any description might try to sell the items. If you have any contact with or information about the books themselves, any prints from them, or the thieves, please contact your local law enforcement agency and the Danville police department at (859) 238-1220. You may report to Detective Tony Gray or Chief Larry Downs if they are available.
The Philadelphia Print Shop, Ltd.
8441 Germantown Avenue
Philadelphia, PA 19118
(215) 242-4750
(215) 242-6977 [fax]
philaprint@philaprintshop.com
http://www.philaprintshop.com
Have a Captain Cook at these gems - for a price
From: The Sydney Morning Herald
Date: 12/10/2000
By JAMES WOODFORD Environment Writer
For hire - Captain Cook's cloak, prehistoric fossils, stuffed penguins from Antarctica, and stone age weapons. To become more entrepreneurial and to address the fact that only a tiny fraction of the museum's collection is ever on public display, the Australian Museum is offering to hire out exhibits from its $3 billion collection to cashed-up individuals or businesses. The museum's director, Professor Mike Archer, is willing to talk to anyone with enough money to borrow any of the valuable items and display them, securely, in a public place.
more:
http://www.smh.com.au:80/news/0010/12/text/national9.html
From: Jadran Kale jkale@public.srce.hr
Subject: Balkan art news
Oct. 9, 2000 (Beta Agency, Belgrade): We expect that citizens return art pieces which they were saving from the fire
Almost 150 art works disappeared
At the press conference held today in Narodni muzej (People's Museum) in Belgrade it was declared that less then 60 paintings, sculptures, drawings and engravings from the federal Parliament building are saved or returned, out of the total of 206. The greater deal of the pieces saved was considerably damaged during the demonstrations of Oct. 5th, curator Radovan Piljak told us. Museum director Bojana Boric-Breskovic emphasized that "this national institution is obliged to protect movable heritage artifacts" and urged citizens to return the art works from the Parliament building to Narodni muzej or the City Assembly of Belgrade. There were 144 paintings, 14 drawings and engravings and 48 sculptures inside the Parliament building. "We consider this as the act of saving from the fire done by demonstrants and now we do expect to return it", said Kusovac. Ljubica Miljkovic, curator, said that those master-pieces that were exhibited in the Parliament could be stealed by "amateurs only" because it is impossible to sell them. "We are mostly afraid of damages", said she.
The Internet source: http://www.izbori2000.net
Another art news: at Oct. 4 Hina news agency from Croatia reported that Culture Minister of Croatia dr. Ante Vujic said in Vukovar that a Belgrade reaction for an agreement about return of the art works stealed from Croatia to Serbia during the 1990-1995 war in Croatia now could be expected.
The Internet source: http://www.hina.hr
--
Hi,
I thought you may find this news interesting.
Sincerely,
Jadran Kale
Zupanijski muzej, P.p.7, HR-22001 Sibenik
Croatia: 385 (0) 22/ 213-880, fax 213-355
@ http://jagor.srce.hr/muzej_sibenik
- - -Sent with PINE 4.10 from CARNet- -
Picassos, or Maybe Not Picassos, Surface in Turkey
By DOUGLAS FRANTZ
ANKARA, Turkey - The museum director pulled a hammer from the tool chest, pounded the nail into the wall and gently hung the last of the four prized paintings. Then he stepped back and admired the mysterious occupants of the small, freshly painted gallery. Three of the paintings are startling and bold portraits, radiant in gilt frames. The fourth, just hung by Vural Yurdakul, director of the State Painting and Sculpture Museum here, is thin and shabby, its unframed Cubist-style image of two people at a table barely visible. Turkish officials say that the paintings, seized by the Turkish police in four separate incidents over five months, are the work of Pablo Picasso. Each bears the stamps, signatures and other paraphernalia of authenticity. But Picasso was not only one of the most prolific of modern artists; he is among those whose work is the most forged. Police and cultural officials speculate that the works were plundered 10 years ago from the palaces and museums of Kuwait during the Iraqi invasion that led to the Persian Gulf war. But no one has come forward to claim ownership, and the authorities are puzzled about why the paintings surfaced separately, within a few weeks of one another, so long after the war's end. "We think some kind of an organized group has taken these paintings," said Turkey's culture minister, Istemihan Talay. "But we don't actually have a very clear idea where they are coming from and who has stolen them." Mr. Talay said that Turkey's leading experts on modern art had examined the paintings and were convinced that they were are authentic. He said he was willing to have foreign experts on Picasso inspect them as well. Sami Alsulayman, a Kuwaiti diplomat in Ankara, said that the embassy had received no information about the paintings and that Kuwait had not claimed ownership, but he added that many works of art stolen by the Iraqis had never been returned. The earliest of the works on display here, dated 1903, is a "Portrait of a Young Woman measuring about 19 1/4 by 13 3/8 inches bearing two stamps on the back, from the Berko Art Gallery and, dated 1931, from the Hermitage in St. Petersburg, Russia. The canvas is signed on the back. "The Farmer's Wife," which is dated 1908 and measures 31 7/8 by 25 5/8 inches, has similar stamps from Berko and the Hermitage and is signed on the back. Turkish officials describe it as a portrait of a Mme. Putman that Picasso must have painted after arriving in France from his native Spain. The third portrait, "Ugly Woman," is said to be a 1938 depiction of Dora Maar, one of Picasso's mistresses. The signature appears on the model's right arm, along with the date, '38. It measures 31 1/8 by 20 inches and the back bears a stamp reading "Galerie Natalie Seroussi, Paris." The fourth canvas, well worn, is titled "Two People at a Table Holding Wineglasses" and believed to have been painted around 1920, though it has no date. It measures 31 1/2 by 24 3/8 centimeters; on the back is a 12- digit number and the name of the Christie's auction house. "The Farmer's Wife" and "Ugly Woman" were seized in June from people trying to sell them to undercover officers in separate incidents in Izmir, a major city on the Aegean Sea and the endpoint of an ancient smuggling route to Greece and Europe. "The Portrait of a Young Woman" turned up in August in Hatay, a city in southern Turkey. Acting on a tip, police officers said they went to a local man's home and seized the painting. "He said he bought it five or six years ago from someone in northern Iraq and he was keeping it home since," said Selcuk Kaya, a police official in nearby Sanliurfa. "He wasn't looking to sell it." Turkish press reports about the paintings apparently yielded "Two People at a Table Holding Wineglasses." The police say that several people approached an undercover officer in the southern city of Adana in late September offering to sell a Picasso for $4 million to $5 million. When the undercover officer agreed to pay a $10,000 deposit and asked to see the painting, he was taken to a private home in Mardin, on the Iraqi border. The man who had the painting runs a small antique store and stated that he bought the painting eight or nine years ago for $2,000 from a Turkish truck driver crossing the border from Iraq, the police said. After reading about the other reputed Picassos, the police said he told them, he recognized the potential value of his painting and wanted to sell it. Malcolm Kenwood, an official with Art Loss Register, a database of stolen art in London, said that more than 400 Picassos were listed as stolen in the company's records, more than for any other artist. But he said the registry received many inquiries from the authorities and insurers about works thought to be Picassos that ultimately prove to be fakes. He said he did not believe that the four paintings in Turkey were listed as stolen in the database and he advised that a Picasso expert make the determination about their authenticity. Auction house experts say that they are deluged with requests to authenticate paintings thought to be Picassos and that most of those works are fake. But for now, the four paintings are sharing a small second-floor gallery at the state museum here, along with several enlarged photographs of the artist and a brief biography.
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/10/10/arts/10ARTS.html
From: Dan Chure danchure@easilink.com
To: Museum Security Network securma@xs4all.nl
Subject: Vandalism and Theft at a World Heritage Fossil Site.
From The Sydney Morning Herald
http://www.smh.com.au:80/news/0010/09/text/national11.html
Vandals and thieves reduce fossil scientists to despair
Date: 09/10/2000
By JAMES WOODFORD, Environment Writer
Australia's World Heritage-listed Riversleigh fossil site is being vandalised and its prehistoric treasures stolen because of inadequate security and poor management. Palaeontologists could even suspend their fieldwork in protest after a 25-million-year-old crocodile skull was smashed and several thieves were caught with prehistoric material. A 150-kilogram slab of stone, containing thousands of bones, was also manhandled off the site, four hours north of Mount Isa in north-west Queensland. No-one knows how much material is being stolen but there are no signs warning tourists that fossicking in the area is illegal. A recently constructed interpretation building has been vandalised because no-one is present to look after it and the only regular monitoring of visitors is undertaken by local, privately employed guides.
The director of the Australian Museum, Professor Michael Archer, has worked at Riversleigh for nearly a quarter of a century, during which time the history of the evolution of much of the Australian fauna has been rewritten. He is appalled that the site does not have a full-time Queensland Parks Service ranger and that funds designated for research are distributed at a cripplingly slow pace. Relations between the local Aboriginal community, the Waanyi, on one hand and scientists, tourist operators and local State and Federal governments are also extremely difficult.
The traditional owners are calling for the fossils removed by the scientists be returned to Riversleigh for storage at a safe "keeping place" and are also seeking greater involvement in decision-making. The Waanyi also want the name Riversleigh to be replaced with an Aboriginal name - possibly Myimba. Fossil scientists from around the globe spent September 30-October1 camped at Gregory River on Riversleigh station with an Australian delegation. A representative of the Federal Environment Department's World Heritage Branch was also present and on several occasions openly argued with Professor Archer. She told the gathering that Professor Archer should not be consulting international experts about Riversleigh.
"There was a layer of bones clearly visible here," Professor Archer told them during one inspection. "Someone has come along and pulverised them with a hammer."
The international scientists said the local Aborigines felt "very disenfranchised" and that "strong leadership" was required.
"It's been years since the [World Heritage] listing and there's still quite a lot of work to do," said a spokeswoman for the international team.
"There were times when we felt as though we were walking on eggs ... clearly Riversleigh needs a full-time presence on site."
Professor Archer and his colleagues are now considering suspending their fieldwork trips from Riversleigh until the problems at the site are resolved. The regional services director for the Queensland Parks and Wildlife Service, Mr Clive Cook, said the lack of a ranger and the construction of interpretation facilities were being addressed. A spokeswoman for the Federal Environment Minister, Senator Hill, said many of the problems at Riversleigh would be addressed by a new management plan, which would hopefully be released by the end of the year.
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From The Sydney Morning Herald
http://www.smh.com.au:80/news/0010/09/features/features3.html
Treasures in the dust
Ancient fossil finds which have rewritten Australia's prehistory are now being lost to neglect, writes James Woodford. In the scrub country north of Mt Isa the heat makes you feel your body is melting like wax and your lungs are filled with curry powder not dust. Spinifex needles drive themselves into uncovered shins and moving around is a logistical nightmare. Yet this low-lying stretch of the Gulf of Carpentaria is home to Australia's richest and most important fossil site. The physical demands would be challenge enough, but the emotional landscape is just as confronting for the scientist who brought the site to international attention, the University of NSW's Professor Michael Archer. Archer, who is also director of the Australian Museum, faces political, financial, administrative and cultural problems that now appear insurmountable. Not least is that Archer and his team are making key discoveries about the evolution of Australia's fauna in a region where creationism is a powerful force.
Christian fundamentalism heavily influences both the Aboriginal elders and white pastoral families with whom Archer must work to do his research. In "nearby" Mount Isa, a four-hour drive south, it is hard to turn on a television without encountering a steady stream of serious God bothering. Archer's 25 years of backbreaking work has brought confrontations with gun-wielding station owners - the very people on whom he must depend for access to the fossil sites - and ringers who have actively intimidated his palaeontological colleagues, on one occasion by munching the heads off live yabbies. As well, he faces a continuing shortfall in research funds, a lack of storage for Riversleigh's riches and an uphill battle manoeuvring through three layers of government.
"There are many problems related to the Riversleigh World Heritage Area. Some are specific to Riversleigh; others are more generally related to human nature," Archer's University of NSW colleague, Henk Godthelp, remarked pointedly to the University of NSW's World Heritage Fossil Site Conference, an international gathering of fossil experts in Mt Isa a little over a week ago.
Riversleigh's rocks contain the best record of the animals that have lived in Australia from 25 million years ago to today. Palaeontolotigists working there can trace how Australia's marsupials evolved; Riversleigh is steadily revealing the strange origins of marsupial moles, koalas, kangaroos and wombats. But in what would be a major blow for Australian prehistory, Godthelp and Archer are considering suspending their fieldwork. They are disillusioned that six years after the site was inscribed on the World Heritage list it is still far behind Australia's 13 other World Heritage sites in terms of management. "It's the only mainland World Heritage site in Australia that has no infrastructure ...,"Archer says.
Visitors arriving from Mt Isa, which now markets itself as a gateway to Riversleigh, get no warning that they are in a place of global significance. No signs announce that collecting the fossils is punishable by up to seven years' jail. It would be a miracle if they were to encounter a ranger in the World Heritage precinct because none is permanently located there. Accommodation arrangements change from year to year because the tourist operators have no guaranteed tenure from the cattle company which controls the site, Lawn Hill and Riversleigh Pastoral Holdings. (The company is owned 49 per cent by the local Waanyi Aboriginal community, with the rest held by the miner Pasminco.) In the past fat-walleted tourists have found themselves in extremely uncomfortable and embarrassing situations with workers from nearby cattle stations, who drop into camps drunk and threatening.
THE first significant fossil locality worked at Riversleigh is known to palaeontologists as the "D site". Three waves of scientists have dug there - the first at the turn of the last century, when fossils were first found, the second in the 1960s, the third began in 1976 when a young postgraduate, Dr Mike Archer, arrived. Not long after he began digging, Archer realised that Riversleigh's rocks could sustain an army of palaeontologists. Since then over 300 fossil sites have been found, all at least as rich as the D-site. When fossils are taken out of the area they are labelled and remain the property of the Queensland Museum. So far 32,000 labels have been attached to rocks. But this is misleading because one rock may contain many hundreds of fossils. The number may sound huge but, say palaeontologists, there is at least another 50 million cubic metres of fossil-bearing rock at Riversleigh. All that has been discovered in the last quarter century has been gleaned from less than 20 cubic metres of unprocessed stone each year. The D-site is about 50 metres off the main dirt track through the area and, though Archer's team has finished collecting there, it still bristles with fossils. The drumsticks of giant thunderbirds, like mattock handles in shape and size, remain embedded in rocks 25 million years after the birds died. One thunderbird has been so well preserved that its gizzard stones (used to help it digest) are clearly visible.
But it is their very visibility that makes Riversleigh's fossils so tempting to collectors and tourists. Illegal fossicking is rife at D-site and on a number of occasions sites have been vandalised. All three levels of government know this, as do scientists, tourist operators and locals. The weekend before last, Archer showed the thunderbird with gizzard stones to palaeontologists from around the world who travelled to Riversleigh after their meeting at Mt Isa, and asked rhetorically: "How long before somebody takes a swing at it? It's a time bomb - we are just waiting for someone to damage it."
Another concern is that fossils have been moved from one location to another contaminating the second site. Along with the visiting palaeontologists who toured the site were elders from the Waanyi. The palaeontologists must have the permission of the Lawn Hill and Riversleigh Pastoral company to get to the World Heritage Area and to camp on the company's land. But at times, for reasons Archer was unable to understand, the scientists have found themselves locked out . When the Riversleigh stakeholders and the international scientists were together at Mt Isa, some of the Aboriginal representatives voiced concerns about their negotiations with the scientists; some were not happy about blasting that breaks up the rocks containing fossils and they complained that they did not have control over the material collected.
A Waanyi elder, Eunice O'Keefe, said Riversleigh was the most important place for her people. The Waanyi do acknowledge, however, that before the work of Archer and his team, the fossils were not considered culturally important. Some claim the Waanyi did not even know of the fossils until 1976. "We would like to see it [the site] protected," O'Keefe said. "We want to see the fossils back there on the land from where they came." But Archer told the gathering that senior elders had been consulted over many years and that he was certainly prepared to continue discussing his plans with any of the Waanyi. Archer does support proposals for a fossil "keeping place" at Riversleigh but warns that it would have to be especially secure because of the location's vulnerability to cyclones and its remoteness. Any decision on the storage of the fossils would need to be made by the Queensland Museum.
Tourist operators, who generally have a good working and personal relationship with Archer and his colleagues, would also like to see infrastructure developed at Riversleigh. Lloyd Campbell's company, Campbell's Tours and Travel, has operated alongside the scientists for almost as long as Archer has been digging. "World Heritage right here in your backyard ... means dollars for everybody," Campbell declared at the conference. Others at the meeting suggested that Campbell had omitted a "should". "But as a tourist operator I don't know if I am going to be there next year," Campbell told the Mt Isa meeting. He was referring to so far inconclusive negotiations with the Waanyi for continuing access to the land - he expects a decision in a few weeks. If Campbell is not back next year, then the last line of defence for the fossils will be gone because it is his staff, based at the camp on the Gregory River, which has unofficially taken on the task of attempting to keep the fossickers honest. Recently one of Campbell's employees encountered a group at the D-site with an armful of fossil-bearing rocks and told them they were breaking the law. The fossickers reportedly said: "Where are the signs telling us that?"
At Riversleigh, the past and the present are constantly colliding, and will continue to - people can't be shut out. Aborigines, scientists, pastoralists, tourists and bureaucrats, who all have an important stake in Riversleigh, equally have an obligation to sort out their differences and to ensure that a balance is found between the competing interests of all the stakeholders. On the Saturday night after a blisteringly hot day, an Aboriginal elder returned to camp at Riversleigh with four turtles from the Gregory River. Their throats were cut and then they were singed on the coals of an open fire before being wrapped in foil and roasted. Soon after the turtles had been eaten there was a final discussion and then the international scientists were asked to summarise their impressions of Riversleigh. Their appraisal was blunt: "There's a lot of work ahead for Riversleigh," said a spokeswoman for the group. By the next morning, both Godthelp and Archer were wondering out loud whether they had the energy to be involved in that daunting effort.
From: newsletter@theartnewspaper.com
Subject: FILONOV DRAWINGS STOLEN BY CURATORS RETURNED TO RUSSIA BY POMPIDOU CENTRE
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FILONOV DRAWINGS STOLEN BY CURATORS RETURNED TO RUSSIA BY POMPIDOU CENTRE
ST PETERSBURG. Seven drawings by Pavel Filonov, stolen nearly twenty years ago from the State Russian Museum and subsequently purchased by the Pompidou Centre in Paris, were handed back by the French government on 27 September after ten years effort by the Russians to establish their claim.
http://www.allemandi.com/TAN/news/article.asp?idart=3494 US DEALERS AND SEATTLE MUSEUM SETTLE OVER MATISSE LAWSUIT
SEATTLE. The Seattle Art Museum (SAM) and Knoedler & Co. announced on 12 October that they had settled, on mutually satisfactory terms, SAMÆs lawsuit seeking compensation for its loss of the painting ôOdalisqueö (1928) by Henri Matisse.
http://www.allemandi.com/TAN/news/article.asp?idart=3493 SOTHEBYS.AMAZON.COM CLOSES
NEW YORK. sothebys.com and sothebyÆs.amazon.com will be merging into a ôunified siteö within one month, it was announced this week. The news comes less than a year after sothebyÆs.amazon.com was started up.
http://www.allemandi.com/TAN/news/article.asp?idart=3492
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Catastrophies and catastrophy management in museums
International Congres,
Sarajevo, April 17 - 21, 2001
congres secretary: Mrs. Lidija FEKEZA
Zemaljski Muzej Bih
Zmaja od Bosne 3,
71000 Sarajevo,
Bosnia and Herzegovina
Phone/fax: + 387 33 262 710
e-mail: z.muzej@bih.net.ba
This conference is organized by two partner museums:
Zemaljski Muzej of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Sarajevo,
and the Tiroler Landesmuseum Ferdinandeum, Inssbruck, Austria.