November 21, 2000
CONTENTS:
- Present for our 200.000th visitor
- Art theft suffered by Mendez de Vigo Family, and Spanish Heritage (Please read moderator's comment)
- Painting Which was to Discredit Bishop Balaz Returned
- I was an innocent go-between, says Enigma case man
- TAUBMAN: IT WAS TENNANT
- Art Taken By Nazis To Be Returned (The National Gallery of Art is returning a painting believed to have been stolen by German Nazis sometime before 1941 from a Paris family's collection)
This week the Museum Security Network expects it's 200.000th visitor at http://museum-security.org/
This calls for a small celebration. At the bottom of our index page a statistics banner has been placed. If you click on this banner you can check if you are the 200.000th visitor. If you are, choose on your keyboard the 'Print Screen' button and send the image to securma@xs4all.nl
The 200.000th visitor will receive Bob Spiel's new book: ART THEFT AND FORGERY INVESTIGATION, the Complete Field Manual.
Ton Cremers
From: "anamendezdevigo@airtel.net" anamendezdevigo@airtel.net
Subject: art theft suffered by Mendez de Vigo Family, and Spanish Heritage
Dear Madam, Sir,
I have decided to write to you to tell you, of what is probably, one of the greatest art thefts of the 20th century. A theft not only suffered by the Mendez de Vigo Family, but also by the Spanish Heritage. If you would like more information, my WEB is: http://www.roboreal.com/
Yours faithfully,
Ana Méndez de Vigo
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Moderator's comment:
Informing our readers about the existence of the above WWW site does not mean that we support the contents of this site. Read our disclaimer at:
http://museum-security.org/disclaimer.html
Ton Cremers
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Painting Which was to Discredit Bishop Balaz Returned
BANSKA BYSTRICA, Nov 20, 2000 -- (CTK - Czech News Agency) The painting Adoration of the Three Kings, which was used by the former Vladimir Meciar regime to discredit bishop Rudolf Balaz, has been returned to the Banska Bystrica bishops residence after more than five years. Deputy Premier Pal Csaky and Deputy Chairman of the Slovak Parliament Pavol Hrusovsky handed the painting to Balaz on Friday. "I am grateful that the painting was officially returned to me by representatives of the Slovak government and parliament. I am glad that the case has been successfully resolved and we will not return to it any more," Balaz told journalists. Balaz became a target of a misinformation campaign organised by the Slovak counter-intelligence service BIS during the rule of Meciar's Movement for a Democratic Slovakia (HZDS). The campaign accusing the church of selling art works abroad was organized with the aim to discredit it in the eyes of Slovaks. Former SIS director and Meciar's close aide Ivan Lexa has already been accused of organizing the campaign and the case is being investigated by the police. Last week Slovak Premier Mikulas Dzurinda apologized to Balaz on behalf of the government. Balaz today accepted the apology and said that the "current government apologized for the deeds committed by others. "I don't want the current government to kneel," he said, adding that "although the investigation took too a long time it was a test for his nerves." Dzurinda said earlier that it was ascertained in the course of the investigation that the case was masterminded by the former SIS leadership and the investigator had accused "several former SIS functionaries" in connection with the case. The campaign against Balaz began in 1995 when as the chairman of the Slovak Bishops' Conference he openly expressed support to then president Michal Kovac whom Meciar sought to oust. Shortly after this Balaz's office was accused of attempting to illegally sell the painting, which is the property of the church and part of national cultural heritage, for USD 200,000. Police even carried out a home search at Balaz's residence in his absence. Later it was discovered that it was a SIS agent who "wanted" to buy the painting for the state money. In addition, the painting was not on the list of protected national heritage and the bishop office could sell it. Director of the bishop office Jozef Hrtus said on Friday that the sale of the painting was still being considered, preferably to the Slovak National Gallery. Through its sale the bishop office could obtain about CSK 10 million to partly repay the debt which appeared in connection with the construction of a church seminary in Badin. However, first the painting will be hung on the wall, Balaz said.
((c) 2000 CTK - Czech News Agency)
I was an innocent go-between, says Enigma case man
By Richard Alleyne
A FORMER antiques dealer arrested in connection with the theft of the Enigma encoding machine claimed yesterday that he was an innocent go- between working on behalf of a client living abroad who had bought the device in good faith. Speaking on the steps of the courthouse where he had just been bailed, Dennis Yates, 57, said his sole intention was to return the Second World War encrypter and avoid embarrassment for the collector, whom he described as "being of high office". Yates, who used to specialise in spying equipment, admitted that he had tried to negotiate the return of the device but denied committing a crime. He said he never wanted to profit from the return and was adamant that his client, whom he refused to name, had only wanted to recoup the money - believed to be £25,000 - that he had paid for the machine.
More:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/et?ac=002691129943794&rtmo=kCACYLkp&atmo=lllllljx&pg=/et/00/11/21/nenig21.html
Dennis Yates, 57, told reporters that he knew who had stolen the machine from Bletchley Park but refused to name them. He said he had simply been acting as a broker for a foreign client in high office who had bought the £100,000 machine innocently.
more:
http://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/0,,39380,00.html
TAUBMAN: IT WAS TENNANT
By PAUL THARP
Embattled tycoon Alfred Taubman - targeted as a mastermind of the art auction world's price-fixing scheme - says the deal was cooked up by Sir Anthony Tennant, not him.
More:
http://www.nypost.com/11172000/business/16323.htm
Art Taken By Nazis To Be Returned
By LEIGH STROPE, Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) - The National Gallery of Art is returning a painting believed to have been stolen by German Nazis sometime before 1941 from a Paris family's collection.
The painting, ``Still Life with Fruit and Game'' by Flemish artist Frans Snyders, depicts a large basket of colorful fruit on a red tablecloth, surrounded by dead game, including birds and a small deer.
The museum is arranging to return the painting to the Stern family, which discovered the piece and the history of its ownership on the gallery's Web site. The gallery has been doing extensive World War II-era ownership research on the European art in its collection for three years, said Director Earl A. Powell III. ``We believe that full disclosure of all available information about works in the gallery's collection is of vital importance,'' Powell said. Gallery spokeswoman Deborah Ziska said the Stern family did not want to be interviewed about the discovery. The painting was confiscated from the Stern collection in Paris and traded to one of the Nazis' principal art dealers, Karl Haberstock, by Hermann Goering in 1941, according to the gallery's research. Haberstock gave the painting to his friend Baron von Poellnitz, a Luftwaffe officer, by 1945. The painting was purchased from von Poellnitz around 1968 by Herman Shickman. The National Gallery of Art received the painting in 1990 as a gift from Herman and Lila Shickman in honor of its 50th anniversary in 1991. The Nazis assigned the code ``ST'' to the Stern collection and wrote the letters on the backs of the confiscated paintings. Archival documents refer to the a Snyders painting, ``Still Life with Hares,'' from the Stern collection with the code ``ST11.'' The gallery's painting has ``ST'' on it, and the mark is similar to the marks on other Stern pictures, officials said. But documents of the Stern painting refer to ``hares,'' while the animal in the gallery's painting is a deer. Despite the discrepancies, gallery officials said they thought there was enough evidence to return the painting.