December 22, 2000, part II

- Sweden museum thieves in armed art robbery
- Line blurring between art and commerce at U.S. museums
- A five-year investigation reveals that most West African terra-cotta
sculptures are fakes that have fooled specialists, sold for hundreds
of thousands of dollars, and ended up in some of the world's most
prestigious museums
- Italy to return obelisk to Ethiopia
- Museum relief as `stolen' gem found

Sweden museum thieves in armed art robbery

Armed thieves have stolen three paintings worth an estimated thirty million dollars from Sweden's National Museum in Stockholm.
Police say they removed a self-portrait by the Dutch painter Rembrandt and two works by the French impressionist Renoir from the Museum before escaping by boat. A police spokesman said an unusual lack of ice in the city's harbour made the thieves' escape easy.

Line blurring between art and commerce at U.S. museums

PHILADELPHIA, Pennsylvania (AP) -- Eva Willis wanted to wrap up her Christmas shopping, but instead of heading for the mall, she went to the museum. "Malls aren't my thing; everything's the same," the 40-year-old woman said as she made her way through one of the Philadelphia Museum of Art's three bustling museum stores. "You can get things here you can't find anywhere else, and I wanted to see the Van Gogh exhibit, so it works out well."
More: http://www.cnn.com/2000/STYLE/arts/12/22/museum.shops.ap/index.html

FAKING AFRICAN ART

A five-year investigation reveals that most West African terra-cotta sculptures are fakes that have fooled specialists, sold for hundreds of thousands of dollars, and ended up in some of the world's most prestigious museums.

BY MICHEL BRENT
On Wednesday, November 20, 1991, Sotheby's New York auctioned the Kuhn collection of African objects. On the cover of the auction catalog was the collection's masterpiece, a West African terra-cotta ram. Since thermoluminescence (TL) tests--a primary means of authentication--had indicated the figure was between 570 and 1,000 years old, there was no suspicion about the piece's age. A little before noon, the animal was sold for $275,000. The Kuhn ram has not been the object of much discussion in the years since the sale, except in Mali, its country of origin. There, rumors have it the piece may have been faked. Since the 1980s, nearly 80 percent of the allegedly antique terra cottas that have left Mali have been counterfeit. Prized by collectors, Malian terra cottas have been looted from hundreds of archaeological sites on the middle Niger River. As these pieces have become increasingly scarce, Malian antiquities dealers have sought faked pieces from local potters. The resulting trade has seriously corrupted the art historical record: in most cases it is now simply impossible to tell if terra cottas published in scholarly works on West African art are genuine. One day in 1995, while investigating a story on West African cultural heritage, I saw a terra- cotta animal leg, remarkably similar to those of the ram sold in 1991, in the backyard of a Bamako antiquities dealer's house. I had a sudden and inexplicable feeling--born of years of staring at these objects--that this leg had been fashioned by the same hand that had made the Kuhn ram. I decided to find out whether my intuition was correct. Early in 1997, after persistent inquiry, I was put in touch with a Bamako potter named Amadou. Our meeting took place in March 1998 in the courtyard of a modest Bamako hotel. I asked Amadou if the Kuhn piece was real or fake. "It's a fake," he answered. "At least part of it. I was the one who made it." Amadou told me that back in October 1986, in the village of Dary, a hamlet along the Niger River, erosion had exposed several pieces of terra cotta at an abandoned village site. "As for the [Kuhn] piece, I was able to fashion it from nose to hindquarters." His handiwork from this prolific period also ended up in the Belgian count Baudouin de Grunne's celebrated collection, as well as in Geneva's Barbier Muller Museum. The stomach of the Pregnant Ewe on display at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, was also found among the fragments in Dary and the entire piece refashioned by Amadou.
Once I heard Amadou's story, I hurried to Dary, 450 miles northeast of Bamako, to find out if the villagers' version corresponded with the forger's. The village has a population of about 200. There are no roads leading to it, and three months out of the year when the Niger River overflows there is no overland access at all. There are no phones here, no electricity, and no running water. When shown Amadou's photos of the intact pieces that had emerged from the site, Denba Traore, the village chief, quickly grasped that I knew what had gone on there nine years before. For several hours I sought information from people in various parts of the village. Those who had taken part in the digging confirmed Amadou's story, corroborating the names of the antiquities dealers involved in the digging, the time they spent at the site, the number of intact pieces recovered, and how the pieces were transported out of the bush in jute bags on a donkey cart. They also provided details concerning the authentic fragment of the Kuhn ram (its findspot and the depth at which it was buried) as well as the stomach of the Pregnant Ewe at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Everything checked out; Amadou had told me the truth. Another factor favored the spread of fakes: publication during the 1980s of monographs, art books, and auction house sale catalogs devoted to West African terra cottas. Seyni M. Karabenta of Kourikoulo told me that once catalog photos of African terra cottas started appearing in Mali, he began producing nearly 100 fakes annually. In fact, he made so many forgeries over a 15-year period that insiders started calling his fakes "Karabentos." Mobo Maiga, one of the two major Djenné dealers, confirmed that each time an authentic local piece was brought to him, he hired local sculptors to make several copies. Forgers no longer had to wait until new looted pieces emerged to copy them--they just worked directly from photos. Faking was simpler this way and the range of objects to copy wider. According to the forgers, to whom I showed a fair number of art books such as Bernard de Grunne's Ancient Terra- cottas from West Africa and catalogs including that of the Menil Collection in the United States, the most important published African terra cottas have been copied several times, and the copies sold as ancient.
Today, West African forgers are counterfeiting Nok and Ife statues from Nigeria and Benin in response to trends in collecting. There's no question that some African forgers are geniuses at what they do. Malian and Nigerian dealers have often told me how difficult it can be to distinguish fake from genuine when terra cottas arrive at their doorsteps. If those in the trade have such doubts, the deck is obviously stacked against their clients. Furthermore, West African terra cottas represent a relatively new market. It was only at the end of the 1960s that European collectors first started buying these pieces. The very "newness" of the art leaves the door wide open for forgeries. And a new class of collectors, less knowledgeable than their predecessors, has now emerged who view authentic African art as a good financial investment. African dealers have now installed themselves in the United States, a huge market with potentially limitless profits. American buyers are considerably less careful than their European counterparts in distinguishing authentic from fake. Also regrettable is the obsession among Western collectors with ancientness; white dealers who sell to them often disdain works of art younger than 100 years old, even when copies of wooden effigies made in Malian villages earlier in the twentieth century are sometimes better executed and more beautiful than the originals. Contemporary African art is flourishing, with Zimbabwean sculptors and Congolese bronze sculptors showing the way. While some forgers have created lucrative businesses selling their own wares, many more like Amadou are waiting for the time when they can step out of the shadows and own up to their considerable skills as legitimate creative artists.
A former regular contributor to the Belgian news magazine Le Vif- L'Express, MICHEL BRENT has for the past eight years focused on cultural heritage issues in West Africa.
Photographs: http://www.archaeology.org/curiss/abstracts/africa.html

Italy to return obelisk to Ethiopia

The obelisk's return will fulfill a longstanding promise By BBC Diplomatic Correspondent Peter Biles Italy has confirmed it will return one of Ethiopia's most famous monuments - an obelisk which was taken from the country more than 60 years ago.
Axum is considered the cradle of Ethiopian civilisation The Axum obelisk was looted by Mussolini's troops and was re-erected in Rome. But the Italian deputy foreign minister, Reno Serri, has told the Ethiopian Government that the obelisk will be sent back to Ethiopia in the coming weeks. Mr Serri is currently on a visit to the Horn of Africa for talks designed to help shore up the recently signed peace treaty between Ethiopia and Eritrea. Cradle of Ethiopian civilisation The monument was taken down and cut into three pieces in 1937, before being shipped to Italy on the personal orders of Mussolini whose forces had invaded and occupied Ethiopia a year earlier. Shortly after the end of World War II, Italy promised to return the obelisk.
Obelisks still dominate the skyline of Axum, though Mussolini chose the tallest But more than 60 years after it was taken to Rome, it still stands in front of the building that today houses the headquarters of the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation, opposite the Colosseum. After a lengthy campaign by Ethiopia to retrieve the obelisk, the Italian Government has now agreed it will be sent back soon after the New Year. If so, it will be cause for much celebration in Ethiopia. Axum - the historic town from which the obelisk originates - is seen as the cradle of Ethiopian civililisation. It is understood that preparations have already been made there for the return of the monument. During his tour, Mr Serri also announced that Italy would provide $140m towards reconstruction and development now that the border war in the Horn of Africa was over.
Photos: http://www.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/africa/newsid_1082000/1082344.stm

Museum relief as `stolen' gem found

By police Reporter MATTHEW BOWMAN
AN uncut diamond believed to have been stolen during a robbery at the South Australian Museum has been found - inside its cabinet.
Staff found the $15,000 diamond when they dismantled the display cabinet yesterday. But a cut diamond and gold nugget - together valued at $20,000 - are still missing. They were stolen when the cabinet was forced open about 4pm on Thursday. The museum's general manager, Steve Riley, said he was "thrilled" to recover the diamond. "It's great news," he said. "It was found in the floor area at the very rear of the display case. But we've still lost our gold nugget and cut diamond." The thief left other valuable items including gold crystals valued at $15,000. Mr Riley said the museum had begun extra security patrols and had upgraded surveillance cameras since the robbery. "We've already made some modifications and clearly hope to learn lessons from this which will avoid repetitions," he said. "This was somebody who carefully monitored our procedures and seized their opportunity to take these artefacts." Mr Riley refused to reveal whether the cabinet had an alarm or whether the area was monitored by security cameras. "You feel disappointed and frustrated when an incident like this occurs," he said. "In terms of state heritage, these items are irreplaceable." The stolen yellow 2.97 carat diamond, and the uncut stone found yesterday, were mined at Echunga, in the Adelaide Hills, in 1860 and have been displayed in the museum since 1880. They are two of only a few jewellery-grade diamonds known to have been unearthed in South Australia. The gold nugget was found in the Flinders Ranges. The officer in charge of Adelaide Investigations, Detective Chief Inspector Peter Campbell, described the robbery as opportunistic. "The very nature in which the cabinet was forced would tend to indicate it was a spur of the moment and opportunistic," he said. Police have appealed for anyone in the museum near the cabinet about the time of the robbery to contact them. "It was an open area and there would have been members of the public in the vicinity who may well have seen somebody acting suspiciously," Chief Inspector Campbell said. Police have warned jewellers and gem traders to be aware of anyone trying to sell the diamond or gold nugget, which he said were easily recognisable. Anyone with information about the robbery should contact Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000.
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