April 5, 2001

FBI ART THEFT PROGRAM

The FBI Art Theft Program web page has been moved. The new address is:
http://www.fbi.gov/hq/cid/arttheft/arttheft.htm

From: Gene Hickman ghickman@chrysler.org
To: "'securma@xs4all.nl'" securma@xs4all.nl
Subject:

Rotating shifts

Date sent: Thu, 5 Apr 2001 12:09:39 -0400
Does anyone on the Mailing List have any suggestions on rotating Museum Security Officers' control room shifts? Continuous coverage is required, but we'd like to rotate the shifts monthly. How do you set up a rotating schedule?
Gene Hickman
Chrysler Museum of Art
Norfolk, VA
ghickman@chrysler.org
757-333-6272

Date sent: Wed, 04 Apr 2001 06:14:31 -0800
From: christopher seal cseal@jps.net
To: Museum Security Network securma@xs4all.nl
Subject:

Re: Elgin Marbles

Dear Ton,
In a recent MSN issue I read,

Mr. Blair should keep his promise and send the Marbles back to Athens -- the
birthplace of
the very democratic principles that put him into office.

Apart from the fact that Parliament owes its "democratic principles" to the Anglo-Saxons and NOT to the Athenians, I would suggest that the perennial issue of the Elgin Marbles are in the same class as say, the Altar of Zeus from Pergamum (modern Perge) in Turkey. While standing on the top of the magnificent hill at Perge I mused upon how better sited the Altar would be there than where it now resides -in Berlin! Similar to Greek claims to "own" the Elgin Marbles, surely the Turks have the same right to ask for all of the wonderful artifacts taken from its territory, like the Altar of Zeus, and the plunder from Ephesus, among countless others. And, Greek government can ask for every classical piece in Turkey and everywhere else in the world as well as the Marbles.
To argue for the transfer of art moved long ago from one country to another is absurd.
Why not have Italy ask for the Mona Lisa back, or Egypt request that all its artifacts be returned to its soil? And let's add in everything from Babylon now in Western museums, and Benin, as well.
The tedious and false recitals of Greek ownership of the Elgin Marbles is a prima facie example of politics married to hypocrisy.
Christopher Seal

Museum piece may be fraud

By Mike Joseph
mjoseph@centredaily.com
UNIVERSITY PARK -- A painting long thought to be from the old school of a 15th -century Flemish master remains prominently displayed at a Penn State art museum but could well be a 20th-century forgery.
The painting, a Madonna-and-child triptych, survived the upheavals and art-stealing culture of World War II Europe, crossed the ocean with a German scholar who would become a Penn State professor and has stood in the Palmer Museum for the last six years. A researcher from New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art said Tuesday she expects to know within a week when and where her academic article answering authenticity questions about the "Madonna and Child with Two Donors" altar piece will be published. But the retired professor who gave the three-panel, oil-on-wood piece to the Penn State museum said the New York analysis -- which included X-rays and an examination of paint and cracks -- put the painting's date at about 1900 and figured the painter was a German known to have done at least one other work made to look like the Memling school. "Yes, that's quite a detective story," said Friedrich Helfferich, 78, of State College, professor emeritus of chemical engineering. "The paint sample had a little bit of barium sulfate, which was not used in the old time." Memling (1430-1494) was a leading Flemish painter of the Bruges school during the period of Flanders' political and commercial decline. He was widely imitated and copied and had a great many followers, testifying to his immense popularity. Palmer curator Patrick J. McGrady confirmed Tuesday that he has asked Maryan Ainsworth, senior research fellow at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, to study the triptych -- now encased in clear plastic in Palmer's foremost gallery -- to determine more about who painted it and when. Ainsworth refused to answer questions Tuesday about the results of her research, but said she would know in a week whether her work has been accepted for publication. She would not say where her paper is likely to be published. But Helfferich provided a broad outline of the history of the triptych as he knows it, together with his understanding of the conclusions of the New York analysis. He said the painting was appraised at $40,000 in the early 1970s, when "no one doubted it," but has more recently been appraised at about $11,000. "It was quite a disappointment to me and to the Palmer Museum, which is now clearly established, that it was not a 15th-century painting after all," Helfferich said. Helfferich said his mother, Annette, bought the work at a Berlin museum auction in 1930 or 1931, and at that time it was thought to have been done by a late 15th-century master from Cologne, which is not far from the Low Countries where the Memling school had flourished 450 years before. He does not know how much his mother paid for it. During World War II, Helfferich said, his mother took the painting and other valuables to a home 60 miles south of Berlin for safekeeping. In 1945, when the Russian army moved into eastern Germany, she gave it to the brother of a local teacher to take to western Germany. Those two regions later would split into East Germany and West Germany. But when his mother later moved to West Germany and tried to retrieve the painting the man who was keeping it at first said he knew nothing about it, Helfferich said. Helfferich's elder brother, a West German lawyer, solved that problem by confronting the man. "When he was under the threat of criminal prosecution and so on, he handed that painting over to my mother," Helfferich said. After his mother died in 1965, Helfferich got the art work because "it was a beautiful painting and I always loved it" and then moved to the United States. He loaned the painting to Palmer about six years ago, and in 1999 the museum accepted it as a gift. He said the donation gave him a tax write-off but said the greater incentive was to place it in public view. "It was a little bit wasted here (at home) without anyone else who would see it," Helfferich said. McGrady said that because the piece has not appeared in the literature on 15th-century European work, the museum asked Ainsworth to study it. McGrady said it's "always possible" that the painting is a 20th-century work. "We're actually not quite sure what the work is," he said. He added that Penn State classes studying art museum curatorial work find the painting useful. He said it is identified as "after Hans Memling" as a reference to Memling school followers. A guide leading a 15-member elderhostel tour group through the museum Tuesday did not stop in front of or discuss the triptych. Helfferich said the New York analysis determined that the fine web of cracks in the painting surface -- crackelure, ostensibly a sign of very old age -- was "artificially induced." But he added that a German scholar now in Texas said New York analysts "are given to snap judgments and then don't want to be bothered." The painting also shows a "strange mix of icons," Helfferich said, such as a cut apple in the center panel. "The Memling school would not normally show the apple cut," Helfferich said. "What all of these things means is still a matter of conjecture." Beverly Balger, Palmer registrar, said all the museum curators have been studying the painting. "We're trying to figure out a lot about that painting because it's so puzzling," Balger said. "It has a lot of puzzling elements."
Mike Joseph can be reached at 235-3910.
http://web.centredaily.com/

Tumult ends New Mexico hearing on Virgin picture

By Leslie Hoffman
SANTA FE, N.M. (Reuters) - An angry crowd upset over an artwork depicting the Virgin Mary in a bikini forced New Mexico state museum officials to postpone a hearing called Wednesday to address Catholic-led protests over the image. Tempers flared and officials said they feared violence after a larger-than-expected crowd of about 800 people showed up for a public hearing by the Museum of New Mexico board of regents. The crowd was too large for the venue, leaving more than 300 outside chanting ``cancel the meeting.'' The hearing was called because of mounting protests by Catholic activists and the archbishop of Santa Fe over the artwork ``Our Lady,'' a digital collage depicting the Virgin Mary in a floral bikini held aloft by a bare-breasted female angel. The work is being exhibited as part of a show in the Museum of International Folk Art. Critics say the picture is anti-Catholic and portrays the Virgin Mary as a pin-up girl, but California artist Alma Lopez says the image depicts the Virgin Mary as a strong, modern woman. About 450 people jammed the auditorium of Santa Fe's Museum of Native American Arts and Culture for the hearing, but more than 300 were left in a courtyard outside chanting in protest. The board called off the meeting about half an hour after it started when police told officials they feared possible violence by the people outside.

``Emergency Situation''

``We have an emergency situation,'' Toby Lynn Herzlich, one of two professional mediators hired to run the meeting, said as the chants grew louder. ``People are threatening unsafe activities outside and this is something we cannot allow.'' Police lined both sides of the courtyard outside the museum's entrance where most of the overflow crowd stood. Most of those outside appeared to be critics of the picture. Many shouted for its removal and others carried traditional images of the Virgin of Guadalupe, a venerated depiction of the Virgin Mary as she reputedly appeared to a Mexican peasant in the 16th century. ``Our Lady'' is styled after the Virgin of Guadalupe. Its creator, Lopez, read a statement to reporters that she had planned to present at the hearing, arguing that removing the picture would be censorship and that it is an artwork in a museum, not a sacred object in a church. ``What happens to the rights of artists and curators to create an exhibit without censorship? ... It scares me to see so many people organized against me and attacking me,'' she said.
Catholic activist Henry J. Casso rejected talk of censorship. ``It's not about First Amendment (free speech) issues. It's about a sacred image,'' he said. The state board of regents has not indicated that it will vote on calls for the picture to be removed, just that it wants to hear the rival views. Museum officials said the public hearing would probably be rescheduled for sometime next week in a larger venue.
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/

Developers must dig up artifacts

Before the Cannon Ranch golf community takes hold, builders must excavate objects left behind by the people who walked Florida long before recorded history.
By CHASE SQUIRES
© St. Petersburg Times, published April 5, 2001
SAN ANTONIO -- The aboriginals are in the details.
When the Pasco County Commission approved the 6,700-unit Cannon Ranch golf development last month, buried in the 12-page document was a brief mention of a potentially valuable historic find dubbed the "Egg Hole" site.
more:
http://www.sptimes.com/News/040501/Pasco/Developers_must_dig_u.shtml