By DAREH GREGORIAN
September 6, 2001 -- A lawsuit that charges the mega-rich Wildenstein family made off with eight medieval manuscripts that were looted by the Nazis can proceed, a Manhattan judge ruled yesterday. In a 22-page decision, state Supreme Court Justice Marylin Diamond ruled the family of the late French art collector Alphonse Kann can go forward with their claim that the Wildensteins wrongfully obtained the manuscripts - valued at $8 million - after World War II. "We're gratified that our position has been vindicated," said Kann family lawyer Steven Somerstein. "We think the court made the right decision." The Kann family maintains the manuscripts were stolen from them during the war, and the Wildensteins - who now have a multibillion-dollar art empire - improperly obtained them after the war. Somerstein said the family didn't discover where the books were until 1996. "This is stolen property that turned up in the possession of the Wildenstein family 50 years later," Somerstein said. His clients are seeking to get back either the books or their monetary value. Wildenstein lawyer Hyman Schaffer acknowledged the books were stolen during the war - but from his clients. "Over 50 years ago, the Wildensteins demonstrated that these books belonged to them. Kann made no claims to these whatsoever, because he realized they didn't belong to him," Schaffer said, adding the case "should be dismissed." http://www.nypost.com/
Couple Charged in Dinosaur Theft
By RICH VOSEPKA, Associated Press Writer
SALT LAKE CITY (AP) - A husband and wife suspected of buying a dinosaur fossil stolen from federal land in central Utah were charged Tuesday with theft. The nearly complete Allosaurus skeleton - one of only a dozen in the world - was hacked from the earth on Bureau of Land Management (news - web sites) property in the early 1990s. Scientists and prosecutors did not learn of the fossil until 1998, after an informant told officials it was stolen from BLM land about 200 miles south of Salt Lake City. Prosecutors said a Utah man sold the fossil to Barry James, a Pennsylvania dinosaur buff who then sold the bones to a Japanese collector. James and his wife, April Rhodes-James, of Sunbury, Pa., are the only ones who can be charged because the statute of limitations has expired for the people who dug up the fossil, U.S. Attorney Paul Warner said. The couple face not only the state theft charges but a federal lawsuit seeking $2.1 million in damages. ``The money cannot begin to replace the value this fossil would have,'' Warner said. Because the fossil was damaged when it was taken out of the ground, priceless information about how the creature died will never be known, said Laurie Bryant, regional paleontologist for the Bureau of Land Management. A professional excavation by legitimate paleontologists would have taken six months. Instead, amateurs using picks, shovels and wheelbarrows dug it up in nine days, said Don Johnson, head of the FBI (news - web sites) office in Salt Lake City. The Japanese company that bought the fossil did not know it was stolen and no one at the company will face prosecution, officials said. The name of the company was not released. To nonscientists, the Allosaurus remains would have looked like ordinary rocks, Bryant said. Investigators say the fossil is worth $700,000, but that James bought it for $90,000 and sold it for $400,000. The couple are still subject to prosecution because they have been living out of state. The statute of limitations for Utah crimes does not run while people are living outside the state's borders. Allosaurus lived in the late Jurassic Period, 154 million to 144 million years ago. A three- foot skull full of serrated steak knives for teeth made it the great predator of its time, Bryant said. It measured about 40 feet from nose to tail and stood about nine feet tall at the hips, she said. The creature either hunted live animals or scavenged carrion - scientists aren't sure which. http://dailynews.yahoo.com/
$25,000 for fossil worm?
CALGARY - Scientists are upset that thieves have been pilfering some of Canada's most valuable geological sites.
A fossil taken Aug. 17 from the Burgess Shale in British Columbia's Yoho National Park has been valued at more than $25,000. The RCMP are investigating, and a worldwide alert has been issued. The 20-kilogram rock taken from near the border with British Columbia contains an impeccable and highly detailed 500-million-year-old impression of a carnivorous worm called ottoia. The fossil was taken from a quarry that is restricted to scientific researchers and the Yoho- Burgess Shale Foundation. The foundation's Randle Robertson says such items would be worth a lot of money – to the right buyer. "There aren't that many in the world; there are very, very few," he said. The thieves could sell the fossil on the black market, he said. Or they could have been commissioned to steal such an article by private collectors. A curator with the Royal Tyrrell Museum in Drumheller, Alberta says the thefts are shameful. "It's kind of a tragedy I think to think that one of our key sites, a UNESCO World Heritage Site is open to pilfering of this sort," said Paul Johnston.
Written by CBC News Online staff http://cbc.ca/ Date sent: Wed, 05 Sep 2001 17:40:33 -0400 From: "Tim Szczepanski" TSzczepanski@toledomuseum.org To: securma@xs4all.nl Subject:
query: effectiveness of halitron extinguishers
I would like some input from colleagues on the effectiveness of halitron extinguishers. Also, does halitron pose any risk to paintings or graphic arts ? Thank you
Tim Szczepanski Chief of Protective Services Toledo Museum of Art PO Box 1013 Toledo, OH 43697 Phone 419-255-8000 Fax 419-255-5638 e-mail tszczepanski@toledomuseum.org Current exhibitions at the museum- Star Wars through 1/5/02
Arson suspected as fire guts popular Nassau tourist district
By Doreen Hemlock and Michele Salcedo , South Florida Sun-Sentinel
A fire that raced through downtown Nassau's historic Bay Street on Tuesday, laying waste to the landmark Straw Market, the Ministry of Tourism and two museums while threatening a third, may have been caused by arson, investigators said. No major injuries were reported in the popular shopping district, although several firefighters suffered minor injuries, said Superintendent Marvin Dames, commander of the Central Detective Unit of the Royal Bahamian Police Force. A lone man was seen near where the fire began in the Straw Market, Dames said. The fire broke out about 3 p.m., normally a busy time for the three- story market that attracts a constant stream of tourists. "The air was smoky. You could hardly see," said Chantel Johnson, 29, a waitress at the nearby Double Dragon Chinese restaurant. "Some people were trying to get their things out from the Straw Market." http://www.sun-sentinel.com/ From: newsletter@theartnewspaper.com Subject:
THE JEWISH MUSEUM IN BERLIN OPENS TO THE PUBLIC ON 9 SEPTEMBER
BERLIN. In the Seventies, a small department dedicated to Jewish history was created within the municipal collection of the Berlin Museum in the Western sector of the city. The competition for the extension of that museum was won in 1989 by Daniel Libeskind, who produced a very eloquent project in the shape of a zig-zag line, as if a Star of David had been smashed and distorted. http://www.theartnewspaper.com/news/article.asp?idart=7254
EWOLFS SUSPENDS AUCTIONS AFTER DISPUTE WITH FOUNDER
CLEVELAND, OHIO. The fine arts auctioneer eWolfs has suspended its business and laid off most of its staff, the result of a bitter dispute with its founder and former ceo Michael Wolf. The company, which for 25 years was a classic auction house, went entirely online in 1999 and was often cited as one of the few success stories for selling art over the web. http://www.theartnewspaper.com/news/article.asp?idart=7253
PHILLIPS BAGS HOENER COLLECTION
NEW YORK. Phillips has pulled another collection out of its hat, to be sold in a separately catalogued auction in New York on 5 November. The group of 49 works—paintings, watercolours, drawings and sculpture—was collected by an investment banker, Diethelm Hoener, and focuses on early 20th-century German art, with a particular strength in the Die Brücke movement. http://www.theartnewspaper.com/news/article.asp?idart=7252
SMART MUSEUM ACQUIRES NAKED CRITICS
NEW YORK. The University of Chicago’s Smart Museum of Art has acquired feminist artist Sylvia Sleigh’s 1973 painting “The Turkish bath”, in which a group of four prominent male critics of the time are pictured lounging in the buff. http://www.theartnewspaper.com/news/article.asp?idart=7251
THE MET AND LOUVRE ARE BEHAVING UNETHICALLY
PARIS. Museums across the world are being called on to take a tougher stand against the illicit trade in art and antiquities. The International Council of Museums (ICOM), meeting in Barcelona in July, approved a new, stronger Code of Ethics. This requires that when making acquisitions, provenance checks should be made to establish “the full history of the item from discovery or production”. Every effort must be made to ensure that objects have “not been illegally acquired in, or exported from, its country of origin.” http://www.theartnewspaper.com/news/article.asp?idart=7250
GERMAN CONTEMPORARY ART: A TOP TEN
LONDON. German contemporary art has shown astonishing growth in the last few years, with names such as Richter, Kiefer, Polke or Baselitz very much “blue-chip”, while some of the hottest property comes from a younger generation, particularly the photographers Ruff, Struth and Gursky. http://www.theartnewspaper.com/news/article.asp?idart=7235
THE GETTY MUSEUM, LOS ANGELES: ANIMAL MAGIC
LONDON. From the Middle Ages onwards, porcelain had been one of China’s most precious exports, avidly collected in Europe as a symbol of finest taste, the greatest expense and mysterious manufacture. Westerners spent years attempting to discover the technology for making porcelain, and when the formula for hard-paste porcelain was finally cracked by Böttger in Meissen, it became a closely guarded Saxon State secret, protected by various laws with dire penalties, befitting a substance regarded as precious as gold, the manufacture of which was held as equivalent to the Philosopher’s Stone. http://www.theartnewspaper.com/news/article.asp?idart=7234
THE RESTORATION OLYMPICS
ANGKOR WAT. When there are half a dozen teams of different nationalities working separately on different temples within a single ancient site in a country which has little experience in preservation, it appears the perfect recipe for chaos. In this free-for-all, there might well be the temptation to experiment on new techniques and chemicals, in the knowledge that there will be little monitoring of what is being done. http://www.theartnewspaper.com/news/article.asp?idart=7233
UNDERWATER ARCHAEOLOGY
LONDON. The hunt is on for the Cambridge, a British warship that sank during a storm 300 years ago in the Western Mediterranean. Odyssey Marine Explorations, a salvage company based in Tampa, Florida, is using a remotely operated vehicle to sweep the seas with side scan sonar surveys at depths ranging from 1,000 to 3,000 feet and is analysing data and any anomalies that might indicate the presence of a wreck. http://www.theartnewspaper.com/news/article.asp?idart=7232
A VISIBLE STUTTER IN TIME
LONDON. Speaking in 1889, Walt Whitman expressed the wish that photography had been invented rather sooner: “The point was, how much better it would be, rather than having a lot of contradictory records by witnesses or historians—say of Caesar, Socrates, Epictetus, others—if we could have three or four or half a dozen portraits—very accurate—of the men: that would be history—the best history—a history from which there could be no appeal.” http://www.theartnewspaper.com/news/article.asp?idart=7231
Anna Somers Cocks, Editor contact@theartnewspaper.com
The Art Newspaper 70 South Lambeth Road London SW8 1RL UK tel +44(0)207 735 3331 fax +44(0)207 735 3332 http://www.theartnewspaper.com