Historic Javanese Art Treasures Victims Of Looting
The endangered status of both Cambodia's and China's antiquities has received much attention in the West, along with well-intentioned (but dubiously effective) support. But Java's heritage, just as spectacular, has been allowed to slip away unnoticed. And Indonesia's economic-political crises are undermining what limited progress had been made. In the crosshairs are dozens of magnificent Hindu-Buddhist temples on the island. They were built from the 8th century until the coming of Islam in the 16th century. Because of the peculiarly syncretic nature of Javanese Islam, they were neither destroyed nor converted into mosques, but became deconsecrated local landmarks (although even then some are occasionally used by Balinese pilgrims, and Muslims continue such Hindu practices as rubbing Ganesha's belly for good luck in exams). "The looting really started in the 1960s," says an expert at an Indonesian auction house, who asked not to be identified. The worst affected, he said, was Borobudur, the renowned, massive, Buddhist temple-mountain. "Many heads or even whole figures have been smuggled out and then secretly replaced with high-quality replicas." Borobudur was, in a way, a victim of success. The temple, which was finished by 850 A.D., lay buried under volcanic ash until rediscovered in 1815 by Stamford Raffles (the adventurer who helped establish Britain's empire in East Asia). Reconstruction by the Dutch and, more recently, Indonesia and Unesco helped develop a corps of incredibly proficient stone carvers in the nearby village of Muntilan--some of whom realized their talents could be put to more profitable uses. Accordingly, many originals were simply stolen and replaced by copies. "The Borobudur you see today," says the auction house expert, "is essentially a reproduction." Until the fall of Indonesian dictator Suharto in 1998, some progress in protecting monuments had been made, due to better documentation and less corruption in the Bureau of Antiquities and National Heritage. But now all controls are off. The ancient monuments of Central Java like Borobudur and Prambanan are relatively safe as most looting has already taken place. Instead the focus is on East Java, home to the medieval Majapahit kingdom, and the shipwreck-rich Java Sea. Straddling the world's richest sea-lanes, Indonesia is fertile ground for marine archaeology. During the 1980s, authority over such sites fell, bizarrely, not to the Ministry of Culture or the Bureau of Antiquities, but to the Ministry of Stability under one Admiral Sudomo, who appointed his own cronies to a committee with power to grant permission for excavations. In this way, many shipwrecks were legally, though dubiously, excavated by marine archaeologists, who later removed the artifacts from Indonesia. An example is the Tek Sing horde, 350,000 pieces of Qing dynasty ceramics found in a junk that sank off the coast of Sumatra. Excavated with the connivance of Indonesian officials--at one point it was smuggled on to an Australian beach in containers--it was auctioned in November 2000 by Nagel in Stuttgart, earning $10.1 million. After much bickering, the Indonesian government managed to get a third of the profits. Every looting field has its own shopping mall. China has Hong Kong, Cambodia and Bangkok; Java has Singapore, which imposes no controls on art sales, other than a goods and services tax. In recent years, magnificent sculptures smuggled from East Java have surfaced at the Tanglin Mall, the center of the semi-licit trade in Indonesian cultural property. One anonymous dealer has frequently advertised Majapahit pieces in specialist magazines like Orientations and Arts of Asia leaving only a Yahoo! e-mail address and a Singapore fax number--no name, no address, no telephone. http://www.forbes.com/ From: "Fowler, Mary" Mfowl@herrick.com To: "'securma@xs4all.nl'" securma@xs4all.nl Subject: FROM LARRY KAYE - PRESS RELEASE Date: Wed, 3 Apr 2002 13:06:35 -0500
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE April 3, 2002
HISTORIC CLAIM IS FILED AGAINST SWISS FOUNDATION TO RECOVER VALUABLE NAZI-LOOTED ART; EXPECTED TO RESULT IN FAR-REACHING DECISION AFFECTING SWISS ART HOLDINGS
In a precedent-setting case that squarely places before the Swiss courts the issue of Nazi- looted art, Jen Lissitzky announced, through his New York counsel, international art lawyers Lawrence M. Kaye and Howard N. Spiegler of Herrick, Feinstein LLP, that a 124-page Complaint was filed yesterday on his behalf in the Civil Court of the City of Basel against the Beyeler Foundation. Mr. Lissitzky is seeking to recover the painting, Improvisation No. 10 by Wassily Kandinsky, which had been looted by the Nazis in 1937. The colorful oil painting, executed in 1910, is considered to be a key work of 20th century art and is currently on display at the Beyeler Foundation, an internationally known private museum in Basel, Switzerland.
The Kandinsky was part of a group of 13 paintings from Sophie Küppers-Lissitzky=s collection that she had loaned to the Provinzial Museum in Hannover in 1926, before she left Germany for Russia to marry the Russian avant-garde artist, El Lissitzky. In 1937, the Nazis confiscated Mrs. Küppers-Lissitzky=s collection, including the Kandinsky painting, from the museum as part of the Nazi Adegenerate art@ campaign. After the death of her husband in 1941 and under pressure from the Stalin regime, Mrs. Küppers-Lissitzky was exiled to Siberia, where she died in 1978.
Jen Lissitzky, the son of El Lissitzky and Sophie Küppers-Lissitzky, who inherited his mother=s collection, has been attempting to recover it for several years. Shortly after he was able to emigrate from Russia in 1989, Mr. Lissitzky discovered that the Kandinsky work was in the possession of Ernst Beyeler, the noted Basel dealer and collector. He immediately asked Mr. Beyeler to return the painting. Mr. Beyeler says that he purchased it in 1951 in Cologne from Ferdinand Möller, one of the four notorious art dealers to whom Hitler had delegated the sale of Adegenerate art.@ As the Complaint notes, the reverse side of the painting still bears the Nazi inventory number. According to Mr. Beyeler, he transferred the painting to the Beyeler Foundation sometime in or after 1991.
Mr Lissitzky is represented in the Basel proceeding by Dr. Peter Mosimann of Wenger Plattner. In November, the parties discussed resolving the case at a mediation proceeding, but since the Beyeler Foundation rejected a settlement proposal made by Mr. Lissitzky, he has now submitted his detailed claim to the Court. Mr. Lissitzky is highly confident that the Swiss courts will finally restore his mother=s legacy and order the return of the painting to him.
The Complaint provides specific details concerning the suspicious circumstances surrounding Mr. Beyeler's purchase of the painting from Mr. M`ller in 1951, many of which have been admitted by Mr. Beyeler in the catalogs of his collection describing his acquisition of the Kandinsky. At the suggestion of a museum director friend, who told Mr. Beyeler that M`ller had hidden away a good deal of "degenerate art," Mr. Beyeler crossed the Swiss border into occupied Germany to meet M`ller in a shabby attic apartment in the British Occupation Zone. M`ller, a known Nazi dealer, took the painting from behind a cabinet, where he had hidden it. As already noted, the Nazi inventory number was marked on the back of the painting. Trafficking in Nazi-looted art was well-known in post-war Germany, and postings by the Allied Military Government throughout occupied Germany warned that it was illegal to deal in artwork. Despite all the "red flags", however, Mr. Beyeler nevertheless purchased the painting and smuggled it into Switzerland. The Complaint demonstrates that the Beyeler Foundation must now return the work to its rightful owner, Jen Lissitzky.
The case promises to be of enormous importance to the highly significant Swiss art market and will have ramifications throughout the international art community. Switzerland was one of the 44 nations that, in 1998, adopted the Washington Conference Principles on Nazi-Confiscated Art, which urged that steps be taken to assist victims of the Third Reich to recover stolen cultural property. Likewise, the International Council of Museums (ICOM) has issued recommendations to all museum professionals around the world to actively address the return of looted art, especially art acquired right after World War II. But these principles have never been put to the test in Switzerland as squarely as in this case.
CONTACT:
Herrick, Feinstein LLP Lawrence M. Kaye 212-592-1410 Howard N. Spiegler 212-592-1444
Wenger Plattner Peter Mosimann 011-41-61-279-70-00 011-41-61-421-96-00
Italy Asked to Return Ethiopia's historical treasures
Wed Apr 3,10:25 AM ET
ADDIS ABABA (Reuters) - Ethiopia appealed to the Italian government on Wednesday to return the country's first plane which was looted during World War Two.
"We have repeatedly and consistently demanded that the Italian government should honor the 1947 peace treaty and restitute Ethiopian historical treasures such as the aeroplane of the Negus and the Axum obelisk, which were looted by Fascist forces during their five-year occupation of the country," said Jara Haile Mariam of the Authority for Research and Conservation of Cultural Heritage.
Ethiopia has campaigned for decades for European countries to return stolen artifacts. One of the most prominent campaigns is for the return from Italy of a 3,000-year-old obelisk looted from the holy city of Axum in 1937.
The plane was built in Ethiopia and first flown in 1935 by German pilot Ludwig Weber of Frieburg who named it "Aethiopien 1," or "Ethiopia I," according to historical documents.
Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie named the plane after his daughter Princess Tsehai, and it is also known as "Aeroplane of the Negus" -- meaning aeroplane of the king in Amharic.
It is currently on display at the Aviation Museum in Italy.
The Ethiopian Civil Aviation Authority wants to give it a place of honor inside a newly built terminal building at Addis Ababa's Bole International Airport.
There was no immediate comment from the Italian embassy in Addis Ababa.