April 19, 2002
CONTENTS:
- Purchase weapon collection Rijksmuseum Amsterdam criticized
- Buddhist manuscripts smuggled out of Afganistan now in Norwegian collection
- Workshop on disaster management
- Workshop on emergency preparedness
- Union influence derails museums’ restructuring
- Valuable paintings stolen in raid
- Modern Icons. As China's ever expanding list of ancient relics grows, will any relics of former times remain?
- No Prison Time Is Recommended in Sotheby's Price-Fixing Case
- Earthquake damaged Arthens museum closed for renovations
- Dutch Promise Return of Nazi-Looted Art
Purchase weapon collection Rijksmuseum Amsterdam criticized
"Last Saturday, the biggest newspaper in the Netherlands, De Telegraaf, announced with much fuss on page 3, that the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam had acquired for € 3,5 million from the Dutchman H.L. Visser a third part of his weapon collection, which in total consisted of a thousand rare objects. For the purchase of the rest of the collection the Museum has to save up for a long time and is also looking for donators. However the director, Peter Sigmond, is convinced that the financial hole will be filled up very soon. The State Secretary of Education, Culture and Science, Frederik (Rick) van der Ploeg was one of guests present at the official transfer of the first part of the collection. Apparently he was not well informed about the history of the collection and its former owner."
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"A few decades ago Visser was one of the shady characters in the top of the international weapon trade. For example, he secretly delivered modern arms to Iraq, Iran and communist China. The former broke him up, because in 1993 he tried to sell to the Chi Mei-museum* in Tainan-Taiwan, the same collection, of which a part the Rijksmuseum now has, and the rest of the collection is on its wish-list. The deal fell through when the director of the museum learnt about Vissers' weapon deals with Beijing, from the Taiwanese Intelligence Service."
read full story at: http://www.michelvanrijn.com/artnews/rijksmuseum.htm Comments Rijksmuseum (abbreviated):
"The Rijksmuseum bought this collection because it is an important part of our cultural heritage.There are hardly any 17th century weapons in Netherlands museums. The museum succeeded achieving this collection in close cooperation with the Army Museum in Delft. Mr. Visser from whom this collection was bought is an awarded Dutch citizen who's conduct has been screened."
Buddhist manuscripts smuggled out of Afganistan now in Norwegian collection
(From SPACH: Society for the preservation of Afghanistan's Cultural Heritage)
Buddhist manuscripts from Afghanistan acquired by Martin Schøyen are now kept in his private manuscript collection. The Norwegian media has written quite a bit about the Schøyen- collection in the course of the last few months. The coverage was initially positive, but lately more critical views regarding the collection have been aired. The Egyptian authorities, through their ambassador, are now considering a claim on the return of Egyptian objects in the collection.
The current debate in Norway concerning the Schøyen-collection
The Norwegian collector Martin Schøyen is the formal owner of the alleged largest private collection of ancient manuscripts in the world. Parts of the collection are presented on a web- page (in English) by the Norwegian National Library:
http://www.nb.no/baser/schoyen/
The collection has the last two years been made publicly known through media, e.g. in (Norwegian only): Aftenposten (http://www.aftenposten.no/):
http://tux1.aftenposten.no/kul_und/kultur/d169785.htm
http://tux1.aftenposten.no/kul_und/kultur/d168653.htm
http://tux1.aftenposten.no/kul_und/kultur/d169783.htm
NRK (http://www.nrk.no/):
http://www.nrk.no/litteratur/1432506.html ; http://www.nrk.no/nyheter/kultur/1431072.html ; http://www.nrk.no/distrikt/ostlands__sendingen/lang_lunsj/1438449.html ; http://www.nrk.no/distrikt/ostlands__sendingen/lang_lunsj/1449280.html
Nettavisen (http://www.nettavisen.no/)
http://www.nettavisen.no/servlets/page?section=4&item=126763 ; http://www.nettavisen.no/servlets/page?section=4&item=184850.
The largest group of manuscripts in the Schøyen-collection is the approximately 1400 pieces of Buddhist manuscripts that were smuggled out of Afghanistan 5-6 years ago. The circumstances surrounding the recovery of the manuscripts in Afghanistan and their transportation out of Afghanistan and Pakistan, as well as Schøyen's role before acquiring the manuscripts in London, is not clear. However, Schøyen has kindly made the manuscripts available to researchers, as well as digitally available to the general public. Still, the conservation of the manuscripts may be of some immediate concern.
The Norwegian professor Jens Braarvig (Department of cultural studies, University of Oslo) directs a research group under the Centre for Advanced Study with the aim to investigate and publish the manuscripts (http://www.shs.uio.no/). Information about this research is published in Newsletter 2001 no 2, available in English on the Internet (requires Adobe): http://www.shs.uio.no/Publications/index.html
Martin Schøyen has announced that he wishes to sell his entire manuscript collection at an assumed market price of about 100 million USD. The proceeds are to be donated to fund named in his honour. Various officials in Norway have argued that the Norwegian state should buy the entire collection at market price. The crux of their argument is that the Schøyen-collection should be viewed as a "world heritage", and as such the Norwegian authorities should take care of the collection because a Norwegian collector currently owns it, and acquiring the collection would offer a unique opportunity of enhancing national prestige.
Up to January 2002 media references to the collection were mostly positive, and supported a policy of government purchase of the entire Schøyen-collection. The media emphasised the national prestige that would fall on a small country like Norway - with few significant cultural attractions of its own if it could own and display such a great collection: an important new cultural attraction would literally put Norway on the map of world culture. One exception is the Internet paper Nettavisen (www.nettavisen.no) that in November 2001 asked if the readers thought it was defensible to buy the Schøyen-collection for the Norwegian oil- money. Many of the readers were, for various reasons, negative: http://www.nettavisen.no/servlets/page?section=4&item=184928&execute=viewComments#comments.
The director of the State Archives likewise took a clear and critical stance (on national television), and made an appeal for a display of the same generosity towards Afghanistan, that the young Norwegian state itself has so often benefited from.
However, several scholars where not content with the debate, and we decided to write a feature article about the Schøyen-collection. The article raised critical questions concerning the ownership and ethics surrounding the Schøyen-collection. The article was published January 17, 2002 in the leading Norwegian newspaper Aftenposten, and is available on the Internet (Norwegian only): http://www.aftenposten.no/meninger/kronikker/article.jhtml?articleID=259191
The primary focus of our article was the Buddhist manuscripts from Afghanistan. We presented the destruction of the cultural heritage in Afghanistan (primarily through reference to publications by SPACH-members), expressed gratitude to Schøyen for any positive role he might have had in salvaging the manuscripts, and commended him for making his collection publicly accessible. However, we expressed deep concern about the removal of cultural heritage from a country submerged in war, and that such objects should ever be considered the property of the Norwegian state. We suggested that the manuscripts for a period could be cared for and researched on in Norwegian collections (or collections in other countries), but any caretaker should be obliged to return them when conditions permit - whether this takes one or hundred years. We also urged the Norwegian state to ratify the UNESCO 1970 Convention.
After the article was published, media was initially quiet about the Schøyen-collection. However, the magazine Museumsnytt (no. 1, 2002) of the Association of Norwegian museums, wrote five pages with critical views about the Schøyen-collection.
From mid-March 2002 the Norwegian media again started to write about the Schøyen-collection, but now the media has become more critical, and includes a more varied selection of views.
On March 18th the professor of history Hans Fredrik Dahl organized a seminar about the Schøyen- collection were he raised the question: "Who owns culture?". Dahl invited a panel to discuss the future of the Schøyen-collection: - Bendik Rugaas, former head of the National Library, wants the Norwegian state to buy the entire Schøyen-collection. Earlier he suggested that the foreign aid money could be used to buy the collection. He now suggests the Ministry of Culture or that "oil-money" could by them.
See: http://www.nrk.no/nyheter/kultur/1728220.html ; http://www.nettavisen.no/servlets/page?section=4&item=184928 .
- Professor Egil Mikkelsen, the director of the University museum of cultural heritage, Oslo (who would like to have the collection in his museum [!]).
- Director John Herstad, head of the Norwegian state archives (who does not at all support any Norwegian claim to the Schøyen-collection).
- A representative from the Norwegian national commission of UNESCO (who referred to the UNESCO-conventions).
On the same day (March 18, 2002), the foremost financial newspaper, Dagens Næringsliv, published an interview with the minister of fisheries Svein Ludvigsen where he supported purchasing the Schøyen-collection for permanent Norwegian government ownership. In slightly bizarre terms Ludvigsen told how he had visited Schøyen at his home, and after he had turned over the leaves of a copy of Magna Carta and tried on a ring that had belonged to Tut-ankh- amon, Ludvigsen - a "countryman" (his own words) - was in awe and begged the minister of culture to buy the collection. Associate professor Christopher Prescott was also interviewed, but said that many of the objects in the Schøyen-collection might have been plundered from various monuments and sites, and that ethical if not legal title was questionable. The interview (in Norwegian) is available on: http://www.dn.no/artikkel?ID=EPS_54807
The following day's media referred sarcastically to the minister of fisheries, e.g., the editor of Dagens Næringsliv criticized Ludvigsen in the editorial and emphasized that Ludvigsen is in charge of fisheries, and not cultural policies: http://www.dn.no/artikkel?ID=EPS_54917
Still, on March 18, 2002 the major evening news on the radio (Dagsnytt 18, NRK) had a debate about the Schøyen-collection. A representative from the Ministry of Culture said it was financially impossible for the ministry to buy the collection at market price.
http://www.nrk.no/nyheter/kultur/1728516.html ; http://www.nettavisen.no/servlets/page?section=4&item=205724 ; http://www.nrk.no/nyheter/kultur/1737637.html.
On March 20, 2002 the Egyptian ambassador to Norway, Nermine Mourad, said to Dagens Næringsliv that she would demand that the Egyptian objects in the Schøyen-collection were returned to Egypt. She called on the Norwegian Ministry of Culture to make inquiries into how Schøyen came by his Egyptian objects. This request has now been referred to in several newspapers, and a representative from the Ministry of Culture expressed that if the ministry has the authority, it could start an inquiry. The ministry secretary said that similar problems seem to pertain to the Afghani manuscripts.
http://www.dn.no/artikkel?ID=EPS_55015 ; http://www.aftenposten.no/kul_und/article.jhtml?articleID=299952 ; http://www.osloposten.no/default.asp?pid=2076&item=2459.
On the same day, the Norwegian UNESCO Director in Islamabad, Ms. Ingeborg Breines, said in a radio program that the Buddhist manuscripts in the Schøyen-collection should be returned to Afghanistan: http://www.nrk.no/nyheter/kultur/1731361.html
This is where the case now stands. The media used to refer to the Schøyen-collection by reference to national pride, but the last two months it has become legitimate to raise critical questions about the collection: how it was collected and where the objects come from, and point out the dubious nature in allowing the Norwegian (or other Western) state to serve as owner or permanent custodian.
At the moment we don't know what will happen to a potential Egyptian demand for return. However, a request might lead to an inquiry to find out the history of where several of the objects in the collection come from.
from ConsDisList:
From: Vanessa Charles v.s.charles@dundee.ac.uk Subject: Workshop on disaster management
Workshop on disaster management
University of Dundee.
Thursday May 16, 2002
9:30am - 4:15pm
Helene M Donnelly of the Data and Archival Damage Control Centre will be presenting a one day workshop on disaster management. The day will include a virtual flood simulation. There will be light refreshments but lunch will not be provided. . Cost per participant is one hundred and fifty pounds stg. Course notes will be provided. Enquiries should be made to
Helen Holden at University of Dundee,
Library Conservation Unit
Dundee DD1 4HN
Scotland
+44 1382 344094
h.holden@dundee.ac.uk
Please note that there are now three places left.
Vanessa Charles
------------------------------
Date: 15 Apr 2002
From: Julie Page julie@library.ucsd.edu Subject: Workshop on emergency preparedness
Protecting Library Collections:
Emergency Preparedness, Response and Recovery
A 2-Part Workshop presented by the California Preservation Task Force
Supported by LSTA and the California State Library
In the first moments of an emergency, personal safety is your priority. When people and structures are determined to be secure, you may be faced with the overwhelming job of putting your library back in order. The success you have will be the result of how well you have prepared. What do you do first? Who needs to be involved? How can you avoid damaging materials while you rescue them? How do you help staff cope with the trauma?
Can you prevent an emergency from happening in the first place? In addition to large scale emergencies, institutions should also be prepared to respond to the danger to collections from roof leaks, pest infestations, mold blooms, theft, and fire. Disaster mitigation should play a role in any institution's emergency preparedness and planning efforts. Don't be left unprepared!
Who should attend? Library administrators and those having responsibility for emergency preparedness, response, and decision-making from public, academic, school and special libraries, historical societies and archives.
In this series of two workshops, you will learn to:
* Write or update your library emergency plan.
* Use practical decision-making skills during an emergency.
* Conduct an assessment of your building.
* Set post-disaster action priorities for your library.
* Pack and air dry wet books, and deal with AV and computer media.
* Use a fire extinguisher.
For information regarding cost and registration contact:
Ventura (Thursday, May 2) 805-477-0390
Sacramento (Tuesday, May 7) 209-937-8649
Redding (Thursday, May 9) 530-566-1824
Fresno (Wednesday, May 15) 559-732-3950
Or contact: cpc@ucsd.edu
This training is supported in part by the U.S. Institute of Museum and Library Services under the provisions of the Library Services and Technology Act, administered by the State Librarian.
Union influence derails museums’ restructuring
JAMES DOHERTY
A CONTROVERSIAL staff restructuring plan for Glasgow’s museums has been postponed after intense political pressure from trades unions.
Councillors on the culture and leisure committee yesterday passed the decision to a full meeting of the council, due to sit next week.
more:
http://www.thescotsman.co.uk/scotland.cfm?id=410172002
Valuable paintings stolen in raid
By Claire Tolley, Daily Post
A LARGE reward has been offered to track down thieves who stole a £250,000 collection of paintings and antiques from a millionaire's home. The businessman who owned the collection lost 40 valuable paintings and a large amount of porcelain, silver and jewellery in the raid. Police are now appealing for witnesses who may have seen the burglary at his luxury home on Selworthy Road, Southport to come forward. Thieves struck between 9am to 2.30pm on Tuesday, February 19 while the owner was away. It is understood they forced their way into the house through the front entrance. The extent of the raid caused a delay of two months while insurance loss adjusters completed their assessment.
Last night, DC Ian Crossley of the burglary squad at Southport Police Station, who is leading the investigation, said they needed fresh information to move the case on. "We are appealing for anyone with any information to come forward. "And we would also like to call on anyone in the antiques trade, or anyone who deals in paintings who might have been offered the items for sale, to contact police. "It's difficult to say whether these antiques were stolen to order. "Certainly it would have taken some time for all the items to have been removed from the house." Selworthy Road is Southport's most exclusive address, on the edge of Royal Birkdale Golf Course. It is home to a number of high profile businessmen and celebrities, including former Liverpool FC manager and player Kenny Dalglish.
Last night, DC Crossley acted to quell the fears of home owners on Southport's Millionaire's Row, by saying he considered the raid "an isolated incident". The owner's extensive collection of paintings included both oils and watercolours, some worth several thousand pounds. The exact reward is not known but it is believed the insurance company involved has put up a substantial amount of money for information leading to the arrest of the offenders and return of the antiques. Last night, antiques trader Wayne Colquhoun said he believed owners with large collections should follow a list of precautions. Mr Colquhoun, of Circa 1900 in Liverpool city centre, said: "The secret is to get a list together of all the collection before the worst happens. "Unless people have pictures taken of their antiques and get them valued they can have problems if they are discovered. "It is also wise to mark your postcode on the items with an ultra violet pen so it avoids the problem of proving the antiques are yours if they are found. "The Liverpool antiques trade is a close-knit community and there's no way that those items have come to Liverpool. "By now I would guess they are in a container or warehouse somewhere - in London or somewhere on the continent."
* Anyone with information on the burglary is urged to contact Sefton CID on 0151 777 3466 or Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800 555 111.
http://icliverpool.icnetwork.co.uk/
Modern Icons
By Jo Lusby
As China's ever expanding list of ancient relics grows, will any relics of former times remain?
Entry to the vaults deep in the basement of the Shanghai Museum is only attained through a series of air locks reminiscent of space-age sci-fi adventures, and certainly not the restoration rooms of a state-owned museum. A series of 50 nozzles sunk into the walls blast jets of purified air onto visitors and workers, blowing away the dust, pollution, and impurities that would otherwise drift into the sensitive temperature-controlled environment within.
Just one floor above, nine meters underground, a moon shines down on a Ming Dynasty courtyard, complete with rocks, fake greenery, and the sound of chirping birds. During the day, the "sky" can be adjusted to show blue skies dotted with clouds, and tables can be set out for top-class entertainment amid the splendor of former days.
The vaults are a part of China's state-of-the-art showpiece facility for the restoration and preservation of ancient artifacts. The VIP entertainment suite is the flip side of the dilemmas involved in saving China's ever growing list of cultural artifacts from the ravages of time and economic development - the temptation to cash-on on the relics they house to pay for the ever-growing bill for ongoing preservation efforts.
full story: http://www.cityweekend.com.cn/issues/2002/7/Cover_Antiques
No Prison Time Is Recommended in Sotheby's Price-Fixing Case
By RALPH BLUMENTHAL and CAROL VOGEL
(New York Times)
The United States Probation Department has recommended no prison time for A. Alfred Taubman, the 78-year-old principal owner of Sotheby's who faces sentencing on Monday for his Dec. 5 conviction for fixing commission prices paid by auction clients. But the Justice Department, which prosecuted Mr. Taubman, took strong issue, arguing to the sentencing judge, George B. Daniels of Federal District Court in Manhattan, that under federal guidelines Mr. Taubman deserved the maximum three-year term and a fine of at least $1.6 million to $8 million for leading a six-year antitrust conspiracy with Sotheby's rival, Christie's. The scheme, which rocked the auction world and by some estimates led to overcharges of hundreds of millions of dollars, cost sellers $43 million, the government contends.
The probation report was not made public, but prosecutors and defense lawyers cited it yesterday in clashing memorandums to the judge. Mr. Taubman's lawyers, from Davis Polk & Wardwell, gave the judge a compendium of 90 testimonial letters by luminaries, including former President Gerald R. Ford, Queen Noor al-Hussein of Jordan, former Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulroney, former Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger and Barbara Walters.
One lawyer indirectly involved in the case said that the probation report's nonbinding recommendation, which departs from the federal sentencing guidelines that call for a prison sentence, was striking and unexpected given the gravity of the charges. While the report is a major victory for Mr. Taubman, judges vary widely in how much weight they place on such recommendations, which follow extensive research and interviews with the subject. Defense lawyers endorsed the report's recommendation of a "noncustodial sentence" and a fine. In pre-sentencing arguments, the lawyers described Mr. Taubman as "an extraordinary citizen" and offered the court "a true rags-to-riches story, torn straight from the pages of a Horatio Alger novel."
But John J. Greene, the lead prosecutor, and other Justice Department lawyers, called the case "a garden-variety price-fixing conspiracy" and countered that "only a sentence imposing substantial imprisonment and a punitive fine will be sufficient to reflect the seriousness of the offense, promote respect for the law, provide just punishment and deter similar conduct." They said Mr. Taubman's "remarkably active lifestyle" belied his claim of infirmity and quoted approvingly another judge who said that the price-fixers "deserve to be punished for the same reason we punish common thieves."
Lawyers for Mr. Taubman, a shopping center developer whose wealth was put at more than $640 million, cited a medical expert who estimated that Mr. Taubman could be expected to live another 3.8 years, and argued that a prison term "would almost certainly be a life sentence." According to one person who asked not to be identified and who wrote on Mr. Taubman's behalf, defense lawyers sent a list of guidelines to the letter writers, asking them to cite Mr. Taubman's generosity and good works but not to comment on the verdict no matter how strongly they felt.
Mr. Ford wrote that he met Mr. Taubman in the early 1960's when he built one of his first shopping malls in Grand Rapids, Mich., Mr. Ford's hometown. The event, he wrote, began a friendship that "expanded and deepened over the next 40 years." In a telephone interview yesterday, Mr. Ford said: "I don't abandon friends even if they have unfortunate developments in their lives. I trust my friendships as deep, not shallow." One of the more impassioned letters came from Mr. Taubman's wife of 20 years, Judy. "The thought that this extraordinary human being is now a defeated, humiliated shadow of himself breaks my heart," she wrote. "I still cannot believe it is actually happening." Ms. Walters, the ABC television news anchor, had told her producers that she could not cover Mr. Taubman's case because the two were longtime friends, an ABC News vice president and spokesman, Jeffrey W. Schneider, said. Her letter was on personal, not ABC, stationery. At Mr. Taubman's trial last year the jury was swayed by the testimony of a former Sotheby's chief executive, Diana D. Brooks, and evidence that Mr. Taubman and his counterpart at Christie's, Sir Anthony Tennant, conducted 12 secret meetings from 1993 to 1996. Another government witness, Christopher M. Davidge, former chief executive of Christie's, testified that those two chairmen conspired to fix prices, leaving tens of thousands of auction customers unable to barter with the two auction giants.
Earthquake damaged Arthens museum closed for renovations
The most important archaeological museum in Greece will close this autumn for renovations and additional construction work. It will open again in the spring of 2004, a few months before the Athens Olympics.
The work on the National Archaeological Museum of Athens is aimed at repairing the damage sustained by the 19th-century building in the earthquake of September 1999, which has made necessary the closing of the museum’s collection of vases and the Thera Room, which displays finds from the Minoan era settlement at Akrotiri, Santorini. The museum will also undergo radical refurbishing in order to be able to present exhibitions in a more contemporary manner to draw in visitors.
“This period will be exploited for the better organization of the huge amount of material, which entails an ongoing excavation inside the museum,” Culture Minister Evangelos Venizelos said on Tuesday.
http://www.ekathimerini.com/
Dutch Promise Return of Nazi-Looted Art
Thursday, April 18, 2002 1:37 p.m. EDT
LONDON (Reuters) - The Netherlands has agreed to hand over 233 works of art looted by the Nazis during World War Two , according to a group representing the family claiming ownership of the collection.
Anne Webber, co-chair of the London-based Commission for Looted Art in Europe, said the agreement after years of lobbying set an important precedent for other families seeking the return of art seized by Nazi troops.
"We think this is a very significant step," Webber said. "We are thrilled for the Gutmann family. All over the world there are families in a similar position."
Webber said Dutch officials had assured her the collapse of the Dutch government earlier this week, over its failure to prevent the Srebrenica massacre in Bosnia, would not affect the decision.
Fritz Gutmann, who originally owned the works of art, was beaten to death in a Nazi concentration camp and his wife was gassed at Auschwitz. His son, Bernard Goodman, was a British citizen who died in 1994 after 50 years seeking the return of the works. Bernard's son Nick took over the quest, accusing the Dutch government of hiding behind the pretext that what happened to his relatives was normal and legal.
"This is a satisfying day for our family," he said in a statement. "Although nothing can undo the awful events of World War Two, at least some closure has been reached. I now look forward to the day when some of my grandparents' art will hang on my walls." Webber said the Gutmann collection was only a small part of a wider problem posed by Nazi war booty. "There are currently still over 4,000 looted works of art in Dutch public collections which were returned by the Allies to the Netherlands after the war for the purpose of restitution, and which remain in state hands," she said.
The Gutmann collection comprises many personal objects like plates and glasses as well as furniture and paintings including one attributed to 17th Century Dutch painter Aelbert Cuyp.