May 18, 2002

CONTENTS:




- moderator's message: virus warnings
- law suit against the Museum Security Network: Federal Law Protects Online Moderators From Liability (Interactive Listserv Operators Cannot Be Sued for Message Content, Public Citizen Argues)
- Berlin Police Recover Stolen Art, Arrest Five
- Pursuing the Gardner heist
- Europe's small museums: a target for art thieves? (Museum thief suspect an artful dodger. Waiter accused of stealing treasures worth $1.4 billion)
- Jewish Museum sues Czech ministry over collection of Nazi-looted artworks
- 20,000 to move from protected city
- Emergency Response and Salvage Wheel Now Available in Spanish!
- US asks for report on stolen Egyptian antiquities
- Stolen Art On The Web (Jonathan Sazonoff)
- Museum guards threaten 48-hour strikes which will shut down ancient sites
- Iranians say Buddhist art is from Afghanistan
- The Loss of Ethiopia’s Cultural Heritage
- Painter tags work with own DNA to stop fakes
- Buddhist Monk Starts Fund to Rebuild Afghan Statues
- Iraq's economic collapse means the oldest writing in the world can be bought for a song on eBay
- CIVIL WAR DRUMMER BOY STOLEN FROM THE WOODLAWN CEMETERY
- The Art Newspaper; this week's top stories

moderator's message: virus warnings

Dear subscribers,
The past few weeks numerous virus warning messages have reached me. I have decided not to forward those to the mailinglist. All of you must realize that I use a plain text e-mail client and that none of the Museum Security Network mailinglist messages is forwarded automatically. I will NEVER send attachments nor formatted text. You may rest assure that it is quite impossible that you will receive a virus through our mailinglist. I do not use any of the virus vulnarable Bill Gates e-mail software.
Ton Cremers

Federal Law Protects Online Moderators From Liability

Interactive Listserv Operators Cannot Be Sued for Message Content, Public Citizen Argues

WASHINGTON, D.C. – A district court should re-examine whether a listserv operator who posted a message containing defamatory statements can be held responsible for the message’s content, Public Citizen argued in a brief filed today with the U.S. Court of Appeals in California. In the same way as America Online and Yahoo! cannot be sued over content on their message boards under the federal Communications Decency Act (CDA), private listserv operators should also be immune, Public Citizen said.
In the case, California resident Ellen Batzel sued Ton Cremers, who operates the listserv Newsletter of Museum Security News, and Robert Smith, who submitted a message suggesting that Batzel had inherited artwork that was stolen from Jews during the Holocaust. Cremers posted the message without editing it or investigating its validity. In her suit, Batzel alleged libel.
more:
http://www.citizen.org/pressroom/release.cfm?ID=1114

Berlin Police Recover Stolen Art, Arrest Five

Sat May 18,11:52 AM ET
BERLIN (Reuters) - Nine Expressionist paintings snatched from a Berlin art museum have been found and five people arrested, police said Saturday. Police recovered the paintings in a flat in a southern district of the German capital Friday evening. One painting, "Young Girl" by Max Pechstein, had been torn down the middle, and half remained missing. Thieves broke into the Bruecke Museum on April 20, cut the alarm and stole six paintings by Erich Heckel and one each by Emil Nolde, Pechstein and Ernst Ludwig Kirchner. Their value was estimated at about $3.1 million. Chief Inspector Andreas Grabinski told a news conference that three Yugoslav men, one German man and a German woman of Yugoslav origin were arrested but that they probably did not commit the theft. They were being held on suspicion of handling stolen goods, he said. The museum, in the Berlin suburb of Dahlem, has one of Germany's most significant collections of Expressionist art, specializing in the work of the so-called Bruecke group of artists, founded in Dresden in 1905. The Bruecke, or Bridge, group was established by Kirchner, Heckel, Fritz Bleyl and Karl Schmidt-Rottluff, all architecture students who abandoned traditional art in favor of colorful expressions of their subjective experiences. When the Nazis came to power in 1933, they banned the group's work, calling it "degenerate art" and persecuting many of the artists.

Pursuing the Gardner heist

Ralph Blumenthal The New York Times Saturday, May 11, 2002

Filmmakers play detective in 1990 museum robbery

NEW YORK If you do happen to know who swiped a Vermeer, three Rembrandts and other masterworks totaling up to $500 million from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston in 1990, or know where the hoard is stashed, here's a suggestion: Log on to the Web site www.Find-the-Art.com. Call the listed number, (1-888) 448-2883, for a shot at the $5 million reward and, barring a need for anonymity, perhaps even a starring role under the lens of the dean of documentary filmmakers, Albert Maysles. . In a quixotic bid to help crack the most costly art heist on record, Maysles - along with his protegé Rebecca Dreyfus Feig, the veteran art sleuth Harold Smith and the publicists Nike Communications - is volunteering his time to solicit clues in a case that has stymied the FBI, Boston police detectives and museum investigators for 12 years. . Despite many promising leads - including a reporter's peek at what may have been one of the missing Rembrandts rolled up in a Brooklyn warehouse in 1997 - the trail has gone cold, entangled, too, in a long-running scandal over FBI protection for a Boston crime-boss- turned-informant, James (Whitey) Bulger. . Among the persistent suspicions, given the connections of some of the players, they said, is that the art may have been taken to raise money for the Irish Republican Army, which was then still carrying out attacks on British interests. . The filmmakers share the hope of a break, but are taking a different tack, basically starting from scratch. "Because of the morass, the way the case is going to be solved is by soliciting new information," said Feig, who conceived the project out of what she calls a mystical attachment to the Vermeer, "The Concert," painted around 1658-60. Feig, who spent years in Russia making the documentary "Bye-Bye Babushka," about grandmothers and their memories of communism and shown on public television in 1999, recruited a producer, Susannah Ludwig, and Maysles as cameraman for the film, titled "Stolen: The Search for the Lost Vermeer." . Maysles said he had a hunch that the stolen works might be recovered through their efforts. Even if they did not unearth the paintings, he said, they would be spotlighting the mystery, and in the end they would have a film. "Win or lose, we win," said Maysles. "If we find nothing, we made the attempt." . Among those they have interviewed is Robert Fitzpatrick, president of the Boston investigations company IEI Resources, formerly a career FBI agent, supervisor and profiler who originated the Abscam public corruption investigation in Miami as a sting to recover stolen art. . Fitzpatrick told the filmmakers that he thought Bulger, a fugitive since 1995 who is on the FBI's most-wanted list, may well hold the key to solving the theft because only an underworld leader of his power could have compelled silence for so long and could now unlock a flow of information. He said that one of Bulger's associates, Joseph Murray Jr., once confided that he held some paintings whose recovery would make Fitzpatrick famous. But then Murray was shot to death by his wife and the tip died with him. . Anne Hawley, the director of the Gardner Museum, said that through the years the museum had dealt with many writers and filmmakers consumed by the theft, but that with perhaps 1,000 leads already run down, her optimism was tempered by realism. "This is really a tricky case, and I'm not sanguine about casting the net out widely for leads," she said. . But Smith, 74, who has 56 years' experience as a loss consultant for Lloyds of London, Christie's, Sotheby's, Tiffany and the Smithsonian, among other clients, sees that as highly unlikely. "There are very few things that happen that someone doesn't know about," he said, arguing that time was not necessarily the enemy but an ally. "Relationships change," he said. "Wives become ex-wives. Girlfriends become ex-girlfriends. Maids become ex-maids. Maybe the person who engineered this is facing mortality and wants to clean up his act." . The bare facts of the robbery are simple. Shortly before 1:24 a.m. on Sunday, March 18, 1990, two men in what seemed to be police uniforms appeared at the Palace Road side door of the museum, built between 1899 and 1901 by Isabella Gardner, a voracious art collector, to house her treasures. Claiming to be investigating a disturbance, the pair got a guard to open up and tied him up along with his partner. . Over an hour and 21 minutes, they seized the Vermeer, a Govaert Flinck landscape once attributed to Rembrandt and Rembrandt's only seascape, "The Storm on the Sea of Galilee." They also took two other Rembrandts, "A Lady and a Gentleman in Black" and a tiny etched self- portrait; a Manet portrait, "Chez Tortoni"; five Degas drawings and watercolors; a 3,000-year-old Chinese bronze beaker, and, having tried and failed to unscrew a case containing a Napoleonic battle flag, the eagle finial crowning the pole instead. Back to Start of Article Filmmakers play detective in 1990 museum robbery NEW YORK If you do happen to know who swiped a Vermeer, three Rembrandts and other masterworks totaling up to $500 million from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston in 1990, or know where the hoard is stashed, here's a suggestion: Log on to the Web site www.Find-the-Art.com. Call the listed number, (1-888) 448-2883, for a shot at the $5 million reward and, barring a need for anonymity, perhaps even a starring role under the lens of the dean of documentary filmmakers, Albert Maysles. . In a quixotic bid to help crack the most costly art heist on record, Maysles - along with his protegé Rebecca Dreyfus Feig, the veteran art sleuth Harold Smith and the publicists Nike Communications - is volunteering his time to solicit clues in a case that has stymied the FBI, Boston police detectives and museum investigators for 12 years. . Despite many promising leads - including a reporter's peek at what may have been one of the missing Rembrandts rolled up in a Brooklyn warehouse in 1997 - the trail has gone cold, entangled, too, in a long-running scandal over FBI protection for a Boston crime-boss- turned-informant, James (Whitey) Bulger. . Among the persistent suspicions, given the connections of some of the players, they said, is that the art may have been taken to raise money for the Irish Republican Army, which was then still carrying out attacks on British interests. . The filmmakers share the hope of a break, but are taking a different tack, basically starting from scratch. "Because of the morass, the way the case is going to be solved is by soliciting new information," said Feig, who conceived the project out of what she calls a mystical attachment to the Vermeer, "The Concert," painted around 1658-60. Feig, who spent years in Russia making the documentary "Bye-Bye Babushka," about grandmothers and their memories of communism and shown on public television in 1999, recruited a producer, Susannah Ludwig, and Maysles as cameraman for the film, titled "Stolen: The Search for the Lost Vermeer." . Maysles said he had a hunch that the stolen works might be recovered through their efforts. Even if they did not unearth the paintings, he said, they would be spotlighting the mystery, and in the end they would have a film. "Win or lose, we win," said Maysles. "If we find nothing, we made the attempt." . Among those they have interviewed is Robert Fitzpatrick, president of the Boston investigations company IEI Resources, formerly a career FBI agent, supervisor and profiler who originated the Abscam public corruption investigation in Miami as a sting to recover stolen art. . Fitzpatrick told the filmmakers that he thought Bulger, a fugitive since 1995 who is on the FBI's most-wanted list, may well hold the key to solving the theft because only an underworld leader of his power could have compelled silence for so long and could now unlock a flow of information. He said that one of Bulger's associates, Joseph Murray Jr., once confided that he held some paintings whose recovery would make Fitzpatrick famous. But then Murray was shot to death by his wife and the tip died with him. . Anne Hawley, the director of the Gardner Museum, said that through the years the museum had dealt with many writers and filmmakers consumed by the theft, but that with perhaps 1,000 leads already run down, her optimism was tempered by realism. "This is really a tricky case, and I'm not sanguine about casting the net out widely for leads," she said. . But Smith, 74, who has 56 years' experience as a loss consultant for Lloyds of London, Christie's, Sotheby's, Tiffany and the Smithsonian, among other clients, sees that as highly unlikely. "There are very few things that happen that someone doesn't know about," he said, arguing that time was not necessarily the enemy but an ally. "Relationships change," he said. "Wives become ex-wives. Girlfriends become ex-girlfriends. Maids become ex-maids. Maybe the person who engineered this is facing mortality and wants to clean up his act." . The bare facts of the robbery are simple. Shortly before 1:24 a.m. on Sunday, March 18, 1990, two men in what seemed to be police uniforms appeared at the Palace Road side door of the museum, built between 1899 and 1901 by Isabella Gardner, a voracious art collector, to house her treasures. Claiming to be investigating a disturbance, the pair got a guard to open up and tied him up along with his partner. . Over an hour and 21 minutes, they seized the Vermeer, a Govaert Flinck landscape once attributed to Rembrandt and Rembrandt's only seascape, "The Storm on the Sea of Galilee." They also took two other Rembrandts, "A Lady and a Gentleman in Black" and a tiny etched self- portrait; a Manet portrait, "Chez Tortoni"; five Degas drawings and watercolors; a 3,000-year-old Chinese bronze beaker, and, having tried and failed to unscrew a case containing a Napoleonic battle flag, the eagle finial crowning the pole instead.
http://www.iht.com/

Europe's small museums: a target for art thieves?

Fri May 17, 8:57 PM ET
By MARIJA POTKONJAK, Associated Press Writer
PARIS - Lack of funding and security at Europe's small museums have made art galleries across the continent prime targets for theft, an art expert said following revelations that an accused thief walked off with more than 172 treasures during a six-year spree. Stephane Breitwieser, 31, is suspected of stealing artworks from museums across western Europe between 1995 and 2001. The stolen objects, mainly from the 17th and 18th centuries, include paintings by Antoine Watteau, Peter Bruegel and Francois Boucher and have a combined worth of hundreds of millions of euros (dlrs). Breitwieser is believed to have avoided larger national museums and targeted small museums where security was weak, said Alexandra Smith of the London-based Art Loss Register, which keeps an international database of lost art and antiques. He faced little resistance as he removed paintings, statues, silver objects and a 17th-century violin, among other items, French prosecutors in the eastern city of Strasbourg said. He allegedly hit museums in France, Switzerland, Belgium, Austria, Germany and Holland. "That's the problem in Europe," Smith said. "There's little or no government funding, and as a result security has to be cut back." Prosecutors said experts estimated the total value of the stolen items at up to 1 billion euros (dlrs 912 million). Experts believe the most valuable item stolen was a 16th-century painting by Lucas Cranach the Elder, "Sybille, Princess of Cleves," worth between dlrs 7.9 million and dlrs 9 million, Smith said. It was stolen from a museum in Baden-Baden, Germany, in 1995, the newspaper France-Soir reported Thursday. Most shocking, however, was not the revelation of the alleged theft but where the artworks surfaced. Police in Strasbourg said Breitwieser's mother, Mireille, 51, threw many of the stolen objects into the Rhone du Rhin canal near the family home in the eastern Alsace region and slashed the stolen paintings to pieces when she learned her son had been arrested. She was placed under criminal investigation Thursday, judicial sources in Strasbourg said. Breitwieser was arrested in November in Switzerland and remains jailed there on a French arrest warrant, Swiss authorities said. France has requested his extradition. Breitwieser's former companion, Anne-Catherine Kleinklauss, was also placed under investigation. Police were able to recover many of the items from the canal, but the paintings apparently have been destroyed. "It's a tragedy for the art world," said Smith, whose organization is helping French police identify items from a list Breitwieser reportedly provided after he was arrested. Although art theft is common, Smith said she'd never come across anything like this before. French daily France-Soir, which was the first to report the story, said Breitwieser gave police a list of his booty, which included masterpieces such as a red chalk drawing by Antoine Watteau entitled "A Study of Two Men," stolen in June 1999 from Montpellier Museum; Francois Boucher's "The Sleeping Shepherd Boy," stolen in August 1996 from a museum in Chartres; and "Cheating Profits the Master," by Pieter Brueghel the Younger, stolen in May 1997 in Anvers. A government official who specializes in the trafficking of cultural objects said it is impossible for every art institution to have the same security as the country's large national museums. "A little museum in a little village doesn't have the means for such security," the official said on condition of anonymity. "Besides, it's a matter of striking a balance — if you have maximum security, that restricts the public's access."

more:

http://www.cnn.com/2002/WORLD/europe/05/17/art.theft/index.html
http://www.iht.com/articles/58051.html

and:

Museum thief suspect an artful dodger

Waiter accused of stealing treasures worth $1.4 billion

Alan Riding
NEW YORK TIMES
PARIS— For years Stephane Breitwieser, a youthful-looking Frenchman, travelled through Europe working as a waiter, and in his off hours visited out-of-the-way museums where he looked for opportunities to walk off with what he liked. He stashed stolen oil paintings, rare musical instruments and other art objects in his private collection in his mother's home in Mulhouse, in eastern France, investigators said. Last November his luck ran out at a museum in Lucerne, Switzerland, and he was arrested on charges of stealing a bugle. On learning of the arrest, the police said, his mother chopped up the oil paintings, which were left for trash collection, and dumped other art objects — statues, silver and dishes — in a canal. The case has stunned art experts because the 60 paintings and 112 objects that the police say Breitwieser has admitted stealing were estimated to be worth at least $1.4 billion (U.S.). Among the paintings destroyed were works by Pieter Brueghel the Younger, Lucas Cranach the Elder, Corneille de Lyon and Watteau. His mother, Mireille Breitwieser, 51, was arrested on Tuesday on charges of possessing stolen goods and destroying art. "I have never heard of anything like this before," said Alexandra Smith, operation manager at the London-based Art Loss Register, which records and tracks stolen art. "I think he was just an eccentric kleptomaniac who loved 17th- and 18th-century art. A lot of people expect works of art to be well protected with alarms and clamps, but he clearly worked out that most are not, so he took what he wanted.'' French investigators said Breitwieser, 31, made no effort to sell the stolen artworks, which came from dozens of museums in France and five neighbouring countries. Instead, he kept them in a bedroom, apparently for his private viewing pleasure. The police said his Breitwieser claimed she destroyed the art out of anger at her son. But they said they believed that her principal motive was to remove all incriminating evidence against her son. Less than one week after Breitwieser's arrest, his mother's home was searched and nothing was found. According to investigators, the mother admitted chopping up the oils, many of which were painted on wooden panels. She said that other art objects, which included silver and ivory statues, 18th-century porcelain and medieval weapons as well as ancient musical instruments, were thrown in the Rhone-Rhine Canal, which runs near Mulhouse. Detectives in Strasbourg, France, who are in charge of the French side of the investigation, said that some objects were found in the canal by hikers on Nov. 27, a week after Breitwieser's arrest. Subsequently, police officers dredged part of the canal and found numerous artworks. They also contacted the Art Loss Register, which identified some objects as having been stolen from European museums. But it was only this month, when Swiss investigators requested permission to interrogate the mother in France, that the connection was made between her son and the objects found in the canal. The mother, who was arrested along with her son's girlfriend, Anne- Catherine Kleinklauss, appeared to have had no inkling of the value of the works that she tossed out. Smith of the Art Loss Register said that French police officers had given her a rough estimate of the art's value at between $1.4 billion and $1.9 billion, although a detailed list of the artworks involved has not been made. It is unclear whether that estimate will hold up. "It's difficult to gauge their value without a full list," she said, "but some paintings, like Cranach's `Princess of Cleves,' are worth a great deal, maybe $8 million. In reality, because they are irreplaceable, they are priceless.'' The French daily France Soir, which first reported the story on Wednesday and appears to have received a detailed briefing from Strasbourg investigators, said that destroyed works included Brueghel's "Cheat Profiting From His Master," stolen from a museum in Antwerp, Belgium, in 1997; Watteau's drawing of "Two Men,'' stolen from a museum in Montpellier, France, in 1999; François Boucher's "Sleeping Shepherd," stolen from a museum in Blois, France, in 1996; Corneille de Lyon's "Mary, Queen of Scots," also stolen from the museum in Blois in 1996; and the Cranach, stolen from a museum in Baden-Baden, Germany, in 1995.

Jewish Museum sues Czech ministry over collection of Nazi-looted artworks

By Magnus Bennett PRAGUE, May 15 (JTA) – Prague´s Jewish Museum is suing the Czech Ministry of Culture over its decision to restrict a U.S. citizen´s rights to artwork he is claiming under the country´s restitution laws. The museum is challenging the ministry´s decision to declare part of an art collection once owned by Czech Jew Emil Freund — and now in the museum´s possession — as "national treasures." Gerald McDonald, a Vietnam war veteran from Chicago, was identified late last year as heir to Freund´s collection. But the ministry´s decision prevents him from removing 15 pieces of artwork from the Czech Republic. The art, which was looted by the Nazis during the war, includes works by French artists Andre Derain, Maurice Vlaminck, Maurice Utrillo, Charles Dufresne and Paul Signac, as well as pieces by leading Czech and Slovak artists. The museum´s lawsuit will be heard by the High Court in Prague. The suit will argue that the ministry, by designating works of art as "national treasures" before they are restituted, clashes with a law passed in 2000 alleviating property-related injustices caused by the Holocaust. It further argues that artworks that may be restituted to potential heirs "are, on the whole, purposefully designated as national treasures, which means that transferees are restricted in the disposal of their restituted assets." The museum also claims that "such a procedure is counter to basic ethics and to the democratic legal system." Leo Pavlat, director of the Jewish Museum in Prague, told JTA that the Ministry of Culture had initiated the process of declaring the art national treasures a month before the museum received them. "All these pieces of art were kept by the national gallery for almost 50 years, and all of a sudden, a month before we received them, the Ministry of Culture asked to value them as a national treasure," he said. "It seems to me that it has been done with the intention to prevent the heirs from freely using the art according to their will," Pavlat added. The Culture Ministry denied the accusation. "The declaration was the result of a long process that started long before any heirs emerged," ministry spokeswoman Dita Fuchsova said. Milan Knizak, director of the National Gallery, said designating works as national treasures was a matter for the Ministry of Culture to decide, but added that he believed the laws on art restitution were generally fair. "The fact is that after years under Communism, people don´t know the value of things. The law on art restitution is, I think, reasonable." But some Jews feel let down by the whole Czech system of art restitution. They direct their criticism at legislators, courts and state officials alike. Prague real estate consultant Michal Klepetar has been fighting for 10 years to recover the estate of his Jewish great uncle Richard Popper, who owned property in Brno and several dozen paintings, many of which are currently held in the country´s National Gallery. His case was thrown out of the Czech courts because, he claims, the judge misinterpreted a 1994 amendment to a three-year-old Czech restitution law that allowed Holocaust-era claims to be heard for the first time. "After the 1991 restitution law, Jewish people had to wait more than three years for justice," he said. "Even now, however, the court system continues to show that it is anti-restitution and in some cases anti-Semitic," he added. Last year, Klepetar lodged a complaint with the European Court of Human Rights, arguing that the court itself could have resolved the issue of restitution more effectively "a long time ago." Klepetar´s lawyer, Milan Hulik, is also fighting the Czech courts on behalf of a Jewish family that lodged a claim five years ago for a local factory taken over by the Nazis during the war. He says the case has been particularly difficult because the courts ruled against the family, in favor of the son of one of the men who allegedly took over the factory during the war. "The problem with the courts in the Czech Republic is that they are not accountable, even to the higher courts," he said. "In the case of the factory, the Constitutional Court of the Czech Republic ruled in our favor and passed it back to the lower court. They simply ignored it and ruled against us again."

20,000 to move from protected city

More than 20,000 people are being moved out of one of the world's most important heritage sites so they don't damage it. Pingyao in northern China has well-preserved city walls, ancient homes, government offices and shops dating back to the 14th Century. It has been named as a World Cultural Heritage site and the Chinese government plans to almost halve the population within four years. The city, in Shanxi Province, was built 2,000 years ago and is home to 45,000 people. Three hospitals and seven schools will be moved by the end of the year, according to Xinhua. Businesses which pollute the city are also seeing a clamp down with 30 set for closure and more than 400 coke furnaces being demolished.

From: "Celine Guisset" cguisset@heritagepreservation.org
To: securma@xs4all.nl
Sent: Wednesday, May 15, 2002 5:32 PM

Subject: Emergency Response and Salvage Wheel Now Available in Spanish!

The Emergency Response and Salvage Wheel Now Available in Spanish!

Washington, DC: May 8, 2002 The eagerly awaited Spanish-language Emergency Response and Salvage Wheel is being released in time for the 2002 hurricane season. Since its publication in 1997, the Wheel has become the single most recognized and respected tool for protecting documents, art, and artifacts from water damage. More than 65,000 English-language Wheels are in use throughout the world. The information in the practical slide chart was developed by preservation professionals, and it has been endorsed by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and many other federal agencies and national cultural organizations. The Rueda de Salvamento y Respuesta ante Emergencias will bring this valuable information to a wider audience. Each Rueda is enclosed in a water-resistant bag and comes with explanatory materials in both Spanish and English. Major funding for the Spanish-language Wheel has been provided by the National Endowment for the Humanities, with additional support from the St. Paul Companies, Inc. Foundation and the American Express Company. Thanks to these generous contributions, Heritage Preservation has produced 22,500 Wheels for free distribution in the U. S. and Puerto Rico. More than 15,000 Ruedas will be mailed during May to libraries, museums, archives, and historic preservation organizations in California, Florida, New Mexico, Texas, Puerto Rico, parts of Arizona and Colorado, and the metropolitan areas of New York City, Philadelphia, and Chicago. Other Wheels will reach state arts, humanities, and emergency management agencies around the country, as well as appropriate training programs and workshops. The remaining free Ruedas will be available upon request, while supply lasts, with a limit of two copies per nonprofit institution. The Rueda is also available for purchase at the same modest price as the English- language Wheel ($10.95; $6.95 for nonprofits and government agencies. Quantity discounts are available). The need for accurate disaster response and recovery information is greater than ever, and the Rueda's concise and practical instructions can help any employee keep a water emergency from becoming a disaster. Water damage is the most common threat to collections, whether from flooding, fire, earthquakes, or severe storms. "The Wheel is a great resource," said José A. Ortiz, Manager for Administration, The Cloisters, "and we are grateful to be able to share it with our Spanish-speaking colleagues." The Wheel is meant for use within 48 hours of an emergency, when salvage measures are most critical. Emergency Response Action Steps are listed in nine sections on Side 1. General salvage information and recovery tips for specific kinds of collections are on Side 2. The Wheel was produced by the Heritage Emergency National Task Force, a partnership of more than 30 government agencies and national service organizations. The Task Force is an initiative of Heritage Preservation and FEMA. For order forms or further information, call toll-free 1-888-979-2233, fax 202-634-1435, or e-mail TaskForce@heritagepreservation.org. To learn more about the Wheel and other disaster resources, visit www.heritageemergency.org.

US asks for report on stolen Egyptian antiquities

The New York Attorney asked Zahi Hawas, Secretary-General of the Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA), to set up a committee of Egyptian archaeologists to provide a report to the American court next week on the value of stolen pieces. Hawas said a number of foreign archaeologists whom investigations proved to have been involved in smuggling antiquities will be suspended soon. A British lawyer will be assigned to file a lawsuit to retrieve a royal head of a statue in the possession of a British artifacts merchant. In statements, Hawas said the U.S. court raring on the stolen antiquities case in New York will be handed down on June 11. Meanwhile, Minister of Culture Farouk Hosni approved establishing a national museum of antiquities in Sharm El-Sheikh to develop tourist activities in the Red Sea governorate. Hamdi Shehata, Head of the Museums Sector, said the project will be offered to specialised consulting firms early next month to draw up a final design of the museum which will stand over an area of four feddans. Mohamed Abdel- Maqsoud, Director of the Lower Egypt and Sinai Antiquities Department, said a committee will be formed to select 4,000 pieces for display in the museum representing development of jewellery industry and mining in Sinai
http://www.uk.sis.gov.eg/

From: "Jonathan Sazonoff" saz@kwom.com
To: securma@xs4all.nl
Sent: Tuesday, May 14, 2002 9:17 PM

Subject: Stolen Art On The Web

Dear Subscribers,
For those interested, here are a couple of items concerning stolen art on the web. First, the FBI has revamped their stolen art pages. The site now features an index of art thefts from around the world. http://www.fbi.gov/hq/cid/arttheft/noticerecov.htm
Next, INTERPOL is still doing a very good job highlighting international art thefts. Their current postings include pictures stolen from Haarlam's Frans Hals Museum and Berlin's Brückemuseum. They are also listing missing works by Chagall, Toulouse-Lautrec, Morisot, and more. http://www.interpol.int/Public/WorkOfArt/Search/RecentThefts.asp
Next, the French Ministry of the Interior's web-site has stopped publishing stolen art notices. For a last look at the OCBC's on-line listings, see the cache of their page on google.
http://216.239.51.100/search?q=cache:9Kbk_TNS16EC:www.interieur.gouv.fr/avis_recherche/oeuvres/oa1.htm++%22oeuvres+d%27art%22&hl=en
And finally we've published a new Stolen Art Directory. Although I've still got to play around with format, here's what we've got http://www.saztv.com/page51.html Of particular interest on that page, would be our "Million Dollar Artists - Art Crime Index". We invite MSN readers to offer constructive input to further develop this "under construction" feature. http://www.saztv.com/page53.html
Hope you've found this of interest,
Jonathan Sazonoff
Saz Productions, Inc.
http://www.saztv.com
Contributing US Ed.
Museum Security Network
http://www.museum-security.org/saz.html

Museum guards threaten 48-hour strikes which will shut down ancient sites

ATHENS, Greece - Guards at Greece's museums and ancient sites staged a four-hour work stoppage Friday and threatened to begin 48-hour strikes which would shut down archaeological sites and museums around the country. Demanding higher pay from the culture ministry, the guards said they planned to strike on the weekends of May 25 and June 1. "Our country's cultural heritage is being protected by too few people ... who are paid too little and whose demands have been ignored," the Museum Guards Association said in an announcement. The union accused the ministry of planning to hire guards from private companies at Greek sites.

Iranians say Buddhist art is from Afghanistan

The Asahi Shimbun
Iranian officials criticized an Asahi Shimbun article, saying Buddhist statues reportedly discovered in Iran were in fact smuggled from Afghanistan before the 1979 Islamic revolution. Monday's edition of The Asahi Shimbun (Wednesday's issue of International Herald Tribune/The Asahi Shimbun) reported that parts of 19 Buddhist statues were discovered in ruins in Iran's Fars Province, indicating that Buddhism may have existed west of Afghanistan in ancient times. The story also said Japanese archaeologist Takayasu Higuchi, professor emeritus of Kyoto University, had confirmed the finding. But a representative of the Cultural Heritage Department in Tehran said the statues were smuggled from Afghanistan, after reviewing records from the Iranian National Archaeological Museum. A museum official had been quoted in The Asahi Shimbun article as saying the statues were discovered in Fars Province, and that they bore uniquely Buddhist characteristics. The Cultural Heritage Department representative said the statues were, in fact, stored away from the public because of the Islamic ban on idolatry. The museum records show that smugglers were arrested, and the statues were taken to a museum in Shiraz and then to the Iranian National Archaeological Museum in Tehran, according to the cultural heritage officials. The statement from the Cultural Heritage Department came after the Tehran Times, an English daily, reported Wednesday that cultural heritage officials in Fars Province denied the Asahi report.(IHT/Asahi: May 17,2002)
http://www.asahi.com/

The Loss of Ethiopia’s Cultural Heritage

The sale of the Al J. Venter Collection of Ethiopian Art in Seattle,USA, raises important considerations for the preservation of Ethiopia’s cultural heritage.

The treasures in the collection were apparently taken out of Ethiopia prior to the enactment of legislation prohibiting the export of the country’s antiquities, but such export would today be illegal. The vendors therefore have a moral obligation at least to offer the Ethiopian Ministry of Youth, Sports and Culture first choice to purchase the items in question, though the Ministry may not be in a position to do so, given the inflated prices of Ethiopian art in the US. The projected sale at the same time focuses our attention on the general question of Ethiopian antiquities abroad. AFROMET, the Association for the Return of Ethiopian Maqdala Treasures, has a strong case for declaring that the dispute between Emperor Tewodros and the British Government did not justify the looting of Maqdala in 1868, which involved acts of sacrilege. AFROMET is likewise entitled to urge that the Maqdala manuscripts, crosses, and tabots in the British Library and British Museum should be returned. We note that AFROMET has given evidence on this to the British House of Commons Culture, Media and Sport Committee (7th Report, vol.3, 18 July 2000), and that the case for restitution of the Maqdala loot is supported, among others, by the Mayor of London, Ken Livingstone. The welcome given by the citizens of Addis Ababa to the recent return of an Ethiopian tabot from Edinburgh, shows the intensity of Ethiopian popular demand for the restitution of Ethiopia’s cultural heritage, expressed by the Speaker of the Ethiopian House of People’s Representatives, Ato Dawit Yohannes, in a memorandum of June 2000 to the British Parliament. We take this occasion to recall the failure of the Italian Government to honour its obligations under the Peace Treaty of 1947 and the continued illegal retention in Rome of the Aksum Obelisk, the aeroplane Tsahai, and part of the pre-war archives of the Ministry of the Pen. We trust that the Venter sale will galvanize the Ethiopian Ministry of Youth, Sport and Culture, and other authorities, into more strenuous action for the restitution, as well as the preservation, of Ethiopian culture. The illegal export of Ethiopian antiquities needs to be more effectively addressed and greater attention should be paid to the preservation of such antiquities in Ethiopian museums, national, regional and local. It is in such museums that the country’s cultural heritage can best be protected and most easily viewed and studied, both by scholars and students, as well as by the general public.
http://www.addistribune.com/

Painter tags work with own DNA to stop fakes

Matthew Brace in Sydney
Sunday May 12, 2002
The Observer
Australian painter Pro Hart has become the first artist to mark his work with his DNA. Other artists are expected to follow his lead, to authenticate their works beyond doubt. Hart, a 73-year-old former silver miner who lives and paints in the outback town of Broken Hill, is determined to stem the flood of fakes on the market. His paintings sell for five-figure sums and he has been targeted by forgers. During a trip to Sydney, he demonstrated the DNA marker technique by taking a swab from inside his cheek. 'I have had to do this because of the copying,' he said. 'There must be hundreds out there. I've done a lot of painting in Britain so I wouldn't be surprised if someone is copying them over there, too.' Owners of up to 50 of Hart's works attended a three-day 'DNA clinic' at the gallery last week. For £50 each, their paintings were authenticated and DNA-encrypted. This involves pulling apart DNA strands and finding segments unique to the donor. These are blended with paint and applied in an invisible film at a point on the canvas known only to the person applying it. The painting looks no different but is indelibly marked. DNA Technologies, the company behind the procedure, made its name at the Sydney Olympics in 2000, using a similar system to root out counterfeit footwear. If a painting needs to be authenticated in court, the person who applied the DNA mark can do so in a matter of seconds using electronic lasers. Hart has encrypted about 1,500 of his works so far.
http://www.observer.co.uk/

Buddhist Monk Starts Fund to Rebuild Afghan Statues

By Tan Ee Lyn
HONG KONG (Reuters) - A Buddhist museum in Taiwan donated HK$1 million (US$128,200) on Thursday to kickstart a campaign to help rebuild two giant Buddhist statues destroyed last year by Taliban extremists in Afghanistan. "We want to rebuild them and urge other religious groups to join us (to pay for it)," said Venerable Dharma Master Hsin Tao of Taiwan's Museum of World Religions, which he founded. Speaking to Reuters in Hong Kong, where he is currently visiting to publicize his campaign, the monk also urged religious groups the world over to help protect holy artifacts. "If all religious groups can come together, everyone will be able to come to a common understanding to protect all religious relics in the future," said the monk, 55. The Taliban destroyed many artworks in Afghanistan, including the world-famous Buddha statues in Bamiyan, as they saw them as abominations to the fiercely fundamentalist version of Islam they imposed in Afghanistan from 1996 to their fall last November.
Afghanistan's interim leader Hamid Karzai said earlier this year the country hoped to rebuild the statues. "Experts say the reconstruction will cost US$25 million and take four years. We want to start this so that more people will be aware of this issue and its importance," said the soft-spoken monk, draped in maroon and orange robes. "After I heard they were destroyed, something so old and so precious, I though what if other religious relics should suffer the same fate?" he said. Born Yang Chin-sheng in 1948 in Myanmar, he lost both his parents when he was just four. The young orphan then roamed the country with his uncle scavenging for odd jobs before becoming entangled in the chaos of China's revolution, as communist leader Mao Zedong consolidated his victory and pushed into Myanmar the remnants of Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek's nationalists.
Then only nine years old, he found himself taking up arms to fight communist guerillas before retreating with the Nationalists to Taiwan in 1961. It was in Taiwan that he found his true calling and began his monastic life at 25. "I saw a lot of death, war, pain, suffering, separation, all of which were very destructive... when so much is beyond one's control, we have to be more rigorous and I have to work for peace," said the monk, who spent 10 years meditating in a graveyard in Taiwan and another two in a cave. He will head for Kabul at the end of the month where he will participate in a conference organized by UNESCO on how best to reconstruct the two statues.

Hey, mister -- wanna buy a 4,000-year-old cuneiform tablet for $10?

Iraq's economic collapse means the oldest writing in the world can be bought for a song on eBay -- and has scholars racing to digitize Sumerian artifacts before they become paperweights.
By Katharine Mieszkowski
| The history of writing is for sale on the Internet, and it's cheap. The opening bid for a cuneiform cone that allegedly hails from 2000 B.C.E. starts at $1. A square tablet recording a sale that took place more than 4,000 years ago of a sheep, or maybe some grain -- it's a little hard to read -- well, that receipt will set you back less than $10. Every day on auction sites like eBay, the artifacts of the ancient Sumerian world -- some of the earliest examples of human writing -- are being sold off like so many mass-produced Tinkerbell tchotchkes. And these tidbits of the past are shockingly inexpensive: for less than a 1960s Donald Duck pinwheel from the Mickey Mouse Club, history plunderers can purchase their very own treasure.
full story: http://www.salon.com/tech/feature/2002/05/11/sumerian/index.html?x

Contact: Susan Olsen, Executive Director, Friends of the Woodlawn Cemetery (718) 920-1469

CIVIL WAR DRUMMER BOY STOLEN FROM THE WOODLAWN CEMETERY

A four-foot marble statue of Civil War drummer boy Julius Langbein was stolen from the Woodlawn Cemetery. Cemetery officials believe that the memorial marking the grave of the Medal of Honor recipient was taken from the cemetery on Tuesday. The statue depicting the soldier in his Zouave uniform with his drum has been standing on a pedestal in front of the Langbein Mausoleum since 1916 when the building was completed. The monument has served as a gathering place for several Civil War reenactment groups and roundtables, and has been seen by thousands of visitors to the cemetery. It is a well- known gravesite because photographs of the marker are posted on various web sites and in guidebooks. Julius Langbein was born on September 29, 1846 in Germany. He was a musician in Company B, 9th New York Infantry and was awarded the Medal of Honor for military action at Camden, North Carolina on April 19, 1862. Following the war he returned to New York City and was elected to the New York Legislature in 1877. Julius Langbein died on January 28, 1910. He was initially entombed in the receiving vault at the Woodlawn Cemetery until the granite mausoleum was completed. The mausoleum is constructed of Barre granite and was built by Robert Catella and Company. Included in the construction plans was a small pedestal to accommodate the statue of Langbein in his uniform. The Woodlawn Cemetery is a 400-acre site established in 1863. Over 300,000 individuals are buried at Woodlawn and there are 1250 private mausoleums and thousands of memorials and grave markers. The cemetery has 24 security; guards are posted at entry points and patrol the cemetery during hours of operation (8:30 to 5:00 daily). Cemetery officials report "This is the first theft of a major work of art in well over a decade. We are going to do everything possible to recover the statue and intend to prosecute those involved in the robbery."
Anyone with information about the missing drummer boy should contact Susan Olsen (718) 920-1469 Photos available upon request

The Art Newspaper.com

This week's top stories:

PALESTINIAN HERITAGE UNDER ATTACK

NABLUS. The Israeli army’s recent reoccupation of the Gaza Strip and other Palestinian territories has devastated parts of the historic cities of Nablus, Bethlehem and Hebron in contravention of international law. The destruction has been deliberate and observers say it amounts to a symbolic attack on the Palestinian presence in the territory. http://www.theartnewspaper.com/news/article.asp?idart=9457

EYESTORM GOES BELLY-UP

LONDON. The online art sales site eyestorm, which offered multiples by contemporary artists at prices from £100 to £5,000 has gone into liquidation. http://www.theartnewspaper.com/news/article.asp?idart=9456

LOSS OF KNOWLEDGE, LOSS OF ACCESS, LOSS OF COLLECTING POWER

LONDON. The British Museum (BM) is to introduce swingeing cuts of £6 million, to deal with its growing deficit. This will involve gallery closures, a draconian squeeze on acquisitions, and redundancies for curators. No UK museum has faced cuts on this scale for decades—and it is happening to the country’s premier museum. The Art Newspaper can reveal how the various parts of the BM will be hit. http://www.theartnewspaper.com/news/article.asp?idart=9455

US MUSEUM SUES INVESTMENT FUNDS

DALLAS. In a lawsuit against a slew of investment vehicles and individuals alleging fraud, securities law violations, conspiracy and losses of up to 90% in some invested monies, the Art Institute of Chicago (AIC) has obtained a court order appointing a special master to investigate the investments and banning the transfer of any investments traceable to AIC money, no matter where it may be. http://www.theartnewspaper.com/news/article.asp?idart=9454

TURKEY’S RICHEST FAMILY OPENS MUSEUM

ISTANBUL. Turkey’s wealthiest family is to open their private mansion as a museum, to display antiques, Islamic calligraphy and Turkish paintings. The Sakip Sabanci Museum is to be inaugurated on 8 June, in the Equestrian Villa (named after a bronze horse at the entrance) in the Istanbul suburb of Emirgan, overlooking the Bosphorus. http://www.theartnewspaper.com/news/article.asp?idart=9453

A PARADE OF AUCTION RECORDS AS THE PARTY REFUSES TO END

NEW YORK. The contemporary art market was in triumphant mood as it danced on the graves of Wall Street, new technology and the travel business in a flamboyant display of wealth spread across three successive evenings of auctions. Paradoxically, the prices being commanded in the salerooms are coming to exceed, by a fair margin, what dealers are able to ask and obtain in their galleries and several notable consignments were supplied by the trade hoping to take advantage of that impulsive bid. http://www.theartnewspaper.com/news/article.asp?idart=9452

EUROPE’S HUGE, FOUR-YEARLY CONTEMPORARY ART FESTIVAL OPENS NEXT MONTH

KASSEL. The biggest art show of the year, Documenta, opens to the public in Kassel, Germany, on 8 June. For those who failed to notice, this 11th edition of Documenta actually began last year, in March, in Vienna, with the first of a series of platforms/conferences. http://www.theartnewspaper.com/news/article.asp?idart=9451

“LEGAL PROBLEMS IN MUSEUM ADMINISTRATION" CONFERENCE, LOS ANGELES 2002: TIP-TOEING THROUGH THE JUNGLE

LOS ANGELES. On 20-22 March, over 200 museum lawyers, staff and others keenly concerned with legal questions plaguing museums met in Los Angeles for the annual museum law conference organised by the American Law Institute-American Bar Association (ALI-ABA) and co- sponsored by the Smithsonian Institution and the American Association of Museums. http://www.theartnewspaper.com/news/article.asp?idart=9450
Anna Somers Cocks, Editor
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