June 7, 2002
CONTENTS:
- Photography Policy
- RE: Camera restrictions
- high value art
- security product information (diurnal theft prevention)
- Reclaiming Art Caught in the Cuban Revolution
- Beyond the Human Toll, History and Artifacts Lost
- Mystery of Missing $1.6M Stradivarius
- Sears Settles Wyeth Painting Dispute
- Aristocrats employ art thief to track down stolen £10m pictures
- re: cameras use
- Museum desperately seeks password hacker
PHOENIX ART MUSEUM
Photography Policy
We encourage visitors to take photographs in the Museum for their personal enjoyment. To protect the objects being photographed, the copyright privileges of their creators, and the safety of our visitors, however, there are certain restrictions on taking photographs in the Museum. Flashes and tripods, as well as movie, video and digital cameras are prohibited. Works on loan or in the Featured Exhibition galleries may not be photographed (a work on loan may be identified by the "L-number" on its accompanying label, for example L1.2001). Still photography of the permanent collection, taken in existing light, is permitted on the condition that the photographs are for personal, non-commercial use. Photographs may not be published, sold, reproduced, transferred, distributed or otherwise commercially exploited in any manner whatsoever. The Museum reserves the right, at its sole discretion, to withhold and/or withdraw permission to photograph on its premises or to reproduce photographs of objects in its collection.
If you are interested in obtaining a publication-quality photograph of an object in our collection, either for publication or study purposes, please contact the Museum's Registration Department at 602.257.2131. Members of the press should contact the Museum's Public Information Officer at 602.257.2105 for their photograph needs.
Geoff Goodrich
Chief of Security
Phoenix Art Museum
Phoenix, Arizona
geoff.goodrich@phxart.org
From: IntlArtCop@aol.com
Date sent: Wed, 5 Jun 2002 00:28:54 EDT Subject: RE: Camera restrictions
Gene: What are you trying to accomplish: avoid tripping over tripods, protect rights to reproductions, restrict flash for conservation reasons? What others are doing is all over the boards, depending upon the museum's goals. With the demise of flash bulbs the old concerns about exploding bulbs is no longer a concern. Most museums do not permit any photos of items on loan which always means the special exhibit gallery and often means items elsewhere on a case by case basis. Many restrict tripods totally. Some still require camera permits but most of these allow photos but post rules limiting use of the photos to non-commercial use. Few restrict video cameras since they are likely to have little commercial value in acquiring quality pictures for reproduction. Many restrict camera bags for parcel control reasons and to inhibit professional photographers who are likely to use the pictures for commercial purposes. If I were writing a camera permit today, I'd include language prohibiting posting of photos of the museum's collections on the web. Few museum really worry about "tourist" pictures of mom and dad in front of a Picasso as these rarely have commercial value or are used to violate rights to reproductions. But most look closely at anyone posing someone in a professional manner in the galleries.
Steve Keller
Museum Security Consultant
From: IntlArtCop@aol.com Date sent: Wed, 5 Jun 2002 01:10:30 EDT Subject: high value art
I just received word that the Chicago Sun Times had a recent article listing the major works of art at the Art Institute of Chicago and applying an estimate of the values of each to them. They had a professor at an area university do the value estimation. If anyone has a copy of this article, I'd like a copy if possible. I'm told that the large famous Georges Seurat (A sunday on La Grande Jatte) was valued at $1BILLION, Hopper's "Nighthawks" was valued at $100 million, and Grant Wood's "American Gothic" at $100 million. Needless to say, this is not a good thing for security and we should all expect our local paper to do a similar article. My personal opinion is that an art thief is better off stealing a $50,000 Picasso print than a $1 Billion, ten foot by ten foot Seurat because the Picasso is far more marketable. There is simply no market for a billion dollar picture. This should be the message a museum puts out after such an article appears so that anyone who might not understand the art market will k now that a billion dollar picture isn't really worth a billion dollars and is not going to sell anywhere to anyone for that kind of money. And a picture as famous as the Grant Wood (the farmer and his wife, holding a pitchfork seen on everything from corn flakes boxes to insurance company TV ads) is so easily recognized that it also in not a good target for theft. Yes, there is the Dr. No (who really doesn't exist) who allegedly buys this stuff for his game room walls. And there is the guy who steals to extort the work back to the owner (but don't hold your breathe on getting a piece of one billion because it just isn't going to happen).
I think that if I was the director of security for a museum ambushed by an article this irresponsible, I'd have trouble keeping myself from make a point to every news reporter who asked, that a criminal would do better stealing from newspaper sales boxes on street corners or robbing the cash room at the newspaper office. Nevertheless, be prepared in case this happens to you. Your plan should be to re- deploy guards so the items in question are under direct observation. Take more care in who you assign to these highly visible posts because the public will judge you more on the appearance of good security after they become aware of an increased risk. Don't underestimate the possibility of vandalism to these items and take action as appropriate such as glazing the pictures or encasing three dimensional items. If items can receive wireless alarms, consider alarming them. This is not as expensive as you think. Use an incident like this to justify added electronic security or CCTV. Have a plan for your PR person or director to issue a controlled statement in response. That statement should casually question any excessive value and express confidence in the security system. Make no further statement about security and refuse to discuss your security in follow up questions from the press. If pressed, be evasive. For example, if asked why you don't have cameras, say only something like "just because you don't see our security doesn't mean it isn't there. I'm sorry I can't show you our security but we make no comment on security equipment or procedures."
Steve Keller
Museum Security Consultant
Subject: diurnal theft prevention
From: Pierre Dumont
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Reclaiming Art Caught in the Cuban Revolution
By CELESTINE BOHLEN
s a young bachelor architect in Havana, Manuel De La Torre used to buy paintings from his artist friends, members of a small circle later known as the Cuban avant-garde. "Whenever I had a good commission on a building, I would buy a painting," recalled Mr. De La Torre, now 84. "When I married, I wanted to have a good home with good paintings and sculptures." But in 1960, as the Cuban revolution gathered force, Mr. De La Torre, married by then, left Cuba for the United States. All he could take with him was what fitted in a suitcase. His paintings and sculptures were left in the custody of relatives who later left Cuba themselves, further dispersing the remarkable collection, like so many leaves in the wind. Then one day a year ago, Mr. De La Torre, who now lives on Long Island, was reading through The New York Times when he suddenly stopped. There on Page E31 was a photograph of one of his paintings, "La Hamaca" by Mariano Rodriguez, advertising a sale of Latin American art at Sotheby's auction house. The asking price for the painting was $150,000 to $200,000.
Mr. De La Torre and his family quickly informed Sotheby's of their claim to the painting (his name was in the catalog as the original owner), which, as it turned out, had been sold once before by Sotheby's, in 1997. Startled by the claim, Sotheby's pulled the painting from last spring's auction. A legal correspondence ensued. A year later, "La Hamaca" is still being held by Sotheby's, awaiting a settlement between the competing claimants — a familiar standoff for works of art from Cuba that were lost, abandoned or directly confiscated as Fidel Castro's government took control.
Over the last decade, a growing number of these works have surfaced outside Cuba and been put up for sale. Some left the island via diplomatic channels, others were exported privately and illegally, and some, particularly in the early 1990's, were put on the international market by Cuba itself as it sought hard currency. As these paintings emerge, Cuban families are increasingly active in trying to reclaim what was once theirs, in the way that European Jews and their heirs have sought to recover works seized by the Nazis during the Holocaust. Provenance issues in the Cuban cases tend to be murkier than those involving art looted by the Nazi, given the various and obscure ways artworks have left the island. And some lawyers say that United States trade embargo laws against Cuba — especially those enacted in the last 10 years — could add a new twist in cases where art dealers or auction houses are found to have "trafficked" in works expropriated by the Cuban government. No one knows how many legal claims have been brought by Cubans seeking to recover lost art or how many have been settled privately. But experts agree that Cuban émigrés are now paying more attention.
"There is more information now, with the Internet, where you can find out where the stuff is," said Nicolas Gutierrez, an international business lawyer in Miami. "There is more of it coming out of Cuba than there was before, and then there is the success of the cases where art was confiscated by the Nazis and the Communists in Europe." The effort to recover lost art may be the first drop in what could become a flood of restitution claims if Cuba sheds its Communist government and moves toward democracy and free markets. "There is definitely a greater interest in people positioning themselves for the day when the end of this regime is less remote," Mr. Gutierrez said. Manny J. De La Torre, 42, the architect's son, said: "My father had no idea that he could do anything about his paintings. He had no idea that these things were coming out of Cuba." The art cases are rarely clear-cut. The Fanjul family of Palm Beach, Fla., heirs to one of the great Cuban sugar fortunes, has been trying since the mid- 1990's to reclaim a painting by Joaquin Sorolla y Bastida that was confiscated by the Cuban government in 1959 and, in the early 1990's, was quietly brought out of Cuba for a possible sale through Sotheby's. The painting, "Castle Malaga," valued at $300,000 to $400,000, was one of more than 100 works in the family collection that were turned over to Havana's National Museum of Fine Arts. In 1994, when rumors spread that this painting and perhaps others were being put up for sale, the Fanjul family registered the collection with the Art Loss Register, which lists stolen or missing works and puts the art world on alert. Matthew Weigman, a spokesman for Sotheby's, said a client brought "Castle Malaga" in for an appraisal in the mid-1990's and it was held for several years. "Sotheby's took the picture to a recognized Sorolla expert, but we could not agree on an estimate for the picture," he said. "So we never offered it for sale, and the picture was returned to the client." He would not pinpoint the date of the painting's return.
He said Sotheby's did get an inquiry from the Art Loss Register. "They simply asked us if we had sold it, which we hadn't," he said, "and we said we hadn't. I don't know where it is now." The Fanjul family has since learned that "Castle Malaga" is being held by a dealer in Italy, said Shanker Singham, an international trade lawyer in Miami who represents the Fanjul family in the case. Based on correspondence with the Italian dealer's lawyer, Mr. Singham said, he wonders if Sotheby's played a more significant role in the aborted sale. "We still don't know exactly what role Sotheby's played in this, or why they can't be up front about it," he said. Lawyers in Miami who specialize in cases involving the United States trade embargo against Cuba say that art auction houses and dealers could be running big risks if they handle the sale of art from Cuba. Laws passed by Congress not only bar United States citizens from dealing in property seized by the Cuban government, but also put foreign citizens at risk of losing their visas to the United States for such activities. As far as any of the lawyers contacted know, no case has gone to court seeking to reclaim art with the help of the embargo laws. But Mr. Singham said that as more cases of sales by the cash- hungry Cuban government come to light, the option of invoking such laws may become more real.
Typically, as Cubans left Castro's Cuba, government agents would compile an inventory of possessions left behind and consign artworks, books, furniture and other valuables to museums and other public institutions. Several Cuban émigré groups have contended that many of these items were later pilfered and sold illegally. Although some of this has taken place, allegedly with the help of corrupt officials, many experts say that Cuba's museums have in fact been very conservative about selling works from their collections. Much of the art that has come out of Cuba is thought to have drifted out of the hands of family members, perhaps winding up in commission stores run by the government, then being smuggled out by tourists, diplomats or Cubans themselves. "There is a very difficult situation with Cuban art, because many families left their valuables with other family members, thinking the revolution was going to last only a few months," said Ramon Cernuda, a Miami gallery owner who specializes in Cuban art. "Then at some point, some of these people got rid of things. It is a very complicated process — not as simple as the World War II confiscated material, because it is not as clear-cut." Mr. Cernuda cited two cases, one at Christie's in 1994 and another at Sotheby's in 1996, when Cuban families who laid claim to paintings put up for auction discovered that the works had in fact been sold by relatives. In both cases, the families agreed to accept compensation rather than pursue claims. Manuel De La Torre was unusual because he was a passionate collector of contemporary Cuban art, which at the time had little value. In 1956, he showed his collection, which then numbered 48 works, at the Lyceum gallery in Havana. The exhibition, fully documented, anticipated the boom to come some 40 years later in works by artists like Wilfredo Lam and Rene Portocarrero. Mr. De La Torre lost track of his collection over the years, with the exception of a few portraits that he and his relatives could plausibly claim to be paintings of family members, and thus eligible for export from Cuba. But only recently did he realize just how widely dispersed his collection was: at least two paintings are in Cuban national museums, and another turned up in the private collection of Mr. Cernuda, who in an interview said he bought it through Sotheby's in 1984 for $4,675. How "La Hamaca" left Cuba is still a mystery. All that is known is that it ended up in Spain — perhaps by way of a Spanish diplomat, a friend of Mr. De La Torre's sister-in-law, who was the last in the family to leave Cuba, in 1973. A Spanish family consigned it to Sotheby's in 1997, where it was bought by the current owner, who last year consigned it to Sotheby's for resale.
When Sotheby's was first informed of the De La Torre claim, the auction house offered to proceed with the sale, retain its fee and put the proceeds in a special account to be divided later in a settlement between the rival claimants. The family, noting that Mr. De La Torre never divested himself of the painting, rejected the offer out of hand, arguing that Sotheby's had been negligent in accepting anyone else's claim to the painting. "You would think Sotheby's would have the resources to do the research," Manny De La Torre said. "If they didn't, they are not doing the homework." Mr. Weigman noted that Sotheby's requires consignors to guarantee that they have clear title. In this case, he said, Sotheby's tried to further investigate how the Spanish family wound up with "La Hamaca." "We even had people sit down with a priest, but we have been unable to cast any light on how the painting came into their collection," he said. "The truth is, a lot of people don't have bills of sale for everything in their house," he said. "We don't settle these cases; we just hold the paintings." Glenn Kerner, lawyer for the De La Torre family, said the family was surprised by the auction house's "hands off" approach. "My client is disappointed that Sotheby's appears to be indifferent to this entire situation," he said. Manny De La Torre added: "We have been trying to deal with this in a friendly manner. We were hoping to have the painting returned in time for my father's birthday on July 4 last year. Then we thought it would be a great Christmas present. Now my goal is for him to have his painting back within his lifetime."
Beyond the Human Toll, History and Artifacts Lost
By LUKAS I. ALPERT, Associated Press
NEW YORK--First editions of Helen Keller's books. Sculptures by Auguste Rodin. Artifacts from the African Burial Ground, a centuries- old Manhattan cemetery. Thousands of photographs of Broadway, off- Broadway and even off-off-Broadway shows. All were lost--along with thousands of other important works of art, photographs, negatives, artifacts and historical documents--when the World Trade Center towers collapsed, a new report shows. "In emergencies, sometimes there is simply nothing you can do," said Lawrence L. Reger, president of the group that released the report. "There was stuff put in vaults that were simply vaporized." The report, by Heritage Preservation, a Washington, D.C.-based cultural preservation organization, surveyed 57 museums, archives and cultural institutions close to the trade center site. It focused on the scope of what was lost in lower Manhattan and at the Pentagon during the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Within and around the twin towers were works such as Fritz Koenig's "The Sphere" and the Rodin collection in the offices of Cantor Fitzgerald, the bond-trading firm that lost 658 of its nearly 1,000 employees Sept. 11. "The Sphere," which sat in the concourse between the towers, was badly damaged and now serves as part of a temporary memorial in nearby Battery Park. "It was next to a miracle that the Koenig sphere survived in any way," Reger said. But most of the rare casts of Rodin sculptures did not survive. Those that did were badly damaged. Aside from the works of art, thousands of important historical photographs and documents also were lost. Almost the complete Port Authority of New York and New Jersey archive was destroyed, including papers, photographs and blueprints detailing the construction of the World Trade Center and dozens of other city landmarks. Nearly 40,000 of photographer Jacques Lowe's negatives, detailing John F. Kennedy's presidency, were lost when 5 World Trade Center was heavily damaged in the attack, destroying the bank vault where they were stored. Lowe's family estimated the negatives were worth nearly $2 million. "Most people did not think that the World Trade towers had such a variety and such a wide breadth of historical items," Reger said. While so much was lost at the trade center, the Heritage Preservation report also showed that hundreds of thousands of items in nearby institutions were saved by quick thinking and good emergency plans. "The good news is that people really took common- sense action, and that helped save quite a lot," Reger said. "Most of those who did that had some kind of plan, but we do think too many institutions don't have proper planning." For example, just across the street from where the towers once stood, administrators at the Museum of Jewish Heritage climbed to the roof and manually cranked vents closed when power was lost. As the towers burned in the background, they stayed to turn off water valves, even though police ordered them to leave. When they returned, not a trace of dust--which can be lethal to artifacts--was found inside the museum, even though lower Manhattan was covered in a thick layer.
Mystery of Missing $1.6M Stradivarius
Famed fiddle vanished from busy shop
By WILLIAM SHERMAN
Daily News Staff Writer
There was no robbery and no sign of a break-in.
The security system was working perfectly.
And during business hours on the days in question, the six large rooms of Christophe Landon's rare violin workshop and instrument store on Broadway near Lincoln Center were continuously staffed. But somehow, a 1-pound, $1.6 million Stradivarius violin disappeared from Landon's suite sometime between 12:15 p.m. on April 9, a Tuesday, and 11 a.m. two days later. The Stradivarius violin is one of the rarest in the world. "That's when I last saw it, and that's when I discovered it was missing," said Landon, who is one of a handful of expert violin makers in this country. During the time in question, dozens of people passed through his suite. Landon knows many of them because the world of rare violins and those who play them, and buy and sell them, is very small. "Everybody knows everybody, all the dealers, the collectors and the musicians," said Landon, sitting in a room adjacent to his workshop. "What I don't understand is motive, because you cannot sell this violin, you cannot take it to an auction house, or to a dealer ,because it is easily identifiable by an expert," said Landon. "It is like a Rembrandt." Crafted in 1714, the 9-inch-wide instrument is known as "Le Marien," after a Belgian violinist who owned and played it nearly 100 years ago. Its disappearance is the latest, and most remarkable, of several thefts of rare and valuable violins in Manhattan in recent years.
Stolen From Deathbed
Another also is a Stradivarius, valued at $3.6 million, stolen from 91-year-old virtuoso Erica Morini as she lay dying in her Fifth Ave. apartment in November 1994. Painting of virtuoso Erica Morini with her $3.6 million Stradivarius "She had a lot of friends, people were constantly visiting her, and I cannot think of anything more cruel because that violin meant everything to her," said Detective Tom Nerney of the NYPD's major case squad. "One day I will find who took that violin," he said. Now Nerney is in charge of the Le Marien case as well. In the Morini theft, he said, there also were no signs of a break-in. Her instrument, known as The Davidoff, after a previous owner, has not been recovered, nor have any arrests been made in the case. But there are dozens of possible suspects in the Le Marien case. There is only one entrance and exit to Landon's sixth-floor suite, and everyone entering and leaving the building's elevators on the lobby floor is captured on videotape. Scores of people came through that single door, buying strings, bows, cases and other equipment from a staffer in the front room, a store called Strings and Other Things. There is one door leading from the store into the back rooms of the suite, which include a locked vault room containing more than 20 violins, collectively worth more than $8 million. Still, there are no specific clues, although more than 48 hours of those lobby videotapes are being reviewed by Landon and Nerney.
Le Marien is slight, only 23 inches long, and Nerney speculated, "The thief could have stuffed it in a jacket, or in a bag, or in an instrument case, perhaps not a violin case." Several people knew Le Marien was on the premises, according to Landon. The heavily insured violin was consigned to Landon for sale by its owner, Barrett Wissman, a wealthy Dallas Internet and telecommunications entrepreneur. Landon said he had given Le Marien to a well-known American concert violinist to try out. "Right here in this room," he said.
He did not disclose the musician's name but said the practice of allowing tryouts, even off-premises, is common in his world. When the musician finished his tryout, Landon believes he put the violin back in its slot in a cabinet in the vault room, locked with a five-push- button combination. "But I'm not sure," he said, adding that he will go to a hypnotist to try to figure out what happened to the violin. Along with his co-workers, Landon has taken and passed a lie-detector test. "I don't understand it, this thief. What would this person do, keep it for themselves, play it in solitude? Whenever it surfaces, it will be recognized," he said, explaining that all of the more than 600 surviving Stradivarius violins have been extensively catalogued and photographed. Violinmaker Antonio Stradivari's craftsmanship is easily identifiable, through the finishes, tones, carvings and pattern of "flames" in the wood grain on the back, made from two pieces of maple. "Someone tries to sell it to a musician for a few thousand dollars and they will come to me, or someone like me to find out, ‘What is this violin,'" Landon said.
No 'Common Thief'
"I don't think it was a common thief because we are not a store on the street and not that many people know we are here. We only opened three weeks before it was stolen," he said. Previously, he had other offices in the Lincoln Center area. "Whoever took it knew what he or she was doing," Landon said. "At least I think so." But he is not absolutely certain because the thief overlooked another Stradivarius in the vault, one much more valuable, priced for sale at about $3.8 million. Le Marien is less valuable because of repairs to its front, between the F holes, said Landon, who did the restoration at Wissman's request. "You cannot hide this violin," said Landon. "It's like a beautiful woman – Somebody would see it and hear it and ask what it was." Photographs and information about Le Marien are being distributed by Kroll Associates, the international security firm, hired by the violin's insurer to help recover the instrument. "We're sending out thousands of E-mails as well, publicizing the violin on the Net," said Timothy Horner, a Kroll investigator. Kroll is offering a $100,000 reward for the return of the violin, "no questions asked," said Horner. Separately, Landon is offering a $10,000 reward. But he has plenty of questions. "This is a business of trust – it always has been," said Landon, 42, who also makes cellos and violas. "For me, being a violin-maker, handling rare violins, working with musicians, is an art, a way of life. For me it is not about money." Nerney, of the major case squad, has learned more than he ever thought he would about that art, but he has a different point of view. "Bottom line is whoever took this violin, and whoever took Morini's violin, is a thief, just a greedy thief," the cop said. "And maybe that greed will be their undoing."
Secrets of Greatest Violinmaker Died With Him
His tools survive, along with his patterns, molds and more than 600 of his superb violins, meticulously crafted from the finest maple to produce tones of unsurpassed richness and power. But with all the advances in technology over the last 300 years, nobody has been able to duplicate the exquisite creations of Antonio Stradivari, the 17th century master instrument maker of Cremona, Italy. Wealthy and famous long before he died at age 92 in 1737, Stradivari never passed along what experts call the recipe of his product. His methods remain a mystery, even to those who over the years have restored his instruments, taken them apart and put them back together, or tested the finishes he used. Even the water of Cremona has been analyzed, along with the turpentine from local spruce trees used in his varnishes — sometimes by those trying to createforgeries.
Some experts believe the magic comes from the way Stradivari put each violin's 70 components together. Others speculate that the secret lies in his three-layer varnishing process. The first coat seems to be a mixture of silica and potash, designed to soak into the maple, wrapping around the fibers of the wood and giving it strength. A second coat may consist of egg whites and honey or sugar, and the final coat, which gives his instruments their distinctive orange- brown color, appears to include a mixture of gum arabic, turpentine and a resin called Venetian red. But those coatings have defied analysis.
"There is a technical secret in the varnish, and it's the subject of many papers," said Robert Bein of Chicago's Bein and Fushi, the nation's largest dealer in fine violins. "But everybody's asking the wrong question," he said. "People don't ask, what is the secret of Michelangelo or Mozart, because all you can do is study them and learn techniques, but you can't be them... "The real secret and the answer to the question is that Stradivari was an artist, and those instruments are imbued with that X-factor that we recognize as art. So the secret died with him."
Reward
A $100,000 reward is being offered by Kroll Associates for information leading to the recovery of the Stradivarius known as Le Marien. Anyone with information should telephone Kroll at (866) 655- 7773 from the U.S. and Canada, or (703) 259-2289 from outside the U.S. E-mails should be sent to strad@Krollworldwide.com. The NYPD has established a hotline for tips about the theft. Those with information should call (800) 577-TIPS.
Sears Settles Wyeth Painting Dispute
Fri May 31, 8:46 AM ET
By The Associated Press
CHICAGO (AP) - A former antiques dealer has relinquished his claim of ownership to a valuable Andrew Wyeth watercolor that was stolen in 1967 from a downtown gallery. To resolve a federal lawsuit, Sears, Roebuck and Co., which owned the painting when it was stolen, said Wednesday it will pay $7,500 to the dealer, Leo Wenger. He claimed to have bought the painting secondhand about three decades ago. In late 2000, Wenger tried to auction the 1966 painting titled "The Studio." But Christie's Inc. in New York discovered the work might be stolen and notified the FBI (news - web sites). The painting's value has been estimated at as much as $500,000. Wenger, a retired Cook County sheriff's deputy, declined to comment. His lawyer, Jess E. Forrest, said Wenger agreed to relinquish the painting because of legal questions "over whether he could buy something stolen." Wenger didn't know the painting was a Wyeth original or that it had been stolen, Forrest has said. He had no documentation to back up his purchase and didn't recall exactly when or from whom he bought it, Forrest said. Jan Drummond, a spokeswoman for Sears, said the $7,500 payment "appears to be a nominal amount." Sears has not taken possession of the painting yet, Drummond said. The FBI has kept "The Studio" stored at the Art Institute of Chicago. Sears bought the painting within a year of its creation for $26,500 for its Vincent Price collection. The late actor Price served as curator of the collection on display at Sears stores from 1962-71.
The painting was lifted off a display wall in a mid-afternoon heist at the Sears-Vincent Price Gallery in downtown Chicago on Aug. 6, 1967. The painting shows a shuttered window on an old farmhouse. Wyeth produced many paintings at a farm about 25 miles west of Philadelphia.
Aristocrats employ art thief to track down stolen £10m pictures
Two aristocrats have paid an art thief to track down £10 million worth of pictures stolen from their homes. Lord Cholmondeley and Lord Bath approached David Duddin while he was in Durham jail for his part in the theft of a Rembrandt. The Daily Mail says he's now out on parole and is making enquiries among his former colleagues. He said: "I made a huge mistake getting involved with the Rembrandt theft and I'm determined to make some good out of the mess that whole affair has made of my life." David Raine, chairman of the Northumbria Police Federation called the move "morally wrong". He added: it "may even constitute an offence in itself. In effect we have a criminal trying to make money out of being a criminal. He is offering to return stolen property without looking to catch those responsible." Charles Hill, security adviser to the Historic Houses Association, said on behalf of
Lord Bath and Lord Cholmondeley: "Previous to this, every avenue had been tried. I suggested using Mr Duddin and that was reluctantly accepted as a last resort. "He is an old lag but a decent man. We want to do anything within the law to get these paintings back." Mr Duddin was jailed for nine years for trying to sell the £400,000 Portrait Of His Mother, stolen from the Earl of Pembroke. He's being paid expenses for his work but is assured of a hefty reward if he's successful. He's being asked to find Lord Bath's Titian, Rest On The Flight To Egypt, worth £5 million, and The White Duck, by Jean- Baptiste Audrey, also worth £5 million, which belongs to Lord Cholmondeley.
From: adalberto biasiotti Subject: re: cameras use
re: cameras use
in Italy the following apply in most museums and archaeological areas
- ok hand held cameras
- no flash, because of potential UV damage to artifacts and nuisance to visitors
- no tripods, because of visitors flow impediment camera use may only be restricted in very high visitors flow areas, within limited space, such as Lupanare brothel in Pompeii
please, when stating such prohibitions, always explain why
regards
Adalberto Biasiotti
Museum desperately seeks password hacker
It's not like they advertise in Yellow Pages...
A Norwegian museum is desperately seeking the services of a hacker after the only person who knew the password protecting its electronic library died. ...and meanwhile the rest of the world is trying to think of better ways to create unguessable passwords The creator of the library developed a catalogue of 1,600 books and documents before he passed away. Ottar Grepstad, the museum's director, sent out an appeal on national radio for hackers to help museum employees access the valuable information.
The Norway Post claims the museum has already been contacted by several hackers. The hackers' CVs are being sorted to find the most likely candidates to crack the password.
http://www.silicon.com/