June 27, 2002

CONTENTS:




- Egyptian customs foiled yesterday an illegal bid to export to Spain around 400 antique coins and artefacts....
- Russians work to restore paintings from the gutted shell of Grozny's museum
- Denver dealer rigged stamp bids
- Art Cime Site

CAIRO:

Egyptian customs foiled yesterday an illegal bid to export to Spain around 400 antique coins and artefacts

, some dating from the pharaonic period, airport sources said. Customs officers at Cairo airport became suspicious about 34 packages being sent to Madrid by an Egyptian businessman, whose name was not given. They were labelled as containing pieces from Cairo’s Khan Al Khalili tourist bazaar, which specialises in replicas of ancient Egyptian artefacts. On inspection, customs officers found and confiscated 131 coins from pharaonic and Islamic periods, 202 coins from Greek and Roman times, 79 pharaonic amulets and 12 antique silver bracelets. http://www.bahraintribune.com/pdf/page01.pdf

Russians work to restore paintings from the gutted shell of Grozny's museum

MOSCOW Inside a cramped workshop here, restorers are hurrying to repair the ravages of war. On an easel in one corner, a landscape painted by Fyodor Lvov in 1854 shows hardly a scar from the 25 holes torn through it by the shrapnel and falling bricks. .Along the workshop's bright, cluttered hall, there is a 19th-century portrait of Grand Prince Konstantin Romanov, another simply titled "Girl With a Book," and one of an aristocratic woman - all restored to near flawless condition.. There is also, however, a golden icon - probably St. Alexander Nevsky, though the workshop's experts still debate this - that never will be whole again. There is little more that its restorer, Vitali Spiridonov, can do to repair the damage, visible in the pinkish blotches of patched canvas. .These paintings are soon to be hung at one of the world's premier museums, the Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow, in an exhibition that exposes Russia's anguish over the destruction of hundreds of works of art during its wars in Chechnya, even as it raises the discomforting question of whether Russia itself was to blame.. "Of course, I think someone is to blame," Spiridonov said, "but who is a very big question." . The paintings - along with 3,200 works of art and antiquity - once belonged to the Pyotr Zakharov Fine Arts Museum in Chechnya's capital, Grozny. They were part of a collection that, if not world class, was significant for a regional museum in a country that prizes its history of art. . In 1995, though, Russian forces crushed Chechnya's rebellious government, and the museum was at the center of the last pitched battles of the Russian assault on Grozny itself. . Accusations swirl to this day about the tactics of both sides, with Russian officials blaming Chechen rebels for using the museum as a redoubt in the first place. But there is no question that Russian bombs, not Chechen ones, left the museum a gutted shell in Grozny's apocalyptic ruin. . The exhibition, from June 27 through Aug. 18, can be seen as an act of reconciliation or perhaps of penance. To some it has an undercurrent of Russian chauvinism, a rationalization of the wars in Chechnya as a defense of civilization against extremism. . "I think this is part of the information war that Russia is conducting," said Lecha Ilyasov, a Chechen writer involved in cultural preservation. "If this was happening after the war, if people weren't shooting and dying, then some good use could come from it. But so long as the war is going on, when people are dying, when they are being detained, this exhibition is like a feast during the famine." . Vitold Petyushenko, the exhibit's curator, said the intent was simply to highlight the efforts to save Grozny's art. It is not a political statement, he said, but an appeal to what unites all peoples. . "We want to stretch out the cultural threads between our people," he said, "because attention must be paid not only to the military conflict but to our cultural ties." . The exhibition's paintings are among 94 works salvaged from the museum's ruins by experts from the Culture Ministry who went to Grozny in March 1995. . One by one the paintings arrived at Russia's renowned restoration center, named after the artist and restorer Igor Grabar, where the painstaking effort to repair them began. What is not being restored is most telling. . A portrait, possibly of Jesus, will hang as it was found, with a gaping hole in its center. There will also be a painting by Franz Rubo, a French-born Russian artist known for his panoramic depictions of Russia's famous battles. The 1886 work, "The Capture of Shamil," depicts a legendary Chechen leader being taken prisoner during Russia's early attempts to conquer the Caucasus. . Rubo's painting survived the destruction of the museum but then disappeared. In May 2000, the Federal Security Service, the successor to the KGB, announced that it had been recovered while being smuggled out of Chechnya. The painting, having been repeatedly folded and hidden in a rug, will hang in its current ruinous state. . The fate of the rest of the museum's collection is unknown. Officials fear that many works ended up as war booty. Two 19th-century portraits showed up at Sotheby's in London last autumn. This month, a rebel group turned over another of the lost paintings. . Of course, the destruction of Chechnya's museum is a mere footnote in a war of abundant human tragedy. But at a time when Chechens still disappear and young Russian men die each day, any subject that involves Russia's war in Chechnya is fraught with emotion. . The Hague Convention of 1954 prohibits the destruction of cultural sites during wartime, and intended or not, the exhibition highlights the gross violations of its spirit. . "It is too late to think of blame," said Nadezhda Vikhrova, a restorer. "We have to work to restore everything we can. We are like doctors in war. No matter whom they are called on to save, they are supposed to help everyone." http://www.iht.com/

Denver dealer rigged stamp bids, says Justice Department

The U.S. Department of Justice is charging a Denver company and one of its executives of rigging bids at stamp auctions.
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Morrow faces three years in prison and his firm faces a fine of $10 million.
"This type of scheme prevents sellers from obtaining fair and competitive pricing," said James Griffin, deputy assistant attorney general in charge of the Antitrust Division's Criminal Enforcement Program, in a statement. full story

From: Appraiserl@aol.com

Subject: Art Cime Site

This site came in from Yahoo Pick of the week.
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Art Crime http://www.renewal.org.au/artcrime/
An iconoclast is someone who destroys or opposes the use of sacred images. The most common acts of iconoclasm involve attacks on religious figures, but this cleverly designed site presents a fascinating look at recent attacks on all types of art. The attackers have used a variety of weapons -- ink, eggs, paint, acid, and knives to name a few. Other, more disgusting attacks are also documented, including the inventive vomit attack on Raoul Duffy's "Harbour at le Havre." Rembrandt's "The Night Watch" was attacked three separate times in the past 100 years, and the attack on Duchamp's "La Fontaine" defies belief. Art Crimes is an entertaining and revealing look at decidedly illicit cultural events.