Rosie Cowan Thursday August 8, 2002 The Guardian
Irish police yesterday recovered a Rubens masterpiece, 16 years after it was stolen by the Dublin mobster, Martin Cahill, in a robbery at a Co Wicklow stately home. Cahill and his 13-strong gang made international headlines in 1986 when they snatched 18 paintings, worth a total of £24m, in a daring raid on Russborough House. Among them was Rubens' Head of a Man, thought to be a portrait of cavalier Erycius Puteanus painted in 1615. But the fame of the collection, which included a Vermeer and a Goya, meant the thieves had difficulty offloading their haul. Several paintings were found near the mansion the day after the robbery and others turned up in Belgium and Istanbul during the intervening years, leaving just Head of a Man and a pair of Venetian scenes by Guardi still missing. Art lovers feared Cahill had taken the secret of the missing Rubens to his grave when he was murdered in 1994. But detectives acting on a tipoff, found it in near pristine condition in north Dublin. No arrests have been made. The portrait has been returned to the Beit Foundation, established by the owner of Russborough House, the late Sir Alfred Beit, and will be kept in the Irish National Gallery. Raymond Keaveney, Irish National Gallery director, said: "It is in remarkably good condition considering anything made of wood has a tendency to warp over time."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/
Gold cauldron believed sunk in German lake by Nazis raises ownership questions
Tue Aug 6, 2:12 PM ET
MUNICH, Germany - Officials are trying to determine who owns a solid gold cauldron found in a German lake that is believed to have been made for the Nazis, a Bavarian Finance Ministry spokesman said Tuesday.
The cauldron, which weighs 10.5 kilograms (23 pounds) and contains gold worth an estimated 100,000 euros (dlrs 96,000), was recovered last year by a diver from Bavaria's Chiemsee lake. Experts at an archaeology museum in Munich have been examining it since, and German television plans to show a documentary Wednesday exploring its origins and how it got into the lake. Bavarian officials are weighing whether the 50-centimeter (20-inch) cauldron is simply "discovered treasure," which would give the diver equal ownership rights with the state government, Finance Ministry spokesman Bernd Schreiber said. However, the diver would have no claims if it can be established that it belonged to Hitler's Nazis, because all such items are considered state property, he said. The cauldron is decorated with Celtic figures, which ARD television said suggests it was made on the orders of a top Nazi ideologist, Alfred Rosenberg, who drew inspiration from mythology. Rosenberg outlined plans to build a special Nazi education center near the lake after World War II, and the cauldron may have been thrown into the waters to prevent it falling into the hands of advancing U.S. forces, ARD said in a preview of its program. http://story.news.yahoo.com/ 161/02 1 August 2002
GOVERNMENT SIGNS UP TO UNESCO CONVENTION TO TACKLE ILLICIT TRADE IN ART AND ANTIQUITIES
The UK has formally signed up to an international agreement to protect cultural property, Arts Minister Baroness Blackstone announced today. The 1970 United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) Convention on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property gives members the right to recover stolen antiquities - primarily ancient and religious artefacts - which surface in the countries of fellow signatories.
Tessa Blackstone said:
“By signing this agreement, we are sending a strong warning to those who do so much damage to the world’s cultural heritage that the UK is serious about joining the international effort to stamp out illicit trade in cultural objects. It will also help us claim back objects unlawfully removed from the UK.
“Acceding to the Convention was recommended by an advisory panel set up by DCMS to look at the extent of such trade. Britain has the second largest art market in the world with the market in antiquities making up a considerable part of it. The panel, led by Professor Norman Palmer, found that the market generally operates in an honourable way but did find evidence of illicit activity. I am therefore pleased that we have now implemented this recommendation.”
The report found that the British art market was worth around £4.5 billion in 1999, of which the antiquities market generated £15m. In 1999, some 132 cases were dealt with by London’s Interpol Unit and about 30 seizures of cultural goods were made by Customs and Excise. Items stolen from the UK in the past include the Salisbury Hoard, a unique collection of more than 500 prehistoric artefacts that were stolen in 1985 by treasure hunters from a site near Salisbury. Two thirds of the hoard has been recovered by the British Museum but a third is still dispersed in the trade. Now, if such a hoard were stolen and taken to a country covered by the Convention, the UK could consider putting in a claim for its return.
Professor Palmer welcomed the news. He said:
“I am delighted to learn that the UK has signed up to the UNESCO Convention. This commitment is in full accord with the recommendations of the Advisory Panel on Illicit Trade in its report to Ministers. In acceding to the Convention, the United Kingdom not only signals its commitment to the proper treatment of works of art and antiquities across the world, but joins 91 other nations in this endeavour. The UK’s participation will, I believe, be seen as a milestone in the progress of the Convention.”
Notes to editors
1. Accession to the1970 UNESCO Convention on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property was one of the principal recommendations of the Ministerial Advisory Panel on the Illicit Trade in Cultural Objects (ITAP) (December 2000). This is on the DCMS website (www.culture.gov.uk) along with the ITAP Progress Report for 2001. The Convention was laid before Parliament as a Command Paper with explanatory memorandum this Spring. An Instrument of the Convention has now been deposited with UNESCO in Paris.
2. The UNESCO Convention has as its purpose the prevention of illicit import, export and transfer of ownership of cultural property. It enables members to recover stolen antiquities which surface in the countries of the 91 fellow signatories. The Convention is not retroactive.
3. The Ministerial Advisory Panel was set up in the Spring of 1999 to advise the Government on, first, the extent of the illicit international trade in art and antiquities and the extent to which the UK was involved in it and, secondly, how most effectively the UK could play its part in preventing and prohibiting the illicit trade. The Panel had a distinguished membership drawn from the worlds of archaeology, museums and the trade.
Press Enquiries: 020 7211 6272/6266 Out of hours telephone pager no: 07699 751153 Public Enquiries: 020 7211 6200 Internet: http://www.culture.gov.uk Date sent: Wed, 07 Aug 202 18:13:57 +0200
Subject: Diurnal theft prevention
From: Pierre Dumont bf000423@glo.be
Diurnal theft prevention
The recent greek marble head stolen at the British Museum, as well as the theft in june of a Giacometti Bronze at the Hamburger Kunsthalle and the Breitwieser series of thefts (174 in 6 years) have a common signification. As an evidence, each theft has been perpetrated in presence of the general public, during opening hours, because the robbers know that atsuch time the rooms intrusion systems are inoperatives and that the warders attention is easy to circumvent. The lack of warder presence amplify such fact. That situation allows easy access to the artworks, theft is then quite easy to perpetrate. In fact as the warders cost is quite heavy to support by the security budget, there are generally a lack of warders and as a consequence the human surveillance alone is not always as effective as it should be.
Electronic preventive alarms are of great help to draw the attention to the warders and public to prevent theft and vandalism . But until now not a lot of such alarms systems are operatives. Should opportunists thefts within museums seems so easy, it is largely the consequence of the lack of interest regarding the use of object protections and the difficulty to find an efficient and cost effective diurnal protection.
Most of time the close object protection is not a priority, museums staffs are more focused on intrusion detection and collecting new artworks. Usually, Security firms do not provide a lot of efforts in promoting such protections, because it is not their core business and they are quite not well prepared to find the right product for the right application. As an evidence, diurnal alarms need a specific approach. Furthermore, due to the low return on investment and difficulties to be paid for the services provided, it is difficult to find competent people for this particular relatively small market . But there is at least one european specialist in such particular field.
CODINE, a belgian company pioneer in diurnal close detection of artworks (started more than 20 years ago) has defined for several years such problematic and the way to solve each particular situation involving artwork protection in public or private areas where the public has free access. For years, they have developped various products as well as specifically engineered solutions to secure efficiently the cultural heritage of european countries where Codine and their local partners are actives. To give more information on diurnal artwork protection, they have developped a well documented bilingual (English / french) website dedicated to diurnal alarm protection http://www.codine.be
Pierre Dumont, Codine¹s staff manager is an Associate member of the Paris based ESAS institute (european Institute for Advanced Science of Security (website : www.esas-institute.com ). He is also often requested to animate seminars and congresses (as soon as diurnal valuable protection - D.R.O.*- is at the program) due to his long expertise in such field of applications and significant references including a lot of protection schemes within several prestigious museums, churches, and heritage sites. * D.R.O. (Détection Rapprochée des Oeuvres, french abreviation relative to ³Close Detection of Artworks².
printed articles of some lectures from Pierre Dumont are available upon request at info@codine.be