A concert in support of the Czech Flood Relief Fund will be held on Monday 30 September at the Royal Festival Hall, starting at 7.30pm. The Chamber Orchestra of Europe, conducted by Sir Charles Mackerras will perform works by Schubert, Mozart and Brahms, together with the Czech mezzo-soprano Magdalena Kozena. Donations may be offered when booking tickets and also during and after the concert. Proceeds from the concert will go directly to the Czech relief fund. The Box Office number is +44 20 7960 4242.
European archaeologists launch appeal for flood-plagued Czechs
Wed Sep 25, 6:37 PM ET
THESSALONIKI, Greece - European archaeologists launched an appeal late Wednesday to raise money for the Czech Republic's Institute of Archaeology which suffered serious damage in recent floods.
The European Association of Archaeologists, or EAA, set up collection boxes at an annual meeting in this northern Greek city and appealed for outside donations. The Institute of Archaeology in the Czech capital Prague was damaged during August floods, the worst to hit the central European country in nearly two centuries. The floods caused an estimated $3 billion in damage. "Water levels reached three meters, completely destroying the institute's ground floor," an EAA statement said. "More than 80 percent of the books have been destroyed. Photographic archives ... laboratories and store rooms were also seriously damaged." More than 1,000 delegates are attending the five-day conference in Thessaloniki which ends Sunday.
Lasers best for cleaning priceless paintings
Scientists have found lasers may be the best tool for restoring priceless paintings to their prime.
A team from the Spanish Council for Scientific Research in Madrid argue UV beams are safer than the chemicals currently used. They say this is because the light beams can remove dirt on old oil paintings without physically touching the paint. The process works by blasting the surface layer of varnish. Researcher Marta Castillejo said: "Provided you leave a thin layer of varnish, you will not damage the paint underneath." She told New Scientist the system contains a failsafe that makes sure the beam does not destroy the paint underneath. As the light hits the varnish a separate tool analyses the gas emitted and raises the alarm as soon as any paint molecules are detected. http://www.ananova.com/
A former New Scientist report about cleaning a smoke damaged painting (Monet) is available at: http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99991592
The struggle over Giacometti's legacy
Alan Riding The New York Times
For Christie's, the opportunity to auction 36 Giacometti sculptures this autumn seemed like a splashy way of consolidating its presence in a Paris art market that only recently opened up to foreign companies. But behind this coup lay the challenge of holding the sale without being drawn into the imbroglio that has accompanied the Giacometti legacy for the last decade. Christie's may not have succeeded. . A group of French auctioneers has asked a Paris court to stop the auction, set for Saturday, maintaining that only French auctioneers were authorized to hold "judicial sales," auctions ordered by a French court. The lawsuit was in turn backed by the Giacometti Association, created in 1989 by the artist's widow, Annette, which argued that the auction would deplete the Giacometti legacy. A ruling is expected Wednesday.. "We're optimistic the auction will go ahead on time," Jerome Le Blay, a specialist with Christie's Paris, said of a sale estimated to be worth around $6 million. "We do not want to get involved in the whole Giacometti business. We have been named. We want to sell." full story: http://www.iht.com/articles/71631.html
Assisi frescoes rise from the rubble
By David Willey BBC Rome correspondent
A series of restored ceiling and wall fresco paintings are being unveiled at the medieval shrine of St Francis at Assisi in central Italy, five years after an earthquake seriously damaged them.
Four people were killed when part of the ceiling of the upper Basilica of St Francis collapsed in the 1997 earthquake, and a memorial service to them is being held as part of the ceremonies marking the restoration. The earthquake shattered some of the church's ancient fresco paintings into tens of thousands of tiny fragments. New computer techniques have been used to solve what amounted to a huge jigsaw puzzle - the piecing together of hundreds of boxes of tiny plaster fragments carefully salvaged from the debris inside the basilica. The work has involved art restorers, art historians, architects, graphic artists, chemists and physicists in a huge project which cost the Italian taxpayer more than $2m.
Monks still waiting
Two huge frescoes, painted by Giotto and Cimabue - Italian master painters of the late middle ages - have been brought back to life although there are still gaps where the plaster crumbled completely. The roof of the basilica has been strengthened against possible future earthquakes. But the 40 Franciscan monks who live inside the monastery adjoining the basilica are still waiting for restoration work to begin on their cells and refectory which also suffered damage. They are even hoping to get a new lift installed for the first time inside their 700-year-old living quarters. http://news.bbc.co.uk/
Utah to Get Back Stolen Dinosaur
Tuesday, September 24, 2002
BY MICHAEL VIGH THE SALT LAKE TRIBUNE
Eight years ago, a 150-million-year-old dinosaur fossil was illegally excavated from federal land near Castle Dale and sold to a California businessman for $17,000. When the new owner of the camptosaurus fossil was told by authorities in August that the rare artifact had been stolen, he agreed to return the dinosaur home. Now, federal prosecutors have pledged to turn over the unique fossil to the Museum of Natural History at the University of Utah.
full story: http://www.sltrib.com/09242002/utah/830.htm
Modern curse has tomb robbers trembling
Egypt’s antiquities police promise Pharaonic revenge on smugglers
Cam McGrath Special to The Daily Star
For centuries, tomb robbers and antiquities smugglers feared the curse of Tutankhamun, a legend that divine punishment will be meted out on those who dare to violate the Pharaoh’s tomb. These days, they worry more about Zahi Hawass. The secretary-general of Egypt’s Supreme Council for Antiquities (SCA) said he is tired of seeing plundered Egyptian treasures on the auction block at Sotheby’s. “Every time an antiquity is stolen, we lose a vital piece of evidence, a part of the world’s cultural heritage,” he said in a recent editorial. “I personally think that anyone involved in the violation of our monuments should be executed.” While Hawass admits he has no immediate plans to polish up the guillotine, he has promised to take offenders to court and end scientific cooperation with any institution that refuses to cooperate. His newly created Department of Stolen Antiquities (DSA) has compiled a list of pilfered Pharaonic artifacts and is working hard with Interpol and foreign governments to secure their repatriation. The DSA scored a resounding hit in May, securing the return of an 18th Dynasty statue of a high priest of the god Montu, one of 55 pieces stolen from a storehouse in Karnak in 1987. The 3,500-year-old artifact was returned to Egypt after Interpol, following leads from Dutch police, found it in the possession of a collector in The Hague. “Another piece from this collection is in Switzerland and authorities there are assisting us in recovering it,” said DSA director Abdel Karim Abu Shaneb. In July, Abu Shaneb was part of the delegation to Washington that brought home two Roman mummy masks made of gypsum. The burial masks were confiscated by police during a raid on the home of an arms dealer in Florida. Just weeks earlier, Egypt reclaimed a 6th Dynasty tablet stolen from Saqqara, southwest of Cairo, in 1992. DSA may be short on personnel and computers, admits Abu Shaneb, but there is no shortage of imagination. Its staff of four a director, two antiquities inspectors and a lawyer are using whatever resources they can find to track down stolen artifacts. Much of their day is spent browsing magazines, museum newsletters, auction catalogs and other places advertising collections of rare Egyptian artifacts. “We contact archaeological sites in Egypt asking whether they’ve had any stolen pieces,” explained Abu Shaneb. “We take the numbers and date of disappearance and (compile a list to) create a bulletin.” A copy of the list is sent to the Foreign Ministry, which contacts foreign museums, auction houses and private collectors believed to be in possession of the stolen property. “First we ask to see documents on how they acquired these pieces. If they don’t have documents to prove ownership, and from where they bought or inherited them … then it’s our right to restore them.” Once a day, DSA staff head upstairs to borrow a computer and browse the internet. Half the websites they visit are in languages they do not understand, but with the help of translation software, this has not been an obstacle. One inspector recently discovered Egyptian artifacts on the website of a private Norwegian collection, including rare Coptic and Hieratic papyri allegedly stolen from Egyptian archaeological storehouses. On a French website, Pharaonic treasures are offered to bidders, including rare pieces suspiciously similar to those which disappeared from an Egyptian temple less than a decade ago. But Abu Shaneb’s favorite pastime is reading auction inventories. A copy of the Christie’s catalog lay on his desk, with more than 50 ticks next to items of unconfirmed provenance. “Auction houses claim they obtain these items legally, but when we ask them for proof they cannot (provide) it,” said documentation specialist Mohammed Kassem. In their eagerness to get hold of valuable ancient treasures, even respected museums may accept falsified documents. Claiming that they were duped into accepting a stolen item just won’t cut it, said Kassem, who added that it only takes a phone call to his department to uncover the truth. “It’s very easy to discover that these pieces are stolen,” he asserted. Some of the greatest Egyptian collections in the world, including those in the British Museum, Louvre and Berlin Museum, include treasures plundered from Egypt in the 19th century. News that Egypt is demanding and succeeding in repatriating its heritage has curators a little worried. But Kassem had a few soothing words to offer. “We differentiate between antiquities acquired through foreign expeditions working in Egypt and those that were stolen from us,” he explained. “Since 1977, Egypt has not allowed expeditions to take objects out of the country.” Current efforts are focused on antiquities spirited away from Egypt after 1977, which were “without question taken illegally.” Several international treaties, including a UNESCO convention in force since April 1972, support Egypt’s demands for their repatriation. Whether or not the SCA will stop there is anybody’s guess. There is talk about recovering the Rosetta Stone, the most famous slab of basalt in the world. Discovered in 1799 by a captain of Napoleon’s army serving in the northern Egyptian town of Rosetta (known as Rashid in Arabic), the stone was the most significant discovery in the history of Egyptology. Engraved on its face is a 2,200-year-old decree from Ptolemy V written in three ancient scripts: hieroglyphs, demotic Egyptian and Greek. The trilingual decree allowed scholars for the first time to translate hieroglyphs and enabled them to read the walls of tombs and temples throughout Egypt. Two years after its discovery, Napoleon was defeated by the British and the Rosetta Stone was shipped to London where it resides to this day in the British Museum. Repeated attempts to recover the artifact have been firmly rebuffed. SCA officials refused to comment on whether they would launch a new bid for the artifact’s return, but one official put it succinctly: “Every country should have possession of its own heritage.” http://www.dailystar.com.lb/
Man's fight for art 'justice'
A man jailed for handling "stolen" paintings, including two by Gainsborough and Reynolds, is fighting for a retrial.
Dave Ford, 63, from Mitcham, Surrey, says he lost his livelihood in 1986 when he was jailed for two years for handling stolen goods - four valuable antique paintings which he says he bought in good faith. The paintings included Morality by Hans Eworth and portraits of Thomas Prowse, Sir John Denham and John Julius Angerstein by Gainsborough, Jan Mytens and Sir Thomas Lawrence respectively. At a news conference in London on Monday Mr Ford announced he had petitioned for a retrial and said he was determined to clear his name Mr Ford claimed documents which would have proved his innocence were taken from his safe by police after his arrest but were never listed as exhibits. He claimed he was convicted because of the absence of these documents and said an appeal in 1987 failed for the same reason. But he said he could prove the paintings were not stolen. At Mr Ford's trial in 1986 the prosecution claimed the paintings, and another called Angelica Kauffman by Sir Joshua Reynolds, were taken during an aggravated armed robbery at a house in Bedfont, Middlesex in September 1982.
Art raid
The robbers tied up solicitor Derek Sherborne and another man and escaped with a large quantity of arts and antiques. At the trial the raid was described as "the largest aggravated armed robbery of fine arts and antiques this century". But Mr Ford said he has always maintained the paintings were never stolen in the robbery. At the trial Mr Sherborne said the five paintings were part of his own private collection, which he had built up since 1956. Mr Ford said he had evidence the paintings had been given as gifts by Robert McKenzie, a former war correspondent, to his lover, Colin Bishop, between 1976 and 1980.
Mr McKenzie died in 1981.
Mr Ford, then a successful businessman with a haulage company and buyers in Italy, said he bought the four paintings for £125,000 - and put a downpayment on the fifth. He said he bought them from a businessman, John Barrymore, who he said was acting on behalf of Mr Bishop. Neither Mr Barrymore or Mr Bishop were charged in connection with the paintings.
'Bona fide'
Mr Ford said he had documents - including a sworn affidavit by Mr Bishop, a bill of sale and UK and US Customs clearance - proving the paintings were bona fide and not stolen. But Mr Ford said he was at his trial he was not able to rely on these documents and was also refused permission to call witnesses on his behalf after a dispute over which order to call them in. At Monday's news conference Mr Ford said: "My paintings were never ever stolen. "I bought them from a man called Barrymore in 1985. They came from his office in Mayfair to my shop in Earlsfield. "When they reached my shop the police said they were stolen. I say the only time they were stolen was when the police took them from me and falsely accused me of handling." A Metropolitan Police spokesman said he could not comment on Mr Ford's plans to appeal against his conviction. http://news.bbc.co.uk/
Museum reach plan on sprinklers
It would take two years to protect the art - and firefighters. The proposal is to be presented today. By Patricia Horn Inquirer Staff Writer
The basement storage area of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, which contains priceless art and is in violation of the city fire code, would be fully protected by sprinklers within two years under a plan to be proposed today. The plan by the museum and the city, which owns the neoclassical landmark, is intended to correct long-standing fire- code violations that potentially put the art and firefighters' lives at risk. City officials said installing sprinklers in the cavernous basement level, most of which now has no fire-suppression system, would cost about $2.5 million. The plan will come before the regional Board of Safety and Fire Prevention, which in June told the museum to fix the problem within two years. "I don't want people to think the city is not aware or [not] doing anything" to correct the violations, said Richard Tustin, director of the city's capital program office, which is working with the museum. "We have been very busy out there and have a lot more to do." The museum's chief operating officer, Gail Harrity, said the museum was trying "to design and complete the construction of [a sprinkler] system" within two years. On Sept. 15, The Inquirer reported that the museum had been in violation of the fire code since 1952, and that it had been cited for the violations since 1995. At the time, neither museum officials nor city spokesman Frank Keel could say when the museum would have a sprinkler system in place. Tustin said his office has been working on its latest proposal for months, and working on capital projects for the museum for years. Harrity said the recent publicity "has focused our attention on trying to implement the [sprinkler] plan as quickly as possible." City, fire and museum officials stress that the museum does not pose a risk to visitors. While the museum is a not-for-profit organization, the city owns its six-story, 630,000-square-foot building. The city owns about 10 percent of the museum's art collection of 300,000 pieces, Harrity said.
Last week, after the Inquirer report, City Controller Jonathan Saidel said his office would audit the museum to assess its fire safety and its ability to safeguard city-owned art. Saidel, whose staff met with museum officials yesterday, said they were "working feverishly to respond to our request and to update their [fire safety] systems." The museum's level B basement storage area covers more than two acres and holds paintings, sculptures, books, carpets, furniture, ceramics, china and silver, including works by Monet and Alexander Calder. More than half of the basement has no sprinklers or other fire-suppression system - a fire-code violation - according to a fire-inspection report. The only area in level B with sprinklers protects museum-shop storage, not art. About 14 percent of the basement has a gaseous fire- suppression system, but fire officials have questioned its effectiveness. The area without sprinklers includes a student cafeteria, which Harrity said did not have cooking facilities. The public does not use it, she said, and it had a fire-detection system and extinguishers. When it is in use, a guard trained in the museum evacuation plan is there. Fire officials say the lack of a fire- suppression system on most of level B, which has few windows, poses a danger to firefighters because toxic gases and heat cannot escape. According to Tustin, designing and installing a sprinkler system, as well as moving the art, would cost $2.5 million. It will take eight months to design and 12 months to install, an "aggressive schedule," he said. The city has already set aside $2.5 million as part of $24 million allocated since 1995 for capital improvements at the museum, Tustin said. The museum has so far spent $7 million of the $24 million, including just under $2 million on fire protection, including alarm improvements and sprinklers on another basement level. The museum and the city do not agree completely on the proposed fire-suppression system. Harrity said the museum also wanted to have a gas-based suppression system in the parts of the basement that store art.
Tustin said the museum would have to pay for that second system, since it is not required by the fire code. Museum officials also say that if the art has to be removed from the museum, it could raise the price by more than $1 million and lengthen the timetable. Since 1996, the museum has asked for three variances to give it time to fix its basement fire-code violations. The regional fire board granted the first two, but the museum did not complete the promised improvements. In June, the museum asked for a third, 10-to-12 year extension, which the board denied. The museum said the board misunderstood the timetable, and that it would have taken less time for just the sprinkler system. The seven-member fire board set today's meeting for a progress report and requested a full plan by Dec. 10. Saidel said his office would attend the meeting. "I told the [museum yesterday] my concerns about the safety of the assets of the city but also my concern about the patrons and the firefighters," he said. He said his office's engineer would work with the museum on the fire-suppression system. He suggested that the museum take the $17 million in capital funds the city has allocated for other museum projects and use it to update its fire-suppression system. Saidel said he also asked the museum to explain how the city's assets would be safeguarded if a fire broke out before Dec. 10, how a fire would affect patrons, and whether the museum was putting firefighters at excessive risk if they had to fight a fire in the basement storage area.
more: http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/news/local/4144034.htm