A 16th century Italian painting published on page 80 of the ICOM publication One Hundred Missing Objects. Looting in Europe was recovered on 25 September 2002. This polyptych representing a Madonna and Child with saints had been listed by the Italian Ministry of Cultural Property as one of the 800 most important works of art to retrieve. Stolen on 9 May 1997 from the Church of St Benedict, Angri (Italy), it was found by the Carabinieri of the Salerno province in an abandoned house on the Amalfi coast. This is the third restitution since the publication of Looting in Europe in January 2001. ICOM considers this to be a great success. Two other objects stolen from the Czech Republic have already been recovered and restituted. Looting in Europe is the fourth volume in the ICOM series "One hundred Missing objects".
European countries are not spared the theft and looting of cultural heritage. Religious objects in particular are the main targets of traffickers. Looting in Europe is devoted to the looting that affects religious heritage. Crucifixes, church furniture, gold and silver plate, paintings and other items full of historical and spiritual significance are torn from their original contexts to feed the illicit traffic in cultural property and end up adorning the interiors of private houses. The book describes the situation in four countries: France, Hungary, Italy and the Czech Republic. Unfortunately these countries are not the only victims of the illegal traffic in religious objects, but they are representative of a situation that is widespread in Europe.
These restitutions are very encouraging. However they must serve as a reminder to potential buyers that they should exercise the greatest vigilance with regard to other similar objects that are offered on the market. By buying such items, people contribute to the destruction of a country's heritage, and they run the risk of becoming partners in illicit trade.
2003 National Conference on Cultural Property Protection
Crystal Gateway Marriott * Arlington, Virginia * February 2-5, 2003
National Conference Contact Information Postal Address: Smithsonian Institution * Department 0561 * Washington, D.C. 20073-0561 Telephone: 202-633-9333; 202-357-3375; 202-357-1612 * Facsimile: 202-357-4132 E-Mail: conf@ops.si.edu * URL Address: http://natconf.si.edu
Gold items worth 5 million yen snatched from museum
SHIZUOKA -- Some 5 million yen worth of gold items have been stolen from a private museum in the former gold mining town of Toi in Shizuoka Prefecture, police said Thursday. The Toi Kinzan museum is known for keeping the world's biggest gold bullion in its collection, but the 200-kilogram bullion was left untouched. Police officers were dispatched to the museum after a burglary alarm went off in the predawn hours of Thursday. When they arrived about 10 minutes later, 21 gold items, including necklaces and coins, were already stolen from two broken showcases in the museum and its annex located over 10 meters away. http://mdn.mainichi.co.jp/
Debating Future of Buddhas Destroyed by Taliban
Sat Oct 12, 7:19 AM ET By David Brunnstrom
BAMIYAN, Afghanistan (Reuters) - For over 1,600 years, from the twilight of imperial Rome through the ravages of Genghis Khan, the giant Buddhas of Bamiyan towered above the fabled Silk Road through Afghanistan that linked the ancient East and West. A thousand years back, when they were already 600 years old, the faces of the statues were hacked off on the orders of a Muslim zealot. But the figures themselves stood until March last year, when Mullah Omar, leader of Afghanistan's former Taliban regime, finished them off with dynamite. The two colossal statues laboriously carved from a pink sandstone cliff overlooking the town of Bamiyan were blasted from their massive niches and reduced to piles of dust and rubble in an act that shocked the world and woke it up to the extent of the Taliban's religious intolerance. It looked to be a final devastating blow to central Afghanistan's Hazara tribe, who suffered some of the worst Taliban atrocities and saw Bamiyan, their capital, reduced to pitiful ruin during its rule. But with the Taliban now overthrown, experts from around the world are working with the new government, under the auspices of the U.N. cultural organization, UNESCO, to see what can be done to save what is left of the Buddhas. Technology exists to completely rebuild the 125 foot and 180 foot statues, but a debate is raging as to how far such work should go. At present, only the outlines of the statues remain, along with parts of the arms attached to the cliff wall. And even those fragments are in danger. Among the most controversial proposals has been from an Afghan- American artist, Haider Zad, who suggested building new statues in reinforced concrete, an idea that has horrified UNESCO experts and would likely provoke considerable anger among Afghanistan's legions of Islamic conservatives. Accompanying a team of Japanese and European experts to inspect the remnants last week, UNESCO Kabul's senior cultural specialist Jim Williams said the government and international donors had agreed the priority should be to consolidate and protect the remains. He said UNESCO's mandate did not allow for the building of new statues.
RECONSTRUCTION A POSSIBILITY
Michael Petzet, president of the International Council for Monuments and Sites, a nongovernmental organization that is a consultant to UNESCO, said he and other experts believed there were enough large fragments remaining for a successful reconstruction of the Buddhas through a process known as anastylosis. "We were astonished, because we had heard from the news and from colleagues that there was nothing but dust left. And here you have many big fragments," he said, pointing to a big boulder that was part of the smaller Buddha's shoulder. "It's like any archaeological site, when columns fall down, you have part of it and you sort of build it up again." He said the Afghan government was keen to rebuild the statues. "Of course, we are only interested in a very scientific professional work and not in the idea of a new Buddha in concrete or gold. These are horrible ideas that would destroy what is left," he said. The governor of Bamiyan, Mohammad Rahim Ali Yar, said the local government was eager to see the statues rebuilt, both because they represented part of Afghanistan's cultural heritage and because they would bring much needed tourism revenue to the desperately poor province. Butul Ahad Abacy, the engineer in charge of historic monuments at the ministry of information and culture, said it could be dangerous to build new statues. "We are living in an Islamic country and there are some very radical Islamists living here. If we were to build new statues banned by Islam they might react very strongly to that. "According to the rules on the preservation of monuments, if something is destroyed, we preserve what is left. I don't think that would provoke the same outrage as building a new idol. It would be just preserving our historical heritage."
DIFFICULT AND URGENT TASK
Protection of the remains is an urgent, difficult and dangerous task, as the Buddhas were carved from a soft and crumbling stone that once formed part of a prehistoric seabed. Deep cracks in the niches have been widened by the explosions and what remains of the statues is in danger of crashing down if left exposed during the coming winter. Even vibration caused by U.S. special forces helicopters overflying Bamiyan has caused some rock falls from the niches. "The situation is quite delicate, very fragile really at this moment," said Claudio Margottini, an expert on rock mechanics from the University of Modena in Italy, advising the UNESCO team. "It's a really dangerous situation, so we hope it's possible to do something. Generally winter here is very severe and in a structure like this, ice can enlarge the fractures and may cause collapse." The experts are considering structures to protect the niches and emergency work to shore up the fractures. They are also looking at ways to protect what remains of Buddhist wall paintings dating from the 5th to 7th centuries that decorated many of the hundreds of cave-like monks' cells carved into the cliffs around the statues. Some were defaced by the Taliban, while others have been damaged by fires lit by local people who have traditionally wintered in the caves, or refugees who took shelter there when their houses were destroyed by fighting. Some paintings have also been stolen for sale to overseas collectors, including Japan, said Kosaku Maeda of the University of Wako in Tokyo. Maeda, on his first trip to Bamiyan since 1978, estimated that 80 percent of the paintings that existed then had now disappeared. "We were shocked to see this," he said. "Almost all the paintings are covered with dust and smoky film. If they are cleaned we may find some very important paintings," he said. Maeda said the experts, who will submit a funding proposal to the Japanese government, want to build a workshop at Bamiyan to store and restore the paintings, which would be attached to a site museum.
Archaeology:
Pile of Rocks Sends Mexican Indian to Prison
Thu Oct 10,10:27 AM ET By Lorraine Orlandi
HOPELCHEN, Mexico (Reuters) - Maya Indian farmer Diego Uc returned from his field one day in December 2000 to find Mexican federal police waiting at his one-room adobe house in the Yucatan tropics. With barely a word, they put him in a van and drove him three hours to federal prison in the state capital of Campeche. "'You have business in Campeche,' they told me, and they took me to jail," Uc, 58, said recently at his home. He stayed in prison for nine months, his health failing and his family living on handouts from relatives. Uc's crime: moving plain, melon-sized stones on land he owned since 1982. Authorities said the stones formed part of a protected archeological site, which Uc damaged. But his defenders say his punishment far exceeded his crime. The case pit two sets of national authorities against each other: those who protect archeological sites left by Mexico's ancient peoples and those who promote the rights and culture of living Indians descended from those civilizations. Uc's stones may well have been put there by his ancestors. Poor, illiterate and with limited grasp of Spanish, Uc faced a legal process rife with class and racial discrimination in a court system often insensitive to indigenous ways, his defenders say. He hardly knew what was happening. "In Mexico the law is supposed to treat everyone equally, but we should add, only if we were all equal," said Miguel Angel Chan, a lawyer for the government's National Indigenous Institute who worked on Uc's legal defense. "Having money is what counts," said Uc's wife, Victoria Madera, 51. "If you don't have money, if you don't know how to speak, you get crushed." Uc said he was never formally told of restrictions on using his land. Federal officials argued ignorance was no excuse, and they sought nearly $200,000 in damages from Uc. On his earnings of less than $2 a day, it would have taken Uc more than 250 years to work off that debt. The nation's human rights ombudsman recently concluded the National Institute of Archeology and History failed to properly notify Uc and the community about protected lands and recommended it review its policies. In July, the government published a decree designating the area protected. That came late for Uc. He was released from prison in August 2001, three months before his one-year sentence ended. The National Indigenous Institute paid $850 in fines and court costs to free him. The nonbinding recommendation by the National Human Rights Commission did not affect his legal case. Uc left prison with high blood pressure that makes it hard for him to work. With his poor command of Spanish and limited resources, Uc said he cannot appeal his conviction.
A MOUND OF EARTH
In the sweltering hamlet of Vicente Guerrero in Hopelchen municipality, Uc and his wife make ends meet on a meager harvest and with help from their eight children. In distant Mexico City, national authorities debate Uc's case. From the Yucatan jungle to the capital, there are as many versions of Uc's story as people willing to tell it. At the heart of the controversy is a stony mound of earth no taller than a man and grown over with grass and bushes. Uc admitted he took rocks from the spot, on property he held title to, to use for building. National Institute of Archeology and History officials said the site once housed a pre-Hispanic structure that was part of a larger complex called Dzibilnocac, which includes an excavated temple protected in a gated park less than a mile away. Local workers from the archeology and history agency claimed Uc and his son-in-law destroyed the ruin, systematically removing the rocks despite repeated, verbal warnings that it was illegal. Others say the accusation sprang from a personal vendetta between neighbors. No sign was ever posted. And when an independent archeologist visited the spot, he concluded it would be impossible for anyone but an expert to see its archeological significance. Such archeological remnants dotting the community have decayed over centuries from weather, vegetation and excavation, archeologist Guillermo Cordova wrote in a report. Throughout the region, public and private buildings and walls are built with the same kind of stone Uc was convicted of using. Uc's Yucatan homeland was the seat of a sophisticated civilization of Mayan city states that flourished from 250 AD to 1000 AD. By the time of the Spanish conquest in the 1400s, the Maya had abandoned their great cities, for reasons that are still unclear. Millions of their descendants survive despite 500 years of repression and persecution. Cordova put damages caused by Uc at about $350, a fraction of the $200,000 originally sought by the National Institute for Archeology and History. The agency argues federal law does not require the delineations of archeological sites to be publicized in order for them to be protected under law. That would be difficult in regions like the Yucatan, which is studded with towering pyramids like Chichen Itza as well as ancient treasures still buried in the jungle. And it would give offenders license to plunder such sites under the guise of ignorance, agency spokesman Ruben Regnier said. Besides, he said, Uc and his indigenous brethren, whose ancestors built these great monuments, may know more about them than scientific authorities do. "We make them sound like poor illiterates. These are not second-class Mexicans, they know better than anyone the difference between a hill and a structure," Regnier said.
IGNORANCE AND INTRANSIGENCE
For Chan and his colleagues at the National Indigenous Institute, official intransigence over the letter of the law blinde the judicial system to the absurdity of Uc's case. "It was an excessive application of the law," Chan said. "There are much worse crimes, removing stones for sale, mafias dealing pieces on the black market. Rarely are they prosecuted." Uc said his own ignorance got him into trouble. "I discredited myself because I don't know how to speak Spanish," said Uc, whose native language is Maya. Uc and his family were marked by his imprisonment. At first, his wife was barred from visiting Uc because she had no identification papers. Uc, a stranger to the brutality of prison life, spent the last weeks of his sentence in the infirmary. "When he got out we had nothing, absolutely nothing," said his wife, wiping away tears. Uc has since sold his land to a local school teacher and bought a new plot for planting corn and beans, working to pay off his debt to the Indigenous Institute. Since drought ravaged the latest crop, he does extra work for a local Mennonite settlement, earning about $1 an hour. Last month, Hurricane Isidore roared into the region and inundated the community, destroying what little crops were left. Experts say Uc's case has repercussions for other Indian communities. Mexican law, in seeking to protect the remains of an ancient civilization, may trample the rights of its descendants. "This is an archeological zone, but at the same time it is a community where the Maya population lives," said Francisco Noriega, an anthropologist who heads the Indigenous Institute's Campeche office. "This is not the case of one man. The entire community is left defenseless."
TURKEY REQUESTS STOLEN IZNIK TILES BACK FROM QATAR
The Art Newspaper.com
This week's top stories:
AUCTION MARKET WEAKENS
LONDON. It should come as no surprise that figures compiled by Art Sales Index (ASI) show that sales of fine art at auction fell for the period 1 August 2001 to 31 July 2002 by 14.75% in pounds and 13.32% in dollars (the difference is due to currency fluctuations), with both the number of artworks sold and average prices weakening. http://www.theartnewspaper.com/news/article.asp?idart=10111
THE FALL OF ADAM
NEW YORK. In what Metropolitan Museum authorities are describing as a “tragic, freak accident”, Tullio Lombardo’s Adam, the most important Renaissance sculpture in the museum’s collection and one of the most important Italian sculptures outside Italy, crashed to the ground on the evening of Sunday 6 October when one section on the base of its reinforced plywood pedestal apparently buckled. http://www.theartnewspaper.com/news/article.asp?idart=10110
SEVERE FLOOD DAMAGE TO “GARDEN KINGDOM”
DESSAU. The August floods in Central Europe have brought devastation to the “garden kingdom” of Wörlitz, the recently designated Unesco world heritage site outside Dessau, Sachsen-Anhalt, Germany. http://www.theartnewspaper.com/news/article.asp?idart=10096
FORBES TO SELL VICTORIA PICTURES FROM OLD BATTERSEA HOUSE
LONDON. Christopher Forbes is to sell the entire collection – well over 500 lots – of Victorian paintings from the collection he keeps in his London home through Christie’s. The group is thought to be worth about £22 million and the auction house is said to have offered an £11 million advance for the sale, which will be held in February next year. http://www.theartnewspaper.com/news/article.asp?idart=10095
HIGH DRAMA AT DROUOT
PARIS. To the end, Christie’s sale of sculptures from the Giacometti Association was swathed in drama. After narrowly avoiding it being purely and simply annulled, Christie’s found an in extremis solution by “deChristie-ing” the whole session and holding it at Drouot. Even then the drama was not over: in the middle of a buoyant sale, as bids crackled from the room and 36 telephones, the auctioneer suddenly brought it to a halt, leaving the last 12 lots unsold. http://www.theartnewspaper.com/news/article.asp?idart=10093
“HIDDEN” COLLECTION OF GERMAN ART SELLS FOR £14 MILLION
LONDON. The only time the Stuttgart-based Beck family saw the massive art collection amassed by previous two generations was when it went on display at Sotheby’s in London earlier this month. Until then, many of the hundreds of prints, drawings and paintings by major German and Austrian artists had lain in boxes and drawers for decades, quite unknown to the general public. http://www.theartnewspaper.com/news/article.asp?idart=10092
GRAND DESIGN
PARIS. France is known worldwide for its design, yet this is poorly represented in its own galleries and museums. Many important collections are in store or closed for restoration. Now, two ambitious design projects are in the pipeline, at Saint Etienne in south central France near Lyon, and in Paris. http://www.theartnewspaper.com/news/article.asp?idart=10091