Police recovers stolen antiquities of Kapurthala's royalty
DEHRADUN, OCT 20 (PTI)
Uttaranchal police today claimed to have solved a case of theft with the arrest of two persons and recovery of precious antiques and paintings worth scores of rupees belonging to former Kapurthala royal dynasty. The goods were stolen from the Kapurthala house in Mussoorie early this month. SSP Dehradun R S Meena told reporters here that two persons identified as Suresh and Brigendra Singh have been arrested last night in this regard. The police is after another person named Neeraj Agarwal, a scrap-dealer of Dehradun, who used to buy the stolen goods. Suresh and Brigendra Singh were nabbed by the police in Mussoorie last night. When searched, police recovered several precious antiques like 200-400 year old British oil paintings, Ashtadhatu idols, several items made of ivory and precious stones worth crores of rupees, Meena said. Significantly, Meena said, Brig. Sukhjit Singh, a descendent of Maharaja of Kapurthala, had reported that goods worth only Rs 40-50 lakhs were stolen from his house in Mussoorie when he was away at Kapurthala in Punjab. Uttaranchal DGP P D Raturi has announced a cash reward of Rs 10,000 for the police team which solved the theft case. IG, Garhwal, L P Mishra, and SSP Dehradun, R Meena, have given Rs 5000 and Rs 2,500 respectively to the police team. http://www.outlookindia.com/
Thieves pillage Iron Age fort
Maev Kennedy, arts and heritage correspondent Monday October 21, 2002 The Guardian
Nighthawks, archaeological thieves operating with metal detectors, have ransacked the slopes of one of Northumberland's most important Iron Age hilltop forts, Yeavering Bell. Working overnight, and on the far side of the hill from the nearest houses, they left the fort pitted with holes, 34 in all. Scraps of metal suggest they may have found and looted ancient bronze. The attack, on a site which has never been excavated, is one of the most determined in recent years, and has shocked archaeologists in an area which has so far been relatively free of the scourge. Lord Redesdale, head of the parliamentary committee on archaeology, who is also a landowner in the county, described the attack on the fort as tragic. "This is a national problem, and an area in which the government has been re ally feeble in coming forward with legislation." Although digging with a metal detector without the permission of the landowner is an offence, unless the nighthawks are caught in the act the law is virtually powerless. There is still no specific offence in law of trading in illicit archaeological artefacts. Archaeologists have been demanding reform, and some would ban the sale of archaeological artefacts without a provable provenance. Roger Bland, of the British Museum, coordinator of the portable antiquities scheme which encourages legal metal detector users to report finds, said the legislation - which the government has agreed to in principle, but has not found time for - is urgently needed.
"This wouldn't impact on the looters directly but it should make it harder for them to sell their ill-gotten gains, because it would introduce a maximum penalty of seven years imprisonment." Archaeologists from the Northumberland national park authority were anguished to discover tiny scraps of decorated bronze in some of the holes which may have been fragments of ornate vessels of ritual significance which would have thrown light on the history of the construction, use and eventual abandonment of the hill forts. http://www.guardian.co.uk/
Losing marbles acceptable
A SHEFFIELD MP has welcomed a survey showing British people are ready for the return of the Elgin Marbles to Greece.
For decades, Greece has demanded the return of the ancient sculptures, removed from the Parthenon by Lord Elgin in 1806 and one of the British Museum's most renowned exhibits. Liberal Democrat MP Richard Allan says the poll carried out by MORI undermines arguments that it would mean they were no longer accessible to British people. Over recent years, Athens has offered concessions to break the stalemate over the sculptured, offering to accept them on long-term loan, to build a new museum to house them, to provide the British Museum with visiting exhibitions of other antiquities and to renounce future claims to artworks held in the UK. Startling The survey for the British Committee for the Restitution of the Parthenon Marbles showed only 7 per cent of Britons would oppose their return if certain conditions were met. The survey found 56 per cent would be prepared to see them go to Athens. Mr Allan said: "One of the most startling figures which came out of the survey was that 4 per cent of the British people have visited the sculptures which are in Athens and only 9 per cent had been to see those in the British Museum." Building work has started on the planned site of a museum to house the marbles under the joint care of British and Greek experts next to the Acropolis hill, where the Parthenon stands. About half the sculptures are in Athens and the other half in London. http://www.sheffieldtoday.net/
Read more about the Parthenon Marbles at:
http://www.museum-security.org/elginmarbles.html
Museum looted of antique train cars
By Lois Gormley / The Press-Tribune
More than 100 antique model train cars were stolen from the Carnegie Museum early Thursday when thieves broke through one of the glass doors and looted two displays.
"They (the suspects) were out of here in minutes," said Dean Moore, museum curator. "They knew what they were after."
About 80 N-scale boxcars and six to eight engines were stolen from an elaborate model railroad display depicting historic Roseville and the surrounding area.
About 50 HO-scale cars and eight or nine engines were taken from another display depicting the old street car line that ran from San Francisco to Chico - the longest street car line in the United States.
All of the items stolen belonged to Moore personally.
"Some of the stuff they took is quite rare," he said. Many of the HO cars were antiques from the 1930s and 1940s.
Now 82, he's been collecting model trains since the 1920s and was a Pullman conductor during World War II, he said.
Both his grandfather and father worked for the railroad as well, Moore said.
The museum is wired with motion detectors, which set off an alarm the moment the suspects entered the building at about 1:10 a.m. Police were on the scene within 10 minutes, he said.
Moore believes the suspect or suspects have been in the museum before because six to eight other engines he had hidden in a drawer were also taken.
"So it's someone who knew what they wanted, I'm sure," he said.
None of the items were insured. Moore said there are too many people coming through the museum each day to make the premiums economically feasible.
He has contacted all the local hobby and pawnshops to alert them of the theft and plans to check flea markets during the weekend.
The cars stolen are worth about $3,000, he said.
Moore said the museum has been at 557 Lincoln St. for 21 years and has never had a break in. The building formerly housed Roseville's main library, one of over 2,300 endowed by the Andrew Carnegie Foundation, which opened its doors to the public in 1912.
The museum is home to changing thematic exhibits, which include items like an antique television, player piano and washing machine among other items, featuring various aspects of Roseville-area history.
Moore said he would dig into his collection to provide replacement model train cars for the display and just hope the thieves don't return.
"You can't run a museum with nothing on the table," he said. The investigation into the burglary is ongoing. Anyone with information about this case is encouraged to contact the Roseville Police Department at 774-5100. http://www.thepresstribune.com/
From: AngelaMeadows3@aol.com Date sent: Mon, 21 Oct 2002 16:56:23 EDT
Subject: Message
Dear Friends:
As many of you know, I was temporarily reassigned as the Cultural Property Program Manager at the U.S. National Central Bureau of Interpol last year as a result of a change in management, among other things. This is apparrntly going to continue for some time, but I hope to eventually return to this position.
In the interim, I wanted to share my good news with you. I know this may come as a surprise to many of you, but I was recently married to a wonderful, kind and supportive man. Tom and I are, of course, very happy.
Should you wish to contact me, you may reach me on my home email of angelameadows3@aol.com.
Wishing you all the best and hoping to be back in the art business soon,
Angela Meadows Blackwell From: Virgilia Rawnsley ccaha@ccaha.org
Subject: Workshop on Disasters
Disaster Mitigation for Cultural Collections Chemical Heritage Foundation 315 Chestnut Street Philadelphia, PA 19106 November 5-7, 2002 For additional workshop information, registration forms, or information about CCAHA and its programs and services, please visit our Web site at URL:http://www.ccaha.org or contact CCAHA's Preservation Services Office at 215-545-0613 or ccaha@ccaha.org
Museum finds antique firearms were still loaded
A Museum in Chicago has found some of its antique firearms were loaded and could have gone off at any time.
Staff at Chicago's Field Museum made the discovery when they were cleaning its collection of more than 300 weapons. Black powder with the power of six or seven sticks of dynamite was found in 15 powder horns, a rifle, one pistol and two cannons. William Pestle, collections manager in the department of anthropology, told The Chicago Sun Times : "They were all muzzle- loading black powder weapons." The powder becomes more likely to explode with age. A bump could have set it off, says Mr Pestle. He told the paper: "They could have done a fair deal of damage had something horrible happened.'' None of the loaded weapons was on public display. The powder, which in some cases was 200 years old, was destroyed by breaking it down in warm soapy water.
Tucker painting kept in cellar
By JEREMY KELLY 23oct02
A MAN who kept a stolen Albert Tucker painting in his cellar for up to 14 years received a suspended three-year jail sentence yesterday.
Richard George Sissons, 63, was told by County Court Judge Elizabeth Curtain he had deprived the painting's owners and the Australian national estate of the pleasure of Tucker's Flying Ibis. Since it was stolen in 1986, by unknown people, Flying Ibis' value has increased. The court heard Flying Ibis was stolen from a New South Wales gallery and that its owner, who had bought it for pound stg. 5000, received an $18,000 insurance payout. In 2000 an informer told police that Sissons had just swapped the work for opals. Sissons told the informer he had received the painting from a man who owed him $10,000 and he had hung it in his home and office but mostly stored it in his cellar. The informer was told by police to tell Sissons he had a buyer ready to pay up to $25,000. Sissons agreed and drove with the informer to Queensland. On the pair's return to Victoria, the painting was seized by police and Sissons was arrested and charged with two counts of handling stolen goods. He pleaded not guilty and argued he had got the painting in 1985 -- before it was stolen. The inference was that the painting in court was a forgery or a replica. Tucker expert Lauraine Diggins told the jury the painting was worth between $70,000 and $75,000 in 2000, and more now. Judge Curtain yesterday said Sissons was a 63-year-old pensioner in declining health and, other than a drink-driving conviction, was a person of previous good character.
The sentence was suspended for three years. http://www.heraldsun.news.com.au/
Iraq's precious relics decimated by thieves; ancient sites lie vulnerable since Gulf War
By Cameron McWhirter / The Detroit News
MOSUL, Iraq -- At the height of Nineveh's power as capital of the mighty Assyrian Empire, spear-toting guards would have challenged strangers approaching the walled city's gates. If enemies approached, Nineveh's king could have mustered an army of tens of thousands to defend his royal seat. Today, visitors walk up to one of the few remaining gates to find a flimsy mesh fence, lashed together by a rag and an old wire for a bicycle lock. After a few minutes, a 12-year-old girl walks up and unties the lash to let visitors into one of the world's most important archaeological sites. The girl is the daughter of the site's guard, who went into town for the afternoon.
Inside, statues lay exposed to the elements. A royal courtyard is a makeshift soccer field for children, with ancient bricks piled as goalposts. Famous Assyrian winged bulls, enormous stone statues with human heads, stand covered with chalk Arabic graffiti. The gate is on a mound that looks out over what once was Nineveh, and today is just 7.2 square miles of dusty fields and farmland. All one needs to raid this once-impregnable capital now is a shovel. Since Iraq's defeat in the Persian Gulf War in 1991, thieves have been stealing anything they can -- estimated by experts to total tens of thousands of clay tablets, statuettes, pots, pieces of jewelry -- from open or poorly guarded sites throughout the country. Items have been smuggled out of Iraq with relative ease to reach auction houses and private collectors in London, Geneva and New York. Because Iraq's antiquities bureaucracy collapsed after the war and even today only is a fraction of what it once was, the country's 10,000 known ancient sites -- plus many more yet to be documented -- have been easy targets for the last decade. The frenzy of looting has panicked experts on ancient Mesopotamia, long seen by scholars as the cradle of the first civilizations. "It's a disaster. It's hard to know where to start," said John Malcolm Russell, an art historian at the Massachusetts College of Art in Boston and author of "The Final Sack of Nineveh." Here in the fertile land of the Mesopotamian valley, some of the world's earliest cities evolved. These early cultures developed writing, astronomy and even fermentation of beer, and gave rise to the Babylonian and Assyrian empires. For decades, these sites were the pride of Iraq and looting was extremely rare -- largely because the government ran one of the best antiquities departments in the Middle East. The antiquities bureaucrats kept tight control over the sites and worked closely with excavation teams from universities around the world, said McGuire Gibson, a professor and Mesopotamian expert at the University of Chicago's Oriental Institute. That all changed with the 1991 war and subsequent United Nations sanctions against Iraq. Gibson said he knows of examples of antiquities bureaucrats heading out to sites these days and catching 150 intruders with picks and shovels. The chief culprits are wealthy collectors abroad, eager to get for a pittance what used to be priceless. "To them, this is the golden age of collecting," Gibson said. "They hire professional experts to catalog it for them. It's on that scale. Iraq is now having many, many things ripped off and there is very little they can do." Thieves executed Donny George, director general of the Iraqi Department of Research and Studies of Antiquities and Heritage, walked through a hall crowded with Assyrian statues and other art at Baghdad's national antiquities museum. He stopped at a large stone head lying on the ground. The statue, which once must have looked spectacular, now is carved crudely into 11 pieces. His shoulders slumped as he leaned over and patted the head. "This is what I call the crime of the 20th century," he said. "When I heard about it, I just got in my car and drove all night to find out the situation." The head was part of an Assyrian winged bull discovered in 1994 at Khorsabad, north of Mosul. In 1998, 12 looters drove to the site and stole the head. They cut it up to make it easier for smuggling, then buried it in a back yard. Unfortunately for them, the ring was discovered and the damaged head was recovered. Ten of the 12 were caught and executed -- a punishment George says was carried out because the Iraqi government considers smuggling ancient items a threat to national security. The case of the Khorsabad head was unique because the thieves were caught. And Iraq's antiquities department is much less capable of protecting and cataloging priceless pieces than it was before the Gulf War. George said his staff recently increased from postwar lows, but the department still only has about 35 people to cover all of Iraq, an area about the size of California. Before the war, the antiquities bureaucracy had about 250 employees. Pay for the remaining staff is low, opening the door for bribery. George, head of the department, only makes about $50 a month. Dam threatens sites Little help is available from outside. American archeologists, who formed important teams in Iraq before 1991, have not been allowed to dig since then because of the U.S. ban on travel to Iraq. The United Nations food-for-oil program also blocks the Iraqi antiquities officials from receiving equipment that also could be used by the military. Banned items include global positioning systems and radiocarbon dating machines. Iraqi officials lay much of the blame for the current looting spree on the United States and the U.N. sanctions. But while the regime has constrained financial resources, it still funnels billions annually for the nation's enormous war machine and Saddam's pet projects, such as private palaces or large mosques bearing his name. The government also recently announced plans for a dam at Makhoul, north of Mosul. Despite protests from archeologists, the government is going ahead with a project that will flood about 60 ancient sites -- including Ashur, religious center of the Assyrian Empire. George now is scrambling to alert international excavation teams to come and salvage what they can. Reducing demand Because the antiquities bureaucracy at its current funding levels can't stop the flow of stolen objects, a group of professors and art experts across the world have been working to try to reduce the demand. They are trying to raise awareness with art collectors and museums that much of this material showing up for sale is stolen and, under international law, rightfully belongs to Iraq. Shortly after the sanctions, most of the thefts occurred from museums in smaller cities, such as Mosul and Kirkuk. The material was documented, so proving it had been stolen was relatively easy. Now, thieves are excavating sites themselves. If they find material before the archeologists, chances of recovery are slim. Under international law, a nation has to prove that an item came from a specific place at a certain time. Samuel Paley, a classics professor at the State University of New York in Buffalo and an expert on art of the Assyrian Empire, said he and a group of professors are cataloguing and publishing all the known material so that potential buyers can be alerted. "We've lost a considerable amount," he said. Galleries across the world have seen an increasing number of questionable pieces from Mesopotamia since the Persian Gulf War. "We try to be very cautious about the objects that we are acquiring," said William Peck, Curator of Ancient Art for the Detroit Institute of Arts. "We are very aware of the situation now in Iraq, so we are being doubly careful to make sure that items are not the fruits of that crisis." Staff at the Metropolitan Museum in New York recently took custody of a copper statue found on a person trying to enter the country. The item was documented, so it was seized. http://www.detnews.com/
From: "osservatoriobc" osservatoriobc@tin.it
Subject: Book for review: "Mediterraneum. Protection of cultural and environmental patrimony"
Date sent: Sun, 27 Oct 2002 18:46:33 +0100
"Mediterraneum. Protection of cultural and environmental patrimony" (Mediterraneum. Tutela e valorizzazione dei beni culturali ed ambientali) vol. 1 Protection of Italian Cultural Heritages Fabio Maniscalco editor pages 400; figg. 100; 25 Euros
The Faculty of "Arabo-Islamic and of the Mediterranean Studies" of the University "L'Orientale" of Naples, and the "Permanent Observatory for the Protection of Cultural Heritages" of I.S.Fo.R.M. have realised the monographic set of books "Mediterraneum. Tutela e valorizzazione dei beni culturali ed ambientali" (Mediterraneum. Protection and exploitation of cultural and environmental patrimony), Massa Publishing House, Naples. Fabio Maniscalco, professor of Protection of Cultural Heritages at the Faculty of "Arabo-Islamic and of the Mediterranean Studies" and director of the "Permanent Observatory for the Protection of Cultural Heritages" is the Author and the Editor of "Mediterranuem". The first book of this monographic set is concerning the "Protection of Italian Cultural Heritages". The book, edited by Fabio Maniscalco, is divided in three Chapters: 1. with articles concerning general problems about protection of the cultural heritages (ex. fires; archaeological and architectonic restoration; pollution; organisation of Ministry of Cultural Heritages; thefts of cultural heritages; vandalism, etc.); 2. with articles, of Superintendents and of General Managers of the Italian Ministry of Cultural Heritages, about practical experiences of protection and of management of the archaeological; artistic and architectonic patrimony; 3. with articles concerning national and international law.
Authors of the articles are: C. Acidini Luchinat; A. Benini; S. Benini; V. Bertini; F. Bocchieri; A. Bottini; A. Buongiovanni, F. Caciolli; R. Conforti; A. D'Errico; G. Feliciani; F. Francioni; G. Gaudini; A. Gioia; P. Graziani; S. Italia; T. Maglie; F. Maniscalco; M. Maniscalco; M. Marini Calvani; L. Marino; G. Mengozzi; F. Migliardini; P. Miniero; G. Monti; M. L. Nava; V. Pacelli; M. Pagano; U. Pappalardo; M. Pasquini; L. Pecchioli; F. Pernice; C. Piccioli; S. Pratali Maffei; P. Pruneti; A. M. Reggiani; M. Saioni; C. Santella; B. Santi; V. Santoni; C. Sbordone; F. Scaparro; F. Scoppola; G. Spadea; F. Spatafora; F. R. Stasolla; E. Trani; G. Trupiano; E. Ulivi.
Orders and information's: (0039) 0815630121 - (0039)3387011247 e-mail massaeditore@libero.it - osservatoriobc@tin.it
Culture drain
Addressing the illegal traffic of our cultural artifacts
By Dexter Osorio
SCANT attention has been given to the trafficking of our cultural properties — artworks, pottery, religious statuary, and other artifacts that are a tangible manifestation of our cultural identity. This is the rationale behind Traffic: A Forum on the Trade of Philippine Cultural Properties held recently at the National Museum by Art Studies students from the University of the Philippines as part of their class requirements for two subjects: Issues and Perspectives in Museum Studies, and Go-vernment Framework for Museum and the Arts. “We are losing two container vans of our cultural treasures each day from Bohol alone,” says Atty. Trixie Angeles, executive director, Heritage Conservation Society. Angeles is referring to antique religious objects that are being pillaged from Bohol’s historic churches. In 1994, the ivory face of a rare image of the Immaculate Conception and the gold-plated head of a Jesus Christ statue were stolen from Bohol’s Baclayon Church. According to the position paper prepared by the student organizers, the statue of the Blessed Virgin was a gift to Baclayon by Queen Catherine of Aragon in 1569 and was one of only three statues existing in the world.
“What’s worrisome is that the Baclayon incident was already the fourth of its kind in Bohol,” the paper reports. “The Sta. Cruz Parish in Maribojoc, a chapel in Cartarlac, Corella, and a chapel in Eastern Poblacion, Albuquerque, were also previously burglarized.” But the problem is not confined to churches alone, as thieves have also struck the National Museum, and even actual archeological sites and shipwrecks. In an incident reported in the Museum’s June 2001 newsletter, 37 persons have been convicted of looting underwater artifacts found in a wreck site located off the coast of Isla Menor, Sta. Cruz, Zambales. “Theft in National Museums and the looting of archeological sites sustain the traffic of cultural properties,” admits Cecilio Salcedo, head of the Cultural Properties Division and assistant director, National Museum.
What are cultural properties?
Although there is no law against the private ownership of cultural properties, taking them out of the country is another matter. Republic Act 4846, as amended by Presidential Decree 374, seeks to preserve our cultural artifacts by making it illegal to transport them out of the country without written authorization from the National Museum. According to Sec. 3 of RA 4846, these include: “old buildings, monuments, shrines, documents, and objects which may be classified as antiques, relics, or artifacts, landmarks, anthropological and historical sites, and specimens of natural history which have cultural, historical, anthropological and scientific value and significance to the nation; such as physical, anthropological, archeological, and ethnographic materials; meteorites and tektites; historical objects and manuscripts; house and agricultural implements; decorative articles or personal adornment; works of art such as paintings, sculptures, carvings, jewelry, music, architecture, sketches, drawings or illustrations in part or in whole; works of industrial and commercial art such as furniture, pottery, ceramics, wrought iron, gold, bronze, silver, wood, or other heraldic items, metals, coins, medals, badges, insignias, coat of arms, crests, flags, arms and armor; vehicles or ships or boats in part or in whole.” Since the law is obviously all-encompassing almost to a fault, legitimate traders have made an effort to steer clear of cultural properties. “When we first opened last year, we asked our lawyers what we can and cannot do relevant to our trade, and they referred us to PD 374,” says Kim Camacho, country manager, Sotheby’s Auction House. “I made it a point to turn down every Luna and Hidalgo over 100 years old that was offered to us, although I later found out that it can be done legally if you have a permit.” A new National Museum Law, whose Implementing Rules and Regulations are due out this year, has recently been passed to make the terms clearer. Camacho welcomes this new law, and eagerly awaits the details. “The clearer the rules are, the easier it will be for us to abide by them,” she says.
Enforcing the law
While the appropriate laws are in place, enforcing them is another matter since an international market exists, luring unscrupulous individuals to smuggling in order to make a quick buck. Atty. Ronnie Silvestre, former chief of the Bureau of Customs’ Law Division, was once called in to examine a container in the Netherlands filled with 400 tradeware ceramics that was misdeclared as “personal effects.” He also recounts the successful seizure of 1,600 pieces of cultural artifacts that had falsified permits from the National Museum. To address the problem, Silvestre calls for increased cooperation between government agencies and private institutions, and for regular training of Customs officers. “[Customs officers] need training so that they will be able to tell if the objects they are examining are cultural properties,” he says. Angeles shares the same opinion: “What we need is not just laws, because the laws are working well enough. What we need is the creation of intelligence networks and to establish awareness and cooperation between agencies such as the National Commission for Culture and the Arts, Customs, the Coastguard, and other agencies.” Angeles also called attention to the need to have an official registry for important cultural properties. “Once they are registered, you can track and identify them if they are stolen, and you can go after the buyers, since they will be liable for buying stolen property.” Another issue that must be addressed is the legal basis for recovering important cultural properties that have been smuggled out of the country. “We have to re-establish treaties between other nations. We have extradition treaties for people, but we don’t have extradition treaties for our cultural properties,” laments Angeles. One cannot overemphasize the importance of protecting our heritage. “Cultural properties are evidences of our culture,” says Angeles. “We cannot evolve as a nation if we cannot establish awareness of ourselves as a people capable of producing these artifacts … our cultural properties show what we are capable of as a nation.” http://www.manilatimes.net/
From: Gary Yee gyee@famsf.org
Subject: blackpowder safety
Date sent: Thu, 24 Oct 2002 07:53:43 -0700
Read the article in yesterday's email regarding degeneration of blackpowder and its hazards. Must disagree with it and it is the more modern nitro-cellulose "propellants" that degenerate and become unstable. Witness the cordite explosions about the turn of the century battleships and as late as 1945 when the IJN Nagato blew up. Blackpowder, if left undisturbed, remains relatively stable.
However, it behooves any museum to ensure that its firearms are in an unloaded condition. To inspect an antique firearm, remember the basic rule of firearm safety: always keep the muzzle of the firearm pointed in a safe direction. Rule 2: keep your finger off the trigger. If the firearm is a flintlock, be sure to raise the frizzen (steel or battery in English parlance) and remove the flint. As already suggested, saturate the powder charge with warm water. While the powder is wet, remove the ramrod (wiper stick in 18th century American parlance) and insert it into the muzzle. Using a pencil, mark the ramrod where it meets the muzzle of the gun. Withdraw the ramrod and holding it parallel to the barrel, look to see whether the tip reaches the touchhole (found by the pan of a flintlock or snaphaunce or matchlock or if a percussion gun, by the nipple). If said ramrod reaches the touchhole, the gun isn't loaded. However, if it falls short, it is likely that there is an obstruction in the bore (perhaps a ball and powder).
Removal of the obstruction may be achieved in either two ways. Modern muzzleloaders have a device using the C-02 airgun cartridge to discharge the obstruction. Said "discharger" is applied to the nipple or touchhole and push downwards to release a blast of compressed air which forces the obstruction out. If such a device is used, be sure that the muzzle is pointed in a safe direction and there is something to catch the ball (say a box of old newspapers or telephone books). If a compressed air discharger is not available, then the classic method is used. This calls for a "stuck ball remover" which is a "screw" that is affixed to the end of the ramrod. Said stuck ball remover is introduced into the barrel and the ramrod is twisted until the screw bores itself into the ball. Once in, the ramrod is withdrawn and the powder shaken out. If the powder is wet, then it may be flushed with hot, soapy water. Afterwards the barrel is dried and inspected again in the same manner as described above (we have all heard of the musket found at Gettysburg that contained 17 charges of powder and ball). Once the barrel is cleared, a preservative should be applied. As a sidenote, most police agencies do not have knowledge of antique blackpowder firearms. While individual officers may be blackpowder enthusiasts, it is certainly not taught at any modern police academy that I'm aware of. A museum may be better off contacting nearby museums that have extensive arms collection or even a nationally recognized blackpowder club (National Muzzle Loading Rifle Association in the USA) for advice.
Gary Yee Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco From: "Dave Heidenthal" dheidenthal@ddaymuseum.org
Subject: blackpowder safety
Organization: The National D Day Museum
Sir/Ma'am,
I read with interest your article below concerning the muzzleloading firearms in the Chicago museum. Fact is, those weapons could not "go off anytime" by just being "bumped". It takes a spark/flame from some source to ignite black powder, not presure. The other thing I found interesting is how they disposed of it using hot soapy water. If blackpowder becomes wet, it obviously cannot be ignited. However, if that same powder is allowed to dry out, it can be ignited and is often much less stable and is more dangerous. The best way to dispose of it is to burn it ( by someone who knows what they are doing )
Respectfully Submitted,
Dave Heidenthal
4 Sculptures Stolen In Santa Fe
Art Valued At $52,000
SANTA FE, N.M. -- Four lifelike bronze sculptures valued at $52,000 were stolen from a Santa Fe art gallery. The sculptures were pried off their concrete bases outside the Dale TerBush Gallery. The gallery's director, Amber Urvan, says employees noticed the sculptures were missing Thursday morning. Three of the sculptures are by Colorado artist Walt Horton, and one is by California sculptor Corinne Hartley. Three of the sculptures were on vacant land across the street from the gallery, and one was in the gallery's courtyard. http://www.thenewmexicochannel.com/
Gallery guarded after sculpture theft
By Chimaimba Banda
A valuable work of art has been stolen from the Johannesburg Art Gallery and vandalised, raising concern about the safety of cultural treasures there. Authorities at the gallery said several measures had been taken to ensure that such incidents didn't occur again. The theft and vandalism occurred in August, and has left Kendell Geers, the artist who made the sculpture, fuming. The sculpture, titled Suitcase, was later discovered near the gallery, but it had been damaged. "The incident is an ominous sign of what we can expect from the Johannesburg Art Gallery in the future," said Geers. Gallery director Rochelle Keene blamed the incident on "human error", saying that additional security staff had since been employed. She said the work would be professionally restored at a cost of about R200.
An El Greco painting was also stolen from the gallery in June. http://www.iol.co.za/
Portrait of the art heist as a Hollywood film
By Rebecca K. Engmann
Art imitates life in a new film slated for domestic release in 2003. 'Rembrandt' is the story of the true events behind Denmark's biggest-ever art heist.
Two cousins are offered a quarter of a million kroner to lift two paintings from the Picture Gallery of Nivågaard. Not wanting to get their own hands dirty, the two offer DKK 80,000 to the father of one of the cousins and a friend to heist the almost totally unguarded paintings. The robbery comes off almost without a hitch, until the group of amateur bandits turns on the evening news to realise that they've in fact stolen a Bellini painting and Denmark's only authentic Rembrandt painting, worth several hundred million kroner. Suddenly, the thieves find themselves being pursued by a motley crew of police, bounty hunters, and sleuths, as the amateur bandits realise they've got a hot potato on their hands: a high-dollar, high-profile art treasure that will be impossible to unload.
It sounds like the makings of a Hollywood movie, but this art caper is pulled straight from life. The true story of Denmark's largest-ever art heist is tragic, absurd, and bizarrely comical--and now the mug shots are bound for celluloid. The heist will be adapted and re-enacted for the feature film 'Rembrandt,' set to start filming on Monday.
The January 1999 theft of the 1632 Rembrandt masterpiece 'Portrait of a Lady,' then worth an estimated DKK 100 million, and Bellini's 1490 work 'Portrait of a Young Man,' valued in the tens of millions of kroner, rocked the nation. The two paintings ranked as the crème of the country's art heritage: the Rembrandt piece was registered as the only authentic painting by the Dutch master, and the distinct portrait of the 39-year-old black-clad Mennonite woman in the style of Caravaggio would have been impossible for any art dealer to mis-appraise. Likewise the small portrait by late 15th century Venetian master Bellini, inspired by Byzantine icons. On the afternoon of 29 January, two men bought visitors' passes for the Nivågaard Collection, the North Sealand private gallery noted for its formidable collection of Dutch and Italian Renaissance art. The two men nabbed the paintings, which were totally unguarded by any alarm systems, and monitored by no one but an elderly ticket-taker who was beaten down during the theft. The suspects fled the scene in a stolen blue Volvo with Swedish plates, and the amateur crime-ring stayed on the lam until March of the same year, when police arrested two suspects. The Rembrandt and the Bellini were both found unscathed in August 2001, in a packing crate-- presumably ready for shipment to a black-market buyer abroad--in a Valby villa. During the course of the investigation, the works climbed to the top of Interpol's most wanted list of stolen art relics, and the board of the Nivågaard Collection offered a reward of USD 50,000. Police were later criticised for their investigation of the heist for using two English bounty hunters to sniff out the trail of the would-be burglars. And although the theft was called the most audacious art theft in Danish history, much of the blame seemed to lie squarely with museum administrators, who exhibited two irreplaceable paintings without so much as a motion sensor or simple alarm.
Three men were later sentenced to five, four, and three years for their respective roles in the failed heist: not such a long gig for a robbery worth cool millions. The paintings were returned to the Nivagaard Collection and re-hung after a battery of new security developments. 'Rembrandt' is the feature film debút of director Jannik Johansen, who assured news bureau Ritzau earlier this week that the script will take liberties with the original storyline, plucking his inspiration from the real-life story and re-imagining that the thieves didn't really know what they were doing. Lars Brygmann, best known from the police TV crime drama 'Rejseholdet' will star in the leading role of the thieving dad. Supporting actors include a star-studded cast of the country's most beloved actors, Jakob Cedergrenen, Nikolaj Coster Waldau, Søren Pilmark, and cinema divas Sonja Richter, and Paprika Steen. "Rembrandt" is slated for release in September of 2003. http://cphpost.periskop.dk/
Dinosaur model stolen from children´s museum
By MICHAEL HOWIE
CHAMPAIGN – Somebody has a pretty good hiding place. You can't just stick a 7-foot-long velociraptor anywhere you want, even if it's only a model. And that's just what someone stole off a wall Monday night at the Orpheum Children's Science Museum in downtown Champaign. The dinosaur model used to overlook a sand-filled “dig” that's one of the popular attractions at the museum, said Jill Quisenberry, vice president of the museum's board, a volunteer and chair of the exhibits committee. “Somebody somewhere is going to have to stash that thing pretty well” to go undetected, said Quisenberry. “It's going to be hard to miss.” Whoever took the raptor had to get inside the fenced courtyard where the dig is and make off with something that probably wasn't easy to carry, let alone hide. “We feel it was probably a prank,” Quisenberry said. But it could be an expensive one, at least for the museum. Taylor Studios of Rantoul, which made the original model, estimated a new one would cost $10,000, according to Quisenberry. The dinosaur wasn't insured, because it was outside. Museum staffers discovered the theft Tuesday morning. They've reported it to Champaign police. And late Tuesday afternoon, Quisenberry was spreading the word, hoping the prankster would have a remorse attack. “It's going to be sorely missed,” she said. “That was one of the main reasons to come and be out there in nice weather.” http://www.news-gazette.com/
Damaged dinosaur returns to museum
By PAUL WOOD
CHAMPAIGN – Crime scene investigators were working over a 7-foot dinosaur Friday, hoping to find fingerprints. The deinonychus, a relative of the critter that snacked on humans in “Jurassic Park,” had not committed any crimes. Police wanted to find out who stole the 400-pound model from the Orpheum Children's Science Museum on Monday night. It was returned, sort of, Thursday night, when a local disc jockey found it in front of his home. The WPGU-FM 107.1 radio personality, who wants his name kept out of the crime/prehistoric carnivore news, had asked listeners to take the raptor back. Lt. Scott Swan of the Champaign Police Department on Friday said it was not yet known when forensics work would be done. Only then will the dinosaur be returned to his lair outside the museum, where he is accustomed to lurking in search of tasty mammals. Janine Prillaman, the museum's education coordinator, said she was glad to get the model back – but not so glad about the crack along its main seam. “The dinosaur is probably damaged enough that it won't be safe to have around children,” Prillaman said. Get well cards can be sent to: Orpheum Children's Science Museum, 346 N. Neil St., Champaign 61820. Because it was stored outside, the raptor was not insurable. So if the dinosaur thief is caught, a hefty fine might come in handy. Taylor Studios of Rantoul, which made the original model, estimated a new deinonychus would cost almost $13,000, Prillaman said. “That doesn't include repairs to the cliffs area,” Prillaman added. The raptor and bolts holding it were ripped from their anchor. http://www.newsgazette.com/
The Toronto Museum of Stolen Art
Robert Fulford National Post
Perhaps the Art Gallery of Ontario should be renamed, just for the next few months, the Toronto Museum of Stolen Art. Gauguin to Matisse: French Masterpieces from the Hermitage Museum, the gallery's major exhibition till Jan. 5, consists mainly of loot grabbed in two famous art heists, the seizure of the Sergei Shchukin and Ivan Morozov collections by the Bolsheviks in 1918.
Shchukin and his friend Morozov were Moscow businessmen and genius- level collectors, more farsighted than any other Russians and most Europeans. For about 15 years, up to 1914, they brought from France to their mansions in Moscow the world's best current art, including much early work by both Matisse and Picasso. Matisse considered Shchukin's eye infallible: "He always bought the best."
When the Bolsheviks seized power, apparatchiks took possession of both the mansions and the art. This means that we who enjoy this collection in Toronto or Montreal (where it runs from Jan. 31 to April 27) are the beneficiaries of grand larceny.
If the courts ran on slightly different rules, the Art Gallery of Ontario trustees would now face prosecution as receivers of stolen goods and Canadian courts would be clogged with give-me-back-my- family's-art lawsuits. But governments in the West, including Canada's, routinely protect stolen Soviet art from attack in the courts. Of course, the question wouldn't arise if the current Russian government were truly ashamed of the past. If it considered Soviet actions illegitimate, it would give back whatever the Soviets stole (except, perhaps, in the case of Shchukin, who always intended his work to be owned by the public -- though of course on his own terms, in his own time).
But contemporary Russia can't resist profiting from inherited swag. This means the Hermitage Museum, which has lost most of the state subsidy it received in the good old Soviet days, stays alive partly by operating an art-rental business in several countries and exploits the Shchukin-Morozov pictures as a profit centre. The rental paid by the AGO remains secret (so far), but it likely amounts to a few hundred thousand Canadian dollars plus a piece of the box-office take.
As unindicted co-conspirators, shouldn't we art lovers understand the squalid history behind this art? The Hermitage doesn't think so. If you ask the Hermitage director what happened to these paintings in 1918, he says blandly that they were "nationalized," just what Lenin said. In a Canadian context, that's nonsense, of course. When an honest government nationalizes something, like a power utility, it compensates the owners. Even if shareholders consider the payment low, that's radically different from outright theft.
Nevertheless, the Art Gallery of Ontario, an institution intimately connected with democratic government, cheerfully embraces the language of tyranny. In the wall texts accompanying Gauguin to Matisse, we can read that the Shchukin collection "was nationalized" and elsewhere that Morozov's pictures were "nationalized." (The same misinformation appears in the catalogue.) The gallery informs us that the Bolsheviks allowed Shchukin to live in what had been his servants' quarters and made him caretaker of his own house, and that Morozov was appointed assistant curator of his mansion. But it doesn't mention that the new government took Shchukin to jail for questioning. Nor does it explain what happened to their collections and their reputations after 1918.
Both collectors wisely slipped away to the West, and for a few years the collections remained intact. Lenin didn't object, though he didn't see much future for this kind of thing. As he said, "Art for us is like an appendix. In time we shall cut it out." But Stalin despised modern art. In the 1930s he helped keep his government afloat by selling off some of the Old Masters stolen from other collectors, and he would have sold the modern pictures if the prices had been right. In the end, these works remained in Russia because Matisse, Picasso and even Gauguin still weren't bringing impressive sums at auction in London.
As for the collectors, the Stalin era made them unpersons, written out of the histories of museums holding their pictures. As Beverly Whitney Kean writes in French Painters, Russian Collectors: Shchukin, Morozov and Modern French Art, their names didn't begin re- appearing in print until the 1960s.
In recent years the art world has been crusading, rather late in the day, to restore to its proper owners whatever art was stolen by Nazis from Jewish collectors. Those who have read news stories about that campaign will see the absurdity in a collection of purloined art like Gauguin to Matisse. Had Hermann Goering stolen these paintings, from Jews or anyone else, and had the post-Hitler German government decided to retain them, the world would demand that they go back to the descendants of those who owned them. No museum such as the AGO would shame itself by exhibiting them.
But the Third Reich died in a dozen years. The USSR lasted seven decades, long enough to convert booty into property. Now everything it stole is part of Russia's sacred patrimony. Time eventually adds a patina of respectability to even the most blatant crimes. robert.fulford@utoronto.ca http://nationalpost.com/
We're not trafficking in stolen art
Matthew Teitelbaum National Post
Saturday, October 26, 2002 Robert Fulford writing recently of the Hermitage Museum in Russia is so blinded by ideology that he loses sight of the facts. I regret that the pleasures of the Art Gallery of Ontario exhibition "Gauguin to Matisse: French Paintings from the Hermitage Museum" are lost to him, but I abhor the possibility that some readers of the Post might be discouraged from the experience of these masterworks because of his confusions. Mr. Fulford argues that paintings seized by the Russians after the Revolution were not nationalized as stated by the Russian government, the Hermitage Museum and the AGO but, rather, stolen. In suggesting this, he takes issue with Russian law, which is clear on this point: Assets seized by the government following the Revolution are legally owned by the state. This law has been supported in countries where action has been initiated against the Russian state. Mr. Fulford may be disappointed, but in his assertions, he is misguided. Mr. Fulford proclaims that the Art Gallery, its administration and its volunteer board of trustees are trafficking in stolen property. By implication, he suggests that we should not be showing these masterworks by Picasso, Matisse, Cézanne and others, and that by doing so we encourage the commercial activity of a sister institution looking to use their works of art as an "art rental service." By implication, he suggests these works should be returned to the heirs of the two visionary individuals who assembled the great collections that form the basis of the Hermitage's holdings of late 19th century French paintings. And he does so by equating the "nationalized" paintings from Russian museums with the art stolen by the Nazis from private individuals and museums during the Third Reich. Allow me to address each implication.
To suggest that we should not be showing these works is to implicate the following institutions that have also shown works from the collections of Sergei Shchukin and Ivan Morozov in ground- breaking exhibitions: The Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York), The Royal Academy of Arts (London), The National Gallery of Art (Washington, D.C.), the Centre Georges Pompidou (Paris), the van Gogh Museum (Amsterdam), the Neue Nationalgalerie (Berlin), the Art Institute of Chicago, amongst many others. To reduce the lending policies of the Hermitage to an "art rental business" as Fulford does is to mock and otherwise dismiss the scholarly contributions of its curators. Institutions from around the world have borrowed works from the Hermitage to share with literally millions of visitors new ways to think about the development of art. Certainly, at the Art Gallery of Ontario we feel we have made our own contribution to scholarly and public understanding with the original research we have done with Gauguin to Matisse.
By suggesting that the works be returned to Shchukin and Morozov's heirs, Mr. Fulford simplistically asserts all heirs' right of restitution of assets taken by the Russian state after 1917. Surely the situation is more complicated than that. Which heirs have legal claim? Which heirs can guarantee safekeeping of these works? To suggest that works be returned to families without concern for their care is, simply put, irresponsible to the history of art. On this point, Mr. Fulford's failure to recognize that the Hermitage is actively working with the families of Shchukin and Morozov to create an equitable and acceptable means to share residual benefits from the reproduction and sale of art-related merchandise is to deny the Hermitage, its director and the Hermitage staff any awareness of the potential moral dimension of their custodial responsibilities. On the last point, Mr. Fulford is right to assume that no significant art museum would knowingly exhibit works plundered by the Nazis. Indeed, the AGO, alongside leading museums from around the world has worked actively to identify works in our collection that may have been looted during the Third Reich. We have done so in the belief that it is our responsibility as museum professionals to return works that were stolen from families and museums for personal gain, and where such actions have been recognized as contravening known laws and/or moral conventions. Mr. Fulford may regret that international law does not recognize Russian nationalization as illegal, but he should not blithely associate those acts with known and internationally accepted acts of lawlessness. In relating them journalistically, he attempts to have us believe there is a connection in law where there is none.
I certainly recognize Mr. Fulford's right to his opinions, though I chafe at the suggestion that the Art Gallery of Ontario might come remotely close to crossing ethical, let alone legal lines in the sand. That just isn't so.
Matthew Teitelbaum is Director and CEO of the Art Gallery of Ontario in Toronto. http://nationalpost.com/