Until the 1990s, the question of whether works of art had been stolen by the Nazis rarely troubled dealers and auction houses. Some are believed to have knowingly sold paintings looted by Hitler's henchmen, while most didn't even bother finding out their history in the first place. Painting, Seated Female Nude (1927) by Karl Hofer, which was almost destroyed by the Gestapo, fetched £105,650 in October.
Then researchers revealed the scale of Nazi art theft, mainly from Jewish collectors. As more details emerged, victims who were still alive and the descendants of those who had died began to think about reclaiming their heritage. The art market found itself in an ethical, legal and financial quandary, and the merest hint that a painting might have been seized by the Nazis between 1933 and 1945 was enough to make it unsaleable. In 1997, Sotheby's withdrew a landscape by Jacob van Ruisdael from a sale because a newspaper suggested it might have had a dubious history during the Nazi era. It later transpired that it did not and it was sold last year, but the case set alarm bells ringing at the auction house. Sotheby's set up a "due diligence" scheme to try to spot works of art that had been looted by the Nazis before they were included in sale catalogues. The move was initially a defensive one to avoid unnecessary expense and embarrassment.
Lucian Simmons, then working in Sotheby's legal department, was put in charge of the new scheme, staff were trained to look for clues, and an in-house database on war-looted art was set up. It is now thought to contain the details of some 4,500 families whose art was seized by the Nazis. Simmons, who now has three full-time staff plus outside consultants working under him, realised that the issue could affect the sale of works even where the legal ownership was undisputed. An owner who had acquired a painting since the Second World War and had good legal title might not be able to sell it because of an ethical cloud hanging over it as a result of its history. American museums, for example, will not buy anything that might have been stolen by the Nazis. So when a European private collector came to Sotheby's wanting to sell Claude Monet's Au Parc Monceau, he was told that he had a problem because the Jewish collectors Ludwig and Margret Kainer had been forced to sell the painting by the Nazis at an auction in 1935. Simmons spent the next two years tracking down the Kainers' descendants and negotiating a deal between them and the collector who legally owned the Monet. It was agreed to share the proceeds of the sale and the painting fetched £3.7 million at Sotheby's in London last year.
Another deal was struck between the heirs of Dr Ismar Littmann, a leading lawyer in Breslau in Germany before the Second World War, and a collector who bought Bouteille, Verre et Journal by Cubist painter Juan Gris in Madrid in 1978. In this case, there was a dispute over the ownership. The Gris fetched £776,650 at Sotheby's in June. The collector and the Littmann family shared the proceeds and the new owner, like the purchaser of the Monet, acquired a painting that had been freed from its history and would be saleable in the future. The Littmann deal provided Sotheby's with yet more contacts in a field into which it has delved much further than any other auction house. Two more paintings from the Littmann collection, which had been recovered by his descendants, were included in its sale of German and Austrian art on October 9. Seated Female Nude by Karl Hofer, which had narrowly escaped being burnt in the central heating furnace of the National Gallery in Berlin after it was confiscated by the Gestapo, fetched £105,650. Portrait of Charlotte Corinth by Lovis Corinth failed to sell. Sotheby's has neatly turned a problem into a business-getting scheme but, although it is not doing anything illegal, there are questions to be asked about its new venture. By getting involved in settlement negotiations over paintings that it may ultimately sell, it risks being accused of a conflict of interest. Some in the art world even question whether it should be involved in making money out of the Nazis' legacy at all. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/
Thieves target cemetery art in Quebec
MONTREAL - A Montreal museum employee is trying to put a stop to an emerging crime in Quebec – cemetery art theft.
Alain Tremblay helps keep records of outdoor monuments – taking pictures of special markers and statues at grave sites.
full story:
http://www.cbc.ca/stories/2002/11/02/graves_021102
Keep the marbles in Britain
Greece has again called for the return of the Parthenon Marbles -- the sculptures that once adorned the Parthenon and now adorn the British Museum -- and Tony Blair, the British Prime Minister, is said to be considering the request.
Mr. Blair should put an immediate end to his ruminations.
The friezes were legally obtained by Lord Elgin nearly two centuries ago, and have been safeguarded by the British Museum in a manner that, while imperfect, puts Greece's own track record of protecting its cultural patrimony to shame.
Many Greeks regard the removal of the Elgin Marbles in 1809 as a brazen act of vandalism. In fact, their removal and subsequent deposit in the British Museum arguably saved the marbles. Certainly it spared them the fate of many other classical antiquities, including other Acropolis sculptures, seriously damaged by misguided Greek "restoration" efforts, and by acid rain.
The current Greek initiative, presented to Mr. Blair by Costas Simitis, the Greek Prime Minister, and supported by a group of British cultural apologists, including (invariably) Vanessa Redgrave, proposes that the marbles be housed in a new museum in Athens. In return, Greece would lend other antiquities for display at the British Museum. The idea would be to restore the marbles to Greece in time for the 2004 Olympics.
The case for Greek curatorship remains unconvincing, however.
The head of the British Museum has observed that the Greeks do not have suitable premises to house their many other marbles and sculptures. There have also been complaints that even in constructing the footings for the new Athenian museum, builders damaged an important post-classical archaeological site, perpetuating the image of Greek stewardship as something of an oxymoron.
The loss of the Elgin Marbles would diminish the British Museum, one of the world's great cultural institutions, and more ominously, it would invite other repatriation demands. Once the precedent had been set, there is not a medicine pouch or juju stick that would be safe from repatriation claims. This is reason enough for Britain to hang on to its precious marbles. http://www.nationalpost.com/
more info about the Parthenon Marbles: http://www.museum-security.org/elginmarbles.html