A REWARD for information leading to the conviction of thieves who stole artefacts and smashed display cabinets at the Museum of Harlow is being offered by Harlow Council. The Muskham Road museum was broken into at about 11.50pm on Saturday, December 28, after fire doors were forced. Two display cabinets were smashed and a Saxon arrowhead, Saxon spearhead and a replica Roman sword stolen. A battery-powered animated Father Christmas figure belonging to a member of staff was also taken. Regeneration committee chairman Nick Churchill said he was "appalled," adding: "The Museum of Harlow is a bright, new facility that brings pleasure to visitors to Harlow as well as local people. Theft and criminal damage to public property are totally unacceptable acts that will not be tolerated an any Harlow Council venue." It is believed the person responsible may have injured themselves as blood was found at the scene. Anyone with any information should ring Duncan McCreath at Harlow police station on 01279 641212.
http://www.citizen-series.co.uk/
M F Hussain's painting stolen
PTI[ MONDAY, JANUARY 13, 2003 09:18:43 PM ] HYDERABAD: A valuable painting of painter M F Hussain was stolen from the city where it was on display at the recently-held Asian Social Forum (ASF) meet. Titled 'Time' and inspired by Javed Akhtar's poem, the painting, valued at Rs 70 lakh, disappeared from Nizam College Grounds here on the night of January 6 but was conveyed to the master painter only last night. "It is a matter of shame. It was one of my very important paintings and I feel like losing a beautiful girl," a visibly upset Hussain told reporters at his museum 'Cinema Ghar' here. Hussain's work, completed four years ago on a 13 ft by 4 ft canvas, was among the six paintings that were found missing from the ASF conference venue. So perturbed was the 87-year-old painter that he refused to meet a delegation of ASF organisers when they sought an audience with him to apologise for the lapse. Suspecting involvement of a "well-oiled international racket" behind the theft, Hussain said "People who are fakes and who are always on the look-out for my paintings have done this. The motive is money". Five other paintings-- four by a Vadodara- based artist and another by city-based sculptor Alex Mathews-- had also disappeared from the venue. Expressing strong displeasure over the way ASF organisers handled the issue, the bare-foot painter said "I asked them to take action". "This painting was part of my personal collection... I wanted the people to guard it but they (organisers) were indifferent and did not bother to take care of it," a stunned Hussain said. The painting, an abstract work on the passage of time, was on display at the conference venue for two days before it disappeared.
Asked how he was feeling about the loss, Hussain said "It is like a beautiful daughter being kidnapped by somebody who has been eyeing her. If he (thief) had so liked it (painting), I would have given it away free". He said it was the first time that he was undergoing such a trauma of his painting being stolen and expressed dismay over laxity in security arrangements at the venue. Rasna Bhushan, the curator of 'Cinema Ghar', a museum of Hussain's paintings here, lamented that precious works of art in the country were not getting the kind of care and worth that they deserved. The missing painting of Hussain was not meant for 'auction but for public display'. It was kept at his museum here before being moved to the ASF conference venue on January 5. Hussain replied in the negative when asked whether his work was insured. Asked whether he suspected involvement of the same elements who 'defaced' his paintings in Mumbai, the internationally renowned painter said "It appears to be the handiwork of organised gang... I am talking of thieves". Meanwhile, a delegation of ASF organisers, including leading civil rights leader K G Kannabiran, in a letter addressed to Hussain expressed 'deepest regrets at being as careless as we have been' and hoped to recover the lost painting 'before its real value becomes known'. Hussain had participated in the ASF meet, that had concluded on January 7, and recited excerpts from his autobiography. Apologising for the 'absence of due deligence' on their part, the organisers said the loss of the valuable painting had soured the success of the event. Explaining the delay in filing a police complaint, they said "on the same day we came know to about the disappearance of your painting, we made inquiries with security personnel and volunteers but we have been unable to trace it. The delay in filing police complaint was due to our confidence that the painting will be returned".
"We assure you that we are doing all that we can to find the painting and we will of course co-operate with the police investigation along with our efforts at finding the painting," they said. http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/
BUT: ............................
Artwork 'thrown away by mistake'
From correspondents in New Delhi 14jan03
WORKERS may have mistakenly thrown out a three-metre painting by India's most famous contemporary artist, thinking it was a poster, a spokesman for a group that borrowed the piece has said. A painting by Maqbool Fida Husain, 87, and another by a lesser-known artist went missing after workers took down tents at the end of a five-day event promoting harmony between religions and ethnic communities in Hyderabad. The event's organisers, the World Social Forum, appealed for the public's help today to find the paintings after a week-long search turned up nothing. Spokesman Prabir Purkayastha said: "There were plenty of banners and posters stuck outside the tent. "The labourers might not have known the difference between the paintings and the banners and dumped them somewhere." The paintings may also have been stolen, he admitted. Husain blamed the organisers and called it a "sentimental and personal loss". "The organisers are fools for not taking adequate security precautions," he told the Press Trust of India news agency.
Husain's painting depicted scenes of communal harmony and the other painting, by Alex Mathew, showed the two faces of Buddha. The artists loaned their works to the forum for the January 2-7 event. Husain is well known for his paintings of horses and has donated several of them to the nation. http://www.dailytelegraph.news.com.au/
From: "Jos van Beurden" Jos.vanBeurden@inter.nl.net To: "Mus Sec Netw Ton Cremers" securma@xs4all.nl Subject: contribution Ethiopia Date sent: Wed, 15 Jan 2003 16:27:26 +0100
Ethiopia receives old manuscripts on microfilm
Some are small scrolls, which can be photographed in five or six shots, there are also books amongst it, which take hundreds of them. The texts cover religion, philosophy and history. They can be as old as the 16th century. Most of them are in Ge'etz, the language of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church. A few are in Arabic. The christian ones contain hand painted illustrations of the Holy Mary, St. Michael, St. George or other Christian saints. Some of the stories depicted are unique illustrations of the country's history. Through the centuries many manuscripts have left Ethiopia. The Leiden University in the Netherlands received the first one early sixteenth century. But especially in the eighties of the last century manuscripts were sold in large quantities. "The situation in Ethiopia was bad at that time. Many churches and monasteries were willing to sell manuscripts", says prof Jan Just Witkam of the Leiden University Library. He purchased whole boxes, filled with old books and scrolls. "Because of the favorable prices and knowing that a next box would come, I accepted every parcel. I also bought a few manuscripts at Sotheby and Christie's in London." The university libraries of Uppsala and Leiden and the Chester Beatty Liberray in Dublin have presented microfilms of several hundreds of manuscripts to the Institute of Ethiopian Studies in Addis Ababa. The institute is putting together a comprehensive collection of microfilms of manuscripts, which are either isnide or outside the country. Microfilms are sustainable. They easily can be reproduced. They are a good instrument for research.
Jos van Beurden
EBay art scam suspect arrested in Kansas
Placerville man was on lam over 2 years
Henry K. Lee, Chronicle Staff Writer Wednesday, January 15, 2003
After more than two years on the run, a Placerville man has been arrested in Kansas on charges of inflating bids in hundreds of Internet art auctions, including the sale of a phony Richard Diebenkorn painting on EBay, authorities said Tuesday. Kenneth Fetterman, 35, could face extradition to California in the case, which federal authorities say is the first criminal prosecution in the country involving fraudulent online auctions. Fetterman was arrested Saturday in Wichita, Kan., by Sedgwick County sheriff's deputies who initially booked him on suspicion of possessing marijuana and not having a driver's license. A check of his fingerprints revealed that he was wanted on a 16-count indictment handed up by a federal grand jury in Sacramento that accused Fetterman and two other men of wire fraud, mail fraud and money laundering. Fetterman's co-defendants, Scott Beach, 32, of Lakewood, Colo., and Kenneth Walton, 35, an attorney from Sacramento, pleaded guilty to numerous counts of mail fraud and wire fraud in April 2001 and are to be sentenced April 8.
Prosecutors said the three men used 47 online identities in placing fraudulent bids to inflate the prices of hundreds of paintings auctioned on EBay from 1998 to 2000, including a work many thought was by the late Bay Area master Diebenkorn. In the end, EBay scuttled that sale, and the FBI discovered that the canvas was the work of an amateur. Agents said Walton had bought the work and forged Diebenkorn's initials. Authorities estimated the total value of the winning bids on hundreds of auctions that the three hosted and in which they placed allegedly phony bids at more than $450,000. Federal prosecutors said Fetterman disappeared with the help of his girlfriend Terri Lee Galipeaux, 47, of Stateline, Nev. After the three men were indicted, Galipeaux and Fetterman fled the Stateline apartment where they were staying and began renting motel rooms in the South Lake Tahoe area, authorities said. Galipeaux would register at the motels using aliases so the FBI could not track down Fetterman, according to an affidavit by FBI Special Agent Matthew Perry. Galipeaux was arrested in June 2001 at a truck stop in Dunnigan (Yolo County). She was convicted in August 2001 of harboring Fetterman and was sentenced to 10 months in prison.
http://www.sfgate.com/
UPS-BC employee accused of theft
Officials: Material seized worth $300,000
By Stefany Moore, Globe Correspondent, 1/15/2003
CHELSEA - A United Parcel Service employee was arrested yesterday following a midnight raid at his home in Chelsea that resulted in the seizure of some $300,000 in stolen merchandise, including an 18th- century painting that had previously been on loan to Harvard University's Fogg Museum, authorities said. Chelsea police said 36- year-old Cayetano Ruiz, who is both an employee of UPS in Watertown as well as a custodian at Boston College, has allegedly been involved in the theft of valuable merchandise from his employers and has been storing the items in his second-floor apartment. The investigation into the thefts began when two Boston College police officers went to Ruiz's Shurtleff Street home Monday night to question him about a harassment allegation involving another Boston College employee. Chelsea police said that when the officers entered Ruiz's apartment at around 8:20 p.m., they saw what they believed to be stolen artwork. ''While there, they noticed, in plain view, some paintings on the wall that they knew were stolen from Boston College,'' said Chelsea police Lieutenant Brian Kyes, a police spokesman. ''The place looked like a museum.'' Four hours later, Chelsea police executed a search warrant at the apartment, Kyes said, and found more than 150 items, including antique paintings, jewelry, oriental rugs, sports memorabilia, antique books, electronic equipment, as well as $6,000 in cash and what police said was a small amount of cocaine. Jack Dunn, a Boston College spokesman, said yesterday the seized merchandise includes items worth an estimated $10,000 that had been stolen from the campus where Ruiz has worked the night shift for more than a year. Those items include paintings and a bronze statue, as well as such personal belongings as jewelry that was reported stolen from employees at the college. Kyes said that among the confiscated artwork was an 18th-century painting of ''significant value'' that was stolen last year from UPS en route to the Skinner Auction House, which has galleries in Boston and Bolton. The painting, by an unknown artist, had previously been on loan to Harvard's Fogg Museum, but had never been displayed there, said Joe Wrinn, a Harvard spokesman. ''It may have come to the museum at some point to be worked on or photographed,'' said Wrinn. At UPS, where Ruiz has been an internal operations employee since 1995, spokeswoman Kristen Petralla, said the company was still gathering information on the matter and did not want to comment on the case.
''UPS is ... cooperating with the investigation fully,'' Petralla said.
David Procopio, spokesman for the Suffolk district attorney's office, said Ruiz pleaded not guilty yesterday in Chelsea District Court to charges of larceny, receiving stolen property, and possession of cocaine.
He was ordered held on $1,000 bail.
http://www.globe.com/
VANDALS WRECK HISTORIC HOUSE
AN HISTORIC Dumfries mansion has been ripped apart by vandals.
Tens of thousands of pounds worth of damage has been caused by yobs who smashed their way through rooms at Moat Brae. The house in George Street, Dumfries, was where Peter Pan author J M Barrie reputedly got the inspiration to write the classic children’s tale.
By Gavin McInally
It now stands in desperate need of repair after vandals:
set fire to furniture in several rooms;
destroyed bathroom suites throughout the four storey mansion;
smashed windows, lights and mirrors leaving floors covered in glass;
and ripped plasterboard from the walls exposing huge gaps between rooms and stairwells.
Town centre councillor Tom Holmes was alerted to the damage after a member of the public noticed the front door had been left open. He said: “I am absolutely disgusted that this famous building has been destroyed by vandals. “It’s a listed building, a Victorian style mansion, and has a great history and importance to the people of our town so it is very sad to see the way it has been left. This must now become an urgent matter of public concern and something must be done. “I believe the building was bought at auction by a Glasgow businessman for around £75,000 although nothing has been done with it since then. I’m not sure if the owner knows anything about the damage but I would say that another £75,000 wouldn’t even come close to the amount needed to carry out the repairs needed now.” Moat Brae, a former private hospital and nursing home, was first targeted by vandals in September 2002 and Mr Holmes is disappointed that it has been allowed to escalate. He believes the damage has been caused by kids and if it’s allowed to continue someone will be seriously injured. He added: “There is no evidence of drug abuse in the building and I don’t think the place has been used by the homeless. It looks like mindless vandalism carried out for no reason at all and the fact that they are lighting fires in the rooms makes it even more dangerous. “All it would take is some kid to start mucking about and fall from the first floor banister or get trapped with a fire blazing in the house and their life would be in serious danger. We have to act now before an incident like this does occur.” A police spokesman, Sgt. Ian Fraser, said the town centre officers would do everything in their power to prevent kids loitering outside the house. He said: “We are aware of the vandalism problems at the Moat Brae building in George Street and we will be keeping a close eye on the situation. “We will make our visits to the site more frequent and if our officers do find kids around that area they will warn them about the potential dangers of entering the house because the building may not be structurally sound.”
The owner of Moat Brae could not be contacted for comment.
http://www.inside-scotland.co.uk/
Archaeology digs routed by threat of war
Planning for the summer season of excavations in the Middle East is in disarray as archaeologists assess the risks
By MICHAEL POSNER
Wednesday, January 15, 2003 – Page R3
TORONTO -- Even before the now widely expected military conflict begins in Iraq, the considerable wake of that impending war is beginning to ripple. Among the likely casualties -- the planned season of archeological digs in the Middle East. In any normal summer, dozens of excavations are conducted in Israel, Syria, Jordan, Turkey, Yemen and elsewhere, tempting thousands of professionals and volunteers with the exotic mysteries of antiquity and the prospect of significant discovery. But this year, concern about the possible war and its consequences is prompting many archaeologists to take a cautious, wait-and-see approach. Others are already cancelling projected digs. "I've run the gauntlet for years," says the Royal Ontario Museum's Ed Keall, who is doing field work in Yemen, examining how communities there and in Eritrea have responded through the ages to environmental change. "But I'm postponing the trip." Chief among the reasons for Keall's decision -- the Dec. 30 murder of three American missionaries at the Baptist-run Jibla Hospital by Islamic terrorists. "The shooting has unnerved me," Keall explains. "But I've been nervous since Sept. 11. The terrorist campaign has put a damper on both adventure tourism and professional work." "I'd say the mood overall is gloomy, pessimistic," concurs Dr. Ron E. Tappy, director of the Pittsburgh Theological Seminary's archeology program. Excavating a Bronze Age site at Zeitah, about 25 kilometres east of Ashkelon, in Israel, Tappy says he had hoped that the Iraq war would have been over by now. Instead, it seems to be just beginning and that timing is bound to affect volunteer recruitment during March and April, the two most critical months. "That'll kill everything for the summer." What's particularly maddening for Tappy is that he's only four or five weeks away from finishing a critical phase of his field work -- and being ready to publish results. "I would go with just 10 or 15 volunteers," he says. "At the moment, we're planning to go ahead, but it doesn't look good. My Israeli colleagues are pretty pessimistic. You never know how far out of control a war might get. We weren't able to go last summer because our insurers would not provide liability coverage. I wouldn't take students to downtown Pittsburgh without liability insurance." The prospects are even sketchier in the probable war zone itself. Iraq, which covers much of ancient Mesopotamia, has scarcely recovered -- archeologically and in many other ways -- from the Gulf War in 1991. Indeed, one of the country's greatest treasures of antiquity -- Sennacherib's Palace at Nineveh -- was summarily looted in the months and years after the war. Iraqi expert John Malcolm Russell had examined the site in 1990, only months before the war began, photographing a series of elaborate and invaluable wall sculptures. In 1995, while attending a conference in Helsinki, he was approached by a museum official with similar photographs, wondering if it would be an exhibit worth mounting. The sculptures had been looted from the site, and "broken up to harvest the parts that looked most marketable," Russell said in an interview last year, "without any concern for their context or the images around them."
In the interview, conducted with Biblical Archaeology Review editor Hershel Shanks, Russell argued that UN sanctions on Iraq in the post- Gulf War period indirectly created the conditions that gave rise to the looting. "I have some sympathy for people who have a choice of looting and eating or not looting and starving." However, University of Toronto archeologist Tim Harrison says the looting is usually carried out not by impoverished individuals, but by regional warlords who sell their plunder to raise money for arms. Local museums, far enough away from Baghdad to be beyond Saddam Hussein's interest or control, thus become arms of the regional treasury. Shanks, whose magazine has just published a comprehensive list of projected summer 2003 digs, says there's no doubt that rising tensions constitute "a chill factor for professionals. It's a war zone and people are afraid to go." In the past, many archeologists -- often returning to the same site over many years -- have been able to forge relationships with local communities. But as Wilfred Laurier University professor Michele Daviau notes, that expectation of a warm welcome is no longer assured. "There are people who are very concerned about North American attitudes to the Middle East," she says, a viewpoint that, in the current climate, tends to make all Westerners suspect, regardless of their personal political ideology. Still Daviau says she's tentatively planning to be back in Jordan again this summer, where she's been every year since 1987. There, near the village of Madaba, she's been excavating part of a Neolithic site dating back to 5500 BC. Of course, this season or next, the archeologists and their volunteer hordes will return to the field. Presumably, they'll even return to Iraq -- an Italian team has been in the area recently. But archeologically, the principal consequence of a war will not be calculated in research delays or even the theft of relics. It will be direct physical damage to the sites themselves. As U of T's Harrison notes: "You probably can't drop a bomb in Iraq without doing injury to an archeological site. The U.S. bombed willy-nilly during the 1991 Gulf War, without concern for cultural materials."
The costs to archeology of that campaign, he says, have not yet been determined.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/
Theft of James Ensor painting from private residence.
January 15 a James Ensor painting "The Old Man" was stolen from a private residence at the Antoon van Dycklaan in Kortrijk (Courtrai) in Belgium. The owner of the painting received a warning via his electronical surveillance system while at work at the Park Hotel in his hometown. One painting was stolen, another one was damaged and left behind.
As soon as an image of the stolen painting is available we will inform you. Estimated value of the stolen painting Euro. 150.000.00 ($ 145.000.00).
Ton Cremers
Friday 17.01.2003, CET 07:42
A Swiss art dealer has been dragged into the controversy surrounding a new museum in France dedicated to indigenous art. The Musée du Quai Branly - set to open in Paris in 2005 - has come under fire for purchasing works of art that were allegedly plundered by former colonialists. The project is the brainchild of the country’s president, Jacques Chirac, who wants to leave behind a legacy devoted to his long-standing passion for indigenous art and antiques from Africa, Asia, Oceania and the Americas. The museum is set to become home to many works held by the Geneva-based millionaire, Jean-Paul Barbier, owner of one of the largest private collections of indigenous art Around half of the new museum’s art procurement budget - estimated at €22.85 million (SFr33.4 million) - has been set aside to procure artworks from his collection. Critics have openly questioned whether some of the objects destined for the new museum may once have been looted from their native country. They say these should now be returned rather than sold and sent to Paris. "Entire archaeological sites have been plundered by robbers, who have taken everything of value." André Langaney, University of Geneva Looting art “To satisfy high demand, international art dealers have looted art from Africa. Entire archaeological sites have been plundered by robbers, who have taken everything of value,” André Langaney, a University of Geneva professor, told swissinfo.
Langaney, who is also director of the ethnographic section of the Museum de l’Homme in Paris, will have to turn over 80 per cent of the museum’s indigenous art collection to the Musée du Quai Branly. Some of the sculptures procured by the new museum are on Unesco’s "red list" of endangered cultural artefacts and are thought to have been taken illegally from Nigeria. Colin Renfrew, professor of archaeology at Cambridge University, is demanding the return of all “smuggled goods, that have come onto the market through plundering”. A sculpture from Barbier’s collection (www.barbier-mueller.ch) Indigenous art Barbier has defended his purchases, claiming that Europe’s growing interest in indigenous art has helped in its preservation. “We only purchase from those areas where people are no longer interested in their antique objects,” he said. He added that cultural items were sold to international buyers all the time. “Someone from Japan is permitted to buy antique farm furniture from Appenzell – it’s seen as a cultural exchange,” he said. Cultural heritage However, critics maintain that collecting works of art is not the same as purchasing objects sacred to a country’s native culture. “Most of the indigenous art was used in funeral ceremonies. Can you imagine if a museum, say in Congo, exhibited old funeral crosses and tombstones plundered from Europe? We would find that tasteless,” said Langaney.
“And that is exactly what the new Quai Branly museum aims to do.” The French culture minister, Jean-Jacques Aillagon, maintains that the new museum is an important project. “There are indigenous objects that are now considered true works of art. For many years, these objects were only thought of as ethnological relics,” he said.
swissinfo, Peter Balzli (translated by Karin Kamp)
Stolen Hassam Painting Returned
Wed Jan 15,12:36 PM ET
By HOLLY RAMER, Associated Press Writer
CONCORD, N.H. - More than a century after Celia Thaxter depicted her childhood home in poetry and prose, a stolen Childe Hassam painting that captured it on canvas has been returned to her family. The writer and artist met on the Isles of Shoals, a cluster of islands off the coast of New Hampshire, in the late 1800s. Thaxter, whose father was the lighthouse keeper on White Island when she was a child, later attracted members of Boston's literary and artistic societies to her family's hotel on Appledore Island each summer. Hassam, one of the foremost American impressionists, maintained a studio on Appledore, and his paintings of the islands make up about 10 percent of his nearly 4,000 works. Among them was "White Island Lighthouse," a watercolor he inscribed to his writer friend, Thaxter, in 1886. For the next 99 years, the painting remained the cherished property of Thaxter's family. But in June 1985, it was stolen from her granddaughter's home in Kittery, Maine. Rosamond Thaxter reported the theft to police and hired a private investigator, but died four years later at age 94 without seeing the painting again. The theft also was reported to the International Foundation for Art Research, a nonprofit organization that researches and authenticates works of art. The group's database later was taken over by the Art Loss Register, which includes more than 100,000 stolen and missing items; about 1,000 items have been recovered since 1991. In April 2002, a call to Art Loss from Laurence Tall, a private art dealer in Massachusetts, turned up the first trace of "White Island Lighthouse" in 17 years.
Tall said a man stopped by his gallery saying he had a "family piece" he wanted to sell. Though valuable artwork has been known to show up in dusty attics, Tall said 30 years in the business have taught him to be suspicious of such requests. "In this case, I had a sense there was something questionable," he said. Tall contacted a Hassam expert and found out the painting was stolen. He reported his finding to the Art Loss Register, which contacted the FBI. Tall said he believes the man who brought him the painting received it from a relative, but it wasn't clear whether he knew it had been stolen. No arrests have been made. Meanwhile, the painting has been delivered to a cousin of Rosamond Thaxter, Jonathan Hubbard, who lives outside Chicago. Hubbard, Celia Thaxter's great-great-grandson, said he was shocked and delighted the painting was found after so many years. He remembered seeing it at his cousin's home when he visited Kittery as a child but only later realized its historical significance. "Celia Thaxter was the lighthouse keeper's daughter, and she grew up on this tiny, rocky island with basically just a lighthouse. As she described it, she had a wonderful childhood and developed a real appreciation of nature," he said. "The fact that this painting arose out of a trip over to the island that Childe Hassam made with Celia Thaxter, and the fact that it was personally inscribed to her, gives it an extra meaning, because Hassam recognized how important this island setting had been for his good friend."
Hubbard won't say much about how the painting disappeared, except that Rosamond Thaxter was an invalid by then and had round-the-clock nursing care. He also won't say where the painting is now out of fear that it will be stolen again. Another Hassam painting, "Jug of Roses," also stolen from Rosamond Thaxter, has not be recovered. The owner of Boston's Vose Galleries, which specializes in American impressionism, estimates that "White Island Lighthouse" would fetch about $60,000 at auction. "It's a desirable subject, especially because it was given to Celia Thaxter," said Bill Vose, the fifth generation of his family to run the gallery. Hassam's largest oil paintings are worth up to $5 million, he said. Meanwhile, the subject of the painting — the granite and brick lighthouse — could use some cash, having suffered from the constant pounding of wind, salt and water. The Coast Guard maintains the light and signal, but says the state is responsible for the tower, which has become cracked with age. Officials estimate it needs $250,000 in repairs. Thaxter and her family often went months without seeing anyone from the mainland, but she found comfort in the lighthouse. "High above, the lighthouse rays streamed out into the humid dark, and the cottage windows were ruddy from the glow within," she wrote in her book, "Among the Isles of Shoals." "I felt so much a part of the Lord's universe, I was no more afraid of the dark than the wave or the winds."
___ On the Net:
Art Loss Register, http://www.artloss.com
Law requires UNLV to give artifacts back to tribe
Museum has collection of Hopi ceremonial masks
By Jennifer Knight jknight@lasvegassun.com LAS VEGAS SUN
A 1990 federal law is mandating that a University of Nevada, Las Vegas museum return its collection of Indian ceremonial masks to the Hopi Indian tribe that made them. The Marjorie Barrick Museum at UNLV must give four kachina masks to the Hopi Tribe under the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act. The act requires any museum receiving federal funding to return "sacred objects" that were used for tribal religious or burial ceremonies. The four religious artifacts being returned by UNLV is small in comparison to what other museums must give back. Since the passage of the act, museums nationwide have been forced to return thousands of funerary objects, human remains and religious objects to their tribe of origin. Museum curators and collectors say the repatriation of such artifacts represents a scientific and cultural loss. Tribal leaders describe it a return to their ancestral past. "Museums all over the country are getting hit with this and they are giving up hundreds and hundreds of items in their collections," said Donald Baepler, director of the Marjorie Barrick Museum of Natural History. "It is just fortunate that we do not have many of the kinds of masks associated with the Indian burials that they want repatriated." The kachina masks in UNLV's collection were used for religious rituals. The Hopi, who live in northwest Arizona, believe that the wearer of the mask inherits the spirit of the kachina, or mythological being. A mask can represent the power to bring rain, plentiful crops or prosperity to the village, the Hopi believe. UNLV officials say the masks have not been appraised, so the value is unknown. It is known that they were made sometime during the 1930s. Such items were commonly traded for food by the Hopi Indians during the Dust Bowl era. One particular collector came to the Hopi reservation in Arizona during that time carrying sugar, flour and food, and left with seven wagon loads of items, said Dan Wayne, a research assistant at the Hopi Cultural Preservation office in Kykotsmovi, Ariz.
"If (as a Hopi) you wanted to feed your children, you traded these items for food," Wayne said. Wayne, who is coordinating the repatriation of Hopi artifacts, said he is currently working with 500 museums throughout the country. "So far, we've received about 200 items," Wayne said. "That's only just a little piece of what we have because the Hopi has the single largest collection of any tribe." Wayne said the masks will be reintroduced to the next generation of Hopi, but that museums must first find a way to remove pesticides such as arsenic used by curators to preserve the masks. Museum officials say they have not found a way to remove pesticide residue but are trying to answer the question of how harmful they would be to anyone using the item. Until the pesticide issue is worked out, UNLV as well as other museums have been asked to take the items off display. No photos of the masks are allowed because Hopi do not want to have private ceremonial items made public. The absence of so many Native American artifacts from museum collections represents a cultural loss to generations of museum-goers and researchers, collectors and curators say. The two museums under the Smithsonian Institute are experiencing the largest loss in the country. Between the National Museum of Natural History and the National Museum of American Indians, 3,300 human remains have been marked for return as well as 87,000 archeological objects, said William Billeck, an archeologist working in the National Museum of Natural History's repatriation office. "Academically, the people in museums recognize this is a loss of scientific value and the loss of a cultural heritage for both Americans as a whole as well as Native Americans," Billeck said. "There's even some debate within some tribes as to whether some of these objects should be returned or reburied." Billeck said that some tribes are deciding to bury very elaborate beaded gowns and other items while others are either putting some items back into use or preserving the artifacts in their own museums. The process of returning sacred objects has been a lengthy one. According to the NAGPRA office, museums must first publish a list of items that would be considered sacred in the federal registry. Various tribes then contact the museum and decide how and when they will be returned. A final notice is then sent out showing the intent to repatriate the items, said Paula Molloy, program officer for NAGPRA.
The office has now registered 27,200 human remains, 535,000 funerary objects and 1,085 sacred objects for return. NAGPRA does not keep track of how many of those have returned to their tribe of origin but leaves the negotiations up the the museums and tribes. Molloy said that while the return of sacred objects seems like a loss, many of the museum officials are reporting that the mandate has spawned more collaboration between the tribes and the museums. "On its most basic level, this is a return of one's cultural heritage," Molloy said. "But, for the first time museums and agencies are bearing witness to the circumstances under which their own collections were acquired and that's a powerful thing."
http://www.lasvegassun.com/
Fake Van Gogh in Oslo?
Doubts have risen again about the famous self-portrait in the collection of the National Gallery. Art historian Johannes Roed claims in a recent thesis that the painting is not a Van Gogh. Head conservator Marit Lange at the National Gallery's painting and sculpture section is not surprised by the fuss caused by Roed's claim. "It is an old story, and with all due respect, this is a tempest in a teacup," Lange said. "Doubt about the painting has existed for many years." "The main arguments for it not being a Van Gogh are, first, it does not resemble other of his self-portraits and an x-ray examination has shown there is another painting beneath it - though this is not very unusual, and proves little," Lange said. "An equally strong argument for doubt is that neither Van Gogh himself, nor his contemporaries, have ever described this painting. The artist does not mention it in any of his many letters to his brother Theo, and it is not on the first inventory of his work after his death in 1890," Lange continued. "Since the portrait depicts a man with a missing ear, the painting must be dated from just before his death if this is a genuine Van Gogh," Lange said. Lange would not categorize the painting as one of the gallery's 'jewels', and said it was often out on loan. It is currently at an exhibition in Treviso, Italy.
She did confirm that the National Gallery will reclassify the painting as an 'alleged' Van Gogh.
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