May 18, 2003
CONTENTS:
- Panama recovers stolen artifacts
- Egypt unveils antiquities returned from North America
- $2M in heirlooms, jewels stolen in apartment heist
- Protection of culture in Palestine
- The Art Newspaper; this week's top stories
(AUSTRIA FIGHTS RULING THAT IT CAN BE SUED FOR NAZI-LOOTED ART)
IRAQ
- Iraqis refuse to return antiquities
- US adjusts museum loss figures
Panama recovers stolen artifacts
PANAMA CITY, Panama (AP) --Panamanian police announced Monday they had recovered about 300 stolen gold and ceramic Pre-Hispanic artifacts stolen in February from Panama City's Anthropology Museum. Several people were arrested in the operation, and police said that some museum staff may have been involved in the robbery of the pieces, which included ceramic vessels, jewelry and figurines. "I think we've recovered part of our heritage," said National Police Director Carlos Bares. Bares refused to specify where the stolen artifacts were found, saying the investigation was continuing. Bares would only say that "fortunately, we were able to recover them with the collaboration of police, investigators and the public, and that makes us very happy." Authorities said all of the stolen artifacts were recovered, but that some had been damaged -- bent, broken or crushed -- and would have to be restored. The artifacts were produced by Indian cultures in Panama between 800 A.D. and 1500 A.D.
The robbery apparently did not involve any break-in at the museum, leading authorities to suspect the thieves had inside help.
http://www.cnn.com/
Egypt unveils antiquities returned from North America
CAIRO (AP) — Egypt on Saturday unveiled six antiquities — dating back thousands of years — that were returned from North America, including a snake statuette that a Canadian woman gave away because she felt a Pharaonic curse had entered her house. The head of the country's antiquities board also announced that Egypt would recover the mummy of Pharaoh Ramses I, which was smuggled out of the country more than 100 years ago.
The mummy will be returned in October from the Michael C. Carlos Museum in Atlanta, said Zahi Hawass, the chairman of the Supreme Council of Antiquities. Ramses I was an Egyptian general who was invited to become pharaoh when Horemheb died without an heir at the end of the 18th dynasty. Ramses I ascended the throne in 1320 B.C., beginning the 19th dynasty of the New Kingdom period (about 1567-1085 B.C.). Foremost among the six objects unpacked from wooden crates at the unveiling ceremony were four fragments of the reliefs that decorated the walls of the tomb of Pharaoh Seti I (1318 B.C.-1304 B.C.) outside Luxor. Seti I succeeded Ramses I. Tomb robbers appeared to have chiseled the fragments off the walls, which still bore pharaonic paints of green and brown. The pieces, small enough to fit into a briefcase, depicted various figures, including of a woman and a bird. "It's very important to find some pieces from the Seti tomb and to put them in their (proper) place again to complete the tomb," the director of the Egyptian Museum, Mamdouh el-Damaty, said. It is not known when the fragments were stolen, but they were returned to Egypt by the Atlanta museum, which had bought them from the Niagara Falls Museum in 1996.
The returned statuette of Hathor — the goddess of love and motherhood — has the body of a cobra and the head of a woman. It dates from 1550 B.C.
Hawass said it had been in the possession of a Canadian woman who believed her home had become haunted by the statue. The unidentified woman gave it to the Ontario Museum, which returned it to Egypt. The biggest piece unveiled Saturday was a stele, or decorative tablet, more than 3 feet high, that was commissioned by a priest who served Pharaoh Psamtik I (664 B.C. — 610 B.C.). It contains hieroglyphic writing topped by a relief of a man and his family standing before Osiris, the god of the underworld. The sandstone stele was stolen in 1983 from Akhmim in southern Egypt. The FBI recovered it during an investigation into New York art dealer Frederick Schultz, who was convicted of receiving and possessing antiquities last year.
Culture Minister Farouk Hosni told reporters that Egypt was making significant progress in recovering some of the thousands of items believed to have been smuggled abroad.
"We are really working now to get everything that has left Egypt illegally," he said.
http://www.usatoday.com/
$2M in heirlooms, jewels stolen in apartment heist
May 17, 2003, 3:18 PM EDT
PHILADELPHIA -- A thief made off with an estimated $2 million in antiques and jewelry, including a 10-carat diamond ring, from an elderly woman's high-rise apartment in what police said was one of the largest residential burglaries in recent memory.
"I would call it huge," police Capt. Thomas Quinn said. "It would be like having an art theft from the (Philadelphia) Art Museum. Some of the pieces, there's only one of them in existence." Police said Mary Fogel, 87, discovered the burglary Thursday at her 22nd-floor apartment in William Penn House near the city's posh Rittenhouse Square neighborhood. "In my 22-year career, I cannot recall a residential burglary of this magnitude," police Inspector William Colarulo said. "When you're talking this type of value, it's usually commercial." Many of the items _ including six diamond rings, four bracelets,a pair of gold teardrop earrings, two vases and a white marble clock _ had been passed down through generations in Fogel's family, police said.
"She's obviously distraught," Quinn said. "These are things she's had for years." Fogel was in the process of moving to downtown Philadelphia from nearby Haddonfield, N.J., and was having painting and other work done at her new residence, Quinn said. "Someone had to get into the building, get into the apartment, and have time to go through boxes," he said. "We believe the person who removed the items had a key or a passkey." Detectives were contacting antiques shops, jewelry stores and pawnshops and had asked the FBI for help, Quinn said. "When you get jewelry of that value, you have the possibility of it going out of state," he said. "We would look for their help there." FBI special agent Linda Vizi said the agency was waiting for more information from police before determining whether they could be of assistance. At William Penn House, a 29-story co-op building in which residents own shares, management sought to allay concerns with a memo circulated door-to-door.
"It was reassuring everybody that it was a secure building," said Mary Jane Minner, 85, who has lived there for 11 years. "They said don't be alarmed." Minner said the burglary was the first she had heard of at William Penn House. "We have security around the clock," she said. "That's one of the reasons I moved here."
http://www.newsday.com/
From: "Isform" isform@libero.it Subject: Protection of culture in Palestine
Date sent: Sat, 17 May 2003 19:49:57 +0200
Facoltà di Studi Arabo-Islamici e del Mediterraneo
Dear Friends and Colleagues,
it is well known the situation of crisis in the fields of protection of cultural heritages in Palestine. Shortage of funds, the impossibility to finance new scientific projects, the insufficiency of specific books in the libraries put in crisis also Same Universities.
Permanent Observatory for the Protection of cultural and Environmental Heritages of I.S.Fo.R.M. and the " Facoltà di Studi Arabo-Islamici e del Mediterraneo" of the University "L'Orientale" have plan an initiative in order to collect books, magazines, abstracts of books, etc., concerning archaeology, history, architecture, arts, archivistic, protection of cultural heritages, biblioteconomy, etc. to be sent to the Al Quds University of Ramallah
Please, you are invite to contribute to the initiative, sending volumes, reviews and/or extracts of books concerning archaeology, arts, history, architecture, archivistic, etc. to my attention, at the Facoltà di Studi Arabo-Islamici e del Mediterraneo" of the University "L'Orientale", via Melisurgo n. 44, 80133, Naples, Italy, or at the "Osservatorio Permanente per la Protezione dei Beni Culturali ed Ambientali in Area di Crisi", V.le Colli Aminei n. 461, lotto 15, 80131, Naples, Italy.
The books will be catalogue for fields and will be send or delivered to responsible of the Al Quds University.
Naturally, I will inform you about the developments of the initiative and I will send you an index of the books received and of the donors.
Thank you in advance for your cooperation.
Best regards,
Fabio Maniscalco
*************************************
Professor of "Protection of Cultural Heritages" at "Facoltà di
Studi Arabo-Islamici e del Mediterraneo" - University "L'Orientale", Naples (Italy)
Director of "Observatory for the Protection in Areas of Crisis of I.S.Fo.R.M.
V.le Colli Aminei n. 461 "P.co Coravide", lotto 15, 80131 Naples (Italy)
Tel (0039) 0815922443 - 3387011247
e-mail osservatoriobc@tin.it - isform@libero.it
web-page: http:// web.tiscali.it/osservatoriobc
http:// web.tiscali.it/mediterraneum_isform
The Art Newspaper.com
http://www.theartnewspaper.com
This week's top stories:
AUSTRIA FIGHTS RULING THAT IT CAN BE SUED FOR NAZI-LOOTED ART
Austria fights ruling that it can be sued for Nazi-looted art
The Austrian Gallery tries to keep disputed Klimt painting
By Martha Lufkin
LOS ANGELES -- Austria is asking the US Supreme Court to review a decision of a federal appeals court which allowed a lawsuit to proceed against it to recover six allegedly Nazi-looted paintings now in the Austrian Gallery (AG). On 28 April, the Ninth Circuit US Court of Appeals rejected Austria’s request for a rehearing of its earlier decision, which permitted the lawsuit seeking to recover the paintings by Gustav Klimt, valued at $150 million. The claim is brought by a US citizen, Maria V. Altmann, the niece and an heir of Ferdinand Bloch-Bauer, a wealthy Jewish Viennese sugar magnate who died penniless in Switzerland in 1945, his vast collection of porcelains and paintings stolen by Nazis and dispersed among Hitler's closest aides and others.
In January, the US Government supported Austria’s request to the Ninth Circuit for a rehearing on its December 2002 decision upholding the lawsuit. (The Art Newspaper, March 2003).
The Government filed a friend-of-the-court brief, arguing that Austria could not be sued in US courts over Nazi-era atrocities. It is now supporting Austria’s appeal to the Supreme Court.
In seeking Supreme Court review, Austria will argue that it was immune from suit in US courts when the events involving the Klimts occurred and that it remains immune, despite the erroneous assumption by the Ninth Circuit that “the United States would not have accorded absolute sovereign immunity to Austria” after World War II. Rather, actions by sovereign nations which took place before 1952 are immune from review by US courts, Austria and the US will say, and an exception which applies under the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act cannot be applied retroactively to the Altmann case.
In a separate request to the Supreme Court, Austria is arguing that the California lawsuit should not go forward until the Supreme Court decides whether to take the case. Austria’s “entitlement to immunity from suit is effectively lost if this case is erroneously permitted to proceed in the trial court,” it has told the Court, adding that Austrian officials should not be compelled to submit to US court jurisdiction by “appearing at depositions, producing official government documents and attending other possible pre-trial proceedings” before the issue of sovereign immunity is completely adjudicated.
In April, the Ninth Circuit amended its December 2002 decision to include an excerpt from the London Declaration of 1943, in which the US and its allies reserved the right to invalidate transfers of property in territories that had come under Axis control. The US had argued that Austria was never at war with the United States and therefore enjoys the immunity that the court decision said could be denied to enemy states. The court’s new inclusion of the London Declaration, referring to US invalidation of takings of property in Nazi-occupied territory, may make Austria’s status during the war less relevant to the decision.
The three Ninth Circuit judges who rejected Austria’s immunity claim unanimously denied the request for rehearing. All other active judges of the court were given the opportunity to request a vote to hear Austria’s claim “en banc,” or as a full court, but none requested a vote. The US urged the “en banc” request because the case was seen as so important that it wanted the entire court to consider Austria’s arguments.
In its January friend-of-the-court brief, the US argued that the court should not interject itself in matters of foreign policy, which the doctrine of sovereign immunity is intended to prevent. The government called the case “of significant interest” to the United States, saying that the December 2002 decision, if followed in other cases, could have “a significant adverse impact on the Executive Branch’s conduct of foreign relations” with important US allies. In two other lawsuits now pending in federal courts in New York and Washington, D.C., the US is similarly arguing that Austria and Japan are immune from World War II compensation claims in US courts, a position which Austria is highlighting to the Supreme Court.
Austria maintains that Ferdinand’s wife Adele gave the paintings to the AG. But Mrs. Altmann says that Ferdinand, not Adele, owned the paintings, and that Adele’s request in her will that the paintings be given to the AG was non-binding. Mrs. Altmann is also seeking to invalidate transfers of the paintings to the AG which she says were required by Austria after the war in order to allow the export of other family artworks from the country. But Austria denies that it acquired the six Klimt paintings this way.
Mrs. Altmann, who is now 87, filed the case in federal district court in Los Angeles in August 2000. In May 2001, the district court rejected Austria’s claim of immunity, and Austria has yet to hear a different interpretation from a federal court. "The case is now several years old and we are eager to try the case on the merits," says Mrs. Altmann's attorney, E. Randol Schoenberg, of Los Angeles.
But Austria says that Mrs. Altmann’s advanced age makes no difference and its request for a stay should be granted. Altmann’s testimony has been recorded by deposition with Austria’s agreement, and she is not a key witness, Austria told the Supreme Court, adding that other family members would be equally entitled to pursue her claim.
. http://www.theartnewspaper.com/news/article.asp?idart=11054 STEVE WYNN RAKES IN A RENOIR AND A CÉZANNE
Steve Wynn, the Las Vegas tycoon who is rapidly going blind, spent over $45 million in under 24 hours at the main Impressionist and Modern art auctions here, snaffling the top lots in both Christie’s and Sotheby’s sales on 6 and 7 May http://www.theartnewspaper.com/news/article.asp?idart=11053 MAKING A BUSINESS OF NECESSITY
Benedikt and Angelika Taschen, the most famous couple in art publishing, are splitting up. http://www.theartnewspaper.com/news/article.asp?idart=11052 VAN GOGH DIED HERE
One of Van Gogh’s dreams will be realised if $27 million can be raised to bring a painting back to the café where he died. http://www.theartnewspaper.com/news/article.asp?idart=11051 PLAY AGAIN, CALDER
A set of wooden toys designed by Alexander Calder in the 1920s is now back in production, by Vilac, a French toy firm based in a small village in the Jura. http://www.theartnewspaper.com/news/article.asp?idart=11050
Anna Somers Cocks, Editor
contact@theartnewspaper.com
The Art Newspaper
70 South Lambeth Road London SW8 1RL UK
tel +44(0)207 735 3331 fax +44(0)207 735 3332
http://81.112.115.148
IRAQ
Iraqis refuse to return antiquities
AP - Thousands of antiquities missing from Iraq's National Museum have been found but not returned because Iraqi citizens won't hand them over to either their American occupiers or remnants of the hated former government, US investigators say.
The investigators are trying to recover an unknown number of artefacts looted from the museum after the fall of Baghdad. Museum staff have refused to reveal where they hid treasures for safekeeping before the war, chief investigator Colonel Matthew Bogdanos said. He said early estimates that 170,000 artefacts were looted were exaggerated. Bogdanos' three-week-old investigation has so far recovered 951 stolen items. Some were brought in under a no-questions-asked amnesty, while others were found in raids, he said.
More than 47,000 other items have been located but remain with Iraqis, including museum staff working with the Bogdanos investigation, who refuse to hand them over. "The investigation ... uncovered the existence of a secret storage location that has been used by the staff since 1990," Bogdanos said. "They won't divulge the place until the United States leaves and there is a new government." But they have promised investigators an inventory of the items stored there. Elsewhere, a "neighbourhood watch" is guarding 300 boxes containing thousands of precious manuscripts and books museum staff moved into a bunker before the war, Bogdanos said.
US forces agreed to that arrangement after community leaders said they didn't want to return them to museum staff they associated with former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein's fallen government. Iraq's prized collection held ancient artworks from the Assyrian, Sumerian and Babylonian cultures. "We know what's missing from certain rooms, but when you get to storage rooms that contain upwards of 100,000 different pieces, each of which has to be individually counted and catalogued and compared against an original excavation site number, that's going to take time," Bogdanos said. The 951 recovered items include one of the oldest known bronze relief bowls, one of the earliest known Sumerian statues and an Assyrian statue from the 9th century BC. Perhaps the most valuable item missing is a white limestone votive bowl from Sumerian times, commonly called the Sacred Vase of Warka, Bogdanos said.
Some of the stolen items have already started appearing on the international art market and at least one piece thought to have come from the museum was seized at an American airport, FBI officials have said. Investigators have reported that over the past 13 years, museum staff removed 15 to 20 boxes of gold and jewellery - including the famed treasure of Nimrod - and put them in two underground central bank vaults. Museum staff have given partial inventories, but the vaults remain sealed and the Americans don't have authority to open them.
http://news.ninemsn.com.au/
US adjusts museum loss figures
By Patrick Healy and Geoff Edgers, Globe Staff, 5/17/2003
BAGHDAD -- The looting of Iraq's National Museum last month was not as severe as originally thought, and many of the priceless vases, statues, jewels, and other antiquities were plucked from shelves by insiders with knowledge of the facility, according to a US-led investigation.
Highlighting the detective work of 13 American soldiers and customs agents, a US Marine colonel released a report here yesterday indicating that museum staff or professional art smugglers committed the bulk of the crimes and that the thieves knew where artworks and door keys were hidden. The report also contradicted initial statements by museum officials that as many as 170,000 pieces of art were stolen. The US team, which has been investigating the thefts since April 22, has so far recovered 951 artifacts -- many from Iraqis who ostensibly took them for safekeeping -- and have located 39,453 ancient scrolls and manuscripts, as well as a hidden safe house and two bank vaults believed to contain 616 pieces of the Treasure of Nimrud and 6,744 pieces of gold and jewelry. The findings by American officials conclude that the April 8-12 looting of the National Museum was less severe than originally thought. The report also sought to underscore the secret recovery operations by US forces, who were criticized last month by museum staff who said troops protected Iraqi oil fields at the expense of the museum and other repositories of Mesopotamian culture.
Donny George, a top antiquities official at the museum, said in an interview early this month that the US-led coalition had ''not made enough efforts to protect the museum'' as Baghdad fell to advancing troops. Yesterday, George said he did not want to ''open that wound'' by speaking about last month's events, and instead praised the current investigation. The Marine colonel, Matthew Bogdanos, who led the inquiry said yesterday that the focus would now shift to a worldwide hunt for the missing pieces, which include the Sacred Vase of Warca, a limestone bowl from 3000 BC, and the Bassetki Statue of around 2290 BC. Interpol, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and other agencies also are involved. Speaking to reporters, Bogdanos stressed that he couldn't put a figure on the total antiquities still missing, saying only that they number ''in the thousands.'' ''It must be stressed that the loss of a single piece of our shared history is a tragedy,'' said Bogdanos, who has two degrees in classics and is a homicide prosecutor for the New York County District Attorney's office. The pillaging of the National Museum was widely decried as one of the greatest examples of collateral damage during the US-led war in Iraq. According to the report, the thefts occurred just after American forces entered Baghdad in early April.
The last of the museum staff fled April 8, in part because Iraqi gunmen were holed up in a storage room and the children's wing at the museum, which is near a Republican Guard base on a main boulevard. Several US soldiers were killed and wounded during firefights at the museum. US forces entered the museum compound April 16, and investigation began six days later. The swiftly assembled team of 13 officials found empty and damaged galleries, storage areas, and offices, as well as incomplete and manually recorded inventories. But there was also some good news. The antiquities from the public galleries had been removed before the war, and most of the display cases remained intact. About 20 boxes of gold and jewelry, including the Treasure of Nimrud, had been stored in vaults in the Central Bank of Iraq over the last decade. (The vaults remain sealed, and the contents have not been verified.) And 337 boxes of books and manuscripts were relocated to a bomb shelter in western Baghdad. US investigators also say they learned of a ''secret'' safe house used since 1990 to hold artifacts, but museum staff have refused to divulge its location until a new government is formed and American troops leave Iraq.
Of the major antiquities in the public galleries, many larger statues and friezes were left on their sides during the war; 42 were stolen, including the Sacred Vase of Warca, perhaps the museum's most prized possession. Nine of those pieces have since been recovered, including an early Sumerian statue and a pottery jar from the sixth millennium BC. Several clues were found along the way indicating that the thieves had a well-documented plan, US and museum officials say. A replica of the Code of Hammurabi, an early example of written laws governing society, was untouched despite its impressive appearance; the original is in the Louvre Museum in Paris. Keys to the museum, which had been locked inside a director's safe, have vanished. Two storage rooms were looted, but there were no signs of forced entry. Thieves entered a basement-level warren of four storage rooms but concentrated only on a corner of one room where cabinets held tens of thousands of Greek, Roman, and Hellenistic coins. At some point looters lost a set of keys to the cabinets and searched frantically for them, the US report says. Investigators later found the keys amid the debris; none of the cabinets was opened. ''It is inconceivable that someone could have found that particular corner, and those keys, without an intimate knowledge of the museum,'' Bogdanos said.
American officials are offering a general amnesty program to Iraqis who return museum artifacts. Those apprehended with stolen art, or trying to sell it, will be prosecuted, and the art itself will be returned here, Bogdanos said. But some archeologists and scholars, frustrated that they haven't been involved in the US investigation, said they were skeptical that Bogdanos's team had the expertise to assess the damage to the museum. Bogdanos, whose previous turn in the spotlight came when he lost the Sean ''P. Diddy'' Combs weapons case, hasn't quelled those concerns. ''Who is this man anyhow? He's not a trained archeologist,'' said Clemens Reichel, an archeologist at the University of Chicago who has worked in Iraq. Bogdanos shrugged off the criticism, saying the United States was committed to ''restoring these priceless treasures of our history to their rightful place.'' ''The only people who prevented US forces from getting here some time before the 16th were the Iraqi forces,'' he said.
Healy reported from Baghdad, Edgers from Boston. Healy can be reached at phealy@globe.com, Edgers at gedgers@globe.com.
http://www.boston.com/