Archive for August, 2010
Tuesday, August 31st, 2010
Iraqi authorities demand Israel return antique Torah scroll
http://arabnews.com/middleeast/article120208.ece
By DAVID E. MILLER | THE MEDIA LINE
Published: Aug 31, 2010 00:04 Updated: Aug 31, 2010 00:04
Iraq is demanding Israeli authorities return an antique Torah scroll smuggled into Israel in the early 1950s.
Israel's Arutz Sheva reported that the ancient scroll, written in ...
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Tuesday, August 31st, 2010
More security flops unveiled in Van Gogh theft
http://www.tmcnet.com/usubmit/2010/08/29/4980089.htm
(Daily News Egypt Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) CAIRO: Investigations into the theft of a $50 million Van Gogh painting from a Cairo museum on last week, continue to reveal more security flops.
Only one single security guard manned Mahmoud Khalil Museum which housed ...
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Monday, August 30th, 2010
Germany On Monday Handing Over To Ukraine Caravaggio Painting Stolen From Odesa Museum (09:47, Monday, August 30, 2010)
http://un.ua/eng/article/282731.html
Germany on Monday is handing over to Ukraine The Taking of Christ, or Judas's Kiss, a painting by Caravaggio, which had been stolen from the Odesa Museum of Western and Eastern Art, ...
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Monday, August 30th, 2010
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Sunday, August 29th, 2010
Van Gogh investigations nearing closure
Arabic Edition
Sat, 28/08/2010 - 14:51
http://www.almasryalyoum.com/en/news/van-gogh-investigations-nearing-closure
Investigations into the theft of the van Gogh painting Poppy Flower ended two days ago, according to the North Giza Prosecution. Over the six days of investigations, the prosecution heard 32 witnesses. Another six individuals were imprisoned on charges of negligence, ...
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Sunday, August 29th, 2010
Antique dealer attacks 'scandalous' European extradition laws
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/law-and-order/7968373/Antique-dealer-attacks-scandalous-European-extradition-laws.html
An antiques dealer has attacked “scandalous” European extradition laws which led to his attempted deportation over claims that he broke a Greek bylaw at his home in London 11 years ago.
Richard Edwards and Jackie Williams
Published: 8:00AM BST 28 Aug 2010
Antiques dealer Malcolm Hay ...
Posted in customs and law enforcement, law enforcement and investigation, legal issues and the law | Comments Off
Saturday, August 28th, 2010
Museum returns Baroque painting confiscated during Nazi era. The Pieter de Grebber work belonged to Jakob and Rosa Oppenheimer
By Josephine von Perfall | Web onlyPublished online 27 Aug 10 (News)
http://www.theartnewspaper.com/
Director of the Museum Wiesbaden, Dr. Volker Rattemeyer with "Double Portrait of a Young Couple" by Dutch painter Pieter de Grebber, ...
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Friday, August 27th, 2010
Antiquing in Israel a Tricky Business
http://www.theepochtimes.com/n2/content/view/41692/
By Genevieve Long
Epoch Times Staff Created: Aug 27, 2010 Last Updated: Aug 27, 2010
RELIC: Part of an ancient aqueduct at Caesarea, Israel, a site of many antiquity excavations. (Genevieve Long/The Epoch Times)
JERUSALEM—The business of antiquities in Israel is so serious that the government ...
Posted in looting and illegal art traffickers | Comments Off
Friday, August 27th, 2010
26 August 2010 Last updated at 10:34 ET
Antique silverware stolen during Sutton Green break-in
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-surrey-11100485
Police said the total collection of stolen silverware was worth £25,000
A collection of antique silverware worth more than £25,000 has been stolen from a house in Sutton Green.
Surrey Police said a burglar broke into the property ...
Posted in art theft, metal theft | Comments Off
Thursday, August 26th, 2010
26 August 2010 Last updated at 10:24 ET
Iraq 'bleeding antiquities' as instability continues
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-11099647
By Jane O'Brien BBC News, Washington
While many ancient artefacts have been recovered thousands may never be found
As the US prepares to withdraw its last combat troops from Iraq, international cultural experts are warning that the country is ...
Posted in looting and illegal art traffickers | Comments Off
Thursday, August 26th, 2010
26 August 2010 Last updated at 10:03 ET
Two arrested after statue theft
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-south-west-wales-11099353
The statue cost £30,000 and was erected in July 1999
Two men have been arrested following the theft of an 8ft (2.4m) statue of engineer Isambard Kingdom Brunel from a quayside in Pembrokeshire.
Police believe the bronze statue, which cost ...
Posted in law enforcement and investigation | Comments Off
Wednesday, August 25th, 2010
Egyptian tycoon offers reward for Van Gogh theft
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE67O5OZ20100825
CAIRO | Wed Aug 25, 2010 5:19pm EDT
CAIRO (Reuters) - Egyptian billionaire Naguib Sawiris has offered a 1-million Egyptian pound ($175,300) reward for information leading to the recovery of a stolen Van Gogh painting, television reported on Wednesday.
Sawiris, chairman of the leading ...
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Wednesday, August 25th, 2010
Artifact stolen from Vakil Mosque found
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/140029.html
Wed Aug 25, 2010 10:22AM
Police have recovered the inscription stolen from Vakil Mosque.
Iranian police have recovered an ancient inscription that was stolen from a historic mosque in southern province of Fars over four months ago.
“Investigations launched by police and heritage activists over the last ...
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Tuesday, August 24th, 2010
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Tuesday, August 24th, 2010
Schiele Art Back In Austria After Ownership Feud
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=129377681
by The Associated Press
VIENNA August 23, 2010, 11:34 am ET
A 12-year battle over the possession of a painting that was stolen from a Jewish Austrian by the Nazis came to a close on Monday when the work by Austrian expressionist Egon Schiele ...
Posted in recovery, restitution, WWII | Comments Off
Monday, August 23rd, 2010
Egypt Jails Five Officials in Van Gogh Theft Probe
http://www.businessweek.com/news/2010-08-23/egypt-jails-five-officials-in-van-gogh-theft-probe.html
August 23, 2010, 11:57 AM EDT
By Alaa Shahine
(Updates with more officials detained in third paragraph, culture minister’s comment in sixth.)
Aug. 23 (Bloomberg) -- Egypt’s public prosecutor has ordered the detention of a culture ministry official pending a investigation into the theft of ...
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Sunday, August 22nd, 2010
Confusion reigns over stolen Van Gogh painting
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5gR7b9KgMHbhceV0FWJ...
By Rayad Abu Awad (AFP) – 9 hours ago
CAIRO, Egypt — Egypt's culture minister Sunday backtracked on a claim that two Italians were arrested with a stolen Van Gogh painting, blaming a subordinate for giving "inaccurate" information.
"The information ... came from ... Mohsen ...
Posted in art theft, law enforcement and investigation | 3 Comments »
Saturday, August 21st, 2010
Egyptian police recover stolen Van Gogh painting
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100821/ap_on_en_ot/ml_egypt_stolen_van_gogh
AFP/File – Two Italians were arrested at Cairo airport trying to smuggle out a Van Gogh painting stolen from a museum …
By HADEEL AL-SHALCHI, Associated Press Writer Hadeel Al-shalchi, Associated Press Writer – 14 mins ago
CAIRO – Police recovered a painting by Vincent ...
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Saturday, August 21st, 2010
Idols wing seizes four panchaloha idols; arrest two persons
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/chennai/Idols-wing-seizes-four-panchaloha-idols-arrest-two-persons/articleshow/6383832.cms
TNN, Aug 21, 2010, 06.43am IST
CHENNAI: The idol wing of the Economic Offences Wing (EOW) on Thursday arrested two persons and seized four panchaloha idols stolen from a temple in Tiruvarur. The idols of Nataraja (38 kg), Pradhosha Amman, Sivasamy Amman ...
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Saturday, August 21st, 2010
Van Gogh painting stolen from Cairo museum
http://www.monstersandcritics.com/news/middleeast/news/article_1579156.php/Van-Gogh-painting-stolen-from-Cairo-museum
Aug 21, 2010, 17:53 GMT
Cairo - One of Vincent Van Gogh's most famous paintings, Poppy Flowers, has been stolen from a museum in Cairo, Egypt's Ministry of Culture said on Saturday.
In was not immediately clear how the thieves managed to steal the painting from ...
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Friday, August 20th, 2010
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Posted in art theft, Museum thefts, sculpture theft | Comments Off
Friday, August 20th, 2010
Aug 19, 2010 9:07 pm US/Eastern
Gold Bar Worth $500K Stolen From Key West Museum
http://cbs4.com/local/gold.bar.theft.2.1869470.html
The bar was in an exhibit that allowed people to hold it without danger of theft, or so museum operators thought.
The insurance company is offering a $10 thousand reward
It was a piece of history worth half-a-million ...
Posted in Museum thefts | 1 Comment »
Thursday, August 19th, 2010
Floods threaten Pakistan heritage sites
http://news.smh.com.au/breaking-news-world/floods-threaten-pakistan-heritage-sites-20100816-12732.html
August 16, 2010
AFP
Pakistan's devastating floods are now threatening ancient archeological sites, on top of leaving millions of people dependent on humanitarian aid to survive, an antiquities official said on Monday.
Pakistan has been ravaged by nearly three weeks of monsoon rains. Flooding has affected one-fifth of ...
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Thursday, August 19th, 2010
Book theft ring busted
http://www.kob.com/article/stories/S1703602.shtml?cat=504
Posted at: 08/18/2010 6:11 PM | Updated at: 08/18/2010 8:13 PM
By: Kayla Anderson, Eyewitness News 4; Taryn Bianchin, KOB.com
Prosecutors tell Eyewitness News 4 they can finally prosecute a theft ring after nearly three years of investigation.
The last of seven suspects was arrested on Tuesday in what ...
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Thursday, August 19th, 2010
Thieves preying on temples, shrines
http://www.asahi.com/english/TKY201008180282.html
BY YASUKAZU AKADA THE ASAHI SHIMBUN
2010/08/19
Alarmed at the theft in March of a Buddhist statue created 1,000 years ago that is designated a national important cultural property, the Agency for Cultural Affairs set about finding out how many similar incidents had occurred.
It discovered that at ...
Posted in religious artifact theft | Comments Off
Wednesday, August 18th, 2010
‘Archiving art helps verify legitimacy’
http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2010\08\18\story_18-8-2010_pg12_6
By Sohail Raza Khattak
KARACHI: In Pakistan verifying the authenticity of the art work is a big problem due to the absence of a tracking and archiving system in the art galleries, museums and any other places where paintings, miniatures and sculptures are sold.
University of Sindh ...
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Wednesday, August 18th, 2010
Vienna Psychotherapist Tackles Nazi-Era Art Claims at Museum
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-08-17/vienna-psychotherapist-tackles-nazi-era-claims-at-museum-founded-by-father.html
By Catherine Hickley - Aug 17, 2010 7:00 PM ET Tue Aug 17 23:00:01 GMT 2010
"Portrait of Wally" (1912) by Egon Schiele. The Leopold Museum in Vienna paid $19 million in a settlement, ending a decades-long dispute between the museum and the ...
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Tuesday, August 17th, 2010
Monday, Aug. 16, 2010
Artifact transfer may cause friction
http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20100816x2.html
Ownership question could keep in Japan some Korean items seized during colonial rule
Kyodo News
Despite Prime Minister Naoto Kan's promise last week to give back artifacts to South Korea taken from the Korean Peninsula during Japan's colonial rule, major differences on the matter ...
Posted in restitution | Comments Off
Monday, August 16th, 2010
Published: Sunday, August 15, 2010
Vandal also stole part of family's heart
http://heraldnet.com/article/20100815/NEWS01/708159915
Someone took the steel salmon from a sculpture to memorialize Peter Skerratt, who died in November 2007.
By Alejandro Dominguez
Herald Writer
SNOHOMISH -- Peter Skerratt died in a freak accident by falling from his bicycle on a slippery Sixth Street Bridge ...
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Monday, August 16th, 2010
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Monday, August 16th, 2010
Tale of Ansel Adams negatives grows hazy
http://www.mercurynews.com/breaking-news/ci_15787059?nclick_check=1
Posted: 08/15/2010 09:05:14 AM PDT
Updated: 08/15/2010 09:05:15 AM PDT
SAN FRANCISCO -- It was a dream come true, straight out of "Antiques Roadshow." In 2000 Rick Norsigian, a painter in a school maintenance department, bought a box of photo negatives at a garage sale ...
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Monday, August 16th, 2010
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Sunday, August 15th, 2010
This is a question that may surprise many and indeed many may consider it wiser to leave unanswered rather than hazard untenable answers. Michael Kaput has some views on this issue which he expresses in an article entitled, “Whose Heritage? Repatriating ancient treasures seems like a noble cause, but history ...
Posted in Dr. Kwame Opoku writings about looted cultural objects | Comments Off
Saturday, August 14th, 2010
Gardeners to guard museum?
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/kolkata-/Gardeners-to-guard-museum/articleshow/6309033.cms
Caesar Mandal, TNN, Aug 14, 2010, 06.28am IST
KOLKATA: Are sweepers, gardeners and contract labourers guarding the priceless artifacts in Indian Museum? Shocking but true, say some officials of the country's oldest museum. What's more, security gadgets at the heritage institution are either defunct or under-utilised and ...
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Saturday, August 14th, 2010
08/14/10
Iranian Cultural Heritage on Sale in Kish Under Pretense of Combating Smugglers
http://www.payvand.com/news/10/aug/1138.html
By Hamid Ahadi, Rooz Online
Sale of History by Ahmadinejad's Office
The publication of a report in Hamshahri Mah about plans by the Iranian Cultural Heritage Organization to organize a sale of the country's historical artifacts revealed another behind-the-scenes effort ...
Posted in looting and illegal art traffickers | Comments Off
Friday, August 13th, 2010
In June 1961, Francisco de Goya's "Portrait of the Duke of Wellington" was temporarily barred from export to the United States after its sale to the American oil magnate Charles Wrightsman, who at the time was also a Trustee of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Two months later, the UK ...
Posted in art theft central | 1 Comment »
Friday, August 13th, 2010
Paintings snatched in million-dollar art heist
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/08/13/2981954.htm?site=idx-nsw
Updated August 13, 2010 14:06:00
Thieves have made off with 18 valuable artworks which were hanging in an eastern Sydney home.
The paintings were taken from the house in the exclusive Darling Point area some time between Saturday and Tuesday this week.
Detectives say the works by ...
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Friday, August 13th, 2010
Indiana Public Media News
IU Fish Sculpture Theft Prompts Talk of More Cameras on Campus
http://indianapublicmedia.org/news/iu-fish-sculpture-theft-prompts-talk-cameras-campus/
By STAN JASTRZEBSKI
The theft of a bronze fish from an Indiana University fountain may not lead to the heeding of calls for more security cameras across the Bloomington campus.
IU Fish Sculpture Theft Prompts Talk of More ...
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Friday, August 13th, 2010
12 August 2010 Last updated at 11:00 ET
Statue by Victorian sculptor stolen from Cardiff park
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-south-east-wales-10949820
'Joyance' is among the works of Cardiff sculptor Sir William Goscombe John
A statue by a renowned Victorian sculptor has been stolen from a park in his home city.
'Joyance', an 1899 statue of a boy by ...
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Thursday, August 12th, 2010
Thieves steal $25,000 in bronze from Spokane cemeteries
http://www.nwcn.com/news/washington/Thieves-steal-25000-in-bronze-from-Spokane-cemeteries-100502439.html
by Crime Stoppers
NWCN.com
Posted on August 11, 2010 at 9:13 PM
SPOKANE -- Two Spokane cemeteries have lost as much as $25,000 worth of brass flower pots and urns to a thief in the past three weeks.
During the weekend of July 24, a suspect ...
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