by Paul Nuki and Andrew Alderson
SOME of Britain's most prestigious antique dealers have accused auctioneers of unscrupulous practices and are demanding they reform the way they sell artefacts.
Tomorrow representatives from the British Antique Dealers' Association (Bada) will meet at its London headquarters to discuss a new code of conduct for Britain's booming auction houses. They are expected to appoint a delegation to meet auctioneers after complaints from members that they were victims of dubious practices.
Mark Dodgson, assistant secretary of Bada, said members were worried by some of the tactics adopted by auctioneers. "The meeting is to formulate policy on an area of concern. There are two options: quiet pressure or a public assault," he said.
Among the proposals which the 400-member group will discuss and probably ask auctioneers to adopt are:
• Taking legal responsibility for the authenticity of goods sold. Unlike antique dealers or shops, auction houses disclaim legal responsibility for the goods they sell, citing their description as wholesalers in the Unfair Contracts Terms Act (1977) as justification. However, over the past 10 years auction houses have become more like retail outlets.
• A ban on auctioneers forcing prices up by taking "chandelier bids" fictitious bids to encourage interest in a sale. By tradition auctioneers may take such "bids" before an item makes its minimum or reserve price. Fictitious bids beyond that point are said to be made, but fall into a grey area in legal terms.
• Forcing auctioneers to declare an interest in a sale as the owner of a "lot", or when they have given the seller a guaranteed minimum price.
• Preventing auction houses from taking commission from the buyer as well as the seller, to avoid a conflict of interest and to reduce buying costs.
• Ensuring auctioneers do not tell staff the size of commission bids pre-prepared bids that auction house staff make on behalf of a buyer who cannot be present at the sale.
The soaring price of antiques has made them the best investment of the past 30 years outperforming both houses and the stock market bringing thousands of new collectors to the auction houses. Furniture prices, for example, are at record levels, even above their 1991 peak.
William Clegg, an antique dealer from Huntercombe, Oxfordshire, and a former Bada member, said rules governing auction houses needed updating.
"For a long time auction houses have been favoured by consumer law," he said. "They are operating under a law that was made for a totally different era: auction houses used to deal with wholesalers, today they are overtly retail."
The Association of Art and Antique Dealers, Britain's largest trade body, is also pushing for auction-house reform.
Malcolm Hord, chief executive of the association, said: "We believe the consumer would be much better protected if the auction-house rules were brought up to date."
Lawrence Brass, an antique restorer from Bath who advises clients on the authenticity of antiques, said auctioneers carried inaccurate descriptions.
"Sometimes lots are misdescribed, not out of malice but by accident. The throughput in many auction houses is vast," he said.
The association also believes some auctioneers may be rigging sale prices with bogus bids. For example, when a painting passes its reserve, perhaps the seller's minimum price of £20,000, and a commission bid of £30,000 still lies in the "book", the auctioneer may be tempted to bridge the gap with invented bids, thereby increasing his commission.
To prevent suspicion, the association wants reserve prices to be printed in the sale catalogue and declared when reached in an auction.
Several auction houses declined to make any comment on the proposals for reform. One dealer, though, admitted that his profession was just as guilty as auctioneers of sharp practice.
"It's a question of the pot calling the kettle black. Many antique dealers operate rings to keep the auction price artificially low," he said.
copyright SECURMA The Netherlands
By PAUL GEITNER
Associated Press Writer
POTSDAM, Germany (AP) It was early in World War II and the legendary Amber Room, looted from a Russian palace, was being shipped back to German territory. When the convoy came under fire, a German soldier took advantage of the confusion to purloin a piece for himself.
Now the gold-framed mosaic of marble and semi-precious stones may be the only part of the 18th century treasure to have survived.
German officials this week confiscated the mosaic, depicting two couples lounging in a garden with their dogs, from a Bremen lawyer who said he was selling it on behalf of the soldier's son.
Police said at a news conference Thursday they believe the mosaic is the real thing, although additional tests are still being conducted.
But because it apparently was swiped by the soldier in 1941, its recovery brought police no closer to solving the mystery of the Amber Room's disappearance in early 1945 from the German city of Koenigsberg, now the Russian port of Kaliningrad.
German officials were reluctant to comment on whether the 22-by-28-inch artwork would be returned to Russia.
"That depends on a lot of things," was all Chief Prosecutor Ruediger Schmidt would say when asked at a news conference. A German Foreign Ministry spokesman said no decision would be made until after the final tests determine its authenticity.
The issue of trophy art has been a sore point in German-Russian relations since the end of World War II. Both sides looted museums, libraries, castles and churches as their troops advanced, and the Amber Room is high on Russia's list of 40,000 art objects it wants back from Germany.
The ornate, 1,300-square-foot hall was a gift of Prussian King Friedrich Wilhelm I to Russia's Peter the Great. The wall panels were made from golden brown amber, with four mosaics representing the human senses.
The room was installed in a palace Peter built for his wife, Catherine I, outside of St. Petersburg.
Nazi troops dismantled it when they captured the village and shipped it to Koenigsberg, where it was installed in a castle. But it disappeared in 1945 as the Red Army moved west, and years of searching have turned up no trace.
German officials learned the mosaic was being offered for $2.5 million this year while investigating the theft of a painting.
At a meeting in a Berlin restaurant in January, undercover police were offered the stolen painting, a Hitler self-portrait and the Amber Room mosaic, said Potsdam police chief Peter Schultheiss.
With the help of a middle-man and money put up by a German newsmagazine, Schultheiss, using his own name but posing as a representative of a big company, let his interest be known.
He was given a videotape of the mosaic and later samples of the wooden frame and resin used to hold the tiles, all of which were examined by experts who concluded it could be authentic.
Last Sunday, the offer came to examine the mosaic in person. The meeting was held above a shop in Bremen, with police stationed outside.
Lawyer Manhard Kaiser told police the soldier, a Wehrmacht truck driver, took the mosaic in 1941 when the transport came under fire. It hung for years over the sofa in his apartment, then after his death in 1978, the man's son stored it in the basement because he didn't like it.
Only after seeing a TV report a few years ago on the Amber Room did the son realize what he had and decide to sell it, according to Kaiser, who refused to identify his client.
(15 May 1997 15:01 EDT)
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HANOI, (May 14) IPS - Digging for unexploded ordnance to sell as scrap metal one early afternoon in April, Tran Van An stumbled instead on an old bronze jug containing golden artifacts.
Soon, local peasants in Hoa Dong village in the Phu Cat district in Binh Dinh province, once the center of an ancient kingdom, learned of An's find and joined in. In the end, a total of 11 persons found an estimated 3.5 kilograms of gold each.
By the time Vietnamese police came, they were able to seize only a few of the artifacts. Meanwhile, the search for the artifacts continues, because Vietnamese law states they belong to the state.
Binh Dinh province, some 1,000 kilometers (kms) south of Hanoi, was part of the Champa kingdom in the second century A.D. Cham temples are spread along the 1,000-km central coast, from Quang Tri to Phan Thiet. Though the Cham suffered a military catastrophe in the 15th century that saw its capital city of Vijaya destroyed, many art historians believe Cham art and architecture represent the finest ever produced by the territory of modern Vietnam.
Officials of the conservation department in the ministry of culture and information confirmed reports on An's find in Binh Dinh, but declined to elaborate. Judging by recent trends, however, those artifacts may well be difficult to trace now. In the last decade, the opening of Vietnam to economic reforms and freer trade has also seen an increase in the theft and smuggling of precious artifacts out of Vietnam.
Analysts say that despite efforts by Vietnamese officials, the country's historical heritage is threatened, the peril magnified by the fact that the younger generation may no longer venerate traditional values represented by religious symbols.
Earlier this year, 37 Cham status originating from Binh Dinh, the former Vijaya, were seized in Dong Hoi, some 500 kms to the north, in what was an apparent attempt to smuggle them to Thailand via Laos.
Since the start of 1997, roughly 150 bronze statues have been seized in Ho Chi Minh City, mostly stolen from Buddhist pagodas in the northern regions. In the last five years, Vietnamese customs officials have confiscated some 10,000 artifacts of all kinds. Likewise, official estimates say only one in 10 lost Buddha statues are recovered by the police.
Corruption, sometimes by government officials, does not help in Vietnam's efforts to safeguard its relics.
The chief of the culture department in Vinh Bao district near Haiphong -- technically responsible for the preservation of artifacts -- was discovered to have sold three bronze Buddha statues to smugglers.
Officials are stepping up efforts to keep artifacts from disappearing, trying various methods from registration of relics, better identification and raising funds to acquire artifacts from private sources.
In the early 1960s, authorities in North Vietnam introduced the registration of privately-owned artifacts, but the results proved to be limited. At present, Vietnam's ministry of culture and information is carrying out a pilot project involving the radioactive marking of museum artifacts, making them easier to detect and identify if stolen.
Officials have started with the country's most important historical treasure -- about 100 bronze drums in Vietnam's historical museum. Over one meter in height, the huge bronze drums are said to be 2,000 years old. They are believed to have been treasured ritual objects used by ancient communities.
In fact, Dong Son drums are so associated with the roots of the Vietnamese nation that the image of decorated drums is shown by Vietnam's national television before the daily evening news. There are some 20 bronze drums in private ownership today. This is technically illegal, though, as everyone who finds a drum must deliver it to the authorities.
But the loyal citizen can expect only a very modest reward of $90 to $270, far below the value of the drums put at tens of thousands of dollars each. The government is also trying to raise enough funds to acquire more of Vietnam's historical relics.
In 1996, the Ministry of Culture and Information was given the small sum of $45,000 to buy artifacts for state-owned museums. Twice that amount has been allocated for 1997.
Apart from focusing on Dong Son culture associated with the bronze drums, Vietnamese archaeologists are concentrating on the Sa Huynh prehistoric site in central Vietnam and Oc Eo in southern Kien Giang province.
Oc Eo, the port city of Funan kingdom from the first to the sixth centuries A.D., provided a safe harbor on the important sea route between China and the islands of the "Southern Seas." The discovery of a golden coin of the Roman emperor Antonius Pius (152 A.D.) was also reported at this site.
(15 May 1997 20:06 EDT)
copyright SECURMA The Netherlands
By Katerina von Waldersee in Bonn
ONE of the greatest art mysteries of the century, the whereabouts of the sumptuous Amber Room, took a new twist yesterday after the discovery in Germany of a mosaic believed to be part of the priceless palace treasure.
A collection of carved panels made up of at least six tons of amber, as well as furniture and other artefacts, the Amber Room was presented by King Friedrich Wilhelm of Prussia to Peter the Great in 1716. It was looted by the Nazis from St Petersburg during the Second World War.
The panels were dismantled by German troops in 1941 and re-installed on Hitler's orders in a former Prussian royal palace in the Baltic city of Konigsberg, then capital of East Prussia.
The treasure was last seen there in 1945 and, since then, countless treasure-hunters have combed cellars, caves and lakes in attempts to find it. The prevailing theory is that the room was burnt during the war.
Although experts said yesterday they believed the mosaic to be genuine, it was doubtful whether it would provide clues in the trail to the rest of the Amber Room.
The 21in by 28in Florentine mosaic is made of semi-precious stones and marble and depicts two couples in a landscape. It was probably taken to Germany by a Wehrmacht soldier, before the rest of the room was dismantled.
It was seized by police in Bremen, northern Germany, from a notary who claimed a client had told him to arrange its sale. The client was apparently the son of the German soldier.
copyright SECURMA The Netherlands
BY PAUL WILKINSON
OFFICIALS at Buckingham Palace have discovered that a city's gift to the monarch of a solid gold casket has gone missing in fact, nobody has seen it for almost 80 years.
The richly engraved casket, with a statue of Britannia on the lid, was made by the Sheffield goldsmiths Mappin and Webb. It was presented in 1897 by the city's Lord Mayor, the Duke of Norfolk, to Queen Victoria when she opened the city's town hall.
The casket held a scroll of the Loyal Address made by the Lord Mayor when he greeted the Queen at the town hall steps. Some months after the opening, the casket, valued today at up to £500,000, was sent to the Royal Collection.
Earlier this year the city asked to borrow it for an exhibition marking next week's centenary of the town hall opening, but palace staff could find no trace of it. Officials at the Royal Collection Trust said it was listed on an inventory of the contents of Windsor Castle in 1919, but after that it disappeared.
Tony Arber, Sheffield's current Lord Mayor, said: "We are very disappointed that a piece of Sheffield's heritage has been lost in this way."
copyright SECURMA The Netherlands
By Paul Stokes
A FORMER property tycoon who acted as a "fence" for antiques including a £4 million Rembrandt was jailed for nine years yesterday.
David Duddin, 51, was trapped by detectives posing as buyers after a 10-week operation linked him to items taken from stately homes, an art gallery and private houses throughout Britain. During their meetings he spoke of the Rembrandt which had been snatched from the Earl of Pembroke's Wilton House, in Salisbury, Wilts, on Nov 5, 1994.
He referred to the painting, Portrait of His Mother, as "The Granny" and "The Old Lady" and said his people were looking at a sum of £100,000 for it. Duddin told the undercover policemen that the painting was so ugly "only her own son would paint it". The portrait is believed to have been completed by the Dutch Master around 1629 and was bought in Holland by the Eighth Earl of Pembroke in 1685.
During a series of meetings with the two detectives, Duddin asked if they would be interested in other items. These included an Admiral Kepple Freedom gold snuff box worth £35,000, stolen from a display cabinet at Laing Art Gallery, Newcastle upon Tyne, in October 1992. He also handled three Paul Stole silver-gilt honey jars with spoons which were stolen from the Duke and Duchess of Roxburgh's Floors Castle at Kelso in May 1994. Other items were taken in burglaries between 1995-6 including paintings from a house in Macclesfield and ivory figures from a home in Berwick-upon-Tweed.
William Lowe, QC, prosecuting, told Newcastle Crown Court that prior to his arrest Duddin had been handling stolen goods of high value. Through the course of their meetings with him the detectives agreed to buy stolen silver for £5,500, a quantity of swords for £4,500 and a painting for a further £5,000.
Further meetings were arranged with Duddin in relation to the Rembrandt and the officers offered to pay £60,000 for the painting plus £3,000 for his "handling fee". The sale was agreed and the picture handed over to the detectives and he was eventually arrested in Newcastle.
Duddin, of Manor Road, Benton, Newcastle, was convicted by the jury of six charges of handling stolen goods and was sentenced to nine years' jail on each charge, to run concurrently. The court was told that he ran a successful property company until 1992 but his business slumped.
One of Duddin's associates, James Mitchell, 54, of Preston, North Tyneside, was given two concurrent 18-month sentences, suspended for two years, after admitting handling stolen goods. A third man, Paul Nally, 33, of Harrow, north-west London, is awaiting sentence for his part after admitting handling stolen goods.
copyright SECURMA The Netherlands
By Sean O'Neill
A SCULPTURE valued at up to £20,000 has been destroyed by vandals
within 24 hours of it being installed at an arts festival in St Ives,
Cornwall.
Skylight Two by Roy Walker was subjected to three separate attacks on
Saturday after being placed in Trewyn Gardens, next to the Hepworth
Museum. The work was one of the most visible pieces in an exhibition
involving 100 artists from Britain and abroad whose work is on show in
galleries and public places.
The sculpture consisted of 42 mirrored tinplate sheets, measuring 24in
by 28in, laid out horizontally on a wooden frame. The metal reflected
the sub-tropical plants around it and the changing skylight.
Mr Walker, 60, said the vandals had systematically destroyed the
sculpture. They had jumped up and down on each of the panels,
puncturing some and ripping others off. Fragments were scattered
around the park.
The artist said he had spent three months designing and building the
sculpture, which was a donation to St Ives, where he had lived and
worked since 1965. He said: "I want to take a strong stand on this.
You have to stand up to this kind of people. It may be small beer
compared to what happens in inner-city estates but it is an attack on
something that was supposed to be a public gesture."
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(More about this case at: mailmay1997.html#hurwitz
(COLUMBUS)_It may be a case of closing the barn door too late... but experts are warning investors to carefully check supposedly historic documents. 11 investors ignored that basic advice when they paid up to 69-thousand dollars each to a Columbus dealer... Michael Hurwitz. He is being held in New York on charges of aggravated theft. Authorities say he conned the investors with two false documents... then tried to flee with the money into Canada.
Experts say investors get greedy or take a dealer's word on blind faith. Hurwitz allegedly claimed there was a small fortune to be made with an Instrument of Surrender from the Japanese to end World War Two.. . or a piece of music signed by Wolfgang Mozart. Investors now say both documents are false. Experts suggest investors check a library or historical society for resources to trace a document's background.
(12 May 1997 04:21 EDT)
copyright SECURMA The Netherlands
Israeli police probe art theft ring
JERUSALEM, May 11 (UPI) _ Israeli police reportedly want authorities
to designate one suspect in an alleged art theft ring a state witness
to testify on the whereabouts of dozens of stolen artifacts.
The Yediot Ahronoth newspaper says police have refused to release the
names of three Israeli suspects arrested for allegedly selling stolen
works to international galleries.
In addition, according to the paper, Israeli security forces have
located some 85 objets d'art slated for distribution in the
underground circuit.
The loot includes 76 Christian icon paintings and nine paintings from
the 16th to 17th centuries valued at several hundred thousand dollars
each.
The investigation began when a local dealer reported that a colleague
tried to sell him five famous paintings stolen from a Paris museum in
February.
Police contracted a dealer to meet with one suspect in a Tel Aviv
apartment and pretend to close a deal. The alleged art trafficker, his
partner, and dozens of works of art were captured in the sting
operation.
The two suspects, one a bank official and the other a supermarket
owner, face charges of accepting stolen goods. The two told a Tel Aviv
court they bought the art at a Paris flea market for some $15,000,
adding that if the pieces were ''hot,'' they had not known at the
time.
Police investigators say the dealers knew the works were filched,
which is why they tried to sell them secretly. A third suspect was
arrested Friday. Police believe the group is part of a larger
international ring of thieves and dealers.
Copyright 1997 by United Press International.
All rights reserved.
(11 May 1997 09:55 EDT)
copyright SECURMA The Netherlands
By DONNA DAVIS
Associated Press Writer
LITTLETON, Colo. (AP) In one photograph, a dead elderly woman lies on
a table, a party noisemaker stuck in her mouth.
In another, two strips of paper are draped across the chest of a
female corpse. They are painted with the words: "Happy Halloween."
Photographer James Michael Thompson calls his creations art. Police
call them a crime, and on Tuesday charged the Denver man with five
misdemeanor counts of abuse of a corpse.
"His opinion is it's just art," Detective Mike Broadhead said. "It's
outrageous."
Thompson, who uses the pseudonym J.T. Colfax for his art, calls his
work with cadavers an "art project in an embryonic stage."
He came across his subjects while working for a Denver company that
transports bodies for mortuaries and coroners. His photos portray
adults only, but not because he planned it that way.
"It just happened that there were no babies or children," he said.
The 33-year-old artist is known for controversial projects.
In 1994, he used the photos of 27 aspiring actors to spell out the
word "reject" in 6-foot-tall letters on a New York City building.
Most recently, he sent letters to randomly selected strangers in
Clarksburg, W.Va., writing on topics such as what he bought at the
store that day to revelations about his homosexual encounters.
A slightly built and soft-spoken man with a barely visible goatee,
Thompson said his surroundings inspired his latest project.
"It was the constant exposure to the bodies," he said.
He used a disposable camera to photograph corpses late at night when
no one else was around.
In addition to the noisemaker and the "Happy Halloween" signs,
Thompson posed corpses with signs that read: "Getting Fired Isn't the
End of the World," "Yee Haw," "Happy New Year," and "Merry Christmas."
He took photos of at least 40 bodies and envisioned displaying the
final product in a gallery or a nightclub. He was puzzled about the
uproar, calling the photos "raw materials" not for public viewing.
"I pictured blowing them up on copy machine and water-colored ...
blurring their actual identity," he said.
Thompson was caught when he picked up the developed photos from a
supermarket on April 30 and allegedly tried to walk out without
paying. A police officer who arrested him took a look at the pictures.
Abuse of a corpse is defined as conduct with a dead body that outrages
normal family sensibilities. Conviction carries a sentence of three
months to one year and a fine of $250 to $1,000.
Thompson faces three counts in Littleton where most of the corpses
were photographed and two in Englewood. None of the corpses has been
identified, police said.
"I'd be pretty upset if it were a relative of mine," Englewood Police
Detective Tim Englert said. "It seems harmless until you think of it
in that light."
(07 May 1997 03:11 EDT)
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Less than .05% of residents have been allowed to move back into their homes because of lack of water, sewer, gas & electric services.Most are 'camping in' with friends, relatives or shelters both in and out of state.
We have confirmation that:
ND Ballet was burned out. All Records, equipment, etc. are gone, but they
were renters so can try to move to a new space, if/when one can be located.
They had to cancel performances and spring fundraisng efforts and are short
of current operating funds to use for the recovery period.
Firehall Community Theatre sustained substantial water damage and some fear the building will be condemned...a determination to be made 'later' by the powers that be.As of May 5, the degree of damage to equipment, costumes, etc. could not be determined because the site could not be visited. They had to cancel performances and spring fundraisng efforts and are short of current operating funds to use for the recovery period.
North Valley Arts Council was temporarily housed in a commercial building above water line and therefore still have their administrative hub, but they were in a crucial stage of grant-seeking for renovation of an old movie theatre as a mixed-purpose arts center. That building sustained substantial water damage and no one seems to be able to forecast the probable future of the project at this time.
Most of the remaining arts organizations (Symphony, ND Art Gallery, Master
Chorale, etc.) were housed above water-line (many on the UND Campus), but
operations have been severely interrupted and we will have to wait until
folks can move back home to find out how much damage has been done to
season ticket sales, fundraising, planning for next season etc.
******
At the request of Governor Schafer, the ND Community Fund is taking
donations for non-profit organizations for flood relief. Any donations can
be designated to a specific cause (such as 'the arts') or for a specific
organization. All donations are 100% tax deductible and 100% of the money
goes for flood relief. Contact information: North Dakota Community
Foundation, PO BOX 387, Bismarck, ND 58502-2191. Phone 1-800-605-5252.
******
The North Dakota Arts Alliance would like to publicly acknowledge
contributions to flood relief for the arts in order to underscore the
nationwide support for the belief that rebuilding the arts infrastructure
is vital to rebuilding a real community. Such documentation will also
provide moral support and generate tangible in-state support for the arts
organizations as they undergo the protracted recovery period. Please send
notification of flood-reief projects and/or contributions to: North Dakota
Arts Alliance PO BOX 428, Minot, ND 58702 or email to nodaa@minot.ndak.net
for publication.
*******
Individuals and organizations wishing to offer in-kind or replacement-goods
relief rather than money donations should contact North Dakota Arts
Alliance PO BOX 428, Minot, ND 58702, 701-839-1439, or email to
nodaa@minot.ndak.net so we can facilitate the matching of needs with
offered assistance.
Let's also give some deep thought to establishing an on-going national disaster-relief fund for arts organizations facing unexpected disasters - natural or un-natural.
Julie Hornstein (Arts Education Chair, North Dakota Arts Alliance)
(home email DHornstein@compuserve.com)
copyright SECURMA The Netherlands
By Jeffrey Donovan
ROME (Reuter) - Italy has drawn up a masterplan to protect its art
treasures from theft and natural disaster and allocated $59 million to
restore Turin Cathedral, which was damaged by fire last month.
Culture Minister Walter Veltroni was quoted in newspapers on Saturday
as saying that the cabinet had agreed to invest 180 billion lire ($100
million) in a ``security plan'' to protect Italy's vast artistic
heritage.
He said Italy must ``go beyond the culture of restoration to one of
prevention and ordinary and systematic maintenance'' of its art and
archeological treasures.
``This is a plan of integrated interventions that will help protect
monuments from theft, damage, vandalism and, within the realm of the
possible, natural disasters,'' Veltroni said, adding that 1,000 sites
would be specifically targeted.
Features would include the installation of more smoke, fire and
burlar alarms at museums and archaeological sites and courses for
museum and site guards.
Italy has been fighting an uphill battle to protect its rich artistic
inventory from depletion and destruction.
In the latest disaster to hit headlines, a fire last month raced
through the baroque Guarini chapel at the back of Turin Cathedral
which housed the famous shroud of Turin.
The city's adjacent Royal Palace and more than 80 art works were also
destroyed but firefighters managed to save the shroud, which many
Roman Catholics believe wrapped the body of Christ after his
crucifixion. Investigators are still trying to determine the cause of
the blaze.
Veltroni said that of the 180 billion lire budgeted for the plan, 100
billion would go to the Turin reconstruction.
But some commentators said the plan, while an important step, must go
further to halt the destruction and looting of Italy's artistic
riches.
``The sum allocated is a drop in the ocean if one considers that the
Culture Ministry must oversee 3,500 churches, 2,100 archeological
sites, 40,000 castles, 30,000 archives, 100,000 churches, 1,500
convents and 4,000 historic gardens,'' the Turin daily La Stampa
commented.
Veltroni said one of the main problems was the incomplete cataloguing
of art works, which has faciliated theft.
Meanwhile, investigators are still trying to get to the bottom of the
blaze that gutted Venice's famous Fenice opera house last year and
another that destroyed a historic theater in the southern port of Bari
burned down in 1991. They suspect arson in both cases.
Reuters/Variety Reut12:38 05-04-97
(04 May 1997 12:37 EDT)
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