http://museum-security.org/
securma@xs4all.nl
SITE MAP
August 2, 1999
CONTENTS:
- Collections Database
- Disaster Preparedness Plans
- UKPounds: 20m debt may shut Armouries
- Mystery Van Gogh subject of international search
- Tate faces claim for Nazi art loot (Jewish family says Old Master was stolen from them)
- Master (Con) Artist; Painting forger Elmyr de Hory's copies are like the real thing
- Philippine Star news: dinosaur eggs stolen (Sally Shelton)
- Re: Mystery Van Gogh subject of international search (Missing van Gogh sold to U.S. buyer)
- Director of Security Position opening (U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum)
- Tories call for inquiry into Armouries Museum debt
- Coolidge Ring Stolen
- Croatian museum stripped of its art treasures (Boston Globe)
- Police find lost Dali (picture was on the FBI's list of missing art works)
From: Sharon webmaster@cowboyhalloffame.org
Subject: Collections Database
FYI:
We are using MS Access for our collections database. We have much flexability as to how we want to enter & display inventory. Digital images can be linked to the database.
Seems to fit ALL of your needs.
Hope this helps.
Sharon S.
MIS, National Cowboy Hall of Fame
The following thread was copied from Museum-L and might be a cross posting for some of you.
Information about Disaster Plans is available at the MSN site at:
http://museum-security.org/disaster_management.html
http://museum-security.org/safetypl.html
http://museum-security.org/safetypl.html#1
http://museum-security.org/disastermanagement.html
TC
subject: Disaster Preparedness Plans
I am curator at a smallish university museum and we are in the process of developing a comprehensive Disaster Preparedness Plan. None of the members of the committee have ever developed a Plan from the ground up. Our location (on a fault line), collections (primarily 3-dimensional, historical items) and our status as a university museum have caused us quite a bit of confusion. Every resource we have been able to locate stresses two things that don't really pertain to us. First, there is a real emphasis on knowing where utility turn-off switches are located. Unfortunately, those areas are controlled and accessible only by the University Physical Plant. Second, almost all of the salvage resources seem to deal with archival material. The majority of our collections are 3-D. How have other institutions realistically dealt with these issues?? Anyone willing to share copies of your own plan, ideas, resources,etc with us (reply off list and I'll get you the postal address)?? Any help would be appreciated.
Patricia McElyea
Curator of Collections
Arkansas State University Museum pkirklan@choctaw.astate.edu
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From: Anne Douglas adouglas@EMAIL.UNC.EDU
Subject: Re: Disaster Preparedness Plans
Patricia,
First, purchase "Steal this Handbook" from the Southeastern Registrars Assocation. (Steal This Handbook! A Template for Creating a Museum's Emergency Preparedness Plan by Allyn Lord, Carolyn Reno and Marie Demeroukas. Published by the Southeastern Registrars Association (2nd edition 1994). Contact Dixie Neilson, Chair SERA, Harn Museum of Art, P.O. Box 112700, Gainesville, FL 32611, (352) 392-9826, (352) 392-3892 (fax), dixharn@ufl.edu)
-- Second, talk to your Campus Police Department. Your university undoubtedly already has an emergency plan in place; you need a copy so that whatever plan you create dovetails with that of the university. You also need to know ahead of time who will be in charge in a major disaster -- here at UNC-CH, Campus Police will designate an Incident Commander who is in charge. We can have our own response coordinator but the Incident Commander will run the show.
-- Third, talk to your local fire and/or police departments to learn what role they will play in a disaster.
-- Fourth, involve as many of your coworkers as possible in the creation of your plan -- they will all have good ideas and may imagine scenarios you never thought of.
-- Fifth, don't hesitate to get involved with other departments on campus. We have standing (written) agreements with several other units that will allow us to temporarily house our collection in nearby buildings if the Museum is unsafe.
-- Finally, remember that a disaster plan is always a work in progress. Good luck! Anne Douglas.
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From: Kate Hogue kakh000@TAMUK.EDU
Subject: Re: Disaster Preparedness Plans
Patricia -
You might like to look at this web site and see what the National Park Service has already put together. It is a good reference to use as a guide.
http://www.cr.nps.gov/csd/publications/primer/primintro.html
Kate Hogue
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From: Sally Baulch-Rhoden sbaulch@MAIL.UTEXAS.EDU
Subject: Re: Disaster Preparedness Plans
The process of writing a disaster plan was VERY informative for us as a university based museum because it exposed all the areas where we didn't have control...like utility turn-offs. The various departments of Physical Plant were impressed (especially the Office of Health and Safety) that we cared enough to write a disaster plan that our service from them improved. The Safety Office even created maps of our buildings for the disaster plan outlining all the turn-offs, fire extinguishers, etc (these are the sheets that they give the city fire department). Knowing where the turn-off switches are turns out to be important because the first responder to alarms is a university police officer who doesn't know where the alarm panel and switches are off the top of their heads.
Things we learned:
Dialing 911 gets the University Police
Dialing 9+911 gets the real Emergency Services
We have to check our own fire extinguishers
We are not necessarily notified of after-hours alarms
-- As for resources for 3-D material, check out the WHEEL O' DISASTER from the National Task Force on Emergency Response (contact the National Institute for Conservation, 3299 K St NW, Ste 602, Washington DC 20007-4415). Talk to your regional FEMA office to see if they have advise. Also, get a list of conservators and other museum professionals in your area. Even if they are experts in other fields, they are experienced in handling museum objects and can be a great boon in times of trouble. Paper and book conservators helped us dry and oil guns after a water pipe broke and swept through our firearms exhibit (under the direction of knowledgable staff). Networking is important.
-- I've attended a few disaster planning sessions and learned there were a lot of issues that weren't on my radar. One speaker was from the Red Cross and brought up the topic of psychological problems due to disasters (hurricanes wiping out staff housing, death of staff member even under normal conditions is a disaster, etc.) Also think about contacting the FBI for information on terrorism, etc.
Sally Baulch-Rhoden
Collections Manager
Cultural History Division
Texas Memorial Museum
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From: Roger Wulff museplan@EROLS.COM
Organization: Museum Services International
Subject: Re: Disaster Preparedness Plans
Dear Fellow Listers:
Finally, remember that a disaster plan is always a work in progress. Not only is the plan a work in progress, but it should be tested on a regular basis and to the fullest extent possible.
Drills for the entire staff should be held (and video taped).
All too often, a Disaster Plan is prepared and promptly put on the shelf to gather dust.
Kind Regards
Roger Wulff
UKPounds: 20m debt may shut Armouries
By Nigel Reynolds, Arts Correspondent
THE new UKPounds: 42.5 million showpiece Royal Armouries Museum in Leeds, which houses many of the Tower of London's military treasures, may be forced to close indefinitely in the next few days because of a UKPounds: 20 million deficit. The museum, which was widely criticised when it was first planned, has failed to attract sufficient visitors and the whole operation is said to be "on its knees". Opened by the Queen in March 1996, it was one of the first projects built under the last government's controversial Private Finance Initiative, invented to attract private sector money to large public building projects. The museum's trustees will hold a crisis meeting today to decide whether it is able to put together a rescue package to satisfy bankers or whether it will have to close. The Telegraph understands that Royal Armouries International, the private sector consortium created to invest UKPounds: 14 million to build the museum, has a deficit approaching UKPounds: 20 million. Its principal creditor, the Bank of Scotland, is believed to have given RAI until this weekend to give assurances about the debts and for RAI and the Royal Armouries to renegotiate the terms of their deal or it will declare the company insolvent. The Royal Armouries, a semi-public body run by trustees, owns the 40,000 artefacts in the museum, but RAI manages the building and recoups its investment through ticket sales, catering, the museum shop and hiring out rooms. But the arrangement has collapsed because forecasts that the museum, on a former industrial site in the city centre, would attract one million visitors a year were wildly optimistic. Last year's figure was 394,000 and visitors this year may be as low as 250,000. Staff numbers have been reduced and the museum charges UKPounds: 7.95 for adult admission - second only among national museums to the Science Museum in London. Whitehall, which paid an initial UKPounds: 20 million for the new building under the PFI scheme, is also concerned that the museum is badly run and that RAI has agreed over-expensive contracts with outside consultants. There is also widespread concern that the business structure set in place by RAI is cumbersome and has added an unnecessary layer of management. Lord Eden of Winton, who was chairman of the Armouries' trustees while the new museum was planned, said yesterday that the combination of low visitor numbers and the joint private-public sector finance deal had "dragged the whole operation to its knees". He said that he was "never happy" at private sector involvement. "It was known that we were unhappy but we had to go along with it. We had to bite the bullet." Lord Eden said he believed the only way to save the museum was to return it to full public ownership. A series of urgent discussions between the Department for Culture, which pays an annual grant of UKPounds: 4 million, the trustees and Leeds city council, which put up an initial UKPounds: 3 million, have taken place in the past few weeks to try to save the museum. Chris Smith, the Culture Secretary, is believed to have offered a small, one-off payment to avert immediate crisis on condition that there is a thorough management shake-out and the Armouries agrees to new PFI terms. The trustees are believed to be angry that the Culture Department has refused substantial extra public money to pay off RAI and to scrap the PFI arrangement. A spokesman for both the Royal Armouries and RAI refused to make any comment yesterday.
Mystery Van Gogh subject of international search
09:13 a.m. Jul 29, 1999 Eastern
By Elaine Lies
TOKYO, July 29 (Reuters) - Wanted: painting by Vincent Van Gogh. Last known whereabouts: Japan. A Van Gogh bought by a Japanese industrialist for the highest price in history was not cremated with its owner when he died in 1996, a spokesman for his company confirmed on Thursday following a swirl of rumours. The problem is nobody seems to know where the painting, ``The Portrait of Dr. Gachet,'' bought by flamboyant paper magnate Ryoei Saito in 1990 for $82.5 million, actually is. Shortly after making his purchase, Saito was quoted worldwide as saying he wanted the Van Gogh and a Monet he had also bought for a slightly lower price of $78.1 million to be cremated with him when he died. ``Are you kidding? Of course he didn't have the paintings burned,'' said Iwao Sakamoto, spokesman at Daishowa Paper Manufacturing Co Inc, where Saito once was chairman. But he added he had no idea of the Van Gogh's current whereabouts. ``This was one of Saito's private holdings, not something owned by the company. If it had been a company holding, of course we would know where it was.'' A different Daishowa official said earlier this year that Saito made the remark because he loved the paintings so much he couldn't bear to leave them behind. But others have less charitably suggested it was an effort to avoid the ruinous taxes that would be levied on his heirs after his death. The painting became the focus of a worldwide hunt after the Metropolitan Museum of Art, hoping to include it in a current exhibition of Van Gogh portraits, was unable to locate it. Through the years since Saito's death, the painting has been the subject of conflicting reports that have put it in various locations around the globe. The plot thickened further on Thursday when German television network ARD released a statement quoting ``information'' that indicated the painting had been sold for 80 million marks ($42 million) to a buyer in the United States who wished to remain anonymous. Highly regarded in art circles as an example of one of Van Gogh's last major portraits, the ``Portrait of Dr. Gachet'' was once reportedly owned by Hermann Goering, who had acquired it for Adolf Hitler's collections. Like his painting, Saito had a colourful history. Although his fortune was made through paper, he turned to property investment during Japan's economic boom years in the late 1980s and early 1990s. This ultimately became his undoing. In 1993, he was charged with handing 100 million yen ($867,300) in bribes to the governor of a northern Japanese prefecture in order to carve up a mountain into a golf course. The course was to have been named ``The Vincent Golf Club'' after Van Gogh. Saito, who admitted to the deed, was arrested, while the governor was forced to resign. Saito was only one of many Japanese circling the globe to snap up masterpieces during the country's boom years. Of the world's 10 most expensively-priced paintings, half went to Japanese companies or collectors. Now that the boom has gone bust, many of these buyers are hurting, forced to sell their paintings for a pittance in order to pay off debts incurred when the economy soured. But even then there is no guarantee the paintings will return to the fold of art connoisseurs. Many go from private owner to private owner, in deepest secrecy, much as the Van Gogh may have done.
(Times of London) Jewish family says Old Master was stolen from them
reports Dalya Alberge, Arts Correspondent
Tate faces claim for Nazi art loot
THE Tate Gallery is facing a claim for ownership of a UKP: 200,000 painting in its collection from the children of a Jewish man who was shot by the Nazis in 1930s Germany. Two brothers and their sister, who came to England after fleeing for their lives from their home in Düsseldorf, say that an early 18th-century view of Hampton Court Palace by a Dutch master, Jan Griffier the Elder, was owned by their father. The case marks the first time that a British collection has been confronted with a claim from an individual. The picture is on display at the gallery, where it has hung since 1961. Its ownership is being disputed by the three siblings, who wish to remain anonymous. They are all aged in their seventies and have lived in England since escaping from Germany in the 1930s. They say the picture was in their Düsseldorf home until the Nazis destroyed their lives, and they have evidence in the form of good-quality negatives taken by their father. The disclosure comes just weeks after the Tate and other British national museums resolved to research the provenance of items in their collections whose history between 1933 and 1945 is unknown. They guaranteed "prompt attention and serious consideration" to ownership claims. Yesterday Sir Nicholas Serota, Director of the Tate, said: "We are going to look further into the provenance and at the evidence provided by the person who made the inquiry. We are also going to talk with the Department of Culture about the position. This is a step-by-step process." He described the album of photographs as "both a poignant document and one which provides very strong evidence of the family connection". The view of Hampton Court, oil on copper measuring 381mm by 505mm, is believed to date from 1710. Griffier (1646 or 1652-1718) was born in Amsterdam and specialised in topographical and fantasy landscapes. The link with the Tate is strong, as he lived at Millbank, near the present building, after settling in London in 1667. Sir Nicholas said: "He is not a major name, but he was regarded as an important artist working in England in the early years of the 18th century." The claimants' father was a banker who was shot by the Nazis in 1937. They were able to escape on exit visas, but their mother could not afford one for herself and fled to Belgium illegally before its occupation by Germany. She remained in hiding in Brussels, moving from one safe house to another, surviving on scraps of food, which she exchanged for pictures that she had managed to take with her. The Griffier was among them. In 1944, she was betrayed and deported to the concentration camp at Malines in Belgium. After liberation, she was reunited with her children and died in 1968. The painting is believed to have been sold during the war to a gallery on the Avenue Louise in Brussels and it was in a private collection in south Germany before 1955. The Tate said that it was bought in good faith that year at a Cologne auction by the English dealers, Roland Browse and Delbanco. They sold it for UKP: 400 to the Tate's Friends, who in turn presented it to the Tate. The claimants had long been aware that their painting was at the Tate, but had felt helpless to act on their own. Recent events - including the return by Berlin of a Van Gogh to its original owner - had given them courage. Such claims are supported by organisations including the Holocaust Educational Trust and the Art Loss Register, which boasts an extensive computerised database of works that were looted by the Nazis. A spokesman for the Holocaust Educational Trust, which initiated the British galleries' investigation into their collections and which is handling the Tate case, said: "This could be an important precedent for the rest of the world following Berlin." Lord Janner, chairman of the trust, thanked the Tate for its "extremely prompt and honourable response" to its request for immediate action. "It is very important that the right thing is done quickly in these cases without the courts being involved," he added. "The claimants are mostly elderly and frail and want things settled as soon as possible." In Britain, the Courtauld Institute Galleries has faced a claim for a Dürer, but that picture was looted from a museum in Lvov, Poland, rather than from an individual. Peter Harclerode, a specialist in Nazi looted art and co-author of The Lost Masters, said: "A major can of worms has been opened . . . I'm told by the Art Loss Register that they are being inundated by dealers and galleries worried about the provenance of works. They have been inundated with requests to do scans of their database."
Catalogue of stolen works grows
A NUMBER of paintings have been the subject of claims that they were stolen by the Nazis from their victims.
Boulevard Montmartre, Spring 1897 by Pissarro has emerged as one of 143 important paintings owned by Max Silberberg, the Breslau businessman, who died in a concentration camp. It has been rediscovered in the Israel Museum. The painting could be claimed by his daughter-in-law, who lives in a modest semi-detached house in England. L'Olivette by Van Gogh was set to be returned to her by Berlin in a landmark ruling.
The Emperors Charlemagne and Sigismund by Dürer has been the subject of a dispute for the Courtauld Institute Galleries, which was given the drawing in 1978. It is among Dürers looted from a museum in Lvov for Hitler's private collection. John Murdoch, the director of the Courtauld, has dismissed the possibility of a claim, arguing that it was bought in good faith on the open market from a leading gallery.
Waterlilies, 1904 by Monet is thought to have been stolen for Joachim von Ribbentrop, Hitler's Foreign Minister. French authorities prevented it from being shown at an exhibition last year because they believed it had been taken by the Nazis. It has been claimed successfully from a museum in Normandy by descendants of Paul Rosenberg, a prominent collector in prewar Paris.
Master (Con) Artist
Painting forger Elmyr de Hory's copies are like the real thing
Jesse Hamlin, Chronicle Staff Writer Thursday, July 29, 1999
Buyer beware: There are fake de Hory fakes out there, not to be mistaken for genuine de Hory fakes. Those phony Picasso, Monet and Modigliani paintings on display at San Francisco's Terrain Gallery, with price tags in the $20,000 range, are definitely the work of the late Elmyr de Hory, the fabled Hungarian aristocrat who was one the century's great art forgers. So says their owner, John Pyle, who knew the dapper de Hory on the Spanish island of Ibiza in the swinging early 1960s. He says he bought the pictures from one of de Hory's infamous associates, Real Lessard, a decade after their international scam was exposed in 1967. People ask, ``Is that a real de Hory?'' says Pyle, an English antiques dealer with a roguish laugh, standing in front of a fine Modigliani fake. ``It's not a Modigliani, but is it a real de Hory? Yeah. Look at the quality. Have you seen anything of that quality that wasn't a Modigliani?'' Pyle saw some bogus de Hory forgeries at a Santa Fe gallery, and he could tell the difference.
read full story at:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/1999/07/29/DD21995.DTL
From: "Sally Shelton" Shelton.Sally@NMNH.SI.EDU
Subject: Philippine Star news: dinosaur eggs stolen -Forwarded
People, I have this bit of sad news to relate to you. I read it on the front page in today's issue (July 30) of the Philippine Star, after the Rush Hour, so I wasn't able to page it in for the Random Thoughts. Anyway, I tried to search for it at the Star's website to no avail, so I just retyped the entire article. Maybe you might stull be able to find it somewhere at http://www.philstar.com. After the article comes some comments from me. Annotations within the article are in brackets.
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Beware: Dinosaur eggs stolen from Malate antique shop
Maybe they're trying to hatch their own "Jurassic Park,"
Manila-style.
Or maybe they thought it was balut or boiled duck eggs.
Either way, two fossilized dinosaur eggs worth P280,000 [US$ 7,300] were reported stolen by unidentified thieves last Wednesday, according to thw owner of an antique shop in Malate, Manila. The million-year-old eggs, which have been fused together and have a combined weight of 20 kilograms, were discovered to be missing on Wednesday morning by shop owner Enrique Corpuz, found the padlock to his store on the second floor of the Arquiza Trade Center Building in Malate to be forced open. Aside from the dinosaur eggs, said to have once held a pair of baby triceratops, Corpuz reported that his complete set of Nikon cameras, his fax machine and an ivory fan were also reported stolen. The missing items were estimated to be worth a total of P476,000 [US$ 12,400]. "There is no other entrance or exit to the building, except through the gate where a guard is positioned," Corpuz told The STAR. "Our suspicion is that the burglars broke in when the day duty guard came and changed his uniform in the bathroom." It was only yesterday that Corpuz gave his statement to the Western Police District (WPD) Theft and Robbery investigstors, however. The guard on duty, Hernanis Binas, 34, of Grape General Services, told police that nobody entered or exited the building, located at 1214 Del Pillar st., corner Arquiza st., during his shift. This was reflected in the store's logbook, which was filled out between 7 p.m. and 7 a.m. Corpuz said the eggs, one and a half feet in diameter, were imported from China months back and have since been in display in his antique shop. Invesigator PO3 Gordius Alumbro said the thieves apparently also tried to enter other stalls in the building, as shown by damage to other padlocks on the second floor, but they were unsuccessful. A search for the eggs is ongoing, while Corpuz was instructed to make himself available for future questioning.
(Reported by Jose Aravilla)
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Were there Triceratops in China? I also remember watching PaleoWorld on Discovery Channel, where it was reported that ceratopsian fossils, dated to be younger then anywhere else were discovered in an area of Australia. For now, I am preparing an official reaction for the Paleontological Soceity of the Philippines, of which I am the assistant secretary.
Raymond Thaddeus C. Ancog
Mines and Geosciences Bureau
Philippines
From: "thomas flynn" drtomflynn@hotmail.com
Re: Mystery Van Gogh subject of international search
09:13 a.m. Jul 29, 1999
Eastern
By Elaine Lies
Sources in London maintain that there is no mystery about the Dr Gachet. It was bought some years ago by a Swiss private collector who keeps it in a bank vault. As is so often the case in such instances, the truth is often disappointingly banal.
Tom Flynn
more:
Missing van Gogh sold to U.S. buyer
July 30, 1999
TOKYO (AP) -- Vincent van Gogh's "Portrait of Dr. Gachet" isn't missing at all, a Japanese art broker said Friday. The broker said it's in the hands of an American, a buyer who apparently wants to keep a low profile. The most expensive painting ever sold went for $82.5 million at auction in 1990, but Ryoei Saito never put it on display. He died six years later, and it had been unclear if anyone has seen it since. There was speculation that it might have been cremated with Saito, but Kiyonori Yamamoto, president of the International Auction Organization in Tokyo, told The Associated Press on Friday that Fuji Bank sold it to an American in January or February. He refused to give the buyer's name or offer any other information about the person. A security guard at Fuji Bank's Tokyo office said no one was available to comment late Friday. An official at Fuji's New York office who refused to give his name said the U.S. arm of the bank wasn't involved in the deal and could not comment. Yamamoto said he did not broker the deal and that he never saw the painting. He did say, however, that the sale price was probably between 10 billion yen and 15 billion yen ($87 million and $130 million). Yamamoto's company helps cash-strapped Japanese businesses and individuals find buyers for art they purchased during the booming 1980s. The Japanese businessman who made the portrait of Van Gogh's doctor and friend the most costly picture in the world once said that he stored it in a warehouse after looking at it once. The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York tried to find the work for its current exhibition, but had no luck, The Philadelphia Inquirer reported Sunday. The exhibition catalog notes the absence with the words "present location unknown."
From: "Kathryn Haley Goldman"kathryn_haley_goldman@ushmm.org
Subject: Director of Security Position opening
Hello-
I'm not sure if this is the type of thing that is posted on your list, but my museum, the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum currently has a position opening for the Director of Security. The full position description is at http://www.ushmm.org/~dhr/vacancy/hmc9966.htmand I would be grateful if you could pass this information on.
Thank you-
Kate Haley Goldman
U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum
Tories call for inquiry into Armouries Museum debt
By Nigel Reynolds, Arts Correspondent
AN INQUIRY into the finances of the Royal Armouries Museum in Leeds was urged by the Tories yesterday to investigate whether taxpayers' money has been misspent. The call, by Peter Ainsworth, the Tory culture spokesman, came as it emerged that Chris Smith, the Culture Secretary, had offered the showpiece museum, built only three years ago but now grappling with debts of UKP: 20 million, an extra UKP: 1 million a year in an attempt to keep it open. Ministers are said to be alarmed by overspending and mismanagement but they view the collapse of the UKP: 42.5 million museum - built to rehouse thousands of artefacts from the Tower of London - as "appalling", particularly as it is in a run-down part of the city in urgent need of further regeneration. The museum's trustees held a marathon crisis meeting yesterday in an attempt to pull a rescue package together. With trustees divided over how to save the museum - constructed under the Private Finance Initiative - the talks may continue on Monday. Last night, the museum was refusing to comment on their progress. The museum was built with UKP: 20 million from the Treasury, UKP: 8.5 million from the city of Leeds and backed, under the PFI, by a private consortium which invested UKP: 12 million. The Telegraph disclosed that the debts of the private consortium, Royal Armouries International (RAI), had risen to UKP: 20 million and its bankers had threatened to declare the company insolvent this weekend unless a rescue effort was mounted. Under the PFI scheme, RAI recoups its investment by taking a slice of ticket, catering, retail and corporate entertainment income but this has been badly hit by poor attendance figures. The museum forecast a million visitors annually but the figure has been around 400,000 a year since opening and is believed to be running at 250,000 this year. The collapse of RAI would mean the museum closing indefinitely. The museum's trustees were hoping to hammer out a package yesterday to save RAI by generating more income but trustees and management are divided about how to do this without harming the taxpayer.
The museum said yesterday that it would remain open over the weekend.
Coolidge Ring Stolen
- (MONTPELIER) -- Police say the ring that marked President Calvin Coolidge's engagement has been stolen from the Vermont Historical Society in Montpelier. Silent Cal gave the ring to future bride Grace back in 1905. His son donated it to the museum in 1982. Police say the ring disappeared from a special exhibit cabinet sometime between Saturday and Tuesday.
Croatian museum stripped of its art treasures
By Charles A. Radin, Globe Staff, 07/30/99
VUKOVAR, Croatia - The cool, dark entry hall of the Gradski Musej, the city museum, opens onto sunny, spanking white galleries. But plenty is wrong with this picture. The trees outside the windows are charred and dying. Some doors out of the galleries open onto rooms in ruin. Most importantly, there are no pictures, at least none of the historic oil paintings with Croatian religious and cultural themes that were the heart of the museum's collection before the 1991 war of Croatian independence. ''The museum was shelled and caught fire,'' says Ruza Maric, its director. ''Some roofs fell in, and one part of the collection was destroyed. Just before the war, we packed the most valuable pieces and stored them in the cellars of the Franciscan monastery, but after the fall of the city these were found and transported to Novi Sad,'' across the Danube from Vukovar in the Serbian province of Vojvodina. The near-destruction of Vukovar made its residents' last stand one of the enduring horror stories of the war. Now, a year and a half after the city's return to Croatian sovereignty, repair workers have replaced most of the radiators, the steam lines, the electric cables that the Serbs stripped from the museum walls. But the continuing absence of the collection makes this a truly hollow restoration. On its walls hang only contemporary works donated by artists across Europe who heard of the museum's plight. ''We learned from Belgrade TV that our collection was taken to Novi Sad, and the minister of culture of Croatia wrote the minister of culture of Serbia to ask for its return,'' Maric says. ''He responded that our letter was a joke.'' Through UNICEF and UNESCO, the Croatians were able to compile lists of Vukovar pieces found in Novi Sad and other Serbian cities, but nothing has been returned. Vukovar residents also discovered plans, created by the Serbs during their four-year rule, to knock down the city's few surviving baroque buildings and replace them with buildings in the Byzantine style. ''I thought when the first shell hit that it was the height of human perversion to damage such beauty,'' Maric says. ''But it was only the beginning.''
This story ran on page A14 of the Boston Globe on 07/30/99.
c Copyright 1999 Globe Newspaper Company.
(Times of London)
Police find lost Dali
SPANISH police have found a missing Salvador Dalí painting in a museum owned by Captain John Moore, the artist's British former personal secretary (Giles Tremlett writes from Madrid). He is already under investigation as a suspected faker of the Spanish surrealist's work. Police said that Dali Painting Gala disappeared from New York's Knoedler art gallery in April 1974. They have not said whether they suspect Captain Moore of stealing it.
Police raided the millionaire's museum in Cadaqués, on the northeast coast, in April. They later discovered the picture was on the FBI's list of missing art works.
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