PARIS -- In hindsight, Helmut Rumbler concedes that his defenses were down when he flew to Venice on June 26 expecting to sell 14 valuable prints to a wealthy Italian collector. It was his wedding anniversary, and Rumbler, a Frankfurt art dealer, was accompanied by his wife. "There was a full moon, we were in a good mood, and we had not been able to sell the prints in a year, so we were not really cautious," he recalled sheepishly. He and his wife, along with a gallery assistant, Matthias Kunze, were picked up at their hotel on the Lido and taken by water taxi to an apartment in a 17th-century palazzo. They were met by a young man, supposedly the collector's son, who said the collector had been called away to a hospital, where his mother was dying. Two hours later the collector called to apologize and suggest meeting the following day. Rumbler agreed and left the prints in exchange for a receipt. "The apartment was quite well furnished and looked good," Rumbler said. "I also remember Matthias, who speaks Italian, whispering to us, 'You know, for Italian men, the mother is very important."' And yet, as he looks back on how the prints were stolen from under his nose, Rumbler can at least be consoled by the fact that he was not the only European dealer defrauded that weekend in a sophisticated scam organized by at least two Italian men. British, German and Dutch dealers were also persuaded to leave art objects with the men pending completion of a sale. The men and the art objects then promptly disappeared. So far about a dozen dealers are believed to have been swindled out of paintings, prints, jewelry, books and antique clocks worth $1 million. Since July warnings about the Italian operators have been circulated among gallery owners in Europe and the United States. A comprehensive article about the racket is to appear in the September issue of The Art Newspaper, a influential monthly published in London, Rome and Paris. What most of these dealers have in common is that all had stands at the Maastricht Fine Arts Fair, held annually in that city in the southern Netherlands and attended by 60,000 buyers. In each case the dealer was called during the week of June 20 by an Italian who gave his name as Cenni and expressed interest in specific artworks he had seen at the Maastricht fair. The man further explained that he lived in Canada but would be visiting Venice the following weekend, and he asked for the art objects to be delivered urgently to him there, since they were intended as a wedding present for his daughter. When a sales price was agreed upon, it was then arranged for the dealers or their envoys to take the objects to Venice, where payment would be made. Evert Douwes, an Amsterdam art dealer, was telephoned by the Italian on June 22 about two paintings that had been on display in Maastricht. The man spun the now-familiar tale of needing a wedding present in Venice that weekend. After negotiations, "Cenni" agreed to buy "Swags of Flowers," by Jan van den Hecke, for $70,000 and to consider on approval a still life by Jasper Geerards for $70,000. They were then taken to Venice by a shipper who delivered them to the palazzo on the afternoon of June 26, just hours before Rumbler would visit the apartment. "This 'Cenni' knew a lot about the paintings," Douwes said in a telephone interview. "He had seen them in Maastricht. He said his wife had visited the gallery here. If I had gone myself, perhaps I might have been suspicious. But I was in Russia, and the shipper faced a difficult decision. "When 'Cenni' calls to say he can't come because he's with his dying mother, the shipper asks himself, 'Do I take the paintings and alienate a collector?' He left the paintings and was given a receipt." The Italian team was having a fruitful weekend. Two hours before the Douwes paintings were handed over, a German book vendor from Stuttgart left two books in the apartment after "Cenni" failed to show up. The previous day Derek Johns, a London-based dealer in Old Masters, who remembered meeting "Cenni" in Maastricht, had an assistant carry a view of San Marco by Giacomo Guardi to Venice. And again, after hearing the story about the dying mother, she left the painting in the apartment in exchange for a receipt, although she also saw documents identifying the young man as "Massimo Cenni." The Art Newspaper reported that an unidentified jewelry dealer took antique jewelry to Venice later the same day in response to a call from an Italian who had seen some examples in Maastricht. As with the others, the dealer was booked into a luxury hotel, picked up in a water taxi and taken to the apartment. The "son" picked three pieces of diamond jewelry, said by the newspaper to be worth less than $100,000, and the father -- again, called away to tend to his dying mother -- approved the purchase by telephone. The dealer was given a check, which promptly bounced. Like several of the dealers, Rumbler said he was impressed by the knowledge of art that "Cenni" showed. "He sounded serious," he said. "He called for a print by Lucas van Leyden and then said it was too expensive and opted for Christoffel Jagher's 'Rest on the Flight to Egypt."' It was almost 24 hours after Rumbler handed over this print and others that he realized he had been duped and reported the crime to Italian police, who discovered that the apartment had been rented for just one week and had already been vacated. Rumbler also described the theft in a fax to leading European print dealers, including Christopher Mendez in London. On July 6 two young Italians tried to sell Mendez 10 of Rumbler's prints, and he immediately called police. The men, reportedly from Rimini, were arrested, but they were quickly released on bail -- neither was the elder "Cenni" -- and have since disappeared. Four of Rumbler's prints, as well as other art objects stolen in Venice, are still missing. Some dealers did not fall into the trap. Charles Roelofsz, an Amsterdam dealer, was called by "Cenni" on June 23 about a 17th-century French oil, but when told that it could not be shipped to Venice by the weekend, the Italian asked for two other paintings. "He said it was urgent because he had to leave for Hong Kong," Roelofsz recalled. "I became suspicious. He had changed his story. I didn't go." The Art Newspaper reported that the same week, two New York art dealers, Richard Feigen and Otto Naumann, heard from an Italian who said he needed a painting in Venice for a wedding present. The newspaper said Feigen became suspicious and broke off negotiations, and Naumann canceled his flight to Venice at the last minute after he, too, became suspicious. Neither Feigen nor Naumann returned calls to their offices on Friday. While police in Italy, Germany and Britain are investigating the swindle, Rumbler and Douwes said they were most disturbed by evidence that several dealers had been cheated by the Italians in Milan earlier this year but did not announce the crime. Not only would he and other victims have been warned, Rumbler said, but galleries would also have been alerted to look out for the stolen objects.
For a century, the bells a Russian czar gave to Orthodox Holy Trinity Cathedral have survived earthquakes and fires - but over the weekend three of the bells fell into the hands of thieves. "We never imagined somebody actually stealing them," said choir director Robert A. Parent. "Why would anybody want to? I cannot imagine what kind of value they would have to people other than to the church itself and to San Francisco." In fact, members of the church considered the missing bells priceless. They were the smallest bells in a group of five given in 1888 by Russian Czar Alexander III to the church, the oldest Eastern Orthodox parish in the continental United States. Cast in Moscow, the heavy bells adorned with decorative scrollwork are believed to be unique in the United States and rare even in Russia, where many bells were melted into ammunition during World War II. A silver alloy was used to cast them, providing an unusually pure, distinct tone not found in modern-day bells, said the rector, the Rev. Victor Sokolov. "It's an art form," said Sokolov. "Nothing exists today of this caliber anywhere." The church and its bells are a popular attraction in The City. Guides regularly begin their tours by listening to the bells every Sunday at 10 a.m. at Van Ness Avenue and Green Street. Choir members noticed the bells missing when they prepared to ring them before the 6 p.m. service on Saturday. At first they thought painters might have moved them, but an extensive search of the building failed to turn them up. After a call to the painting company confirmed that workers had not moved the bells, church officials notified police.
On Mon, 30 Aug 1999, Christine Mouw wrote:
Hello all!
Will folks please share with me their current methods for marking accession numbers on rare and valuable books? We seem to be divided over here between those who want to pencil the number softly in the back cover or last page, and those who want the nu mber written on a piece of acid-free paper and inserted between the pages. Comments? Suggestions? Please reply to me off list if you're shy. Christine Mouw Assistant Curator Herbert Hoover Presidential Library-Museum West Branch, Iowa 52358 christine.mouw@hoover.nara.gov