October 7, 1999
CONTENTS:
- Interpol Conference on stolen art
- issues museums face when they discover the provenance of a piece of art in their collections is in dispute (Christa Kirby)
- Spiegelman arrested again
- New design Museum Security Website (Do send your comments)
- A future in Museum Security/Investigations?
- Artist Helps Nab Accused Gallery Robber, His Sketch of Suspect Leads to Swift Arrest
- Ancient art traffickers rob history for millions, Representatives from several Latin American countries met last week to tackle the growing problem.
Interpol Conference on stolen art.
Dear subscribers,
Just returned from the Lyon Interpol conference on stolen art. It was a very informative and sometimes quite revealing conference. This weekend I will work on a report about this conference. I have asked several speakers to allow publication of their presentations on the Museum Security Website. At http://museum-security.org/lyon1999-conference.htmlyou will find the first presentation:
Protection of cultural heritage in Slovak Republic based on computerized documentation, by PhDr. Jana Bahurinská, Director of Information and Documentation Center of Slovak National Gallery, Bratislava, Slovak Republic.
Ton Cremers
From: Christa Kirby clk199@psu.edu
Subject: issues facing museums when they discover the provenance of a piece of art in their collections is in dispute
To Whom It May Concern:
I am a student at the Dickinson School of Law in Carlisle, PA. I am writing a casenote for the Dickinson Law Review concerning the difficult issues facing museums when they discover the provenance of a piece of art in their collections is in dispute. I am particularly interested in learning whether museums have internal guidelines concerning what to do in this situation. Would you be willing to send me any information you may have on the subject? I would greatly appreciate your help.
Thank you for your time and your help.
Sincerely
Christa L. Kirby
address:
234 W. Pomfret Street, Apt. 2A
Carlisle, PA 17013
email:
clk199@psu.edu
From: "Montgomery, Leigh" Montgomeryl@csps.com
Subject: Spiegelman arrested
Hartford Courant online editon.
The Christian Science Monitor Library
Man denies pawning documents
STAMFORD, Conn. (AP) A convicted thief has pleaded innocent to charges of trying to sell $250,000 worth of stolen documents signed by Thomas Edison and Thomas Jefferson to a Greenwich dealer. A Superior Court judge in Stamford said Monday there is probable cause to pursue the case against Daniel Spiegelman, who was arrested Friday. Spiegelman, 35, from New York City, was on parole following his conviction for stealing $1.3 million worth of historical documents from Columbia University's Rare Collection Library in 1994, authorities said. The items recovered Friday in Greenwich were from the university collection, police said. Spiegelman has been charged with first-degree larceny, third-degree forgery, criminal impersonation and interfering with an officer. Spiegelman was being held on $250,000 bond. Police say Spiegelman tried to sell rare and historically significant documents signed by Edison and Jefferson as well as James Monroe and Andrew Jackson. The owner of Alexander Autographs Inc. in Greenwich, called police after he recognized the items as stolen from the Columbia library. Many other items in the collection were recovered by the FBI following Spiegelman's first arrest, which occurred after Dutch police in the Netherlands extradited Spiegelman back to the United States.
AP-ES-10-05-99 0728
From: Catherine Barnes cbarnes2@ix.netcom.com
Subject: Re Speigelman arrest
I thought members of this list might like to know that ExLibris had a part in the latest arrest of Daniel Speigelman, previously convicted of stealing material from Columbia University's library and arrested again this week on charges of trying to sell more of the stolen items. Some time ago, after Speigelman's first arrest, the special collections librarian at Columbia posted a notice here saying that some of the items Speigelman was believed to have stolen had not been recovered, and she gave a website which listed all of the missing items. The head of the Security Committee for the Professional Autograph Dealers Association (PADA) saw that notice and distributed it, along with the full list of the missing items, to all members of the Association. The dealer whom Speigelman approached this week is a member of PADA, and he was reminded of the security alert when Speigelman started explaining what he had to sell. He called Columbia to check on the missing items; what Speigelman was offering matched its list; and the arrest followed. I don't know if everything still missing from Columbia has been recovered, but it seems that a nice sizeable group of documents has been returned. As the security committee chair for PADA, I explain all this not to toot our horn, but as a great example of how beneficial it can be for libraries and archives to get word of missing manuscripts and other rare materials out to the community of dealers in these fields. So please keep this info on file: The Security Committee of the Professional Autograph Dealers Association can be reached at this toll-free number 1-888-338-4338, or by mail: c/o Catherine Barnes, P.O. Box 27782, Philadelphia, PA 19118. We are anxious to have lists of autograph and manuscript material that has been long gone as well as reports of newly missing material.
Thanks.
Catherine Barnes
New design Museum Security Website
(Do send your comments)
From: Marred@aol.com
Date: Tue, 5 Oct 1999 14:49:34 EDT
Subject: Your website!
To: securma@xs4all.nl
I was always impressed with your site and the available resources and additional links.(Especially concerning WW2 claims and proceedings). Now, I have to say, since you changed your format, your site has become not user friendly, even difficult to navigate. You indicate for example, a site such as http://museum-security.org/ww2, which is not accessible. What has happened to your prior format?
This is horrible.
Sorry, I am really disappointed.
Marguerite D'Ayala-Redler, Museums Study Program,
New York University
Hello Marguerite D'Ayala-Redler,
Thank you for your feedback. Do forgive me that I had to smile reading your message. Apparently it is almost impossible to satisfy all our subscribers and website visitors. The past couple of months I received a few (not many) critical remarks about the former website lay-out. I even paid someone for improving the website design. Now the navigation bars will stay on top to enable people to find their way about more easily. I just checked the link you are referring to. I works okay on my side of the ocean. On the right hand side top navigation bar there is a link to WW2 art recovery leading to the page you want to consult. I do appreciate you comments. On the other hand I am very pleased with the present design and really consider it an improvement. Your message will be forwarded to the mailinglist for I really want to know what our subscribers' reactions are.
best regards,
Ton Cremers
From: astonr astonr@ix.netcom.com
Subject: A future in Museum Security/Investigations?
To anyone on the list with a suggestion, or two:
I would like to persue a new career in the security side of the museum world, preferably in the San Francisco Bay Area, as it is where I live. Any leads, suggestions, references, or resources, would be most appreciated.
Up until recently, I worked for a number of years as a Paramedic. My past education includes: a BSc in Biology; a year of a Graduate Museum Studies Program which, unfortunately, I was unable to complete due to the incompatability with my employment schedule and the program requirements, at the time.
This is but a small portion of my extremely diverse background. Please contact me off-list at: astonr@ix.netcom.com
Hopefully,
Robert Aston
http://www2.netcom.com/~astonr/home.html
Artist Helps Nab Accused Gallery Robber
His Sketch of Suspect Leads to Swift Arrest
By Robert Anthony Phillips
NEW BEDFORD, Mass. (APBnews.com) -- Memo to thieves: Don't steal from a gallery where artists hang out. One might draw a sketch of you and give it to the cops, which may lead to your arrest. That's exactly what happened Sunday when a man walked into Gallery X and allegedly stole a plastic jug stuffed with cash donations. Authorities said John E. Hoglund II, 34, made the mistake of stopping to chat with local artist Joe Rapoza minutes before swiping the jug. After he fled, Rapoza drew a sketch of the suspect and gave it to the cops, police said. "We get there and this artist hands us this perfect sketch of the suspect," Lt. Paul Desrosiers told APBnews.com. "We took the sketch, canvassed the neighborhood and found the guy in a local gin mill about four blocks away." Hoglund, who had told Rapoza that he was "down and out" and homeless before taking the jug, is being held in lieu of $1,000 bond on a charge of unarmed robbery, Desrosiers said. The jug probably contained more than $150, gallery officials said.
Asked for water
The case of the stolen jug began Sunday at around noon when Rapoza, a 69-year-old retired high school art teacher and illustrator for Boeing Co., was inside the gallery on duty. Rapoza told APBnews.com that Hoglund came in and started spinning a tale of woe. Hoglund then went outside for a cigarette and came back inside the gallery, asking if he could take a drink of water from a nearby cooler. "I said 'sure' and walked back into the gallery," said Rapoza, who was in charge of the gallery that day. "Then I heard someone running down the stairs." The jug and Hoglund were gone, Rapoza said.
Theft causes commotion
Rapoza said he called police and gallery president Rose Wright. While he was waiting for them to arrive, Rapoza said he made a sketch of the suspect and gave it to police officers who had come to the scene. The search for the jug and the culprit caused quite a bit of commotion. Wright said she and her husband, along with several police officers, a state trooper and assorted skateboarders and bicyclists, scoured the neighborhood for both Hoglund and the jug, and there was confusion as to which way the suspect had headed. Police, carrying the sketch of Hoglund, later located him inside the bar. However, the missing jug wasn't with him. Wright said she recruited "several skateboarders and bicyclists" to continue searching the area.
'For once, the good guys won'
Wright said a police officer located the jug hidden under some garbage in a yard. A hole had been poked in the side, and all the money was missing, Wright said. She said police later returned $148.75 of the money to the cash-strapped gallery. "That money was important," Wright said. "We are hanging on by our fingernails." "For once the good guys won," Rapoza said.
Robert Anthony Phillips is an APBnews.com staff writer (robert.phillips@apbnews.com).
Ancient art traffickers rob history for millions
Representatives from several Latin American countries met last week to tackle the growing problem.
Catherine Elton
Special to The Christian Science Monitor
CUZCO, PERU When the Rev. Jorge Chacón entered his chapel on the outskirts of Cuzco to say mass last week, he could scarcely believe his eyes. Just the night before he had left the adobe chapel alongside the San Sebastian Church in perfect order. But when he arrived the next morning, all that was left of a 17th-century, seven-painting series on the resurrection of Lazarus were a few fringes of canvas clinging to empty wooden frames. Fr. Chacón couldn't say mass that day. "I just wasn't myself, and I was crying and very upset," he recalls. "This is a great loss. These paintings have great historical and cultural value for our people." Ironically this robbery took place just a few days before a regional workshop, called "Fighting the Traffic of Objects of Cultural Heritage," was held in Cuzco last week. The event brought together representatives of government and private cultural institutes from all over Latin America as well as representatives from art and antiquities units of Interpol, the FBI, and Scotland Yard. The meeting explored ways to stem this growing contraband trade. The trafficking of cultural artifacts from Latin America - principally pre-Columbian pieces and colonial-era art - brings in hundreds of millions of dollars a year. Across the continent, common criminals and poverty-stricken campesinos rob churches and loot the tombs of ancestors. Traffickers smuggle the goods out of the country and into Europe and the US, where they are often sold for small fortunes to private collectors and even museums. This type of traffic has taken its toll on other nations too. In countries like Bangladesh and Mali, examples of traditional local folk art are difficult, if not impossible, to find. This is what officials in Latin America want to avoid. "We will suffer a terrible loss of our cultural heritage, and we will lose our self-esteem and our appreciation for what is ours, if we don't start concerning ourselves with defending our identity and our past," says Lucia Astudillo, Ecuador's representative to the International Council of Museums.
Combatting trafficking
This trade has been difficult for countries in the region to battle. One of the biggest obstacles is loophole-ridden and lax laws. "Our penal code doesn't contemplate sanctions for traffickers. There are small monetary fines, but there are no provisions for jail time like they have in France," says Maria Isabel Gomez of Colombia's Culture Ministry. While good laws and strong enforcement are necessary, experts say the real problem is education and awareness. "You have to teach people that this is their history, and it belongs in their country. You have to start with very young people and make this part of their education from the beginning," says Linda Poole, of the Office of Cultural Affairs of the Organization of American States. "As they say, if you rob someone's history you are robbing their future." Conference participants agreed on the need to create art registries and train police and customs agents to fight these crimes. In Peru, 90 percent of the objects confiscated in Lima's international airport are souvenir replicas, while many true artifacts slip by customs. Mexico, on the other hand, has had more success in recovering stolen patrimony since it incorporated antiquities identification into police training curricula. A cooperative sting
A memorandum of understanding between the US and Peru, officials say, has helped fight this traffic. FBI agent Robert Whitman attended the conference to give a firsthand account of the significance of such bilateral agreements. Mr. Whitman posed as an art dealer two years ago in Philadelphia and recovered a priceless piece looted from Peru's Royal Sipan tomb, considered the most important archaeological find in the Americas. The piece, which was being sold for $1.6 million, is now back in Peru. Implicated in the case were an ex-official from the Peruvian government, an ex-police colonel, and the Panamanian general consul in New York, who used a diplomatic pouch to get the piece into the United States. Bolivia also has a memorandum of understanding with the US; Ecuador is working toward one as well. Nonetheless, there is still a long way to go. "We are talking about a nonrenewable resource; the more scarce it becomes, the more expensive the pieces will be, and the stronger the traffic will get," says Rafael Goñi with the National Anthropology Institute in Buenos Aires. "That is why we need to find ways to work together," he adds.
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