Museum Security website statistics; over 1000 hits per week

November 5, 1999

CONTENTS:

- MUSEUM CLEANING -schedules & guidelines
- Lost printed items and manuscripts
- $1m sale of fossils upsets experts
- release of Interpol CD, 2nd edition
- http://museum-security.org/elginmarbles.html Several links have been added to this page (and moderator's comment)
- Rare Vasari painting restored to Hungary
- Giuliani Handed A Setback
- Web scam nets books worth UKP.100,000
- Fire At Historic Home Probed
- Deaccessioning and Disposal of Museums Collections
- Greeks defend visit to study Elgin Marbles
- Books of the Library of the Counts of Ortenburg (Bavaria) sold

From: "Roger Smith" jollyroger@wave.co.nz
Subject:

MUSEUM CLEANING -schedules & guidelines

If any folk have written guidelines for their cleaning staff I would be very interested in receiving copies ( as attached files or in the BODY of an email message ).
We are re-drafting our Museum requirements and comparing schedules and conservation guidelines with other Museums would be of assistance. We DO have reference to several good texts on the subject but specific Museum documents are in short supply!
To save bandwidth could any assistance be sent to this email address: jollyroger@wave.co.nz
With thanks in advance
Roger

From: Rudolph Ellenbogen ellenbog@columbia.edu
Subject:

Rare Books and Manuscripts

From Jean Ashton
Director, Rare Book and Manuscript Library
Columbia University
ashton@columbia.edu
The following items were shipped to the Rare Book and Manuscript Library but never received. Since efforts to trace the box have proved futile, we would like to ask that dealers, librarians, collectors and others contact us if any of the materials are offered.

Printed items

  1. Austin,Alfred. Madonna's child. London 1895. 8vo, original gilt cloth. Inscribed: "To William Watson from Alfred Austin... Decr. 31 1895." From the library of John Lane, pencilled inscription.
  2. Biringuccio. La pirotechnia. Venice 1540. 4to. Half calf and marbled boards. First edition. Woodcuts.
  3. Eliot, George. Daniel Deronda. Edinburgh & London 1876. 8 v. in original printed parts. John Addington Symonds's copy, signed on each front wrapper.
  4. Joachimo de Fiore. Vaticinia. Venice : Porrus, 1589.
  5. Levertov, Denise. A tree telling of Orpheus. Los Angeles : Black Sparrow, 1968. Sm. folio, original wrappers. One of 250 copies signed.
  6. Ovid. Libri de arte amandi. Venice : Tacuinis de Tridino, 1509. Folio, vellum gilt. Woodcuts.
  7. Tennyson, Alfred. Poems. MDCCCXXX. MDCCCXXXIII. N. p. : Privately printed, 1862. 12mo. Original blue printed wrappers, uncut and partially unopened. First edition. One of perhaps only 150 copies printed. Pirated edition, edited by J. Dyke Campbell. Tinker 2060. Fine.
  8. Whittier, J. G. At sundown. Cambridge : Privately printed, 1890. 12mo. Pale green cloth, gilt-lettered, dark green morocco protective slipcase. One of 250 copies printed. Presentation copy inscribed: "With the grateful love of John G. Whittier, Oak Knoll, 12/22/1890." Bookplate of Frank Brewer Bemis, inscription noting "This copy came from estate of James T. Field."

Manuscript items

  1. Bentham, Jeremy. Autograph letter signed in full to M. Rowland Will[?], n. p., 18 July 1827. 1 page, 8vo. Concerning a Mr. Fry, whose services Bentham had hoped to engage.
  2. Channing, William Ellery. Autograph manuscript, verses entitled "The great singer," n. p., n. d. 1 page, 4to, several deletions and corrections in the text, within folder labeled in another conte
  3. Collins, Wilkie. Autograph letter signed to Asher & Co., Portman Square, London, 20 July 1872. 2 pages, 12mo. On publication of several works including the story "Miss or Mrs.?"
  4. Cooper, James Fenimore. Autograph letter signed pseudonymously "Truth," to a newspaper editor, n. p., n.d. [25 November 1844]. 1 page, 4to, newspaper clipping pasted to blank upper corner, early note at bottom explaining the circumstances of the letter, which concerns the disrespect with which literary figures are treated by the American public, referring to himself in the third person.
  5. Dallas, George M., Vice President. Autograph letter signed, to Auditor General David Man, n. p.[Philadelphia], n. d. [7 August 1824]. 1-1/4 pages, closely written.
  6. Garnett, Richard (1835-1906). Autograph letter signed, Hampstead, London, 7 April 1900. 4 pages, 8vo. Entirely on books and publishing.
  7. James, G. P. R. Autograph manuscript signed, the verses, "My avocation," dated at end 21 December 1835. 1 page, folio. Six six-line stanzas. Rare.
  8. Maximilian II. Letter signed ("Maximilian," with flourish), to Philip Brauen of Hanau, 30 August 1564. 2 pages, folio, address leaf.
  9. Meredith, George. Autograph manuscript signed, untitled verses, comprising 8 lines. 1 page, 4to.
  10. Poetry, English, early 18th century. Manuscript of 4 poems in an unknown hand, England, 1728-29, 13pp., 4to, written in a very clear, elegant hand.
  11. Rops, Felicien. Autograph letter signed, "Dimanche soir," n. d. 1 page, 12mo.
  12. Willis, Nathaniel Parker. Three autograph letters signed, to a banker, Mr. Weed, Idlewild, 13 November, 2 & 12 December 1861. Together 6 pages, 8vo, one letter on the preliminary blank of a printed letter from Willis replying to letter which he cannot answer with a personal reply. On his troubled finances.
  13. Willis, Nathaniel Parker. Eight printed checks accomplished and signed, 1858-1860. Each 1 page, a narrow oblong. Checks drawn on the Quassick Bank of Newburgh, N. Y.
(Times of London)

$1m sale of fossils upsets experts

FROM GRACE BRADBERRY IN LOS ANGELES
A CONTROVERSIAL auction of prehistoric fossils and dinosaur remains raised about $1 million (£613,000), including $46,000 for a baby ichthyosaur, a sea reptile that lived 190 million years ago. A 75-million-year-old dinosaur skull from a protoceratops, predecessor of the three-horned triceratops, fetched $21,850 at Butterfield and Butterfield on Sunset Boulevard. Museum experts have expressed concern that rare fossils are being sold and may never be seen by the public. Luis Chiappe, an associate curator at the Los Angeles Museum of Natural History, said: "The best place for them is in a museum where they can be researched, studied and then viewed by the public." David Herskowitz, a director at Butterfield & Butterfield, said: "We're not selling anything museums need and we don't sell anything that's new to science."

From: patrice cohen pcohen@pommard.jouve.fr
Subject:

release of Interpol CD, 2nd edition

The new version of the CD-ROM has been released on October 11th last. Many improvements have been done in order to facilitate the search (more columns in the list of artworks selected, country of theft or of discovery displayed in the artwork record, sub-criteria display improved). More than 200 new artworks have been added and 100 taken out of the database (works of art which have been recovered lately). And the country list is sorted by alphabetical order for the 3 languages.
The Babylon Translator has been included so as to provide the user with a simple tool of translation during the search. It is very useful for the descriptions of the artworks which are only available in English on the CD-ROM. Once it is installed, you have access to the translator directly by clicking on the word you wish to translate in French or Spanish (other languages such as German, Japanese, Italian, Portuguese, Hebrew and Dutch are also available on request). More on Babylon can be found at www.Babylon.com
additional information is available on line at:
http://www.jouve-diffusion.com/

http://museum-security.org/elginmarbles.html

Several links have been added to this page.

The past couple of years the discussion about the return of the Elgin Marbles, better called 'Parthenon Marbles', has restarted several times. As a matter of fact discussions about this matter have been going on ever since Elgin sent the first shipload of marbles to England. In those days several English newspapers objected to Elgin's activities. Lord Byron wrote a very famous poem about this matter, and the English government initially refused to buy the marbles. I know that this matter is regarded to be very complex and that returning the marbles to Greece also should have the consequence that the Munch Glyptothek returns it's collection of Greek statues to Greece. The same goes for The Louvre, and many more museums.

There is some information I want to add to this discussion:

While Elgin was very busy assembling marbles to be send to England Professor Carlyle borrowed valuable manuscripts from Greek monasteries. They were lent to him by the Patriarch of Constantinople on the written condition that Carlyle promised to return these manuscripts "when the purposes for which they were borrowed were completed, or whenever the Patriarch should demand them". These mansucripts ranged in date from the 10th to the 15th century and contained priceless texts of the New Testament. Six were taken from the monastery of Saint Saba in Syria; four came from the library of the Jerusalem Patriarch at Constantinople; and 18 were borrowed from various monasteries in the Prinsen Islands near Constantinople. The loan contract was co-signed by a secretary at the English Embassy (Elgin being the ambassador at the time), as a consequence of which the English government became part of the agreement. After the death of Professor Carlyle the manuscripts were deposited with the archbishop of Canterbury in the Library at Lambeth. In spite of numerous requests these manuscripts were not returned according the written agreement the English (government) made with the Constantinople Patriarch. It was not until after great political pressure, amongst others by Lord Elgin of all people (!), that only four manuscripts were returned. The archbishop of Canterbury refused to return the others, and up to this very moment these manuscripts are at the Lambeth library...
(Vrettos, 1997, pp.148 - 150)
Ton Cremers

Rare Vasari painting restored to Hungary

THE ARTS REPORT (email)
BUDAPEST - The Hungarian premier, Viktor Orban, returned yesterday from an official visit to Canada with a small painting that had been illegally exported from Hungary. It's a work titled The Marriage Feast at Cana by the 16th-century Florentine master Giorgio Vasari. It's valued at around $1-million. The painting was bought by the Hungarian Prince Miklos Esterhazy in the early 18th century and was later donated to Hungary's Museum of Fine Arts. During the Second World War, the Vasari painting was hidden along with other treasures in the underground safe of the Hungarian Ministry of Finance. In 1944 or 1945 it was stolen, but not taken to Nazi Germany or to the Soviet Union like thousands of other paintings. It turned up unnoticed in a state-owned antique shop in 1961 and a person bought it for a paltry sum and illegally exported it to Canada.

Art historian/painter Giorgio Vasari.
In 1964, the Budapest Museum of Fine Arts got wind of its whereabouts and launched efforts to regain the Vasari. During Orban's visit Prime Minister Jean Chretien intervened and obtained the painting from Montreal's Musee des Beaux Arts and expedited the paperwork that allowed Orban to take it back to Budapest.

Giuliani Handed A Setback

- (NEW YORK) --
New York City voters handed Mayor Rudolph Giuliani a sound defeat yesterday, voting down proposed changes to the historic City Charter that he argued would serve as a legacy to his achievements in office. The proposed changes, which included permanent limits on tax increases and city spending, were defeated by a margin of three-to-one, said officials with the city Board of Elections. Giuliani, the likely Republican contender in next year's U-S Senate race, had pushed hard for the proposed package of 14 reforms that were put before voters in an all-or-nothing slate. The Giuliani-backed campaign to promote the revisions spent about a million dollars in public and private funds. But opponents, including unions and good government groups, waged an intense campaign as well, arguing the measures could bind the hands of future administrations, diminish the role of the City Council, and force hikes in property taxes. Yesterday's vote was the second blow to the Mayor's authority this week. On Monday, a federal judge ordered the mayor and city restore public funding that was cut off to the Brooklyn Museum of Art over an exhibit that the mayor found offensive.

Web scam nets books worth UKP.100,000

BY RUSSELL JENKINS
DETECTIVES are questioning an unemployed man accused of pretending to be an academic to steal books worth more than UKP.100,000 by e-mail over the Internet. He would order the books, some valued at UKP.300 each, from the websites of specialist booksellers who sent them without credit card checks. When police raided the 40- year-old man's terraced home in Deeplish, near Rochdale, they found his bedroom and living room piled high with thousands of books. Detective Inspector Martin Jeffs, in charge of the investigation, said: "This man purports to speak 16 languages but even so, he could not have been able to read them all. The languages range from Arabic to Chinese. Even if he could read them all, he would still be reading them when he was a hundred years old." Two police officers at Rochdale police headquarters are employed full time cataloguing about 2,000 tomes. The alleged fraud was uncovered last week when an American booksellers contacted a Dutch counterpart via e-mail to check the bona fides of a customer.

From: OUP WWW account oup@OUP.CO.UK
Subject:

ToC for International Journal of Cultural Property 8-02

Table of Contents for International Journal of Cultural Property, Volume 8, Issue 2: 1999.
Available on the World Wide Web at:
http://www3.oup.co.uk/intjcp/hdb/Volume_08/Issue_02/
The Elgin Marbles: questions of stewardship and accountability, W St Clair, pp. 391-521. Details:
http://www3.oup.co.uk/intjcp/hdb/Volume_08/Issue_02/080391.sgm .abs.html
In brief. Settlement reached in Deep Sea Research, Inc. v. The Brother Jonathan, et al., CJ Shapreau, pp. 522-523. Details:
http://www3.oup.co.uk/intjcp/hdb/Volume_08/Issue_02/080522.sgm .abs.html
In brief. The California Court of Appeal's second decision in Naftzger v. The American Numismatic Society, CJ Shapreau, pp. 524-525. Details:
http://www3.oup.co.uk/intjcp/hdb/Volume_08/Issue_02/080524.sgm .abs.html
Document. Diplomatic conference on the Second Protocol to the Hague Convention for the protection of cultural property in the event of armed conflict, The Hague, Netherlands (March 15-26, 1999), J Hladik, pp. 526-529. Details:
http://www3.oup.co.uk/intjcp/hdb/Volume_08/Issue_02/080526.sgm .abs.html
Document. Second Protocol to the Hague Convention of 1954 for the protection of cultural property in the event of armed conflict The Hague (March 26, 1999), xxx, pp. 530-549.
Conference report. Economics and heritage conservation: concepts, values, and agendas for research, Getty conservation institute, Los Angeles (December 8-11, 1998), R Mason, pp. 550-562. Details:
http://www3.oup.co.uk/intjcp/hdb/Volume_08/Issue_02/080550.sgm .abs.html
Conference report. Who owns culture? The international conference on cultural property and patrimony at the Casa Italiana, Columbia University New York City#Co-sponsored by the national arts journalism program and the Italian academy for advanced studies in America (April 15-17, 1999), S Urice, pp. 563-567. Details:
http://www3.oup.co.uk/intjcp/hdb/Volume_08/Issue_02/080563.sgm .abs.html
Conference report. Second meeting of governmental experts to consider the draft convention on the protection of underwater cultural heritage, Paris, UNESCO Headquarters (April 19-24 1999), PJ O'Keefe, pp. 568-574.
Conference report. What kind of underwater heritage convention do we need?, H Shuzhong, pp. 575-577. Details:
http://www3.oup.co.uk/intjcp/hdb/Volume_08/Issue_02/080575.sgm .abs.html
Chronicles (January 1999-June 1999), K Siehr, pp. 578-598. Details:
http://www3.oup.co.uk/intjcp/hdb/Volume_08/Issue_02/080578.sgm .abs.html
Book review, LV Prott, pp. 599-604. Details:
http://www3.oup.co.uk/intjcp/hdb/Volume_08/Issue_02/080599.sgm .abs.html
Books received, K Siehr, pp. 605-611. Details:
http://www3.oup.co.uk/intjcp/hdb/Volume_08/Issue_02/080605.sgm .abs.html

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From: Jack Sullivan jacksull@mindspring.com
Subject: [Fire Safe Heritage]:

Fire At Historic Home Probed

Fire At Historic Home Probed - (HANOVER, VA) -- The historic Garthright house in Hanover has been damaged by fire. Officials aren't sure yet how much damage was done, but they say it took crews about a half-hour to get the flames under control. Workers stripping paint from a window are blamed for the fire. This house was used as a hospital during the Civil War.

From: Klaus Graf graf@uni-koblenz.de
Subject:

Deaccessioning and Disposal of Museums Collections

A Bibliography Deaccessioning and Disposal of Museum Collections (by Ulrike Unfug, Berlin) is now online:
http://www.uni-koblenz.de/~graf/unfug.htm
Dr. Klaus Graf
Virtual Library Law of Museums:
http://www.uni-koblenz.de/~graf/museumr.htm

(Times of London)

Greeks defend visit to study Elgin Marbles

BY DALYA ALBERGE, ARTS CORRESPONDENT
THE Greeks emphasised yesterday that their decision to send a delegation to the British Museum to examine whether the Elgin Marbles had been damaged by overcleaning 60 years ago had nothing to do with their campaign to see them returned. Victoria Solomonidis, the Greek cultural attaché, defended her nation against an attack by Michael Daley, the director of ArtWatch UK, in yesterday's Times. She dismissed his claim that the Greeks had treated some of their own sculptures even more harshly less than 20 years later and in full knowledge of the earlier controversy. Pointing to photographic evidence showing Greek workmen scraping sculptures on the Parthenon's sister temple, the Hephaesteum, he had said that the Greeks used steel chisels that were much harder than the copper chisels used by the British Museum. The museum accepts that its 1937-38 restoration, which it eventually halted, had been misguided. It had been prompted by Lord Duveen, who was funding a purpose-built classical gallery to house the marbles in the museum, and contemporary records suggest that he had bullied staff into attempting to whiten them by scraping. Ms Solomonidis said that there was a world of difference between Lord Duveen whitening a monument "because you prefer them that way" and conserving with the best means available. She said that the Greek Ministry of Culture was researching its files to find out what happened. After their visit, the delegation of scientists and archaeologists will submit their findings to the Secretary of State for Culture. The museum is staging a conference later this month to enable experts to examine the full facts. The issue of restitution, Ms Solomonidis said, "is an issue of its own, an issue between two friendly nations. We are sure it will be resolved in the near future." The Parthenon, was a national symbol. "We are not requesting the restitution of anything else. We don't want anything else. "When the day comes, it will be a gesture of good will. The parthenon is the symbol of our national identity."

From: Klaus Graf graf@uni-koblenz.de
Subject:

Books of the Library of the Counts of Ortenburg (Bavaria) sold

Count Joachim von Ortenburg (1539-1600) and his territory 1563 joined the Protestant movement. He is regarded one of the major leaders of Lutherism in 16th century Bavaria. His library may be considered one of the most important source of cultural and religious history. In the eighties the manuscripts of the count's library in the Tambach castle were sold to the antiquarian trade. Some medieaval items were acquired by the National Library in Berlin. Several thousand items from the 18th to 20th century 1966 went as a permanent loan to the University Library of Regensburg. Recently numerous items from Count Joachim's estate have been auctioned at Venator & Hanstein in Cologne. At Auction 79, September 20-21, 130 volumes were from the Ortenburger Castle Library. The auction descriptions show that many of these 16th century books have long inscriptions by Count Joachim and his heirs. This information is very important for the study of the regional noble culture, and will no longer be available when these books are scattered all over the world. It is beyond understanding that Bavarian institutes did not try and put a lot of energy in safeguarding this collection that is so important for the regional history. The Bavarian National Library in Munich only acquired three books for it's collection of German Printed Material (items 418, 450, and 467). The National Library in Coburg (Tambach is located near by Coburg) did not acquire one single item.
http://www.uni-koblenz.de/~graf/#kulturgut

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