Museum Security Network

Czech police present web portal of stolen artifact pictures

Czech police present web portal of stolen artifact pictures
vydáno: 06.01.2010, 12:53 | aktualizace: 06.01.2010 13:56

Prague – Czech police today presented a new web portal with a database of stolen works of art which is designed to help police in the search of missing artifacts and prevent art theft, Pavla Kopecka, from the police headquarters, told CTK.
The information on the portal is available in several languages. In the future, it might be used by Interpol, Kopecka said.
Hundreds of thousands of works of art have disappeared from Czech churches alone since 1989.
Digital photographs and word descriptions of stolen artifacts are part of the database. An Interpol standard form which is used for the description of stolen items which are being looked for is part of the portal.
“There are about 19,000 missing artifacts in the database,” deputy police president Viktor Cech said today, adding that the general public could also access the portal via the police main website.
There are also 176 artifacts in the database which have been found but whose owners are sought, Cech said.
“Police often find missing items but it is very difficult to find their original owners,” Cech said.
He said 1086 stolen artifacts have been returned to the Czech Republic via Interpol.
It is possible to look for the stolen items according to various criteria, Cech said, adding that the descriptions of the missing works of art were available in four languages – Czech, English, German and Russian.
In 2008, Czech police put up a tender for the modernisation of the old system of stolen artifacts registration which was established in 1993.
The Techniserv company which won the tender has upgraded the system and added an additional portal technology.
The ministries of finance and culture and the church participated in the upgrading.
At present, support of a fast similarity search for image information not only within the Czech system but also in the entire Internet network is being developed.
“It will allow to search for stolen Czech artifacts across the world via the Internet, on the auctions´ portals and among antique shops´ ads placed on the Internet,” Kopecka said.
A direct connection of the system to the Interpol is also also being prepared, she said.
The police have received the funds necessary for upgrading the old artifact registration system from Norway´s cultural heritage fund, which is the only fund that supports the protection of cultural heritage in other countries.
About 90 percent of 5500 Czech sacral buildings have been burgled and robbed since 1989. Half of Gothique and Renaissance artifacts from the Czech national heritage and one-third of Baroque works of art have disappeared, Vladimir Kelner, head of the Diocesan Conservation Centre at Prague Archbishopric, said.
It is an irreplaceable loss of people´s historical memory, Kelner added.
According to the police presidium, 39 art and antique shops were burgled with robbery in 2008 of which five cases have been cleared.
Autor: ČTKwww.ctk.cz