FRANKFURT, Germany (AP) - Three men were sentenced Friday in connection with the robbery of three significant 19th-century paintings from a Frankfurt exhibition gallery. The paintings, which have not been recovered, were taken from the Schirm gallery in July 1994. One painting was by Casper David Friederich, a master of German romanticism whose landscapes often contained religious symbolism. Two were by J.M.W. Turner, one of England's greatest painters known for his landscapes. The judge sentenced ringleader Stephan Weiss, 31, to 11 years in prison and his accomplice, Yusef Tuerk, 29, to eight - punishments more severe than prosecutors had requested. Stefan Hoefler, convicted of helping try to sell the paintings, was sentenced to 21/2 years. Prosecutors said the robbers gained access to the Schirn gallery by shutting off the alarm system and entering through the freight elevator. They knocked out a guard, tied him up and took his keys before stealing the paintings and escaping in a van. The culprits left fingerprints on the emergency exit and later tried to sell the Turners to an undercover police investigator. Two other men charged in the case were acquitted.
UP TO a quarter of the artefacts to be sold at the "big four" auction houses over the next month have ambiguous labels that could confuse buyers. Phrases such as "in the style of" an antique period are used in catalogues to describe items that could have been made at any time up to the present. The government is now to review such descriptions as it prepares to update legal safeguards. Kim Howells, consumer affairs minister, said: "It is time we reviewed the protection available to people bidding at auctions." The move follows a Sunday Times investigation, which found that leading British auction houses are valuing modern reproduction artefacts as antique. It uncovered evidence that Christie's, Bonhams and Phillips are risking their reputations by selling new goods as old to unsuspecting customers. Bonhams judged a reproduction lamp bought for £150 as a mid-19th-century original that could fetch up to £800, although the auction house later redescribed it as "Charles X style". At Christie's, an expert seemed confident that a modern reproduction lantern had been manufactured in about 1910. Only the experts from Sotheby's spotted and dismissed the reproduction items. Last week, in a Bonhams sale catalogue for almost 300 items of English and continental furniture, the term "in the style of" was used in more than 30 cases. Even Sotheby's, arguably the most venerable of Britain's world-famous auctioneers, routinely sells furniture with vague labels. In its London sale to be held on February 22, 24% of the furniture - 64 out of 270 lots - is described as "in the style of". A mahogany dining table is described as "in the George III style" and estimated to fetch up to £3,000. This does not suggest any link with King George III (1760-1820) other than that it is similar to tables made then. Catalogues from Christie's and Phillips used similar phrases. An explanation of common terms is in the small print. Peter Nahum, a director at Sotheby's for 17 years, who set up his own gallery and now appears as an expert on BBC's Antiques Roadshow, said the phrases dated back to a time when a select circle bid at auctions. Auctioneers had been wooing the general public for 20 years and the law had lagged behind this change, he said. Sotheby's experts were unavailable for comment, but a former Phillips auctioneer said more auction houses were using phrases such as "recent manufacture" to protect themselves.
The website has been updated and achieved a more user friendly interface. In the past two years we have assembled some 10 MB of information, which is quite a lot considering that there are hardly any gifs of jpegs and no sounds. We have no state-of-the-art sophisticated multi media gimmicks, just text information. Some of our subscribers wrote me that this abundance of information is badly organized, and they are right! I have to apologize for this, but the ultimate excuse is that there are only 24 hours per day. Still I should pay much more attention to organizing all of this information. Please wait until I retire from my full time job at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam (which will be in 2009!). Clicking the 'contents of this website' at the indexpage http://museum-security.org/ may be of some help. All suggestions, additions, and (friendly) feedback are welcome.
Ton Cremers
