http://museum-security.org/
securma@xs4all.nl
SITE MAP
January 3, 1999
CONTENTS:
- Archive of 1997 and 1998 Museum Security Mailinglist messages.
- looking for websites or listserves which deal with
looting/smuggling in South, Southeast and East Asia
- Monet taken by Nazis is barred from exhibition (Electronic Telegraph)
- Official with Czech museum says it may have looted paintings
- The Art Theft Research Unit
- RE: final for this year (Ron Simoncini)
- Re: final 1998 message (Steve Keller)
Archive of 1997 and 1998 Museum Security Mailinglist messages.
As of today the archive is available at:
http://museum-security.org/archive.html
Both the 1997 and 1998 indexpages are available to view on or off
line. All messages are available for downloading. You do need a ZIP
program to be able to open this (selfextracting) archive. Depending
on your connection (ISDN or conventional modem) downloading will take
between 5 and 30 minutes. The archive measures 2.55 MB; if opened
it's size is over 5.5 MB (some 900 pages of text). The files are in
HTML format. The selfextracting archive will automatically create a
separate folder on your fixed disk ('MSN-archive') in which the
reports will be placed. Browsing through all messages start with:
'artcrime97.html' or 'artcrime98.html'.
Do not waste connection time if you do not have Windows 95 and if you
do not have a ZIP program installed.(WINZIP)
I do hope this will work for all
of you.
Regards,
Ton Cremers
Name:Jennifer Foley jlf33@cornell.edu
I'm looking for websites or listserves
which deal with
looting/smuggling in South, Southeast and East Asia- any informtion
would be much appreciated!
e-mail:jlf33@cornell.edu
Monet taken by Nazis is barred from exhibition
(Electronic Telegraph)
By Victoria Combe
A MONET painting has been barred from appearing at next month's Royal
Academy exhibition after it was identified as having been stolen from
a Jewish family by Nazis. Waterlilies 1904 had been due to arrive in
London this Sunday together with 84 other Monets which have been on
display in the Boston Museum of Fine Art in America. But relatives of
the French-Jewish art collector Paul Rosenberg have claimed ownership
of the £6 million painting, which was stolen in 1941 by Hitler's
foreign minister, Joachim von Ribbentrop, to decorate his home. The
painting was traced to the Boston exhibition Monet in the 20th Century
but was allowed to remain on display until it closed on Dec 27 with a
notice explaining its history. Tomorrow's Jewish Chronicle says that
the French authorities have refused to allow the painting to travel to
London after long negotiations with the Royal Academy, in west London.
The Royal Academy said the exhibition would open on Jan 23 without the
work because the French were concerned that there was no legislation
in Britain to prevent the painting being confiscated and never
returning to France. The French authorities are still investigating
the painting's ownership and are anxious that any legal battle with
the Rosenberg family be fought in France, not Britain. The Museum of
Fine Art in Boston had taken out a federal legal immunity from
seizure, which protects paintings loaned to American museums after the
register of Nazi stolen art. The painting is one of 48 of the pond in
Monet's garden at Giverny, west of Paris, and was placed on the Art
Loss Register by Paul Rosenberg's daughter, Micheline, and his son's
widow, Elaine. Mr Rosenberg, one of Paris's greatest art dealers, hid
some 240 paintings in a bank and a chateau near Bordeaux when he fled
the country in 1940. He is understood to have recovered most of them,
but not the Monet. The painting was reclaimed by the French Government
after the war and has been stored in the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Caen.
David Gordon, of the Royal Academy, told the Chronicle he "deeply
regretted" the situation. He said: "We are, of course, very much in
favour of restitution to legal owners, but this has the effect of
creating a climate of paranoia among lenders."
Official with Czech museum says it may have looted paintings
By Richard Allen Greene
PRAGUE, Dec. 30 (JTA) -- The Czech National Gallery may be holding
artworks looted from Jews during World War II, a museum official
admitted. Among the works is a painting attributed to Rembrandt, ``Old
Man in a Fur Cap,'' which may have belonged to French Jewish art
collector Adolph Schloss. More than 300 works owned by Schloss were
looted by the Nazis in 1943 -- and nearly 200 of them have never been
recovered. The Czech National Gallery may have acquired looted
artworks during the war, when a Nazi-installed director ran the
museum. The French government has demanded the return of the painting,
a Czech Foreign Ministry official said. But the head of the National
Gallery's archive said the painting may not be from the Schloss
collection because its dimensions are not identical to those listed
for the Schloss-owned work. The director of the National Gallery's Old
Masters collection said there are other known variations on the
painting, including one currently in Germany. The National Gallery
discovered the work during a search for art that may originally have
belonged to Jews. The Czech Ministry of Culture has ordered all Czech
museums and galleries that receive government funding to complete such
inventories by next July. It is unclear whether the works found in the
course of that search will be returned to their heirs. A
representative of the Czech Jewish community said that if no living
claimants could be found, he would be willing to have the works remain
in museum collections as long as they were displayed alongside a
statement that they had belonged to Jews killed in the Holocaust.
(c Jewish Telegraphic Agency Inc.
Date: Wed, 30 Dec 1998 17:10:51 GMT
To: securma@xs4all.nl
From: Liddell Management Ltd liddell@zetnet.co.uk
Subject: Re: The Art Theft Research Unit
Further to your request for further information about the ART THEFT
RESEARCH UNIT, here are a number of details you may find
interesting. The unit was founded three years ago by a concerned body
of people who felt that not enough was being done by the authorities
to stem the flow of works of art being stolen, mislaid or lost
through carelessness, as well as damage caused by bad storage or
handling. We are a profit making organisation, with perhaps one of
the most sophisticated and technically proficient surveillance teams
available, outside a government agency, in the world. We are used by
a number of official bodies and private individuals usually as part
of an ongoing investigation or as part of our research remit. Our
database, compiled by a group of ex-police officers and freelance
investigators, stores the bare bones of art theft, including the
methods, and possible suspects, not just the thief but the conduits
and final benefactor. If we have a blank then our
surveillance/investigation team is despatched to fill in the spaces,
if enough evidence is compiled then the appropriate authorities are
notified, although until now this has been done anon. We work in a
cell structure, and of course closely related groups make good sense,
and if anyone is interested in setting up one of these groups then we
would be only too happy to welcome you aboard. (Please e-mail me
with any questions.) It has been a conscious decision to make our
activities known to a wider public in order that we make better use of
people and resources without the extra burden of secrecy. Our pool of
experts cover a huge range of disciplines from (enlightened)senior
police officers to pure academics. One of our more recent and indeed
ongoing projects has been the psychological profiling of the art
thief, the collector and the relationship between the two, as a body
of work it is sure to make our job and the job of concerned agencies
easier. I suppose the main question has been have we been successful
thus far? Well we know we have. A great many fiscally and academically
important works have been returned to their rightful homes as a
result of the work of the unit. That work will continue until the
world at large understands that it is in danger of seeing its
cultural heritage being locked away, not only by legitimate
collectors but by people who have obtained works through dubious
means (Nazi war loot for instance) but also by museums, galleries,
stately homes and churches etc. simply because to put it on display
is to say goodbye to it. On a different note we have been involved
over the years in the ongoing protection of very many works of art
including Vincent's "Sunflowers"(yes the disputed one) Canova's "The
Three Graces". We are strong advocates of custom made security
solutions as it is futile installing a system that someone has
already found a way round, again this is an area where we are highly
active. We have on our staff a group of the world's foremost experts
on the secure storage and care of works of art, we offer this as a
free service if it is a small or general enquiry. I hope this has been
of some help to you.
Should you require any further information please
do not hesitate to contact us.
Yours.
George.N.Liddell.
From: "Simoncini, Ron" Ron_Simoncini@moma.org
To: "'securma@xs4all.nl'" securma@xs4all.nl
Subject: RE: final for this year
Date: Wed, 30 Dec 1998 09:41:03 -0500
Give your E mail list to ICMS and let them cull more members to pay
for your valiant efforts, They could add a small amount to the dues
request. Also asking subscribers to send a check does not seem like a
large imposition and the size of the institution could guide you on
the amount to ask for. I believe that people will pay to keep this
great idea afloat..
Ron
From: IntlArtCop@aol.com
To: securma@xs4all.nl
Subject: Re: final 1998 message
(The following message by Steve Keller was abbreviated for editorial
reasons. T.C.)
Ton:
I'm delighted that you plan to attend the National Conference on
Cultural Property Protection in Los Angeles. The MSN is truly a fine
achievement which has benefited every subscriber.
(....................................)
I am open to any suggestions for helping Tom locate a sponsor. Paying
a subscription fee is, in my opinion, not a helpful suggestion since
collecting the money in a variety of foreign currencies is more labor
intensive than just doing the project without help or funds.
(......................................)
I suggest we meet in Los Angeles to discuss this matter.
Any of your readers who wish to help us brainstorm and who come to the
meeting with helpful ideas, should plan to attend. In the meantime, I
will try to get some of the exhibitors to take notice of this
opportunity and also attend. There must be a sponsor among them.
Perhaps if someone from the Getty is listening, he or she might think
of a name of a grant contact we can meet with. This museum project
will benefit all museums who own a computer.
(.......................................)
Readers should call me at (904) 673-9973 if you can think of a company
that serves the museum security community on a national basis and who
might be called upon for sponsorship. Better still, I need the name of
someone at a corporate level who I can phone. Is there an industry or
company in your town that makes a security product and markets it
nationally or internationally? Is the President or Chairman of any
major security company on your museum's Board? Is there a reader out
there who is a vendor/salesman and would like a fantastic opportunity
to reach 790 museum security professionals almost daily as a sponsor
of the MSN?
(...............................................)
OK. I guess I'm starting to sound like Jerry Lewis on Easter weekend.
(Non- U.S. readers: He's an old movie star who pleads for money for
charity on a telethon until he drops over with exhaustion). You get
the point. Now get busy and help me get MSN a sponsor.
Steve Keller, CPP
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