1) Does each guard carry a radio?, Does each guard wear an earphone? Do you use more radios/earphones in different situations?
* Many will say that it depends on what you can afford.
* Many security directors prefer every guard to have a radio in order to be in immediate two-way communication with the control center, alarm dispatch station, and shift supervisor.
* Earphones are aesthetically preferable where the public may be distracted by radio noise, and earphones are good for security where the public may misuse information that they hear on an open radio.
* A radio for every guard is the most secure, flexible, system.
* There are cheaper means for alarm dispatch and guard-supervisor or guard-control room communications, such as a hospital light on the ceiling or a slightly hidden panel in the molding of a doorway between galleries--built in. If built in as a battery backup intercom, this survives many hours or days of power failure without trouble. These often are sufficiently secure, within a larger building security system.
2) In what manner do you inventory works of art currently on
display? Specifically: How frequently is the work inventoried?,
What does the security guard look for when inventorying (the
condition or just the presence of the work of art)? Would
anyone be willing to provide me with an example of the form
they use?
* Art inventory checklist has been used at Smithsonian Institution and
National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, for fine art inventories by
guards on post. Practice and form varies, of course.
* At its best,
each guard inventories at the beginning and end of each post
assignment, including before and after lunch breaks. A reduced number
of checks often is just as good when it can be justified to guards as
not "busy work" but important counting and inventorying.
* Guards
count every item not encased, and each case as "one case of xx
objects".
* This is recommended for only the highest cost and jeopardy
areas, in place of instructing guards what objects are the most
valuable, which is very sensitive and should never be shared openly
with the public. These inventory checks have been very valuable
investigatory tools when objects become damaged or missing.
* Looking
for damage is a conservation discipline in and of itself: look
carefully around the surfaces for signs of damage from touching
(vandalism) or falling apart on its own (inherent vice). Look for:
pencil or pen marks, scratches, unusual or new colors or shapes that
don't belong, signs of damage, including paint flakes, below the
object on the floor, on the exhibit case base inside, or on the bottom
part of the frame.
* Never fail to report damage or loss because it
might have been reported before. Always report again. Keep a damage
list of reports to check against. Reward repeated checks and reports;
don't discourage them.
* Look for attempts to enter cases and exhibit
areas similarly: scratches on locks, footprints on platforms,
fingerprints on exhibit case entry areas, loose or missing screws,
areas that have been marked by entry tools, etc.
* Contact our
security offices to ask for a copy of forms: Smithsonian at
ops1.bressont@ic.si.edu and National Gallery of Art at
g-martin@nga.org
From: "Fawcett, Robert" FawcettR@maldenmills.com
Subject: RE: Two questions . . .
I am currently researching museum security issues as you are. Our
company is studying the possibility of assisting our community with
museum space for locally donated art works. If I am able to locate a
reliable source of information I will pass it on
Welcome. Here are some suggestions for radio usage. Here we use a
Motorola system. We have a repeater and a "base station" in our
command center. This allows all Security Officers to be able to
communicate or broadcast to all Staff that uses a portable radio. All
Security Staff including managers carry a radio. Officers that are on
a gallery patrol use a shoulder mic. This allows them to monitor
radio traffic, without disturbing museum patrons. Generally
Supervisors do not use a separate mic, but when a large function is
occurring, such as a gala, and there is a high level of noise we
will use an ear piece. They are similar to what the Secret Service
uses. They are neat and tidy and do not attract a lot of attention.
Overall I would stress the need for all Security and Properties staff
to carry portable radios. In a critical event it saves invaluable
time and also during normal operation it saves time. Having a
constant flow of radio communication at your finger tips is
invaluable.
VIENNA, Austria - An Austrian art curator fighting to win back a
painting impounded in New York says 16 other works once owned by the
same Holocaust victim are hanging in homes and museums in the United
States. "Dead City III" is one of two paintings by Austrian
expressionist Egon Schiele that are being held in the United States
until a dispute is settled between Austria's Leopold Collection and
two Jewish families in New York.
BRENTWOOD, N.H. - A psychiatrist says a former assistant attorney
general accused of possessing 170 pieces of stolen art, furniture, and
computers might not have committed the crimes if he had been treated
for mental illness as a teenager.
One of two men arrested in October after authorities said they tried
to sell a smuggled piece of 2,000-year-old Peruvian gold body armor
to undercover FBI agents for $1.6 million pleaded guilty yesterday in
federal court. Denis Garcia, 57, a Miami businessman, pleaded guilty
to the charges of conspiracy, interstate transportation of stolen
property, and smuggling. He and an associate, Orlando Mendez, were
indicted Nov. 6 for an alleged attempt to sell the piece of hammered
gold known as a "backflap." Authorities say the backflap was
smuggled into the United States and was believed to be stolen from
the famed Moche Indian tombs discovered at Sipan, Peru, in 1987. "So
what were you going to get out of this?" U.S. District Judge John P.
Fullam asked Garcia. "About 500, $500,000," Garcia replied quietly.
Fullam allowed Garcia to remain free on $100,000 bail pending
sentencing on April 16. Assistant U.S. Attorney Robert Goldman said
he expected Mendez, 31, also a Miami businessman, to plead guilty
shortly. The two men were arrested Oct. 9 in the parking lot of the
Adam's Mark Hotel on City Avenue as, prosecutors said, they were
about to deliver the artifact to two FBI agents posing as art
brokers. The arrests capped a two-month investigation that could have
been taken from an Indiana Jones adventure. It began when Garcia
contacted an FBI straw company in Miami and told an agent he had come
into possession of the artifact through the family of a former
Peruvian president and could deliver it for a price. The agent in
Miami referred Garcia to FBI agent Robert K. Wittman in Philadelphia,
a specialist in art and antique thefts who posed as an art broker.
After an exchange of letters and phone calls, Wittman and another
agent met Garcia and Mendez at a rest stop on the New Jersey
Turnpike. At the rest stop the agents were shown the backflap, stored
in a suitcase in the trunk of the car in which Garcia and Mendez were
riding. The agents then asked the pair to follow them back to the
Adam's Mark, where an art expert was supposedly waiting to
authenticate the piece. Garcia and Mendez were arrested in the
parking lot. Goldman said yesterday that the investigation was
continuing.
Trace the trail of a looted painting
P A R I S, Jan. 12 - A French commission studying the plunder of
Jewish assets during World War Two said on Monday vast amounts were
stolen but no figure could yet be put on the total. The commission,
led by Nazi concentration camp survivor Jean Matteoli, said the
collaborationist Vichy regime systematically robbed Jews of their
assets from 1940 to 1944. But it would take several years to review
the thousands of boxes and tens of thousands of dossiers on Jewish
assets lying uncategorized in French archives, it said in a report to
Prime Minister Lionel Jospin. Writing of the "aryanisation" of Jewish
assets, the report said: "Partly led by the (German) occupiers or in
coordination with them, it was essentially instituted by the Vichy
government and often conducted with the cooperation of its
administration." "It is not yet possible to come up with concrete
proposals for restitution," it said. Clarifying Property Status But
the commission, set up early last year to clarify the status of
property never returned to its rightful owners, said France did not
have to wait until its inquiry was over to start indemnifying
survivors. The 2.2 tonnes of gold that make up the French part of a
5.5 tonne haul of bullion looted by the Nazis could be used to pay
expropriate French Jews or their relatives, it said. At a Nazi gold
conference in London last month, France indicated it would demand to
get its gold back from wherever it is now held rather than donate its
share of looted bullion to a new fund for Holocaust victims. "The sum
thus recovered could be used to meet national goals, which does not
exclude an eventual direct contribution to an international
indemnification fund which certain participants at a recent
conference in London announced," the report said.
A MUSEUM has been accused of conducting an archaeological "smash and
grab raid" by removing an ancient stone monument from its discovery
site.
NICOSIA, Jan 14 (Reuters) - A court in Cyprus remanded a Turkish
Cypriot on Wednesday on suspicion of looting Greek Orthodox churches
in the north of the divided island, court officials said.
Ali Can, 22, initially arrested for a traffic offence, had
photographs in his possession of icons which disappeared from Greek
Orthodox churches in the Turkish-controlled north of the island last
year, police said.
WASHINGTON, Jan 13 (Reuters) - A tourist sprayed two priceless 19th
century marble busts in the White House with splotches of rusty brown
paint before Secret Service officers took her into custody, the White
House said on Tuesday.
A.R.T.I.S.T. (Artists' Response To Illegal State Tactics) President
Robert Lederman was arrested in front of City Hall today during the
MayorÆs State of the City speech. Lederman had used a piece of chalk
to write, GIULIANI =POLICE STATE on the street near GiulianiÆs parked
white sports utility vehicle. He was immediately surrounded by police,
arrested and dragged into the basement of City Hall where he watched
the MayorÆs speech on a T.V. monitor while surrounded by police
officers. Police officials immediately washed the chalk off of the
street near Giulaini's vehicle.
Lederman was held for three hours at the First Precinct and charged
with Defacement of Property. While in custody he was interrogated by
three N.Y.P.D. Intelligence officers and asked if he intended to kill
the Mayor. This is Lederman's 17th arrest on speech related charges.
He has never been found guilty on any of the charges. The arresting
officer is P.O. Meeks.
From: KMurszewsk KMurszewsk@aol.com
Subject: Re: Two questions . . .
This will be short and to the point:
Each guard does carry a radio, radio's are used for non-emergercy
situations and can be used also to get a hold of someone in another
Dept. ie:seperate bldg, roving vehicle, reception desk, depending on
what your institution approves of carrying them.
As for earphones, only those guards, should be at least two, unless
you are very small, which from the sounds of it you are, only the
interior guards and one exterior guardneed wear them, if you only have
only one or two guards maybe e\ven three the earphones aren't
necessary, use the radios. It is best if you can have the radios
programmed for two seperate channels, one for you and one for general
use.
We use the earphones more when we have at least two inside and
others outside, it really depends on the size of the event that is
going on.
As for invetorying Art and such, we (security) at the museum here
are not a [art of this. This is the sole responsability or the
Registrars Dept. at our museum. This was an administrative decision
which we have no part in!!!! Figure that out!!
However to answer your question:--the best way to inventory those
things you have in your collections is by category in which they
fall in ie:anthropology, geology, archeology, etc. and by the museums
reference or ID number which should be found somewhere on the
object. Any more questions just ask.
Kevin
Subject: Re: Two questions . . .
Date sent: Wed, 14 Jan 98 17:18:18 -0000
From: msearl
To: "Museum Security Mailinglist"
Re: radios
Our security officers each have a radio, and do not use an earphone.
Margie Searl
Curator of American Art, Memorial Art Gallery, Rochester, New York
From: DLLL73A@prodigy.com ( JAMES S HOLLEY)
Date sent: Thu, 15 Jan 1998 07:57:37, -0500
To: securma@museum-security.org
Subject: Reply to Tammy Evans Message 1-14-98
Hello Tammy,
The matter of inventory is two fold. The collection inventory master
list falls under the responsibility of our Registrar. I am assuming
that you are interested in a daily inspection of works on display. We
have our Security Officers make a visual inspection of the gallery
they are posted in for that day as soon as they take post. They look
for both missing, removed, or damaged paintings. If a work has been
removed by another staff member a removal card is put in its place.
This alerts the Security Officer that the piece is not stolen. This
removal card must be signed by The Head or Associate Registrar and
describe why the piece was removed.
I would suggest that before you have Security Officers judging the
condition of works, you invite your registrar or chief curator to
teach them how to do this. When damage or other peculiarities are
found we immediately notify or Registrar who photographs and files a
report of the occurrence. We keep a file of these reports so that we
do not report things twice.
We have debated the use of an inspection form and currently have
decided to only put things down on paper when they are out of normal
condition. This does not give you a paper trail to file to follow to
insure that inspections are being done, but this can be accomplished
by site supervision. This also saves a lot of trees because it keeps
down paper needs. Imagine 10 gallery inspection forms a day for every
day that you are open to the public. If you should decide that you
need a from I would design it as a simple check off form. This can be
done with MS Exel.
If you email me your fax number I can send you some copies of our
inspection forms.
Hope This Information Helps,
James Holley
Wadsworth Atheneum
Austrian seeks paintings held in U.S.
Curator says art impounded in N.Y. belong to Holocaust victim
ASSOCIATED PRESS
AT ISSUE for government investigators is whether the Jews who owned
the two paintings during the Nazi era were forced to sell them. Such
disputes over paintings with murky histories have aroused the concern
of curators and museums, who fear the conflicts will discourage the
international flow of artwork. Reacting to the furor, Austria's
government has announced that the origins of all works in state
museums would be examined to see whether former owners were forced to
give them up during the Nazi period. All works would be cataloged,
and "no documents will be held back," Education Minister Elisabeth
Gehrer said in comments published today by the daily Der Standard.
"Dead City III" was owned by comedian Fritz Gruenbaum, who died in
the Dachau concentration camp in 1940. One of his heirs, New York
Times columnist Rita Reif, has claimed ownership of the painting. The
other painting, "Portrait of Wally," has been claimed by Henri S.
Bondi, heir to the family that owned the work. In an apparent attempt
to suggest that the state-owned Leopold Collection had been unfairly
singled out, a spokeswoman said Tuesday that "Dead City" was one of
16 Schiele works that a Gruenbaum heir sold to a Swiss gallery in
1956. They were later sold to U.S. buyers. Five of the works are now
in American museums, said the spokeswoman, who refused to identify
herself on the telephone. Der Standard said one of the works -
showing a girl putting on her shoes - was hanging in New York's
Museum of Modern Art. Others include a semi-nude in the Allen
Memorial Art Museum in Oberlin, Ohio, and a portrait of Schiele's
wife Edith in California's Santa Barbara Museum of Art, the newspaper
said. The Leopold Collection spokeswoman refused to identify the
Gruenbaum heir who sold the works to the Kornfeld Gallery in Bern,
Switzerland, saying the gallery had asked her not to do so. "Dead
City III" and "Portrait of Wally" were in a collection of Schiele
paintings that Leopold loaned to the Museum of Modern Art for a
three-month show that closed Jan. 4. All but the two disputed
paintings were returned to Austria last week. Acting on behalf of
Reif and Bondi, Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgenthau
obtained a subpoena last week barring the museum from sending the
paintings home until the dispute was settled. The Leopold's board of
directors called the maneuver "a heavy blow against international art
exchange and international lending."
c 1998 Associated Press.
N.H. man's thefts blamed on mental illness
(accused of possessing
170 pieces of stolen art, furniture, and computers)
By Associated Press, 01/14/98
Dr. Susan McElroy of the University of Cincinnati, who specializes in
kleptomania, testified Monday that she believes William McCallum first
showed signs of depression, bipolar disorder, and compulsive stealing
when he was 15.
''He told me he had stolen everything except a car and a house, and
he was trying to figure out how to steal a house,'' she said in
testimony.
McElroy said there is a history of depression, eating disorders, and
other mental illnesses in McCallum's family.
Kleptomaniacs have urges to steal things they don't need and feel
more and more anxious until they get relief by committing theft, she
said.
Prosecutors say McCallum is an ordinary thief who stole for personal
gain, not because of mental illness.
McCallum, 34, of Londonderry, was charged last year with possessing
artwork, furniture, books, and other goods stolen from libraries,
colleges, and museums around New England.
Last week, he admitted to the thefts in 65 of the 71 charges against
him, after prosecutors agreed to drop the other six. With the plea, he
moved straight to the second phase of the trial, when jurors must
decide whether he suffered a mental illness that caused him to commit
the crime.
Prosecutor John Weld and defense lawyer Stephen Jeffco made their
opening statements Monday before a jury of 10 men and four women,
including two alternates, in Rockingham County Superior Court.
McCallum is ''manufacturing an insanity defense because he was caught
red-handed and doesn't want to take the responsibility,'' Weld said.
McCallum faces up to life in prison if the jury finds him sane. If it
finds him insane, Judge Douglas Gray must decide if McCallum still
suffers from the mental illness and poses a danger. If so, he would go
to the psychiatric center at the state prison, and his case would be
reviewed automatically every five years.
This story ran on page B08 of the Boston Globe on 01/14/98.
c Copyright 1998 Globe Newspaper Company.
Man pleads guilty here to smuggling ancient armor
By Joseph A. Slobodzian
INQUIRER STAFF WRITER
c1997 Philadelphia Newspapers Inc.
Panel Studying Nazi Wartime Loot;
French Can't Estimate Booty
The Profits of Plunder
ABCNEWS.com
It would take several years to review the thousands of boxes and
tens of thousands of dossiers on Jewish assets lying uncategorized in
French archives.
Seizures Under Vichy
Former Prime Minister Alain Juppe appointed Jean Matteoli, current
head of France's Economic and Social Council, to probe assets
seizures under Vichy. Matteoli, a non-Jew, was arrested by Nazi police
in April 1944 as a member of a Resistance group coordinating secret
flights by Allied aircraft parachuting agents and equipment into
occupied France. He was sent to the Neuengamme concentration camp and
later to Bergen-Belsen. Some 76,000 Jews of the 320,000 then in
France were sent to Nazi concentration camps, including 11,000
children. Only about 2,800 of those deported survived. Some 65,000
non-Jews were also deported, most of them for Resistance activity.
Although they were not sent to extermination camps like
Auschwitz-Birkenau, nearly half of them died from ill-treatment.
Among the targets of the commission's study is the city of Paris
following publication of a book which said the capital in 1944 may
have taken over hundreds of flats left vacant by Jews killed in
concentration camps.
Copyright 1998 Reuters.
Museum moves old stone cross
(accused of conducting an
archaeological "smash and grab raid")
By Sean O'Neill
The cross-inscribed stone, thought to be more than 900 years old, was
found at farmland near St Dogmaels, Ceredigion, Dyfed, last year. It
was thought to be part of the Bryngwyn Cross, found in the same area
in 1921, but later examination confirmed that it was a new find.
Archaeologists from the National Museum of Wales removed the
four-feet high artefact and took it to Cardiff for examination and
display. But local MPs have condemned the museum's action, saying it
was done without consultation, and they have urged Chris Smith,
Culture Secretary, to return the stone to a local museum.
The National Museum says the stone, which bears a carving of a Celtic
cross, will be displayed in its collection of early Christian
monuments and be protected from damage or theft.
It proposes that a plaster replica of the cross be placed at the spot
on the Bryngwyn farm where the original was discovered, incorporated
into a dry stone wall.
Cynog Dafis, Plaid Cymru MP for Ceredigion, and Jackie Lawrence,
Labour MP for Preseli Pembrokeshire, have joined forces to protest at
the action. Mr Dafis said: "The National Museum owes St Dogmaels an
apology for their heavy-handedness."
Dr Mark Redknap, medieval archaeologist, said the National Museum was
the place where most people could see it. He said: "We are concerned
with long term preservation of the monument and we removed it with the
landowner's permission. We need to see it is kept in a place where it
is safe from damage or theft."
Copyright Telegraph Group Limited 1998.
Turk Cypriot held in icon theft probe in Cyprus
06:41 p.m Jan 14, 1998 Eastern
A court in the southern coastal town of Larnaca ordered he remain in
custody for five days. It turned down a police request to remand a
second Turkish Cypriot in connection with the same case, citing lack
of evidence.
Greek Cypriot policemen said they found 14 photographs of icons under
a mat in Can's car when he was stopped in Larnaca on Monday.
Police said they were investigating whether Can had the photographs
with the intent of selling the icons to Greek Cypriots.
He was fined ($75) by a court on Tuesday for driving without
insurance and a licence, but re-arrested when police found the
photographs.
Can entered the southern areas of Cyprus on Monday through Pyla, a
village of Greek and Turkish Cypriots located in a United Nations
controlled ``buffer zone'' separating the two sides in Cyprus.
The eastern Mediterranean island has been divided since Turkey
invaded northern Cyprus in 1974 after a brief coup engineered by the
military then ruling Greece.
Copyright 1998 Reuters Limited.
Woman spray-paints priceless White House sculptures
11:24 p.m. Jan 13, 1998 Eastern
White House spokesman Mike McCurry said the woman in her 30s caused
more than $1,000 in damage to the wall behind the busts in the first
floor Blue Room and uncertain damage to the sculptures, which will be
examined by an art expert.
McCurry declined to further identify the woman, who was taking a
public tour of the residence when she used a spray can to deface the
sculptures of explorers Amerigo Vespucci and Christopher Columbus at
around noon (1700 GMT).
He said she was stopped in the act of vandalizing the busts by
uniformed officers from the U.S. Secret Service, which is responsible
for the security of the mansion, and quietly taken into custody.
``It looks like a bad rouge job on the busts and slight damage on the
wall,'' McCurry said, adding that the White House did not plan to
change its policy of admitting tourists to the executive mansion on
daily public tours.
Lisa Risley, a Secret Service spokeswoman, said the roughly 2 million
visitors to the White House each year are allowed to bring in aerosol
cans like hair spray and asthma inhalers.
The Secret Service was investigating Tuesday's incident and the woman
involved remained in its custody, Risley said, adding it was too early
to say whether the policy on allowing visitors to bring in aerosol
cans might be changed.
The busts of Columbus and Vespucci, acquired by the White House in
1817, were modeled by sculptor Giuseppe Ceracchi but carved by others
after his death in 1801.
McCurry said he did not know whether the woman was seeking to make a
political statement by defacing them and he said acts of vandalism
have been rare at the White House, citing several incidents in the
1970s but few in recent years.
However, he refused to allow photographers and cameramen to film the
vandalized room, saying he did not want to spark copycat attempts.
The White House aims to repair the damage to the wallpaper in the
Blue Room quickly, while the busts will be removed and examined by
experts from the National Gallery.
Copyright 1998 Reuters Limited.
From: ARTISTpres
Date: Wed, 14 Jan 1998 18:13:48 EST
To: jmalloy@artswire.org, budde@interactive.wsj.com,
securma@museum-security.org, stollman@echonyc.com,
darksky@shore.intercom.net, ArtSpitzer@AOL.Com,
gev@worldnet.att.net
Subject: Artist arrested at City Hall during Giuliani speech
1/14/89
For Immediate Release:
For information contact: (718) 369-2111
e-mail ARTISTpres@aol.com
A.R.T.I.S.T. web site http://www.openair.org/alerts/artist/nyc.html
Photos and a tape recording of the incident are available.
First
Precinct (212) 334-0611 Mayor Giuliani's press office 212 788-2958
From: Antony F Anderson antonya@antonya.ace.co.uk
To: "'Ton Cremers (webmaster Museum Security Network)'"
Subject: Owner, Occupier - follow up to "Misdirected Fax
message..." Date sent: Thu, 15 Jan 1998 12:48:04 -0000
Yesterday's piece on resulted in Matthew Gledhill the Paris stringer
of the Boston Globe e-mailing me to ask me for further details and
for Sabine Fehlemann's address. In the process of finding out the
information I came across and translated this piece from the
Suddeutcher Zeitung, which indicates that things are a little more
complicated than might appear from the piece I sent yesterday.
Note the fact that the Musees de France has put the entire register
on the Internet at: http://www.culture.fr/documentation/docum.htm .
This adds one more point to my argument that all loan works of art
should be on a a distributed database accessible via the Internet,
see Denney paper:
(http://museum-security.org/denney.html).
15.01.98 Feuilleton - Suddeutscher Zeitung
Owner , Occupier - Do German Museums have claims on pictures in the
Louvre?
"That's an interesting question, very interesting!" laughs Hector
Feliciano, the Puerto Rican journalist whose main occupation is
editor-in-chief of the media combine "World Media" in Paris, and who
is at the same time the most important expert on looted art in
France. Now he is hearing for the first time about the protest of
Sabine Fehlemann, director of the Wuppertal Von-der-Heydt-Museum, who
has rediscovered art works from her museum, believed to have been
lost without trace, in the Louvre.
Without Feliciano it might possibly never have come to Fehlmann's
intervention. His book "The Lost Museum" (1995), of which the German
translation is due to appear in April from Aufbau, above all opened
up the French debate on looted art. Against the intense opposition of
the French museums involved, he was the first to establish that there
were still about 2000 works of unclear origin held in safe keeping in
France.
They all bear the well known abbreviated signature "MNR" , ,Musées
Nationaux Récupération", confiscated works of art. Up till now the
French public has assumed that this was all to do with the property
of Jewish owners who had been robbed by the Nazis or the Vichy Regime
- even yesterday Le Monde reported along these lines. But matters
seem to be appreciably more complicated than that.
Not a few of these works, so it now seems to be coming out, were
bought "normally" on the Paris art market during the time of the
Occupation. They by no means always originate from the collections
of Jewish owners. After the war they were seized by the French and,
and because no original owners claimed them, they were divided up
provisionally amongst French museums.
For decades German and Austrian colleagues were not kept informed
about the further whereabouts of the works and moreover, after
1949, nobody was much bothered to look further for the former owners
who had been robbed.
Understandable: there were masterpieces among them, which the
holders would have given up unwillingly. Could it now be that museums
in Krefeld or Munich, Vienna or Salzburg could establish justified
claims on some of these works? Feliciano laughs a second time: "Quite
possibly, in this affair everything is possible!"
In the current management of the Musées de France in Paris it is
also known that by far and away the larger part of the "MNR" works
reached Germany through purchase and not theft. Many works were
bought at that time by private collectors - among them figures like
Hitler, Goering or Ribbentrop - no less but also by middlemen on
behalf of museums. Robert Fohr, spokesman for the Museums Management
emphasised that since Feliciano's book a policy of transparency has
been in place. All "MNR" works are displayed on an Internet page. At
the same time the earlier history of these works is being
reconstucted and published on the Internet.
(http://www.culture.fr/documentation/docum.htm ). A catalogue is in
preparation. Whoever visits this Internet address even for a short
time will find that the most interesting works especially were
purchased by museums. The Von-der-Heydt-Museum for instance bought
two Delacroix paintings. The Wallraf-Richartz-Museum in Cologne seems
to have been particularly active: on the Internet can be found among
others ,Portrait des Graveurs Manzi" by Degas and "Portrait of Madame
Alphonse Daudet" by Renoir and a self portrait by Cézanne. The Linz
Museum bought a Boucher in Paris and the Bavarian State Painting
Collection bought the portrait of the "Evariste de Valernes" by
Degas for 1 400 000 Francs. Today most of these pictures are hanging
in the Louvre or the Musée d'Orsay.
The simple evidence of a certificate of purchase, mind you ought
scarcely to be sufficient to establish a valid title of ownership.
Even a sale can in the end come about under compulsion. Anyway
enquiring museums would always be made aware of the reference to an
order of De Gaulle and the Allies issued in 1943. Thereafter all
German contracts of sale with the representatives of occupied
countries could be declared invalid - could, but not necessarily
would. Up till now, the French have insisted on a kind of automatic
validity of this order, to the frustration of the German
Authorities. After the fall of the Berlin Wall a joint German-French
Art Commission was founded, that that in spite of the cultural
subdivision of the Interior Ministry works " in great harmony" and
has already been able to give back many a controversial work of art
to one side or the other, but which, on the question of German art
purchases during the Occupation, has not been able to reach any
agreement.
Since Fehlemann's intervention the Museum Management has behaved a
little less self confidently. For who knows if De Gaulle's order
would withstand a civil court action - perhaps by a German museum?
"We are only the holders of MNR works" says Robert Fohr, "you should
direct legal questions to the Quai d'Orsay", to the French Foreign
Ministry. And there one comes up against an amazing openness. "Yes of
course German museums could make valid claims", said a spokesman. The
enquiries should be directed to the German-French Art Commission and
must be passed on by diplomatic means to the Quay d'Orsay.
If a Museum director "with as many pieces of evidence as possible"
should make an legitimate ownership claim, then his claim will of
course be adjudicated. But how legitimate can a purchase contract
be, if made under illegitimate conditions ? Hector Feliciano puts a
severe damper on the Germans eventually winning. "You should not
forget two aspects of the matter - the psychological and the
monetary. You must imagine the situation: for a French seller,
doesn't the Gestapo stand behind every museum director, no matter how
honourable he feels himself to be? And why did so many German buyers
come to Paris? Because after the Occupation Hitler devalued the Franc
to a fifth of its value against the Reichsmark." . In Francs the
Germans wanted to pay knock down rates, but turned around into Marks
they made a snip bargain.
Sabine Fehlemann will go before the German French Art Commission and
champion the claims of the Von-der-Heydt-Museum. If other museums
follow, a whole mass of single proving processes could be imminent.
THIERRY CHERVEL
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Translated from the German by Antony Anderson
antonya@antonya.ace.co.uk
http://museum-security.org/denney/index.htm
http://www.cimttz.tu-chemnitz.de/colditz
