http://museum-security.org/
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April 12, 1998
CONTENTS:
- French joyful as stolen relics are found in US (Times of London)
- Delco men plead guilty in theft of artifacts ( Philadelphia
Newspapers Inc.)
- Art looted by Nazis in Austrian museums - report
- Swiss defer comment on looted art until report out
- Hunt for conman who strips homes (Daily Telegraph London)
- Poland: Germany Seeks Cultural Treasures (Radio Free Europe)
- student guards - continued (Brent,Lori & Colin Snider
lbcsnider@email.msn.com)
- A `creative' biography didn't foresee plot of British giggles
(WASHINGTON POST/1998 Philadelphia Newspapers Inc)
French joyful as stolen relics are found in US (Times of London)
FROM TUNKU VARADARAJAN IN NEW YORK
A TOWN in France will soon be reunited with its most precious
religious artefacts after the New Jersey police recovered the relics
of a 7th-century saint, stolen from the parish church 15 months ago.
In December 1996, thieves entered the Church of Saint Martin at Le
Cateau, about 50 miles southeast of Lille, and made off with three
gilded monstrances - receptacles in which the consecrated host is
exposed for adoration.
One of the monstrances contained a tiny fragment of bone said to have
come from St Maxellendis, a figure revered in the area.
Maxellendis was a Frankish noblewoman in the 7th century who became a
nun to avoid marrying a local pagan princeling. Angered by her
rejection, he killed her and was struck blind.
His sight was restored three years later after he wept at her grave
and begged for her forgiveness. That miracle set Maxellendis on a
swift route to sainthood.
In a court in Newark yesterday Sebastian Zegrean pleaded guilty to
the theft of the relics. Zegrean, a Romanian national, had attempted
to sell the monstrances.
American officials are now working on plans to repatriate them to
France.
Major Jean-Marie Dumez, of the Le Cateau police, said: "The relics
belong to the people of Le Cateau. The general sentiment is to get
them back as soon as possible."
Delco men plead guilty in theft of artifacts ( Philadelphia
Newspapers Inc.)
About $2 million worth of items were stolen from the Historical
Society of Pennsylvania.
By Joseph A. Slobodzian INQUIRER STAFF WRITER
Two Delaware County men charged in the theft of about 200 artifacts
valued at more than $2 million from the Historical Society of
Pennsylvania pleaded guilty yesterday to federal charges of conspiracy
and theft of "objects of cultural heritage." Earnest Medford, 48, a
former historical society custodian from Trainer who was accused of
stealing the objects over a 10-year period, and George Csizmazia, 56,
a Rutledge electrician and history buff who was accused of buying the
items for about $8,000, entered the guilty pleas during a brief
hearing before U.S. District Judge Clarence C. Newcomer. Newcomer set
sentencing for the two men on June 30 and allowed them to remain free
on $100,000 bail each. Assistant U.S. Attorney Robert Goldman said
each man faced a two- to three-year prison term.
Csizmazia and Medford were arrested Jan. 6 after an investigation
that began in November, when officials of the museum at 13th and
Locust Streets discovered that three historic ceremonial swords and
an 18th-century long rifle were missing. After visiting antiques
experts and regional antique weapons fairs as far away as Richmond,
Va., FBI agents uncovered a trail that led to Csizmazia's modest,
two-story home.
Inside Csizmazia's garage and an upstairs bedroom, authorities said,
they found the three missing items and more than 190 artifacts --
including a lock of George Washington's hair and the flintlock rifle
seized from abolitionist John Brown after the 1859 siege at Harper's
Ferry, Va. -- that had been missing from the historical society's
museum and warehouse. In an interview the day of his arrest, Csizmazia
said he was shocked at the charges and maintained that he did not know
he had bought stolen artifacts until the FBI came to his home.
Yesterday, Csizmazia admitted buying the stolen objects from Medford
since the two met about 10 years ago, when Csizmazia did electrical
work at the historical society.
In addition to pleading guilty, each man agreed to cooperate with
federal authorities in a continuing investigation of the thefts.
Officials of the historical society said they discovered the theft of
the three swords and the rifle as they were undertaking a first
computerized inventory of their 12,000-artifact collection. Society
officials said yesterday that up to 100 items may still be missing and
that the inventory is continuing. The museum, which has been
undergoing renovations, will reopen to the public as a library-only
facility next Tuesday with upgraded security arrangements, including a
video-surveillance system.
1998 Philadelphia Newspapers Inc.
Art looted by Nazis in Austrian museums - report
VIENNA, April 8 (Reuters) - Austria's Greens party demanded an
investigation on Wednesday into more than 200 paintings on display in
Austrian state museums which it said could be art looted by the Nazis
during World War Two.
Terezija Stoisits, a member of parliament for the Greens, said works
of art seized from private owners by the Nazi regime may have
seamlessly been appropriated by the Austrian Republic after World War
Two.
``Each of these pictures has its history and belonged to somebody who
owned a house and had a life in Austria. We want to trace the history
of these pictures,'' Stoisits told a news conference.
The Greens referred 241 works of art of allegedly dubious origin to
parliament for investigation. The controversial pictures include works
by Gustav Klimt, Egon Schiele and Edvard Munch.
The Austrian Ministry of Education, responsible for the state
museums, said however that a commission had already been appointed to
investigate the origin of works of art owned by the Republic. First
results are expected in a few months.
``We don't need the Greens initiative,'' a ministry spokeswoman told
the APA news agency. ``So far the work of the commission has shown
that not as many works of art are of dubious origin as was presumed.''
Stoisits said some of the pictures were clearly registered by museums
as previously belonging to Nazi officials, including one marked as
``former property of Martin Bormann.''
Bormann was Adolf Hitler's right-hand man in charge of the
confiscation of art from mainly Jewish owners throughout the Third
Reich.
Other paintings lack any information about ownership before 1938,
when Hitler annexed Austria.
``The question is, why have the art experts in our museums never
acted?'' Stoisits said.
Swiss defer comment on looted art until report out
BERNE, April 7 (Reuters) - Switzerland said on Tuesday it could give
no new data on how much art looted by the Nazis had found its way into
the country until the final results of a research project were
published later this year.
``The Ministry for Culture is sticking to the position that the study
is not yet completed and therefore based on the facts at hand today it
is not possible to make a quantitative statement about supposed stolen
art in Switzerland,'' the ministry said in a statement.
A Swiss newspaper on Sunday had reported on the study, which it said
is looking into claims that far more art than originally thought found
its way into private collections and museums in Switzerland.
Studies have been done in the past, and at least one Swiss collector
has been forced to repurchase works which were found to have been
stolen by Nazis from private owners.
But, according to the Swiss newspaper SonntagsBlick, at least one
lawyer was gathering material for a possible legal claim based on new
findings.
The Ministry of Culture said its report would deal with how the art
market developed in Switzerland between 1930 and 1955, and the role
Switzerland played in those developments.
Switzerland in 1948 declared that it had uncovered 77 items of looted
art.
REUTERS
Hunt for conman who strips homes (Daily Telegraph London)
By John Steele, Crime Correspondent
A CONMAN suspected of stripping five rented homes in the south and
west of England of antiques and furniture worth more than UKPounds
800,000 is being hunted by police.
The latest theft to be linked to the man took place when a small
manor house in Pucklechurch, near Bristol, was rented from a letting
agency for a one-day "fashion photo shoot". But when the agency
checked the house four days later they found it had been looted of
furniture worth UKPounds 50,000, including Persian rugs, paintings,
silverware, a grandfather clock and antique furniture. The
"smooth-talking" thief, who speaks with a London accent, is also
linked to similar crimes in London and Kent.
Detectives will ask the Association of Residential Letting Agents to
alert its members to approaches by anyone fitting the description of
the man who rents properties for cash. A police spokesman said: "We
are appealing for people in the antique trade, who may have been
offered these goods, to tell us."
Last week it emerged that two homes - a flat in Drayton Gardens,
south Kensington, and a cottage in Shoreham, Kent - were stripped of
property worth UKPounds 700,000 by a man who said he needed to rent
them for a week for relatives from abroad who were attending a
funeral. Using the name Oliver Thorn, he rented the flat and, within
a week, cleared it of antique furniture and paintings worth UKPounds
500,000, including a memento from the last Russian Tsar. Lola and
Kazik Swiderski let the flat to "Mr Thorn" after he paid UKPounds
3,000 in cash for rent and deposit. He provided financial references
from a letting agency.
In Shoreham, the thief used the name William Blithe-St John and took
the entire contents valued at UKPounds 200,000 from the cottage. Two
other flats - in Mount Street and Hayes Mews, both London W1 - were
rented for nearly UKPounds 2,000 each from the same agency and both
found to be stripped of items. The losses at Mount Street total
UKPounds 55,000. The value of antiques, paintings and furniture
missing at Hayes Mews is being estimated.
Poland: Germany Seeks Cultural Treasures (Radio Free Europe)
By Roland Eggleston
Bonn, 10 April 1998 (RFE/RL) -- Germany says it is not only Russia
that is blocking the repatriation of German cultural treasures which
disappeared during World War II. Germany is also trying, so far
without success, to regain treasures from Poland.
German efforts to regain more than 200,000 treasures looted by the
Red Army met a setback this week when the Russian constitutional
court ruled that President Boris Yeltsin was legally obliged to sign
a law effectively banning their return.
In Bonn today, the Foreign Ministry says Germany has also failed to
get anywhere in negotiations with Poland for the return of hundreds of
rare books and priceless original music scores by Beethoven, Mozart
and Bach.
The ministry acknowledges that Poland also has claims on Germany --
for instance on a 13th century liturgical manuscript known as the
"Plocker Pontificale," which is now in the Bavarian state library in
Munich. It was taken by the Nazis from the library of the cathedral at
the city of Plock.
Germany and Poland held five rounds of talks on a mutual exchange of
these and other treasures between 1992-1995 without agreement. A
Foreign Ministry spokesman in Bonn said today there had been no
movement since 1995. In theory the next meeting should take place in
Poland but Bonn says no invitation has been extended.
Germany's eyes are focused particularly on hundreds of books and
musical scores now in the famous Jagiellonian library in Cracow.
According to German authorities they include items which are virtually
beyond price, such as the original scores of Beethoven's eighth and
ninth symphonies, part of Mozart's "Cosi Fan Tutte," Mendelsohn's
"Midsummer Night's Dream" and other hand-written scores from almost
every other prominent German-language composer, including Schubert,
Schumann, Bach and Brahms. All these items went this week on public
display in Cracow.
But that is far from all. The Germans say the Jagiellonian Library is
also holding a part of Martin Luther's original hand-written
translation of the Old Testament, a part of Goethe's "Faust" and other
original works by Goethe, Schiller, Hegel, Fichte and Herder.
According to Germany, Poland is also holding about 3,000 mediaeval
illuminated manuscripts, about 10,000 rare documents and around
210,000 rare autographs of famous political leaders, intellectuals,
writers and philosophers.
Many of these treasures were originally in the Prussian State Library
in Berlin. They were taken by the Nazis to Silesia and other areas to
protect them from allied bombing raids. Some were stored at an abbey
at Gruessau, now Krzeszow, in southwestern Poland. After the war,
these territories became Polish and the cultural treasures fell into
Polish hands.
The Polish government kept for many years its possession of the
collections secret. Many believed these treasures had been lost in the
havoc and destruction at the end of the war. It was not until 1977
that it became known that they were in the Jagiellonian Library, and
that was largely by accident. It came out when a Polish delegation
gave the East German communist leader Erich Honecker the manuscript of
a Beethoven symphony and part of Mozart's "Magic Flute."
German officials acknowledge that many Polish cultural officials now
show a similar attitude as that adopted by the Russian Duma -- the
treasures should remain in Poland as compensation for the thousands of
Polish treasures looted or destroyed by the Germans during World War
II.
For obvious reasons, numbers are hard to come by but some Polish
officials estimate the number at around 35,000.
A German expert familiar with the problem, Wilfried Menghin from the
Berlin Museum of Pre-History, says Germany could offer an exchange but
the problem is finding Polish works. Hitler was determined to destroy
Polish culture and the Nazis kept few records of what they looted or
where they sent it. Some is probably held in private collections or
has since been sold abroad.
Immediately after the war some items looted from Poland were
returned. They include a Rembrandt and a Leonardo looted from the
Czartoryski collection in Cracow by the German governor, Hans Frank.
They were found in his villa in Bavaria. Another painting looted by
Frank, Raphael's "Portrait of a Young Man" has never been found.
Germany has also returned to Poland the so-called Posen Gold
treasure, which is a collection of ancient jewelry found in the city
of Poznan.
German cultural officials say there was never any matching gesture
from the Polish side.
Wojciech Kowalski, a Polish official who for a time was commissioner
for the Polish cultural heritage abroad, suggested a few years ago
that if Germany could not find the items looted from Poland, it could
make restitution in other ways -- for instance by providing the funds
to build a new wing at the Jagiellonian Library.
But public opinion is also an issue and, just as in Russia, many
Poles see no reason to return the treasures to Germany. For the
moment, Germany finds itself in an impasse, just as with Russia.
student guards - continued (Brent,Lori & Colin Snider lbcsnider@email.msn.com)
With regards to Steve Keller's reply to my opinion on 4-8-98:
I agree with you, Steve. Our perspectives on this subject are
different. I too, have a very diverse Security force, ranging in age
from 19 to 70. I have to find a happy medium, and being only 33 years
old myself, I have to find ways (outside of our training programs and
policies) to get these people to buy into what we are trying to
accomplish. I can honestly say that in my experience (limited in
comparison to yours - granted) that I can get just as much effort and
dedication from the 19 year old in my department as I can the 70 year
old. Life experience is important, but somehow it comes accross in
your reply that youth lacks common sense and the ability to make
rational and appropriate decisions. I don't want to beat a dead horse
here, as I was audience to you in Washington D.C. and I do have a
great deal of respect for you, but I do feel that it is important that
we look at the character of a person assigned security
responsibilities rather than their age (not to discount a person's
background). If I did not have the attitude concerning this subject
that I do, I am convinced that I could not motivate a single
individual within my scope of direction - after all, who is going to
listen to a 33 year old "kid" who is still wet behind the ears. I do
not claim to know it all....I only claim to care enough about the
institution that I work for to select individuals that my management
team and I are confident can do the job.
I must agree with you on one other point, however - museums do not pay
enough for a quality workforce. Again, it makes our jobs that much
tougher in that we have to find other ways to retain quality
individuals. It is quite evident that the more "established"
individuals are between the ages of 35-60. Younger staff are prone to
seek more "challenging" positions in the job market. I am fortunate
that the institution I work for has dedicated itself somewhat to
having the best security operation that it can afford, but it seems
that it is not enough considering the potential criminal acts that you
discussed in your reply. We can only do the best we can with the
resources we are afforded. Thank you for your reply. (P.S. - and the
correction concerning age discrimination!)
Respectfully,
Brent C. Snider, CST
Director of Protection Services
Indianapolis Museum of Art
A `creative' biography didn't foresee plot of British giggles (WASHINGTON POST)
The author said he had intended to confess the book was fiction.
London papers beat him to it.
By Paula Span WASHINGTON POST
NEW YORK -- The London newspapers have been running front-page stories
proclaiming "one of the great literary hoaxes of all time," and
chuckling gleefully over New York's "bamboozled celebs." In New York,
meanwhile, art world types have been sniffing about "journalistic
desperation." This was not exactly what well-known and generally quite
respectable British novelist William Boyd had in mind.
Yes, the obscure and tragic American artist Nat Tate, the subject of
Boyd's slender biography just being published in Britain and the
United States -- complete with old photos, footnotes and reminiscences
by the real-life Gore Vidal -- is utter fiction. "It's a complete
life, a life story, but it's all invented, all my imagination," Boyd
said Thursday.
And no, the publishers and publicists organizing a high-wattage New
York art party last week -- more than 400 name-brand writers, artists
and media people showed up and heard David Bowie read about Tate's
suicide -- didn't disclose Boyd's subterfuge.
But they swear they were going to. Eventually.
Boyd said he fully expected that within a few weeks his little
experiment -- "a creative and literary exercise, not in any sense a
spoof or a gag" -- would be exposed. "I thought there'd be a mounting
crescendo of skepticism and someone would eventually challenge me, and
I'd readily confess," he said. But the dawning truth was supposed to
be "a slow burn, not a detonation."
A detonation is what occurred, however. The party at the vast SoHo
studio of art star Jeff Koons attracted not only artists such as Frank
Stella and Julian Schnabel, novelists Jay McInerney and Paul Auster,
Billy Corgan of Smashing Pumpkins, ex-Python Michael Palin and TV
interviewer Charlie Rose -- but it was also attended by David Lister,
arts news editor of London's the Independent.
Lister heard Bowie read (the musician is one of the principals of 21
Publishing, which is bringing out Boyd's book Nat Tate: An American
Artist) and wondered who this Tate was.
Lister asked a few other guests, who told him that Tate, supposedly
an abstract expressionist of the '50s, was "not terribly well-known"
and "didn't have much of a reputation outside New York." That, at
least, was his account; Boyd's publishers suspect Lister merely
overheard a conversation.
At any rate, Lister described his attempt to track the artist through
galleries that, he quickly learned, did not exist, whereupon he
confirmed the sordid truth and plastered it all over Tuesday's
Independent.
How droll. Subsequently, an Independent editorial speculated that
this may be "the first art hoax without any art." The Daily Mail
crowed that New York's art aristocracy looked "ridiculously foolish."
And the Evening Standard reported that New York was "red-faced . . .
after waking up to the biggest practical joke in years."
Well, yes and no. Some of the supposedly red-faced never heard the
five-minute reading about Tate's sad end (he jumped to his death, at
the tender age of 31, from the Staten Island Ferry -- after
felicitously destroying 99 percent of his work). The reading was a
minor moment near the end of the party, and occurred when most there
had returned to milling and chatting.
Some claimed to have spotted the ruse from the beginning. New York
gallery owner Michael Steinberg said he had read Boyd's book in
galleys and knew from the opening line -- when Boyd tells of visiting
"Alice Singer's 57th Street gallery" -- that there was no such place
and that the book was "clearly fiction."
Boyd, who has written extensively on modern art, expected to confuse
his readers when he "got this idea of pushing the envelope of
authenticity as far as it could go."
The 65-page volume includes two of Tate's drawings (Boyd did them)
and a high-quality color reproduction of one of his canvases ("a
composite work" by Boyd and several 21 Publishing executives). Boyd
provided photos of his Zelig-like character scavenged from junk shops
and garage sales.
There are also actual quotes from Vidal and from Picasso biographer
John Richardson, friends whom Boyd asked to reminisce about Tate.
"They sportingly agreed," he said.
With hints and clues scattered through the text, the idea was "almost
a Nabokovian game," Boyd explained. "You should be suspicious from the
beginning, then reassured, then suspicious again."
Before he could set readers musing on the nature of reality and
illusion, though, the Independent weighed in, "much to our intense
irritation."
1998 Philadelphia Newspapers Inc.
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