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November 14, 1998, part II

The Global Watch Center For Today's Security Needs

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Shirt relic doesn't belong to Glasgow, says Sioux (Daily Telegraph London)

By Auslan Cramb, Scottish Correspondent
A DESCENDANT of a Sioux who defeated Gen George Custer at the Little Big Horn appealed to Glasgow councillors yesterday to return a "ghost shirt" stolen from a dead warrior at the massacre of Wounded Knee. The relic was presented to the city in 1891 during a visit by Buffalo Bill Cody's Wild West Show. It has since been on display in Kelvingrove Museum. Marcella Le Beau, 78, a descendant of Chief Rain in the Face, who fought at the Little Big Horn in 1876, said the shirt was valued by the families of Indians killed at Wounded Knee. The case is being watched closely by museum curators throughout Britain who face an increasing number of repatriation requests. If it is sent back to America, it will be one of the most high-profile relics to be repatriated by the UK. Mrs Le Beau said: "North America has the greatest respect for its dead and it follows natural law that the shirt should be returned. Long standing grief and sadness prevails, but the return of this ghost shirt will bring closure to the grief from a very sad element of history." A public consultation exercise found most Glaswegians in favour of sending the shirt back, but the city's museums service hopes to keep it. The debate on its rightful resting place began five years ago after John Earl, a solicitor of Cherokee descent, saw it during a visit to Glasgow. When he returned to America he contacted the Pine Ridge and Cheyenne River Wounded Knee Survivors' Association. Ghost dancers wore"magical" shirts with symbolic decorations of eagles and buffalo which they believed would protect them from soldiers' bullets. The Lakota Sioux were on a winter trek through the South Dakota hills when they were taken into custody. It has been suggested that the massacre began after one brave refused to give up his rifle, which was discharged when an officer took hold of it. A decision on the repatriation will be taken by the Glasgow City Council art and culture committee on Thursday.

Three artworks stolen from Courtauld (Times of London)

BY DALYA ALBERGE
DAYS after the Victoria and Albert Museum admitted that two of its Constables had been stolen, the Courtauld Art Gallery disclosed yesterday that it, too, had been the victim of a robbery. Three paintings from the 15th and 16th centuries, worth a total of Ł75,000, have disappeared. The Courtauld has no idea when they were taken. It was noticed "during routine checking" on November 6 that they had gone. The gallery recently reopened after a 14-month closure for refurbishment; the stolen works had been in secure storage. A spokeswoman said: "All we know is that weren't where they should have been." Police were contacted yesterday and a reward of up to Ł25,000 for information leading to the recovery of the paintings was offered. The works are an Entombment, from 1582, attributed to Hans von Aachen (1552-1615); Landscape with St Onuphrius Praying, Flemish School of the mid 16th century, possibly Herri met de Bles (c1480-c1550); and Head of an Angel, a fragment attributed to Gherado di Giovanni (c1432-97). The Courtauld is part of the Courtauld Institute of Art, the history of art institute of the University of London. The superlative collection includes some of the finest Impressionist works in the world. John Murdoch, director of the gallery, said: "This loss is intensely painful. My colleagues and I are continuing our searches and collaborating closely with the police and our expert advisers to secure the recovery of the paintings

From: IntlArtCop@aol.com
Subject:

RE: Sprinkler System Thoughts (Steve Keller)

In a message dated 11/12/98 2:48:56 AM, securma@xs4all.nl writes:
RE: Sprinkler System Thoughts

What a crock of S**T! Excuse my language. Yes, sprinkler systems can be a bad idea if an idiot buys junk, and a fellow idiot put them in, fails to maintain them, fails to inspect them, chains the valve open, etc. etc. etc. Who do you suppose reads this newsgroup? Idiots? We've been fighting this urban myth about sprinklers malfunctioning in a museum for decades and we don't need your commercial scare tactics. Properly installed and properly maintained sprinkler systems are acceptable in museums. Storing their collections off site in your vaults probably isn't. There have been very few instances of sprinklers malfunctioning in museums and three of the four I know of (and I did an extensive research) involved gross human error. The fourth should not have happened. I'm certain that in LA your earthquake risk increases the chances of an accidental discharge but this is not the case in the real world (oops, I mean to say, rest of the world). The next time I build a museum, I'll tell the architect to use non-combustible materials and build it out of concrete totally. No room will be larger than 6000 square feet. I'm sure that will go over well. So I guess we are going to be stuck with sprinklers and those old pain-in-the-neck fire codes you were able to bypass. So. Are we supposed to store everything off site in your facility? Does the statistically minimal risk of water discharge in our sprinklered museum justify putting our collections in your hands? Doesn't the risk of transporting the collection materials back and forth between our sprinklered museum and your vault building increase the risk to the collection to a degree much greater than simply storing them in our own vaults? Doesn't this substantially increase the risk of vehicle accident, vibration and thus conservation concerns, theft, mishandling accidents, etc. during transit, to the point where the collection is in greater jeopardy from being stored off site than it would be if stored in a sprinklered museum? By the way, few, if any, collection storage rooms in museums are ever sprinklered. We know about alternative suppression and fire separation methods, too. When our collections are stored in our own buildings WE protect them. We know our guards and can control their hiring, training, performance and supervision. When our collections are in your custody who knows how secure they are? Other customers can approach our collections to within a few feet of our precious works of art since they can gain access to their vault and be separated from our collection by only a guard and a concrete wall. Bang. He's dead. By the way. There are few burglar alarm systems I can't defeat. You can't afford one that I can't defeat one way or the other. Until you prove to me that your "high security" vault is really secure, consider me a skeptic. I've surveyed too many "high security" vaults for my clients only to find that I could defeat their security in an instant. The people on this newsgroup didn't just fall off a cabbage cart. Don't treat them like they did. Many museums resort to off site storage. I hope they survey the facility thoroughly and don't believe the salesman's claims. They provide a service in certain instances but are not a permanent solution to museum collection storage problems.
Steve Keller, CPP
Museum Security Consultant

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