December 12, 1998

CONTENTS:

Resumes Invited for Security Management Position

Excellent opportunity to join a world renowned cultural institution in the New York metropolitan area. The candidate we are seeking will have ten or more years of increasingly more responsible hands on security management experience with a minimum of two years as director or associate director of security in an organizationally complex institution or corporate setting. Demonstrated success in developing and managing an effective security and safety program. Must be able to develop, implement and communicate security policies and procedures. Strong people skills working with a diverse spectrum of executives, professionals, union and non-union staff required. A better than average understanding of technical systems a plus. BA degree required. MA degree desirable. CPP is highly desirable. Extensive background investigation will be conducted. Candidate must be willing to pursue CPP certification when eligible. Salary commensurate with experience. Excellent benefits package. Please send resume and salary requirements in confidence to:
Steve Keller and Associates, Inc. 22 Foxfords Chase Ormond Beach, FL 32174 An Equal Opportunity Employer.

motion detectors

unique identification of museum objects

International Cultural Property Protection Website

Strike to shut down Greek museums, sites

'Baron' held in stolen art inquiry

NYT: moon rock

MIAMI (AP) -- A 3.9-million-year-old chunk of the moon that President Nixon gave to Honduras has been seized by federal agents who said they uncovered a plan to sell the rock for $5 million. ``Operation Lunar Eclipse,'' an undercover investigation involving U.S. Customs, NASA and the Postal Service, was aimed at stopping the sale of bogus lunar samples. In this case, however, agents found a real one.
It was brought back by astronauts on the Apollo 17 mission that lifted off Dec. 7, 1972, federal officials said. The rock was part of a larger sample the astronauts dedicated to the people of the world before they returned to Earth, said Capt. Eugene Cernan, the mission's commander. ``We wanted to give a piece of this rock to each country,'' Cernan said Monday. ``It was to be part of the archives of that nation and country.''
Authorities said a 60-year-old Florida man bought the tiny rock from a retired Honduran military officer. They said the Florida man called Cernan to verify the authenticity of the rock. Agents lured the man by placing a newspaper advertisement seeking moon rocks, and they seized the rock once he led them to it -- encased in acrylic, stored in safety deposit box. The man was not arrested, but he could face smuggling charges for failing to declare the rock if he brought it into the country himself, Customs spokesman Michael Sheehan said.

ALR & Washington Conference

Monet painting's disputed past may keep it out of London show

Stolen art can turn up in the most unlikely places.

Hey, that's my picture on your wal

DANIEL SEARLE, an heir to the G.D. Searle drug fortune, bought the ethereal Edgar Degas pastel "Landscape with Smokestacks," a view across a windswept countryside, in 1987. He paid $850,000. The seller was a reliable dealer. Searle hung the work in his suburban Chicago home and later lent it to New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art. But eight years after the purchase Searle received a letter from a lawyer representing the heirs of Holocaust victims Friedrich and Louise Gutmann. The resulting court battle over the painting's ownership turned, among other things, on how diligently each side had checked the artwork's true ownership.
The Gutmann heirs claimed that the appearance of a notorious German art dealer, Hans Wendland, in the painting's ownership record should have raised a red flag. Searle claimed the Gutmann family sold the painting in Paris in 1939 and that even if it were stolen, the heirs could have found it much earlier if they had been searching diligently. A settlement last summer left ownership divided 50/50. Searle donated his share to the Art Institute of Chicago. The Institute will purchase the heirs' share. But even that compromise ended up costing Searle more than $1 million in legal fees. Can art buyers protect themselves against this sort of hazard? They couldn't in 1987, but now collectors and museums can buy defective title coverage or "war loot" insurance. It is available from Hiscox Syndicate 33 at Lloyd's of London. Such policies were previously available only to dealers and were limited to $1 million. The new Lloyd's policies are aimed at collections worth $10 million or more and provide up to $50 million of coverage. If an ownership challenge arises, the insurer funds a legal defense. It also pays out the value of the artwork to the policyholder if the fight is lost.
Disputes over ownership are cropping up more frequently these days (see table). The opening-up of eastern European archives and a recent State Department conference on Nazi-looted assets will give claimants even more documentation for pursuing their cases. Hundreds of thousands of works were stolen in the Nazi era alone and are probably now worth more than $1 billion. An unknown number were stolen by Soviet and Allied soldiers. "Nobody has a real handle on the extent of the problem," says Anna Kisluk, director of the Art Loss Register in New York, which maintains an international database of stolen art.
The new insurance doesn't come cheap. The premium could be as high as 2% for a collection where there are gaps in ownership history. That's $400,000 for a $20 million policy. Still, given the extraordinary cost of artwork and litigation these days, Lloyd's is probably going to find some takers.

Umbrella Man was an art dealer and computer ace

The mystery surrounding the identity of a homeless man murdered 12 days ago in Sydney's Domain has been solved. Until yesterday the man, dubbed "the Umbrella Man" by council rangers and Royal Botanic Gardens staff because he would construct a tepee from umbrellas for shelter in the night, faced a pauper's burial in an unmarked grave. But now The Rocks detectives, who could not contact his relatives in Victoria yesterday, believe him to be former Melbourne art dealer and computer technician David Murray, a man who turned his back on mainstream society almost two decades ago. His identity emerged as Herald readers responded to a story on police efforts to identify him and locate his killer.
Mr Murray had changed his Christian name from David to Adam after taking up residence in what he called the "Starlight hotel" at Mrs Macquaries Chair 14 years ago. The man who, unlike many vagrants, shunned alcohol, told of his life three years later in the Good Weekend magazine. Mr Murray, then 58, was living in a small plastic-clad humpy built at the cliff base of Mrs Macquaries Chair near the northern end of the Boy Charlton swimming pool. It eventually grew into a home with raised floorboards, a hammock, crude shelving and table and even a small garden until it was torn down four years ago for being an illegal structure. The slim, bearded man had once been a technician at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology. Later he worked with a computer firm before opening an art gallery in the Melbourne suburb of Prahran. But according to his brother the business went broke around the same time as the breakdown in his marriage, which had resulted in two children.
After Mr Murray's wife remarried and settled in Western Australia, he lived briefly with his father and adopted a life of painting and sculpture. He refused to go on the dole, even when he arrived in Sydney. In 1989, he told Good Weekend that every day he set an issue to think about and resolve: what is the best way to bring up a child in Sydney or how strong is the role of women's independence in this city. When he found the answers, he would paint a series on those answers. "I don't want to paint glibly, without any insight," he said. He described himself as "just a poor, down and out hobledehoy" whose favourite sport was watching the "nine to fivers" surge out of their city offices in the peak-hour rush, after spending his day rummaging through bins and walking the city. He also told of the perils of living in the Starlight hotel. Nights when drunken louts hurled bottles at him. Times when he returned to his camp to find his few scavenged belongings stolen, scattered or thrown into Woolloomooloo Bay. Despite the perils of living in the open, the Umbrella Man wouldn't swap his squat and view for anything in the world. It cost him his life on Saturday, November 29, when someone bashed him to death with a blunt object.

Stolen Sutler Trailer

Hi, folks...I know this is a little out of our scope, but wanted to alert as many folks as possible. Please pass this along to any other lists that you think might be appropriate. It has already gone to the French & Indian War List (history@kmag.deerfield.com), the American War for Independence List (revlist@meridiantc.com) and the Brigade of the American Revolution (brigade@n.ml.org).
Thanks for your help!
VivianLea Stevens
On December 1, 1998, Bill and Gayle Fox (Side-Kick Sutlers) parked their trailer in the lot of a truck stop on I-20 just outside of Shreveport while they went into town for transmission repairs. While they were gone, someone stole the trailer. This was their means of making a living. Please beware of anyone not of the re-enacting hobby that is trying to sell you any goods. Also, watch your local classified ads for any Civil War relics for sale. Please forward this message to as many re-enactors as you can. If you think that you may have stumbled across any of the stolen items, please contact me at EJC715@aol.com. I will contact Bill immediately.
Thank you,
Carolyn Elliott

Louvre, Grand Palais museums closed in Paris because of strike