Art Forgery in Australia

Australia’s Four Corners has aired a piece on art forgery in Australia today titled “FAKE!“: 

Reporter Quentin McDermott tells how up to ten per cent of art that’s resold across Australia could be problematic. This crisis of confidence has led art lovers to demand that any fake unfairly traded should be destroyed or registered, to avoid it being traded again. 
It’s a practice as old as art itself. A gifted painter takes a major artwork and reproduces it, or a variation on it. No harm in that, provided it’s clear that it’s not the real thing. Unfortunately some of these paintings find their way into the mainstream art market. Right now it’s clear that certain individuals are prepared to place fakes for sale, making handsome profits.
Alone this would be of concern, but Four Corners reporter Quentin McDermott investigates the role of gallery owners in the marketing and sale of fakes. It’s now clear that, either knowingly or unknowingly, a number of high profile gallery owners have been responsible for selling paintings worth thousands of dollars, with a question mark over their authenticity.
 . . .  

None of this is good news for art lovers. It’s now clear consumers have to be very careful who they deal with, what kind of paintings they buy and who has authenticated them.
This crisis of confidence has led some artists to demand any work sold under false pretences to be destroyed. Others believe there should be an art register of forged works, once they are detected, that could then be accessed by dealers and the general public.
“FAKE!” will be broadcast at 8.30pm on Monday 8 June on ABC1. It is replayed at 11.35pm on Tuesday 9 June.
Questions or Comments? Email me at derek.fincham@gmail.com

"Peru is rightful owner of artifacts"

So argues former First-Lady of Peru Eliane Karp-Toledo in an Op-Ed today in the Miami Herald (for a brief discussion of another Op-Ed in the NY Times, see here). She discusses the ongoing dispute between Yale and Peru over objects taken from Peru by Hiram Bingham, and effectively communicates Peru’s position—and only their position.  Though I think it is reasonable to criticize some of the actions of Yale University since they have held the objects, Karp-Toledo does her argument a disservice I think by ignoring some very real and well-founded differences of opinion between Yale and Peru.

For example, she argues “Many years of frustrated negotiations, and Yale’s presentation of an insensitive ‘Memorandum of Understanding’ in 2007, finally led the Republic of Peru to file a lawsuit against Yale in the District Court for Washington, D.C., in December 2008.”  Yet I’m not really sure how that memorandum was “insensitive”; nor does Karp-Toledo really tell us why.  That agreement, now apparently abandoned, aimed at creating a kind of lease which would have created a collaborative relationship between Yale and Peru.  It would have been similar in form perhaps to the agreements Italy has been promulgating with many institutions forced to return looted antiquities.  Peru would have received title to all the objects, with many remaining in Connecticut. There would have been an international traveling exhibition, and proceeds would help build a much-needed new museum and research center in Cuzco. Yale also would have provided funds to establish a scholarly exchange program. As Yale president Richard C. Levin said at the time, “We aim to create a new model for resolving competing interests in cultural property,… This can best be achieved by building a collaborative relationship — one which involves scholars and researchers from Yale and Peru — that serves science and human understanding.”  I’m afraid I don’t see how this arrangement was “insensitive”. 

File:MuseoSicán lou.jpgAnother point of contention is where these objects may be stored if they are returned.  Though she points out the Royal Tombs Museum of Sipán (pictured here), she has little to say about the current exhibition near Machu Picchu at Aguas Calientes.  An expanded center such as the one Yale had offered would seem to be badly needed, as there are indications the current museum near the Aguas Calientes train station is not fit for purpose, according to Arthur Lubow in a long piece in the NY Times Magazine:

The doors were open to the air, which was moist from the nearby river, and the sole official was a caretaker who sold tickets and then exited the building. On display in the attractive (if unguarded) museum are the finds that Peruvian archaeologists have made at Machu Picchu in the years since Bingham’s excavations.

 I think it is worth asking at this point, how much of the ongoing dispute is a product of the effort to continue the Indigenous rights movement in Peru, irrespective of whether it is actually creating a better place to display these objects, and display them to the public—whether that is in the US or Peru?  I think that collaboration is a far better model, but I’m not sure Karp-Toedo has provided and argument which would call for zero collaboration.  Instead she seems eager to punish Yale and Hiram Bingham for taking Peru’s heritage.  A claim I think which is not supported by the facts as we know them.  Though there are certainly indications that these objects should have been returned to Peru long ago, they were not, perhaps because of intervening events (America’s involvement in WWI may have provided a distraction), neglect, negligence or even bad faith.  
Questions or Comments? Email me at derek.fincham@gmail.com

3,000 Object Slated for Return to Italy

Today the FBI and the Berwyn Police Department will hold a news conference announcing the return of 3,000 religious objects, books, and antiquities that were illegally removed from Italy and found in a home in Berwyn.  This comes two years after John Sisto’s, the homeowner, died.  On Friday the FBI said “many of the items … were determined to have been removed illegally from Italy and will be repatriated to Italian authorities later next week.” 

 “The house was filled with old books . . . ,” said Berwyn Police Chief William Kushner.  “I am told that there are also papal documents dating back to the 13th, 14th and 15th centuries.”

Authorities have been researching the authenticity of the items and trying to determining how Sisto came to have them.

“We can’t question a dead man,” said Kushner. “We are just going to return the items to the Italian authorities.”
Sisto was born in Bari, Italy and immigrated to the United States at 29. After the items were discovered in his home in March 2007, the tidy brick bungalow was under constant protection by police for 15 days.

FBI agents contacted Italian authorities, and agents specializing in stolen art were seen entering the home. Rumors that the Swiss Guards of Vatican City were coming to the working-class suburb to collect their items caused media and neighbors to swarm the block for days, but the Swiss Guards never came. 

When he lived in Chicago in 1958, Sisto had complained that someone stole 72 rare books worth $40,000 from the basement of his home. Many of them were later recovered.

He told police the books were given to him by his father, Giuseppe Sisto, a history and geography professor at the University of Bari.

Questions or Comments? Email me at derek.fincham@gmail.com

Spain Prevails For Now

“It is this comity of interests and mutual respect among nations . . . that warrants granting Spain’s motions to vacate the Mercedes‘s arrest and to dismiss Odyssey’s amended complaint”. So concludes US Magistrate Judge Mark Pizzo yesterday in Odyssey Marine Exploration, Inc. v. The Unidentified Shipwrecked Vessel.

Odyssey Marine has lost in its bid to petition a US court for ownership of the coins, and Spain has prevailed—for now—in its suit to regain half a million gold and silver coins from Odyssey Marine Exploration which recovered them from a wreck in the Atlantic Ocean. The recovery of the coins, thought to be worth as much as $500 million was announced, though the location of the wreck, and information about the wreck was kept secret. In response Spain filed suit, and seized some of Odyssey’s other vessels. UNESCO condemned the recovery, and much has been written and discussed about this recovery, considered perhaps the richest haul ever recovered from a wreck.

In the judgment which I’ve embedded below, the District Court held it lacked jurisdiction over the dispute and the property should be returned to Spain. Though Odyssey Marine attempted to hide the true identity of the wreck, initially code-naming the wreck the Black Swan, the court held that there was enough information to conclude the coins came from the “Nuestra Senora de las Mercedes”, a warship which was carrying treasure back from Peru when it was sunk by the British off the Spanish coast in 1804. Spain, soon declared war on Great Britain, a point which may be lost in all this talk of the treasure. This treasure was an important piece of heritage, and all the talk of Odyssey’s share prices, and the rich treasure haul shouldn’t distract us from why these objects are protected, and why Spain fought so vigorously to have them declared the owner.

So these coins may be destined for Spain, finally, even though these coins were initially taken from Peru, which also asserted an interest. This has been a protracted dispute, and one that may indeed continue at the appellate level. It will be interesting as well to see how much continued involvement Peru has with the appeals process, or if Spain and Peru can come to an agreement about what can or should be done with the objects.

Spain’s Culture Minister Angeles Gonzalez-Sinde is quoted by the BBC, calling the decision “a very important precedent for all future undersea discoveries”. Gregg Stemm, CEO of Odyssey Marine said “I’m confident that ultimately the judge or the appellate court will see the legal and evidentiary flaws in Spain’s claim, and we’ll be back to argue the merits of the case.”

But for now, US Magistrate Judge Mark Pizzo has the final word, concluding his recommendation, “More than two hundred years have passed since the Mercedes exploded. Her place of rest and all those who perished with her that fateful day remained undisturbed for centuries – until recently. International law recognizes the solemnity of their memorial, and Spain’s sovereign interests in preserving it.”

For more on the company this older piece from Voice of America is pretty interesting. This suit is really about the continued viability of this kind of business, and the perils of doing so without the support of organizations like UNESCO or other nations of origin:

Questions or Comments? Email me at derek.fincham@gmail.com

Yale Sued Again

Yale University has been sued in U.S. District Court in Connecticut by Pierre Konowaloff who alleges a work by Van Gogh—”The Night Cafe”—was confiscated from his great-grandfather during the Communist revolution in Russia. 

The action is a counter to Yale’s earlier suit. Yale initially brought suit in March, seeking to pre-empt Konowaloff’s claim.  In Yale’s initial suit in March, they argued courts should not undo the property revolution of Russia.  Russian law would seem to prevent these kind of claims as well. Back in March, Richard Lacayo noted that Konowalof’s grandfather—Ivan Morozov was “was one of the two outstanding Russian collectors and patrons of modern art early in the 20th century.” The suit, Yale University v. Konowaloff, 09-466, U.S. District Court, District of Connecticut (New Haven), will determine whether this work was seized unlawfully during a Communist takeover of Russia in 1918. 

A similar issue recently arose in the UK with the recent dispute over the Royal Academy display of “From Russia: French and Russian Master Paintings 1870-1925 From Moscow and St. Petersburg”. Russia nearly backed out of the deal.  The display required an act of Parliament to grant special immunity to prevent the works from being claimed by descendants of the original owners from whom many of the works were summarily seized during the Bolshevik revolution.

2009 must be the year claimants to Yale’s cultural heritage decided to pursue their claims, because of course this suit follows soon after the Republic of Peru’s suit filed in December over artifacts taken from Machu Picchu

Questions or Comments? Email me at derek.fincham@gmail.com

Renoir Recovered in Venice

This work by Pierre Auguste Renoir, stolen 15 years ago in Rome was recovered in Venice according to AFP.  Not too many details, but these from the wire reports:

“We carried out all verifications, with the help of Interpol and French and British police, and established that the painting — which depicts a mythical scene — belonged to a Roman family from whom it was stolen in 1984,” [an Italian Police Spokesman said].

Captain Salvatore Di Stefano, another police spokesman, said: “We don’t know the value but it must be pretty high because Renoir did not paint that many mythical scenes.”

With the Treviso resident unable to prove his claim that he bought it at a rummage sale, police seized the painting, dating from around 1895, in order to return it promptly to its rightful owners.

In September 2008, police in Italy, acting on a tip from an art critic, recovered a Renoir nude stolen 33 years earlier from a private collection in Milan. Three suspects were arrested.

Questions or Comments? Email me at derek.fincham@gmail.com

Stolen Antiquities Recovered With the Help of the Art Loss Register

The Art Loss Register—though not a cure-all for what ails the antiquities trade—is an invaluable tool for the recovery of stolen objects so long as they have been documented and reported.  I have received a couple of press releases from the ALR highlighting recent recoveries of antiquities.  Though it cannot help aid the recovery of antiquities which have never been documented, it can help in the recovery of stolen antiquities which have been documented and reported missing, underscoring the need I think for museums and nations of origin to do a better job documenting and reporting the stores of objects which they currently have.  A couple recent seizures by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) highlight this.

Yesterday ICE announced a wall panel fresco which had been stolen in 1997 was recovered.  I found the history of the site interesting:

The panel, rectangular with a white background depicting a female minister, white wash on plaster with a modern wooden frame, was previously located at the excavation office in Pompeii and was reported stolen with five other fresco panels on June 26, 1997.

The investigation revealed that, between 1903 and 1904, the Italian government authorized a farmer, Giuseppe De Martino, to restore his farmhouse, which was located on an archeological site in Boscoreale, province of Naples. During the restoration, six important frescos, originating from Pompeii were found.

On July 12, 1957, the Government of Italy purchased the frescos. On June 26, 1997, after the completion of work to the excavation site, the Italian government observed that the six frescos were missing and subsequently reported the theft.

 This follows soon after the recovery of seven Egyptian antiquities which had been stolen from the Bijbels Museum in Amsterdam in 2007:

The investigation received significant help from the Art Loss Register (ALR) of New York, an organization that maintains a database of stolen works of art. The ALR discovered the artifacts at the Manhattan auction house, which turned the artifacts over to the Register and ICE agents.

One of the pieces recovered is a 7-inch-high depiction of a mummy with arms folded over the chest and hoes in each hand. It dates to between 1307 and 1070 B.C. The other recovered artifacts were an bronze figure of Imhotep, artchitect of the first pyramid, and one of Hapokrates, and an Egyptian painted Wood Osiris, all dating as far back as 712 B.C.

“The recovery of these artifacts sends a strong message to thieves that the market to sell stolen antiquities in the United States is freezing up.” said Peter J. Smith, special agent in charge of the ICE Office of Investigations in New York. “ICE is committed to working closely with foreign governments and organizations like the ALR to recover priceless works of art and antiquities so they can be returned to their rightful owners.”

Questions or Comments? Email me at derek.fincham@gmail.com

A Pisarro Hidden for 70 Years to be Auctioned

Camille Pissarro’s Le Quai Malaquais, Printemps (pictured), previously discussed here, recently recovered from a Zurich bank vault will go on sale later this month according to Catherine Hickley for Bloomberg:

 Gisela Bermann-Fischer waited almost 70 years to get back a painting by Camille Pissarro stolen from her family’s home in Vienna by the Gestapo in 1938. 

She recovered “Le Quai Malaquais, Printemps” after a quest that pitched her into a battle of lawyers’ letters with Bruno Lohse, a Nazi art dealer appointed by Hermann Goering to loot treasures in occupied France, and finally led to a Zurich bank vault, where the picture was stashed in a safe. Prosecutors sealed the safe as part of a continuing three-nation probe into associates of Lohse suspected of extortion and money-laundering. 

Now 80, Bermann-Fischer will auction the 1903 painting at Christie’s International’s sale of impressionist and modern art in London on June 23. Its value is estimated at between 900,000 pounds ($1.45 million) and 1.5 million pounds. Bermann-Fischer says it cost her at least 500,000 Swiss francs ($466,000) to recover the Pissarro, mainly in lawyers’ fees. At no point during her quest could she be sure of getting the artwork back.

One of the intriguing parts of the story was the brief resurfacing of the work in 1984:

“I don’t think we’ll ever find out from where to where the painting was transported over the years,” Bermann-Fischer said. “It truly was hidden. I think the exhibition at l’Hermitage Lausanne in 1984 was a test run, to see whether the original owners or any heirs were still on the lookout for the paintings and would make a claim.”

Questions or Comments? Email me at derek.fincham@gmail.com

MFA Boston Prevails in Nazi-era Declaratory Judgment

Kokoschka_TwoNudes.jpg The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston has prevailed in its suit against Dr. Claudia Seger-Tomschitz, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston v. Seger-Thomschitz, No. 08-10097-RWZ (D. Mass. 2009). 

At issue was this work, “Two Nudes (Lovers)” by Oskar Kokoschka, 1913.  The work has been on display “almost continuosly” since 1973 according to the Boston Globe’s Geoff Edgers

The museum brought suit to preclude any potential restitution suit, essentially asking the court to declare it the rightful owner of the work.  The Museum brought suit back in January 2008, and in the complaint argued the “painting was never confiscated by the Nazis, was never sold by force as a result of Nazi persecution, and was not otherwise taken”. 

The potential claimant, Claudia Seger-Thomschitz, claimed the painting was sold under duress by Oskar Reichel a physician and gallery owner in Austria. The work had been consigned on several occasions to an art dealer, Otto Kallir who owned the Neue Galerie in Vienna.  Kallir later left Vienna, eventually coming to New York, and he brought this and some other works of art with him.  He sent money to Reichel’s sons at this point.  In 1939, the work was sent to Paris; in 1945 it was sold to a New York dealer for $1,500; Sarah Blodgett purchased the work in the 1940s; she gave the work to the MFA Boston in 1972.

District Judge Rya Zobel held:

[A]lthough the Reichel family never claimed compensation for any of the Kokoschka works that had been transferred to Kallir for sale, it did claim restitution for artwork and property that had been stolen by the Nazis.

[T]he Reichel family never attempted to recover the painting after WWII, and there is no evidence that it believed the transfer was not legitimate.

The evidence is undisputed that the members of the Reichel family had sufficient knowledge of Reichel’s ownership and transfer of the painting.

Dr. Seger-Thomschitz also ―waited more than three years to assert her claim after she was on inquiry notice of her possible right to the Painting…The information necessary to pursue her claim was readily available to both [Dr. Seger-Thomschitz] and her counsel at that time.

[T]he delay in bringing suit will prejudice the MFA because all of the witnesses with actual knowledge of the transfer are deceased.

Any claim by Dr. Seger-Thomschitz that Oskar Reichel was misled when he transferred the painting to Otto Kallir in 1939 was ―pure speculation.

 The court has held that the claimant had opportunities to seek title to the work, but did not, and as a consequence the limitations period has run.   Malcolm Rogers, Director of the MFA Boston stated “The MFA conducted a year and a half long comprehensive investigation of the work’s provenance, seeking documentation of the various transactions and changes of ownership in the painting’s almost 100-year history. We are satisfied and grateful that the judge has reaffirmed the Museum’s rightful ownership of the work.”

Questions or Comments? Email me at derek.fincham@gmail.com