Looted Statute (maybe Caligula) Seized Near Rome

A Bust of Caligula at the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek

Italian police have arrested a tombarolo with an 8-foot ancient statue not far from Rome. The statue may be worth €1 million. They believe the statue may be of Caligula, and may even have been looted from Caligula’s tomb, which has not been discovered. We surely won’t know if this tomb or the site was the actual tomb, but if looting is destroying the archaeological record, we are losing information.

Might the record have given us information on Caligula, who may have received a bad rap from the sources which have survived antiquity? Contemporaries describe the emperor as insane, saying he appointed a horse as consul, slept with his sisters, and killed often. But these might have been claims made by his political enemies in the senate and elsewhere—perhaps not too different from today’s politics. After all, how could the son of Germanicus (my favorite Roman) have been such a bad guy. Caligula only ruled from AD 37-41, before he was assassinated.

I wonder where this statue was going to be sold? The United States, the middle-East, Asia? Excavations will start to reveal the archaeology of the site where the tomb raider unearthed the massive statue.

  1. Tom Kington, Caligula’s tomb found after police arrest man trying to smuggle statue, The Guardian, January 17, 2011, http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/jan/17/caligula-tomb-found-police-statue (last visited Jan 18, 2011).
Questions or Comments? Email me at derek.fincham@gmail.com

An Interview with Paolo Giorgio Ferri

Fabio Isman had a terrific interview with Italian Prosecutor Paolo Giorgio Ferri which I’ve just now gotten around to reading. Ferri was the prosecutor during Marion True’s trial in Italy. The discussion ranged from the problem of prosecuting antiquities looting to the international laws which apply, and the damage done by metal detecting. Here is an excerpt:

GDA: What was your first investigation into illegal excavations?

PGF: It was in 1994, with the then sergeant of the carabinieri department for cultural heritage, Vito Barra, now in charge of security at the Vatican Museums. We believed that a statue stolen at Villa Torlonia had been put up for auction at Sotheby’s. So we travelled to London [but made no progress]. Five months later, Sotheby’s sent me the names of two companies: Edition Services and Xoilan Trading. Edition Services is a company owned by Giacomo Medici, until now the only important “art robber” to have been convicted in Italy [Medici is currently appealing]. Xoilan Trading is one of the various names of [companies connected to] the art dealer Robin Symes. But at the time we didn’t know this. Faced with two Panamanian companies, Barra was on the verge of giving up. “No one’s going to tell us anything,” he said. Shortly afterwards, I met Daniela Rizzo, an archaeologist of the monuments office for southern Etruria. Together with Maurizio Pellegrini, from the museum of Villa Giulia, she was to play a crucial role in my work. 

  1. Fabio Isman, “Clandestine excavation is a crime that is hard to prove”, The Art Newspaper, January, 2011, http://www.theartnewspaper.com/articles/%E2%80%9CClandestine+excavation+is+a+crime+that+is+hard+to+prove%E2%80%9D/22164 (last visited Jan 18, 2011).
Questions or Comments? Email me at derek.fincham@gmail.com

Friday Diversion: Eating in Amelia

I’m receiving a handful of questions each day from folks interested in attending the MA program in Amelia this summer. One of the most common kinds of questions seeks information about the day-to-day during those three months of the program. For those folks, I strongly recommend a look at Catherine Sezgin’s recent series of posts on Amelia. Catherine graduated with the MA Certificate in 2009, and has gone on to do some super writing and research and in her spare time maintains ARCA’s Blog. Have a look:

  1. Profile of Amelia
  2. Punto di Vino
  3. La Misticanza
  4. Porcelli’s beats out Napoli Pizza

We have a really strong pool of applicants so far, but there is still space for more, so I do encourage you to submit an application, the deadline is January 21st.

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

Eating in Amelia

One of my favorite things to think about. I’m receiving a handful of questions each day for folks interested in attending the MA program in Amelia this summer. One of the most common questions ask about the day-to-day during those three months. We have a really strong pool of applicants so far, but there is still space for more, so I do encourage you to submit an application, the deadline is January 21st. In the meantime on a Friday afternoon, I recommend Catherine Sezgin’s series of posts on Amelia. Catherine graduated with the MA Certificate in 2009, and has gone on to do some super writing and research and in her spare time maintains ARCA’s Blog. Have a look

  1. Profile of Amelia
  2. Punto di Vino
  3. La Misticanza

Wild Story of A Forger who Donates his Forgeries

 Randy Kennedy has a super article (following an earlier report in the Art Newspaper) discussing a man named Mark Landis who forges works of art and donates the forgeries to art museums all over America. He may have been doing this for as many as twenty years.

His real name is Mark A. Landis, and he is a lifelong painter and former gallery owner. But when he paid a visit to the Paul and Lulu Hilliard University Art Museum in Lafayette, La., last September, he seemed more like a character sprung from a Southern Gothic novel.

He arrived in a big red Cadillac and introduced himself as Father Arthur Scott. Mark Tullos Jr., the museum’s director, remembers that he was dressed “in black slacks, a black jacket, a black shirt with the clerical collar and he was wearing a Jesuit pin on his lapel.” Partly because he was a man of the cloth and partly because he was bearing a generous gift — a small painting by the American Impressionist Charles Courtney Curran, which he said he wanted to donate in memory of his mother, a Lafayette native — it was difficult not to take him at his word, Mr. Tullos said.

That is a pretty remarkable thing to do, even in the art trade. The lesson is clear though, we can certainly blame the forger/donor, but provenance and the history of an object must be checked, even when an object is donated. 

  1. Randy Kennedy, Elusive Forger, Giving but Never Stealing, N.Y. Times (Jan. 12, 2011).
  2. Helen Stoilas, “Jesuit priest” donates fraudulent works, The Art Newspaper (Nov. 2010).
Questions or Comments? Email me at derek.fincham@gmail.com

The Central Park Obelisk

The Obelisk in Central Park 

On January 4th, Zahi Hawass posted on his blog parts of a letter he sent to New York City May Bloomberg which was erected in Central Park in 1880. Hawass was not criticizing the installation of the monument, or the way in which Frederick Olmstead installed it in his grand park. Rather Hawass voiced some concerns about weathering being done to the hieroglyphic text on the needle. News of the fact that New York is not caring for an ancient Egyptian obelisk soon spread. David Gill argued “Noth Americans” who are critical of the situation at Pompeii should be “chastened”. But I’m  not at all sure that weathering is actually taking place, and I do not see how Zahi Hawass can make that claim either: he has made his allegations on the basis of some photographs which he was sent.

This is certainly outside my area of expertise, so I’d appreciate any corrections in the comments below. But it seems to me like Hawass is making some unfounded allegations. He is claiming that the air pollution, rain, snow and wind in New York are wearing down the obelisk. And from this image, some kind of weathering certainly seems to have happened. But why is the face to the right of the photographer still in very good condition? Moreover, in the comments on his blog, Hawass does not make any specific claims, or provide any possible remedies. He only makes a loud claim, that New York and Central Park are not caring for this object. How do we know the obelisk did not look like this before it was removed to New York?

It seems to me that Hawass is instead trying to argue that wealthier nations are not caring for antiquities, and arguing that he and Egypt will. He says that “If the Central Park Conservancy and the City of New York cannot properly care for this obelisk, I will take the necessary steps to bring this precious artifact home and save it from ruin.”

No one can fault Hawass for his passion, but here I think his criticism of the care for this obelisk is misguided. Is there something toxic about New York that is prematurely weathering this obelisk? What about the similar obelisks in London and Paris? 

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

Weber on Liability for Faked or Wrongly Attributed Works of Art in the U.S.

Marc Weber, an attorney in Zurich, has passed along his recent book section on certain aspects of U.S. law dealing with fake or wrongly attributed art works. It appears in a volume honoring Kurt Siehr on his 75th birthday, which appears to be worth seeking out as well, with contributions in both English and German. Marc has made the piece available at his website, and I’ve reproduced the introduction below:

A work of art isn’t always what it seems to be. Sometimes the buyer learns that he has just purchased a forgery and sometimes the seller realizes that he has just sold an original. As with other contract dispute, the dissatisfied party will seek redress in the courts, but the courts are faced with problems that are specific to dispute arising from the sale of art when it comes to fakes, the provenance and authenticity of works of art.

If the sold piece of art is a forgery, the buyer sues for the repayment of the purchase price in exchange for the return of the work of art. The buyer will seek to do the same after having bought a work of art which is not executed by the artist but by his school. The seller attempts to sue the buyer for the return of the work of art in exchange for the restitution of the purchase price, should a work of art sold as a real copy turn out to be the work of the master or a painting from a school is actually a work of the master himself. The legal remedies of the first case (warranty) differ from the ones of the second case (mistake).

In addition to the remedy of rescission of the contract, under certain circumstances, a cause of action for product disparagement may arise. Finally, if artists’ authentication boards or committees are considered as the only authority to authenticate certain pieces of art, breaches of antitrust laws could be claimed.

It is a concise and very lively summary of the relevant legal rules, with helpful summaries of many of the major cases. It is also a suitable tribute to Prof. Siehr, who I have not had the pleasure of meeting, but who has some outstanding scholarly writings which are well-written, scholarly, and sometimes even funny.

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

My Review of "Metal Detecting and Archaeology" in the AJA Online

My review of “Metal Detecting and Archaeology”, edited by Suzie Thomas and Peter G. Stone (2008) is available online at the American Journal of Archaeology. As I wrote in my review, the collection of essays offers new insights into the tension between parts of the public and archaeologists. It’s a collection which has much to offer any thoughtful discussion of the clashes between metal detecting and archaeological study. There are comparative examples of positive contributions metal detectorists can bring to scientific study, and also a frank discussion of the harm done and laws which are broken.

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

Alternative Dispute Resolution and Art-Law

Anne Laure Bandle and Sarah Theurich have an article in Vol 6, No 1 of the Journal of International Commercial Law and Technology titled “Alternative Dispute Resolution and Art-Law – A New Research Project of the Geneva Art-Law Centre“.

This article introduces the new research project of the Geneva Art-Law Centre, which aims to study alternative dispute resolution (ADR) methods for art-related disputes. It gives a brief introduction on the topic of the research the project – the significant potential of ADR mechanisms in art law – and provides an overview of the growing international consideration for ADR in art-law matters. While types of art-related disputes vary considerably from case to case, certain common features may be identified to explain the need for adapted dispute resolution in this area. The Art-Law Centre’s research project will involve the creation of an Art-Law ADR Database recording art-related disputes worldwide that were resolved by means of ADR methods, as well as a thorough case analysis. To illustrate the nature of the research project, this paper specifies the different project stages and gives examples of collected art-law cases.

An interesting approach and a project with a great deal of potential. Well worth a read.

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

Footnotes

A bas-relief in Babylon (via NYT)

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