Derek Fincham

The Monument Men

Today’s New York Times has a piece on a new book financed by retired Texas oilman Robert M. Edsel. The highlight for me are the pictures, published in the new book, which show American GI’s holding up Renaissance masterpieces.
This image shows to soldiers removing a Rembrandt self-portrait from its crate in a salt mine.

The book, called “Rescuing Da Vinci”, tells the story of American and other soldiers, known as the monument men, who recovered works of art looted by the Nazi’s during World War II. Many of these soldiers went on to shape cultural policy in the US after the war. One soldier, Captain James J. Rorimer, went on to become a director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

At the end of the war, a staggering number of works were missing. They had been destined for Hitler’s Fuhrer Museum in Linz, Austria, or on their way to Hermann Goering’s private collection. A number of the works are some I’ve seen on my travels in Europe, including the stained glass from the Strasbourg Cathedral, and Michelangelo’s Bruges Madonna. I had no idea at the time that they had been taken away by invading German forces. The work sounds fascinating, and will surely increase the growing acclaim for what has become known as the greatest generation.

However, not all allied soldiers were quite so altruistic. Soviet forces hauled off a great deal of looted treasures after the war. Also, one American soldier, Joe Meador, took the Quedlinburg Cathedral treasures from a cave they had been hidden in during the war. The Quedlinburg treasures were a collection of gold, silver and bejeweled reliquaries. Meador had been ordered to guard them, but brought them home to Texas instead. His heirs attempted to sell the works around 1990, and federal prosecutors considered bringing a criminal seizure action, but the Meador family agreed to a settlement with the church, and the objects have now been safely returned.

The work sounds very interesting, but we should remember that not all soldiers were quite so charitable as the so-called monument men. Regardless, if the photos in the NYT are any indication, it should be quite an entertaining read.

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

Greek Archbishop asks Pope Benedict for a piece of the Acropolis

I missed this last week, but Greek Archbishop Christodoulos, in his first official visit to the Vatican, asked Pope Benedict XVI to return a piece of the Parthenon currently housed in the Vatican Museums. Benedict was initially confused by the request, perhaps because he was not aware of the piece. The Pope said he would consider the request. The push is part of an ongoing Greek effort to seek the return of the various pieces of the Parthenon. A comment on this blog last week suggested that Greece is trying to work slowly, and regain the smaller pieces first, from sources which might be more inclined to Greece’s requests. The idea makes sense, and is probably the best strategy for Greece to pursue. If they can gather momentum from all of these smaller bits and pieces, perhaps pressure will mount on the British Museum to return their Parthenon sculptures. It’s an interesting strategy, but I’m not sure anything can be done to persuade the British Museum to relinquish the marbles.

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

Who is Noah Charney?

Yesterday’s New York Times Magazine discusses Cambridge PhD candidate Noah Charney, who is using art history, psychology, and criminal investigation scholarship to form a composite picture of who art thieves are and why they steal. The article gives a good overview of some of the biggest art thefts in recent history, including the theft in 1990 from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston, in which $300 million worth of art was stolen.

Apparently, Charney wants to use criminal profiling and forensic psychology to solve art thefts, or even predict which objects are likely to be stolen in the future. He’s also hired a professional fund-raiser to begin a stolen art consultancy in Rome which will use this inter-disciplinary approach to solving art crimes.

It’s certainly an interesting idea, and one that I’m sure will likely take off for him. Stolen art is a topic everyone is interested in. However, one question I have, apart from how exactly a PhD student gets a write-up in the NYT, is whether this even can work. The article is pretty slim on the details for how exactly his research tackles the problem. It certainly sounds interesting, and I’d love to read more about his work. At the end of the day, the driving force behind art theft is the high value of these objects, and the expense of providing adequate security, especially in museums and houses which receive fewer visitors, and cannot afford adequate security. His new consultancy is headquartered in Rome, which currently seems a great place to see how increased enforcement resources can impact the illicit trade. I will be particularly interested to learn more about who buys stolen art.

This increase will certainly impact the illicit trade in cultural property, but to what extent? The illicit trade in cultural property shares many characteristics with the illegal narcotics trade. In fact, many of the same “source” nations for art and antiquities are also narcotics cultivation areas, including both Afghanistan and a number of areas in South America. An increase in police resources in that illicit trade seems to have brought about the opposite of the intended effect.

William Burroughs wrote a particularly poignant work on this subject, Naked Lunch, which satirizes modern society and its many addictions. Burroughs speaks explicitly about drugs, but he is using that trade as a starting point for any kind of addiction. He talks about a pyramid of junk, which can be analogized to any illegal trade I think. As Burroughs says, “The pyramid of junk, one level eating the level below right up to the top or tops as there are many junk pyramids feeding on peoples of the world and all built on the basic principles of monopoly”. In Burrough’s view, the only way to stop a pyramid like this is at the consumer end. For the drug trade, that’s the user, but for the illicit trade in art, it’s the purchaser of a work.

The likely result of these increased interdiction efforts in the cultural property market will be to lead to a greater number of arrests, but will only force the illicit trade further underground. As long as there are individuals who want to buy and possess these objects, the trade will remain robust. Perhaps Charney’s work will reveal more about who the purchasers of stolen art are.

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

Italy’s Carabinieri Strike Again

News of yet another Italian victory in the struggle to combat the illicit art and antiquities market. Yesterday, Italian authorities announced that a cultural property trafficking ring has been uncovered. The two-year investigation centered on 35 individuals, and potential charges are likely to include both illegal possession as well as trafficking of archaeological artifacts. The recoveries include a renaissance still-life and marble altar pieces. The announcement evidences the continuing Italian efforts to combat the illicit trade in cultural property. The Italian efforts are garnering some impressive results, but one wonders if these efforts are just the tip of the iceberg, or represent a substantive blow to the illicit trade. Increasing the interdiction resources may be working, but I wonder if there are similarities between the cultural property black market and the illegal drug trade. Will other enterprising traffickers step in? I fear that they will, and the only real substantive change must be effected at the other end of the market, where the purchases take place.

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

German Police Recover a Carl Spitzweg

German police have recovered a work by Carl Spitzweg worth half a million euros, or $650,000. The painting, “Friedenzseit” (“Peacetime”) was taken last March from the Kunsthalle in Mannheim during a weekend in which the museum had been opened later to allow more visitors to view the work. Security may have been less than one would expect during the theft. It highlights a continuing problem for museums though. They want to attract more visitors, but as they do, security issues become more acute.

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

Display of Afghan Antiquities in Paris

Today’s New York Times has a nice piece on the display of Afghan treasures at the Musee Guimet in Paris. A press release about the exhibition is available here. The last three decades have seen a great deal of conflict and destruction in Afghanistan, and the most remarkable thing about many of these objects is that they have survived at all. Unfortunately, these beautiful objects can not yet be safely displayed in Afghanistan. Some of these treasures, in a collection known as the Bactrian gold, were kept hidden in a bank vault under the royal palace just outside Kabul. The nation sits as a crossroads between many of the world’s great ancient cultures, the Greeks, Chinese, and Indians, and these objects display these influences.

French archaeologists have long-standing ties with Afghanistan. In the 1920’s, the French were granted an archaeological monopoly, to counteract growing British influence there. At the time, it was commonplace for middle-eastern nations to allow foreign archaeologists to keep half of the objects they discovered. The French were later booted from the country after the communist takeover in 1982, however they returned in 2003 after the Taliban was removed from power. These ties are probably what helped secure the exhibition in Paris.

On one level, these continuing colonial ties make me a bit uncomfortable, as it is regrettable that other nations have to save these objects from theft, destruction, or sale, when Afghanistan cannot. It is indeed unfortunate that these objects cannot be enjoyed by Afghans in their own nation. However, it is certainly a great opportunity for visitors to Paris to see them, and at the end of the day, these objects are very valuable and rare, and their display should be encouraged, even if it is not possible in their nation of origin. A major, perhaps inevitable, flaw of allowing a source nation to decide the fate of the cultural objects and sites within thair borders is the possibility that the ruling power may not want the preservation of a certain cultural history. Nation’s use cultural history as a political tool, and Afghanistan is a potent example of this. The Buddha’s at Bamiyan were destroyed by the Taliban because the image of Buddha is un-islamic. One Islamic school of thought believes the destruction justified, as individual’s were practicing Buddhism, which was certainly frowned upon by the Taliban.

In the absence of a peaceful Afghanistan, visitors can enjoy and appreciate these objects in Paris, and appreciate the thriving society that existed in Afghanistan, perhaps with an eye towards bringing about positive change there now.

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

The "Gross Clinic" featured on NPR

Morning edition today features a story on Thomas Eakins’ “The Gross Clinic” and attempts by Philadelphia to prevent it from leaving the city. Trustees of Thomas Jefferson University have given the city and benefactors until December 26th to raise enough funds to keep the work in the city. The City has also chosen to invoke its Historic Preservation law to prevent the work from leaving the City. This is a fascinating example of a city choosing to exercise an export restriction, which normally only takes place at the national level.

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

Iraq Challenges a German Auction

Iraqi authorities have challenged an auction of two Sumerian artifacts which took place on Tuesday. One item was a limestone statue of a Sumerian (similar to the one pictured here), which dates to 2500 BC. The other was a nail made of clay bearing an inscription which puts its age between 2097 – 2095 BC. Iraq’s culture ministry appealed to UNESCO to intervene, but there is not much the organization can do in this case, other than publicize the problem and force German authorities to take action. There isn’t much information available on Iraq’s claim, so it’s very difficult to gauge the strength of their claim. Perhaps more information will come to light, but at this point, the German authorities are claiming that domestic law does not allow them to take any action. If this had occurred in the US, federal prosecutors may have been able to bring a forfeiture claim, if they were convinced the object was indeed stolen or illicitly excavated. I am not sure if Germany has a similar legal mechanism.

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

Italy Reclaims Two Antiquities

ANSA is reporting that two Second Century AD Roman antiquities have been recovered by Italian authorities. One is this marble head of Dionysus, and the other is a headless statue. The head was stolen from the Villa Torlonia gallery in the 1980’s, and was recovered after it was discovered in a Christie’s in New York auction catalogue. This is yet another example of the aggressive diplomatic and legal strategy being employed by the Italians. It seems a high-profile recovery or repatriation comes every couple of days. Italy certainly stands as the model for source nations who want to combat illicit excavation or seek the return of objects taken in the past.

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

Hermitage Theft Thwarted

The Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, which announced a massive theft earlier this summer, was the victim of an attempted robbery last Friday. A man smashed a glass display and attempted to steal a silver cup before he was arrested. The director of the Hermitage, Mikhail Piotrovsky said that the widespread coverage of the thefts this summer may have prompted the thief to try and steal the object. A great deal was written on the missing objects this summer, and the death of a former curator who died last October further increased speculation. However, this theft appears ill-planned. The man smashed the glass with his elbow or knee and was soon apprehended.

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