Author: Derek Fincham

Antiquities with good history are worth more

More anecdotal evidence perhaps that prices paid for antiquities reflects not only the intrinsic value of the object, but the quality of its history as well. Unprovenanced objects are not selling. Souren Melikian reports on the importance of a pre-1970 history for antiquities at recent auctions in Paris:

At Pierre Bergé on May 29, an Egyptian portrait painted in encaustic on panel of the type conventionally associated with the Fayum area rose to €1.46 million, or nearly $2 million, paid by the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The portrait, datable to the years 54 to 68 A.D. on the basis of the hairdo, was owned by a European collector as early as 1968. A week later, it was the turn of Boisgirard-Antonini to score with Egyptian art. The wooden mask of a woman, with its ancient polychromy unfortunately altered by heavy waxing, realized 10 times the estimate, at more than €75,000. It had surfaced in the Paris trade in June 1912. Two lots down, the star piece in the sale, an Egyptian torso of the fourth century B.C. more than tripled its high estimate as it went over €2.26 million. Hieroglyphs carved on the back name a prince who was the governor of Upper Egypt. The inscription was debated at length in three separate German publications before World War II. At the end of a sustained bidding match, the room broke out in applause. The contrast with the dead silence that greeted scores of bronzes, some very fine, from ancient Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, Yemen and other areas was striking. None were documented and the majority remained unwanted at low prices ranging from €1,000 to €5,000 euros. In five to 10 years, these hot potatoes may not even make it to the auction rooms.

  1. Souren Melikian, Antiquities, With a Proven Record, Drive Auction Market, N.Y. Times, June 14, 2013, http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/15/arts/15iht-melikian15.html.transparent

Will the Statute of Frauds Add Transparency to the Art Trade?

In his seminal 1982 article, Harvard Law Professor Paul Bator noted that the art trade is shrouded in mystery. In the thirty years since Bator examined the international art market, little has changed with respect to the basic information which is made available when works of art are bought and sold at auction. Auction house catalogues typically include little more than a cursory “this work is from a private collection”. That may change, at least in New York when the State’s highest court will take up a recent auction dispute.

Continue reading “Will the Statute of Frauds Add Transparency to the Art Trade?”

Federal agents have seized $100m from Subhash Kapoor

Jason Felch reports that Federal agents have seized a whopping $100 million in art in the past couple years from Subhash Kapoor. Kapoor, an American citizen, is subject to potential criminal charges for dealing in looted and stolen art: a pending criminal trial in India; and he may be prosecuted in the United States as well.

Felch reports on the staggering number of esteemed Museums which have purchased material from Kapoor since:

Since 1974, Kapoor and his Madison Avenue gallery Art of the Past have sold or donated ancient art to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Norton Simon Museum, the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Toledo Museum in Ohio and others. Abroad, his clients included the Musée des Arts Asiatiques-Guimet, Paris; the Museum f¿r Indische Kunst in Berlin; the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto; the Asian Civilisations Museum in Singapore; and the National Gallery of Australia. To date none of the museums has been accused of possessing stolen art or conspiring with Kapoor. Several have acknowledged having objects from Kapoor but declined to comment on the ongoing investigations.

This is a staggering array of objects and some very fine Museums.

 

The piece demonstrates how integral federal forfeitures are in policing the art and antiquities trade in the United States. Whether all that art will be repatriated to Southeast Asia remains to be seen, but the institutions which have material which passed through Kapoor would be wise to start preparing a strategy for the inevitable questions which will arise. Right now he looks to be as big an alleged antiquities smuggler as any of the names we’ve seen deal in art from Europe or even some of the notorious dealers in looted Mediterranean antiquities.

 

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ARCA’s Fifth Annual Conference, June 21-23, Amelia

After the jump, a list of the speakers and award winners, the full conference schedule is available here.

Toby bull, Senior Inspector, Hong Kong Police Force, “Property of a Hong Kong Gentleman, Art Crime in Hong Kong – Buyer Beware”;
Ruth Godthelp, PhD Candidate Vrije Universiteit of Amsterdam, Senior Police officer art related crime, Amsterdam Police, “The nature of crimes against Arts, Antiques and Cultural Heritage: A description of art-related crime in the Netherlands”;
Saskia Hufnagel, Research Fellow, ARC Centre of Excellence in Policing and Security, “Shifting Responsibilities: The Intersection of Public and Private Policing in the Area of Art Crime”;
James Moore, retired trial lawyer and student of Caravaggio, “The Outrageous Theft of Caravaggio’s Masterpiece The Nativity with Saint Francis and Saint Lawrence“;
James Bond, ARCA Alumnus, Certificate 2011, “The Theft of Rare Books from the largest Home in the United States”;
Chris Dobson, Former Master Armourer to the Royal Armouries at the Royal Armouries Museum in Leeds, “Claiming Fake ‘Fakes’ in the Trade in Arms and Armour”;
Stefano Alessandrini and Derek Fincham will lead a discussion on the Fano Athlete/Getty Bronze;
Joris Kila, Senior Researcher at the University of Amsterdam, ARCA award winner 2012, “An update on Armed Conflict and Heritage”;
Nicholas M. O’Donnell, Partner with Sullivan & Worcester LLP, “American Wartime Art Restitution Litigation in the 1990s and Beyond– Has it All Been Worth it?”
Jerker Rydén, Senior Legal Advisor Royal Library of Sweden, “Skullduggering in the Stacks: Recovering stolen books for the Royal Library of Sweden”;
Judith Harris, author and free-lance journalist, regular contributor to the New York monthly ARTnews, “The Role of Collectors”;
Felicity Strong, PhD Candidate, University of Melbourne, “The mythology of the art forger”;
Joshua Nelson, MA Candidate in Art & Visual Culture, University of Guelph, “Framing the Picture: The Canadian Print Media’s Construction of an Atypical Crime and its Victims”;
Theodosia latsi, MA in Global Criminology, Utrecht University, “The Art of Stealing: The Case of Museum Thefts in the Netherlands”;
Verity Algar, Art History Student, University College London, “Cultural memory and the restitution of cultural property: Comparing Nazi-looted art and Melanesian malanggan”;
Giulia Mezzi, PhD Candidate University of Reading, “The origins of Cultural Heritage Protection in Italy, a historical survey”
Carrie Johnson, JD Candidate South Texas College of Law, “Cultural Property in Crisis: Whose Burden is it?”
Alesia Koush, Foundation Romualdo Del Bianco-Life Beyond Tourism in Florence, MA Candidate at the University of Cologna under Prof. Luciano Carrino, “The Right to Culture”; and
Cynthia Roholt, JD Candidate South Texas College of Law, “Human Remains: Permission and Plastination”.
The conference will open with cocktails at Palazzo Farrattini on Friday evening, June 21. The speakers will present at Chiosto Boccarini on Saturday and Sunday. Imbedded in the conference will be tthe ARCA Award Presentations: Art Policing and Recovery Award to Sharon Cohen Levin, Chief of the Asset Forfeiture Unit in the United States Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York; Art Protection and Security Award to Christos Tsirogiannis, Archaeologist, Illicit antiquities researcher, University of Cambridge, former member of the Hellenic Ministry of Justice; Eleanor and Anthony Vallombroso Award for Art Crime Scholarship to Duncan Chappell, Professor in the Faculty of Law at the University of Sydney, Australia; and the Lifetime Achievement in Defense of Art to Bianco Nino Norton, Consultant Petén Development Project for the conservation of the Maya Biosphere Reserve, Ministry of Environment of Natural Resources/BID, Delegation of World Heritage Guatemala, Treasurer ICOMOS Guatemala, Presently serving as a Council Member for ICCROM.

To attend, please just RSVP to me at derek.fincham@gmail.com

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

That Picasso Vandal was Sentenced to two years in prison

In the informal straw poll I’ve taken with Houston artists, art student and all-around jerk Uriel Landeros is universally reviled.

In June last year he spray painted a work by Picasso, woman in a Red Armchair, at the Menil here in Montrose. His lawyer attempted to partially defend the crime by arguing he was making an artistic statement. I find that a particularly unconvincing defense, as it seems the sentencing judge did as well.

A video of the damage was posted on youtube and Landeros fled to Mexico. But he turned himself in at the border in January, and agreed to plead guilty to a graffiti charge. He was sentenced to two years, but with his 5 months already served he may be eligible for parole soon. Glasstire reports that he may be planning to return to the University of Houston for his final semester.

Here’s hoping he’s denied admittance to Houston’s museums. And he can’t use this notoriety to further his art career.

  1. Paula Newton, Picasso Vandal Sentenced to Two Years, Glasstire (May 21, 2013).

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

Jason Felch Updates the Southland Antiquities Investigation

In Sunday’s LA Times, Jason Felch reports on a languishing federal antiquities investigation. In 2008 there was a loud showy raid on five museums in Southern California, including: the Bowers Museum, the Pacific Asia Museum in Pasadena, the Mingei Museum, and the LA County Museum of Art. We are now five years since those raids, which resulted in the seizure of 10,000 objects, but has not resulted in any objects being returned, or even in any prosecutions. At least not yet. Which is strange, because if agents display such force in searching and seizing material in a simultaneous early morning raid, surely that investigation should bear fruit.

One reason for that is the death of those under investigation. Some of those are the result of natural causes. But not the sad death of Roxanna Brown—a witness for investigators and later a target—who died while in federal custody, in a shameful display of federal mismanagement. Here is a full history of Brown:

Roxanna Brown’s story: Part I, Part II, Part III and settlement.

Many who follow this investigation probably echo Prof. Stephen Urice, professor at the University of Miami Law School, who is quoted:

I’m baffled . . . Given the amount of illicit antiquities moving through the U.S. borders, these guys are really hacks. Surely there must be more significant people out there.

 Felch reports that a criminal case against two men will begin in June: Robert Olson, aged 84; and Marc Pettibone, 62. Prosecutors allege that both men conspired to bribe officials in Thailand to secure export, and that the objects were then sold in the United States. And they would then use inflated appraisals for the objects and would secure excessive tax deductions for their donation.

All in all a troubling story on many levels. Few would dispute the staggering amount of objects which are being removed from Southeast Asia. But the prosecution and this investigation may be even more troubling. Its been a long investigation, with some very bad outcomes. The tragic death of targets of federal investigation is a growing trend in antiquities prosecutions. Think also of the three suicides which took place after the display of federal force in the four-corners antiquities investigation.

We can’t of course blame federal investigators and prosecutors entirely, but they do share blame here, and if as many argue we are using these prosecutions to deter future smuggling, looting, and tax fraud, well the deterrent impact is very much in doubt. Criminologists can articulate this better than I, but a well-established truth that irregular regulation, even one which results in custodial sentences, cannot effectively deter. And when there is such a pall of controversy over these federal investigations, it may actually ossify the attitudes of individuals in the trade that they are being unfairly and unjustly targeted.

  1. Jason Felch, Stolen-artifacts case has cost much, yielded little, critics say, Los Angeles Times, May 18, 2013.
Questions or Comments? Email me at derek.fincham@gmail.com

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Cambodia Presses Other Museums

Tom Mashberg reports that Cambodia now has requested objects from others, including:

  • Denver Art Museum
  • Cleveland Museum of Art
  • The Norton Simon,
  • And of course Sotheby’s which is challenging a federal forfeiture
New York’s Metropolitan Museum announced it would return two other statues. It seems to have encouraged the Cambodians and their advocates to look for other similar material. And that precedent set by the Met may compel these other institutions to return objects. From the NYT piece:

The Met’s two statues represent brothers of Bhima who knelt in attendance during the fight. The Met’s statues were acquired in four pieces from donors 1987 to 1992. Those statues, plus the one from Sotheby’s, are known to have gone through a London art dealer, Spink & Son, in the early 1970s. Cambodian officials say the broken pedestals of all those sculptures were left in the ground by the looters. Norton Simon, who died in 1993, bought the Bhima in 1976 from a Madison Avenue Asian art dealer and gave it to the museum in 1980. “In more than three decades, the foundation’s ownership of the sculpture has never been questioned,” the museum said in a statement. The Sotheby’s statue was shipped to New York in 2010 to be sold at auction by its Belgian owner, Decia Ruspoli di Poggio Suasa. Her husband, who has since died, acquired it in 1975 and Sotheby’s estimated its value to be $2 million to $3 million. Experts on antiquities trafficking say teams of bandits used ox carts to trundle their trophies along jungle trails and into Thailand, 15 miles north, during Cambodia’s war years. In their case against Sotheby’s, lawyers for the United States attorney’s office for the Southern District of New York say the statue was one of many shipped illicitly from Bangkok to the United States and Europe after 1970. Sotheby’s says the statue was legally purchased in good faith from a reputable London auction house in 1975 and it “denies knowledge that the Duryodhana statue was stolen.” Cambodia’s secretary of state, Chan Tani, said the looting of Koh Ker is especially crushing because its style of statuary exists nowhere else. “They are part of our soul as a nation,” he said, “and they were brutally stolen.”

One aspect I find really intriguing is how Cambodia has seemingly eschewed the Italian approach of offering long term loans and continuing to have a relationship with these institutions. Not sure why that may be, I’d be interested in hearing some ideas below in the comments.

Mashberg, Tom. “Cambodia Presses U.S. Museums to Return Antiquities.” The New York Times, May 15, 2013, sec. Arts / Art & Design. 

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

The Met Announces the Return of two statues to Cambodia

Today, Ralph Blumenthal reports that the Met has agreed to return two 10th century statues to Cambodia. The Met’s director Thomas Campbell is quoted as saying:

This is a case in which additional information regarding the ‘Kneeling Attendants’ has led the museum to consider facts that were not known at the time of the acquisition and to take the action we are announcing today.

 The piece reports the statues may have been removed from Cambodia at around the same time the Koh Ker statue was removed, which is the subject of an ongoing forfeiture action by a federal prosecutor. Little information has been reported that I can find on the precise circumstances surrounding the removal of these statues from Cambodia. We know the instabality and conflict taking place in southeast Asia at the time of course. The statues were donated by Douglas Latchford in a series beginning in 1987. The parts of the statues were broken into pieces at some point, and the individual pieces of the figures were donated between 1987-1992. Conservators at the Met reattached the heads and bodies in 1993.

The Met should be congratulated for doing the right thing here with these objects which have such an important connection to Cambodia. This return may also give pause to Sotheby’s, the Norton Simon museum, and others who have objects which were removed from Cambodia during this period.

Blumenthal, Ralph. “The Met to Return Statues to Cambodia.” The New York Times, May 3, 2013, sec. Arts / Art & Design. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/04/arts/design/the-met-to-return-statues-to-cambodia.html.
Questions or Comments? Email me at derek.fincham@gmail.com

Conference Schedule, Vulnerability & Cultural Heritage, Leicester 9-10 of May

Next week I’ll be attending and presenting at a conference at the University of Leicester titled “Vulnerability and Cultural Heritage“. It looks to be a great group of speakers, and I’m looking forward to catching up with and meeting many of these folks. I hope to have a few reactions here when I’m back near a computer:

And here are details on the Programme:

Thursday 9 May

9.30–9.35  Welcome

Panel 1

9.35–10.00  Neil Brodie 
Provenance and price: The invisible hand of the antiquities market?

10.00-10.25 Simon Mackenzie
Conditions for guilt-free consumption in a transnational criminal market

10.25–10.50  Kathy Tubb
Trade Fairs: A Marketing Tool for the Sale of Antiquities

Refreshments 10.50–11.10

Panel 2

11.10–11.35  Rowan Brown
Loved, listed, looted: crime at the Lady Victoria Colliery.

11.35–12.00  Nick Poole
Combating Heritage Crime: Key Findings from the ACE Museum Security Programme

12.00–12.25  Mike Harlow 
Heritage Crime – ‘What’s the Problem?

12.25–12.50  Mark Harrison 
Heritage Crime – What’s the Solution? The development of multi–disciplinary approaches

Lunch 12.50–1.45

Panel 3

1.45–2.10  Julian Radcliffe
Protection of Cultural Heritage in Times of Crisis

2.10–2.35  Patty Gerstenblith
When Is “1970” Not Enough and When Is it Too Much? Evolving U.S. Museum Policies and Practices for the Acquisition of Archaeological Objects

2.35–3.00  Michelle Gallant
The Impact of Money Laundering Measures

3.00–3.25  Janet Ulph
Money Laundering Measures and Ethical Dealing: the Demands Placed upon High Value Dealers and Museums in the UK

Panel 4

3.50–4.15  Tatiana Flessas
Museums and Antiquities after Marion True

4.15–4.40  Andrzej Jakubowski 
Black Sea Tomb Raiders and the Practice of International Cultural Exchange: Revisiting the Ethics and Responsibility of Museums

4.40–5.05  Derek Fincham
The Italian efforts to initiate forfeiture proceedings of the Fano Athelete/Getty Bronze in Italy

5.05–5.30  Antonio Roma Valdes
Illicit trafficking of cultural heritage as a crime. The role of the judiciary.

Friday 10 May

Panel 5

9.30–9.55  Jessica Dietzler
On antiquities and wildlife trafficking: similarities and peculiarities of regulation and control in two transnational criminal markets

9.55–10.20  Lorna Gillies
Help or Hindrance? The Utility of the Conflict of Laws Process in Claims for the Return of Cultural Objects Wrongfully Removed

10.20–10.45  Carolyn Shelbourn
Prosecuting heritage offences – a cautionary tale

10.45–11.10  David Gill
Title to be announced

11.10 – 11.30  Refreshments

Panel 6

11.30–11.55  Roger Atwood
Heritage and Development: A View from Central America

11.55–12.20 Kristin Hausler
Indigenous Sacred Objects: Trade and Stewardship Issues

12.20–12.45  Andreas Pantazatos
The Normative Framework of Stewardship: Care and Respect

12.45–1.10pm  Charlotte Woodhead
Stewardship and moral title: viable legal concepts?

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

Auctions and Civil Disobedience (UPDATE)

The Christie’s Auction catalog with a bronze rabbit head

Earlier this week I was able to watch a screening on Earth Day of ‘Bidder 70’ a new documentary which examines the story of Tim DeChristopher. He was sentenced to two years in prison, and a $10,000 fine. His crime? He attended an oil and gas lease auction and bid on Utah land which was being leased for oil and gas exploration with no intent to buy the land (he didn’t have the money) or to drill on it. I’m not as interested in going through a review of the documentary itself. I thought overall its well worth taking a look at, but my biggest frustration with the story was it left out a lot of the details of the auction process, how he was able to bid and refuse to pay, and how his act of civil disobedience ended up being successful.

From what I gathered the Bush administration in their last weeks in office put opened up lots of land for oil and gas leases, and that DeChristopher successfully ruined these auctions. And then when the Obama administration took office the Department of the Interior later decided not to auction these parcels of land after all. The film does a great job of presenting DeChristopher’s story, and conveying his indignation at the ruination of what appears to be some pristine Utah wilderness.

But watching the documentary I was most struck by the connections between a couple of events that I’ve traced here before: the Bronze zodiac auctions in France from the Yves Saint-Laurent sale, and the sentencing of antiquities looters in Utah. Environmental and cultural heritage issues are inextricably linked, and the different priorities of prosecution and sentencing on display here were really striking.

If you aren’t familiar with the sad saga of the Chinese Zodiac heads, here’s a quick overview. Over 150 years ago the Summer Palace near Beijing was looted by British troops. Lots of art was burned, looted, destroyed, or lost. Some objects which had been taken were parts of a beautiful ornate fountain/clock mechanism which had the 12 Chinese zodiac animals. A handful of these still existing heads have been purchased by Chinese repatriation advocates on the open market. And two of these bronze figurines, the rabbit and the rat were acquired by Yves Saint Laurent. Well on his death many objects from his estate were set to go up for auction at Christie’s in Paris. But the looting of the Chinese Summer Palace is a notorious event in Chinese history, and the Chinese government lodged a number of protests at the sale. When the two heads were up for auction, the successful bid was nearly 32 million Euro. The winning bidder was Cao Mingchao, owner of a small auction house in China. After the auction he refused to pay the bid, exacting the same kind of civil disobedience that DeChristopher went to prison for. After the auction Mingchao stated “What I want to stress is that this money cannot be paid (…) I think any Chinese person would have stood up at that moment. It was just that the opportunity came to me. I was merely fulfilling my responsibilities.” Despite some hints at a French prosecution of the bidder, those never materialized and the heads as I understand it were never actually auctioned.

There have been a number of controversial sales of Precolumbian and native american sacred items in France in recent months. And it seems that despite some legal attempts to block sales, this kind of technically legal, but morally objectionable auction; which the current heritage law framework deems ok; will only be blocked if an auction house bends to public pressure or if there’s a bidder exercising civil disobedience.

Remember that in this part of the country the Four-Corners investigation uncovered a large network of illicit native american objects. That investigation led to 3 suicides and a number of citizens being indicted and later pleading guilty to heritage crimes. But no custodial sentences have been imposed. The sad takeaway is I think that you can loot native american sites, and the Federal government will have irregular investigations, but mess with the leasing of oil and gas, and you’ll feel the weight of the federal government.

Here’s the trailer for Bidder 70:
Bidder 70 – Trailer from Gage & Gage Productions on Vimeo.

UPDATE:

And now it looks like the rat and rabbit will be returned to China: http://bit.ly/ZpP67I

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