Author: Derek Fincham

Did Marion True Ever Catch a Looter or Dealer?

One of the stolen Mosaics at issue in the case

Some folks on the internet are not too pleased about the letter I collaborated on with Noah Charney re-examining Hugh Eakin’s review of Chasing Aphrodite. A pointed response by David Gill here, and another critic wonders “whether anything done by Marion True herself actually led to the capture and conviction of a single looter of archaeological sites, or advanced any “Research into Crimes against Art”?

Yes, she certainly did, according to the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals. As anyone should know who claims to study looting of archaeology and heritage, Marion True was the hero of one of the most prominent antiquities cases of the last thirty years, AUTOCEPHALOUS GREEK-ORTHODOX CHURCH OF CYPRUS vs.GOLDBERG, 917 F. 2d 278 (7th Cir., 1990) (available here). The case involved an antiquities dealer, Peg Goldberg, as well as Michel van Rijn. A helpful summary of the case is available here from IFAR.  I discuss the case at some length in  an article where I argue the nation of origin’s law should be applied more often in cross-border trafficking in pieces of cultural heritage.

But with respect to Marion True, she is the unabashed hero of the case. From the opinion by Chief Judge Alex Bauer:

Peg Goldberg’s efforts soon turned to just that: the resale of these valuable mosaics. She worked up sales brochures about them, and contacted several other dealers to help her find a buyer. Two of these dealers’ searches led them both to Dr. Marion True of the Getty Museum in California. When told of these mosaics and their likely origin, the aptly-named Dr. True explained to the dealers that she had a working relationship with the Republic of Cyprus and that she was duty-bound to contact Cypriot officials about them. Dr. True called Dr. Vassos Karageorghis, the Director of the Republic’s Department of Antiquities and one of the primary Cypriot officials involved in the worldwide search for the mosaics. Dr. Karageorghis verified that the Republic was in fact hunting for the mosaics that had been described to Dr. True, and he set in motion the investigative and legal machinery that ultimately resulted in the Republic learning that they were in Goldberg’s possession in Indianapolis.

(emphasis added)

The opinion is also widely cited because of a concurring opinion by Judge Cudahy embedding the 1954 Hague Convention and the 1970 UNESCO Convention into cultural heritage law, a precedent which has had a number of important effects.

Marion True is no saint, nobody would argue she is, but her story is more complicated than merely painting her as the endpoint for looted antiquities. She did so much more, as Jason Felch and Ralph Frammolino explain in their book. Italian officials will tell you if asked that the case was brought against her because they had the evidence, not necessarily because she was the worst offender. And yes, she was instrumental in returning at least one looted object.  group of looted objects.

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

An Art Theft Anniversary

100 years ago Vincenzo Peruggia stole this painting:

The Mona Lisa

And 50 years ago Kempton Bunton stole this painting:

Goya’s The Duke of Wellington

Noah Charney discusses both in an Op-Ed for the LA Times:

These two famous art thefts, the date of the latter chosen by the colorful Bunton for the theatricality of falling on the anniversary of the former, helped to mold the public perception of art theft as a crime of oddball characters who did not really harm anyone. It is true that some of the many famous art thefts of the period preceding World War II were of this ilk, involving quirky nonviolent thieves with gentlemanly aspirations.

To read more about the Mona Lisa thefts, you can read Noah Charney’s long essay, The Thefts of the Mona Lisa: On Stealing the World’s Most Famous Painting, available from Amazon. All of the proceeds support ARCA. You can also read my short forward to the book, where I argue that perhaps we’d all be better off had the work stayed stolen.

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

What did go wrong at the Getty (and elsewhere)?

La dea di Morgantina, as she was displayed at the Getty

The New York Review of Books has published a mostly polite back-and-forth between Hugh Eakin and the authors of Chasing Aphrodite, Jason Felch and Ralph Frammolino. In June Eakin offered a rather tepid review of the book (Felch and Frammolino deemed it “begrudgingly complimentary”). Noah Charney also took note of the review and he and I collaborated on a letter to the Editors of the NYRB, which was not published. I reprint the text of our letter here:

We would like to revisit Hugh Eakin’s review of Chasing Aphrodite: The Hunt for Looted Antiquities at the World’s Richest Museums (“What Went Wrong at the Getty” July 13, 2011). As Mr. Eakin points out, the central antagonist, the former Getty curator Marion True, stands for many as a symbol representing the heart of the larger problem of museums purchasing illicit antiquities. And yet she was the museum-world’s most outspoken critic of the acquisition of looted antiquities. Chasing Aphrodite tells the story of the scandals at the Getty Museum, related to their purchase of looted antiquities and the use of fraudulent appraisals to secure grossly-exaggerated tax benefits. The authors admirably demonstrate that key officials at the Getty new full-well that the treasures they were purchasing were illicit, yet they bought them anyway. Pressure from the Italian government, particularly on the part of the former Minister of Culture, Francesco Rutelli, and the brilliant lawyers, Maurizio Fiorilli and Paolo Giorgio Ferri, has led to the return of numerous looted artifacts purchased by major American museums, including the Met and the MFA, but most of all, the Getty.

Mr. Eakin does well to note that Dr. True, while certainly guilty of serious wrongdoing, is not the central villain in the story of looted art, nor is she even the most culpable individual featured in Chasing Aphrodite, a point mentioned by Paolo Giorgio Ferri as well as others such as Fiorilli and Rutelli, who have collaborated with our our organization, ARCA (Association for Research into Crimes against Art), an international non-profit research group on art crime. When one compares the number of returned objects acquired under the direction of Philippe de Montebello at the Met, one should perhaps wonder why he received accolades and a grand retirement while Dr. True was made an example of. Italian officials had a case against her and in order to prevent further illicit acquisitions they chose to frighten and deter other curators, officials, and museums and drag them into cooperation with the cultural heritage laws of nations like Italy. She was selected because the Italian legal team had a vast array of damning evidence against her, much more so than they had against others who were equally guilty, at the Getty and other museums. As Chasing Aphrodite notes, the Getty in many ways “threw her under the bus” when this came to light, in an effort to distance the institution from the person.

Since long before her trial in Rome began, Dr. True has tried to preach against other curators and museums making the mistake of violating heritage laws. The cynic would say that her only regret was having been caught, but there seems to be a genuine passion in her call for resisting the temptation of a beautiful but looted object, and working to end the purchase by museums of illicit antiquities. Indeed, few have spoken out against the perpetuation of the illicit trade in antiquities with greater fervor.

Becchina sold the Getty this Kouros, which may be fake

The 2011 ARCA Award for Art Policing and Recovery was given this July 9 and 10 in Amelia, Italy at ARCA’s annual Conference on the Study of Art Crime to Paolo Giorgio Ferri, the lawyer who spearheaded the case against the Getty. As he made clear in his remarks at the ARCA conference, an array of prominent officials at the Getty were lured into buying looted art by three renowned leaders of large-scale organized looting rings, Robert Hecht, Giacomo Medici and Gianfranco Becchina, who are truly to blame, and would shame even the villains of a Greek tragedy. While Dr. True is no saint, she does not represent the core of the problem. And in fact she played a part in setting in motion a sea-change in the way in which museums acquire antiquities. For those efforts she should be applauded, and perhaps even put before the ARCA Trustees and Board of Editors of the Journal of Art Crime for an annual award to recognize the good work she did, even while she found herself unable to resist the pressure to acquire some beautiful but looted objects.

Noah Charney
Adjunct Professor of Art History, American University of Rome & Founder and President, Association for Research into Crimes against Art (ARCA)

Derek Fincham

Asst. Prof. South Texas College of Law & Academic Director, Association for Research into Crimes against Art (ARCA)

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

Protecting Art from Vandalism

The Gauguin, attacked for a second time

Emily Wax reports for the Washington Post on the attempt by a woman to damage a Gauguin painting for the second time. She gets a number of comments from various security professionals, but the best response was this one:

 Mike Kirchner, director of security for Harvard Art Museums, says the first line of defense is alert guards and museum employees. 

“Everyone has to start a relationship with a smile, a nod, a good morning with people coming into the museum,” he said. “You can scan the crowd, you can try to look for people who don’t want to make eye contact. Everyone should always be on alert.” 

The National Gallery declined to comment on Friday’s attack because the incident is under investigation. According to D.C. Superior Court records, Burns, who has schizophrenia, is under observation at St. Elizabeths. Nonetheless, some guards at the museum said Sunday that they had photocopied her mug shot and put it in their coat pockets. 

For this time, no harm done, and in the future, the best line of security (which still allows us to enjoy the art) is a friendly and active security guard.

 

  1. Emily Wax, Museums’ fine art of protecting masterpieces (2011), http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/museums-fine-art-of-protecting-masterpieces/2011/08/15/gIQAfRfvHJ_story.html?hpid=z4 (last visited Aug 16, 2011).
Questions or Comments? Email me at derek.fincham@gmail.com

Hotels Not the Best Place for Art?

As a wise Museum Security Director once said, ‘It’s a hotel, why should we expect them to safeguard their art?’ On Saturday this Rembrandt sketch was stolen from the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Marina del Rey, but has since been recovered near a church in Encino. the small drawing was removed from the exhibit Saturday night when the curator was distracted and the drawing was quickly stolen. This almost seems like a case where the work was poorly secured, and anyone could have walked up and stolen it. But there have bee other more elaborate thefts of Rembrandt’s works. For more on why Rembrandt is such a popular artist to steal, have a look at Anthony Amore and Tom Mashberg’s new Stealing Rembrandts: The Untold Stories of Notorious Art Heists.

  1. Rembrandt painting stolen from Marina del Rey art exhibit, officials say – latimes.com, (2011), http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2011/08/rembrandt-stolen-from-marina-del-rey-art-exhibit-.html (last visited Aug 16, 2011).
  2. Stolen Rembrandt recovered at church – latimes.com, (2011), http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2011/08/rembrandt-stolen-church.html (last visited Aug 16, 2011).
Questions or Comments? Email me at derek.fincham@gmail.com

Not Just Bad Paperwork

In July, Immigration and Customs Enforcement announced that it had indicted four men and dismantled an entire antiquities smuggling network. The indictments in what I’ll call the “Lewis Smuggling Network” alleged that the four men sent objects from Egypt to Dubai before coming to America. The case brings to mind another similar kind of prosecution in which an individual was accused of not properly declaring the history and value of antiquities being imported into the United States. The case offers a number of similarities to an older case involving customs declaration.

In 1980 a gold phiale, called the golden phiale of Achyris, pictured here, probably of Sicilian origin, was sold by a collector in Sicily to another collector and coin dealer, who in turn sold the work to William Veres, an art dealer based in Zurich, Switzerland (it gets confusing and we still haven’t reached the ultimate endpoint). The phiale was offered to Robert Haber, a New York art dealer. Haber acted as a middle man in an eventual sale to Michael Steinhardt for $1.2 million. In December 1991, Haber flew to Switzerland to retrieve the phiale. Upon his return to New York, the customs forms declared the work’s country of origin as Switzerland and its value a mere $250,000. Why did the customs forms lie? To hid and disguise the object’s history.

In 1995, Italy began asking for formal assistance, and the Federal government intervened with a civil forfeiture action. A federal magistrate in New York issued a warrant for the seizure of the phiale from Steinhardt. The U.S. government then instituted a civil forfeiture action against the phiale in federal district court in New York. The district court held that the phiale was subject to forfeiture under 18 U.S.C. § 545. The importation of goods “by means of false statements” is prohibited by 18 U.S.C. § 542 and renders them subject to forfeiture under 18 U.S.C. § 545. The court found that falsely listing the work’s country of origin as Switzerland tainted the importation process and violated § 542. Steinhardt defended on the grounds that he had no knowledge that the object was looted or stolen. The court disagreed, finding that 18 U.S.C. § 545 does not afford an innocent owner defense. Steinhardt appealed the district court’s decision. The Second Circuit affirmed on the grounds that the misstatement of the phiale’s country of origin was material and thus subjected it to forfeiture under 18 U.S.C. § 545.

There are some differences between Steinhardt and the pending case against Mousa Khouli (Windsor Antiquities, NY), Salem Alshdaifat (Holyland Numismatics, West Bloomfield MI), Joseph A. Lewis, II (collector of Egyptian antiquities), and Ayman Ramadan (Nafertiti Eastern Sculptures Trading, Dubai).

This recent case has the Federal prosecutors pursuing charges against the dealers and collector in this case. They are not pursuing the object by itself, but rather they have a case against the whole network. Irrespective of whether Steinhardt, and his intermediary should have known and asked more closely about what they were buying, there were false statements made on the importation documents, just as false statements were alleged to have been made in this recent sting. Both Steinhardt and Lewis held esteemed positions, with power and influence. In Lewis’ case however, the Federal Prosecutors feel they have a much stronger case, with information on the entire smuggling and looting network, not just an isolated false statement on an importation document. In any event, neither Lewis nor Steinhardt will likely consider their cases bad paperwork. Misrepresenting the value and nation of origin is a deliberate attempt to circumnavigate heritage law. And if the government can make its case, there may be some real custodial sentences imposed.

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

Footnotes

  • LS Lowry paintings stolen in a violent 2007 theft have been recovered.
  • A discussion of the legal standing of SLAM to contest the Government’s civil forfeiture. And lest we get too critical of SLAM for asking for assistance from the Missouri Highway Patrol, that likely would have been the conduit to check Interpol’s stolen art database.
  • Charged with 16 felonies. Pleaded guilty to one count of trafficking in stolen artifacts. Another defendant receives probation sentence in the Four Corners antiquities case.
  • Herakles looted torso will be reunited with his lower half after the MFA in Boston agreed to return it to Turkey.
  • A reminder that collecting antiquities is not a new endeavor.
  • Twelve people have been arrested in Spain for looting archaeological sites with metal detectors.
  • And coins legally discovered by metal detectorists in Spain and recorded in the PAS have led to a discovery of a Roman town west of Devon, further than many had believed the Romans to have settled.
  • Archaeologists have discovered how to hack a kinect to conduct 3D scans of objects and buildings.
  • Two men have been arrested for selling illicit antiquities in the Istanbul bazaar.
Questions or Comments? Email me at derek.fincham@gmail.com

"Do you have to look like a pretentious a-hole?"

So asks Stephen Colbert, interviewing former FBI agent Bob Wittman last night asking about what you have to wear when going undercover:

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

Why did the Met Return Objects to Egypt?

A small bronze dog, one of the objects returned to Egypt

You can read what a couple of lawyers think in Marlon Bishop’s story for WNYC:

The Metropolitan Museum of Art has returned 19 objects to Egypt originally found in King Tutankhamun’s tomb. Last November, the Met agreed to give back the artifacts after an internal museum investigation determined it had no right to the antiquities — mostly non-museum quality pieces, ranging from small fragments to a tiny bronze dog — in the first place. On Tuesday, the museum said it had shipped the objects to Egypt.

  1. Marlon Bishop, Metropolitan Museum Returns Antiquities Found in King Tut’s Tomb to Egypt WNYC (2011), http://culture.wnyc.org/articles/features/2011/aug/02/met-museum-returns-antiquities-egypt/ (last visited Aug 3, 2011).
Questions or Comments? Email me at derek.fincham@gmail.com

Repatriated Objects from the Getty in Naples

Over the weekend I traveled with a group from Amelia down to Sorrento and the Bay of Naples. On Saturday we went into Naples and visited what may be the most important Italian archaeological museum in Italy, the Naples National Archaeological Museum. It was every bit as stunning as advertised. A grand old beautiful shambling wreck of a museum in a beautiful mess of an Italian city, with the Farnese Bull, and the Alexander Mosaic, and much more. It was a lovely visit to one of Italy’s very best museums. It was founded in the 1750s by Charles III of Spain, and houses a number of important works from nearby Pompei and Herculaneum, which had been rediscovered and excavated in the early part of the 18th century.

But on the way out, a sign indicating what exhibition rooms were open or closed stood out. We hadn’t noticed it on the way in. I’ve posted the picture here, and even though it is too blurry to read, the red text at the bottom says ‘Restituzione dal museo J.P. Getty’, but the gallery was closed. One of our group asked (in Italian), why the gallery was closed, and was told apparently it was due to a lack of funding.

He asked, ‘what objects were in the gallery from the Getty’, and the museum employee responded that there was not enough funding for an inventory, probably meaning they did not have enough money to prepare a brochure. So which objects were meant to be displayed, the museum visitor can only guess at. Now I have no way of knowing if this is a typical case. Perhaps we caught the museum on a day where they were understaffed—though it was a Saturday. We paid our 8 euros each, though, and did our small part. There were a number of closed off areas, as you can perhaps make out in my amateur photograph, so there are other areas closed to the public.

Italy is currently enduring its own austerity measures, and like other nations which are cutting back, culture and heritage are some of the first targets. So perhaps in more prosperous times these objects will be displayed more regularly. But even with a good reason for the closing, even with a good reason for restitution, what good is a return if the objects can not be displayed? It will reduce the demand perhaps, but keep these objects hidden away, at least for our small group.
The museum was, for me, stunning. Whether the objects from the Getty (whatever they were) would have compared to the Farnese Bull, the Hercules at rest pictured here, or any of the stunning micro-mosaics can only be guessed at. But it is a striking irony that all of the work and time and effort spent repatriating objects from the Getty was wasted on this visitor, who took a plane, train, taxi, and bumpy ferry, walked the rainy streets of Naples to the Museum, and was still unable to see the objects ‘in context’ in Naples. This certainly does not justify for me the illicit and illegal trade in these objects. It does though I think crystallize just how vexing the antiquities trade, museums, and repatriation issues can be.
Questions or Comments? Email me at derek.fincham@gmail.com