Author: Derek Fincham

Marion True Interview

The Chimera d’arezzo, on loan at the Getty from the Museo archeologico di Firenze 

Hugh Eakin has an interview with Marion True in the online version of the New Yorker. She seems relieved her trial is over, but also a little angry that she was the sacrificial curator:

There is the remarkable fact that without ever reaching a verdict, the trial had an enormous effect on American museums.
My greatest sadness is that the Italians were able to intimidate the entire American art world, and especially museums, without having to produce any evidence at all. Why didn’t museums band together and say, “How are we going to deal with this?” They ran off instead to make their own deals—deals which may not exactly be very good in the long run. Why did we hand over all this stuff without asking for more documents? The trial was a gigantic threat that everyone reacted to. The message was, “You could be next.”

Another irony is that precisely some of the changes in museum standards you were calling for in the nineteen-nineties have now come to pass. There is much more talk now of using major loans from archaeological countries in lieu of purchases—something that you had been advocating for many years.
That’s right. But I haven’t seen a genuine opening about loans. There are plenty of things that could be done in loans, possibilities for collaborations. Italy has lent the Chiamera of Arezzo to the Getty, a kind of trophy piece. In truth, there are hundreds of objects sitting in the basements of Italian museums, at Pompeii, everywhere, that need to be conserved. Why not lend them to American museums for conservation work, and so they can be seen?

Has the Getty made any effort to reconcile with you?
No. And I have nothing but the greatest contempt for them in the world. They acted like I ran the place. Above me I had a chief curator who was deputy director, a director, an in-house counsel, a president, a board of trustees to whom the president reported, and a chairman of the board. What about the lawyers who drafted the acquisition policy, who were supposed to be vetting all documents? They were perfectly happy to assure all that [the alleged acquisition of illegal art] was my work. Never once have [former Getty director] John Walsh or [his successor] Deborah Gribbon stepped forward to say one word about their responsibility.

Read more http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/newsdesk/2010/10/marion-true.html#ixzz12j9eQuDR

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

Footnotes

Interview with Noah Charney on WNYC:

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

Five-year Trial of Marion True Ends

The Italian case against former Getty Museum antiquities curator Marion True, seen at the Los Angeles museum in 1998, has abruptly ended.
Marion True, while still at the Getty

Jason Felch reports today that the trial of ex-Getty Museum curator Marion True concluded with a “whimper” today.  That seems exactly right.  No verdict was reached, no dramatic finish, only the mundane operation of an Italian legal technicality which ended the trial because too much time had elapsed. 

Italy’s renewed focus in recent years on the flow of antiquities into American Museums has resulted in a number of embarrassing returns by American institutions, and no one exemplified that shaming more than Marion True, who would be photographed every time she entered the court.  This trial has been proceeding along in fits and starts for the last five years.  When she was charged, it was the first time an American Museum official was charged by a foreign government, but it has not been the last.  The trial was a lightening rod of sorts, channeling opinions about the antiquities trade and the American Museum community, all to one very high profile, but also very slow legal proceeding.  As Felch points out, during the 5 year legal proceeding we have seen the return of more than 100 looted or stolen antiquities from American museums to Italy.   

  1. Jason Felch, Charges dismissed against ex-Getty curator Marion True by Italian judge [updated] LA Times Culture Monster, http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/culturemonster/2010/10/charges-dismissed-against-getty-curator-marion-true-by-italian-judge.html (last visited Oct 13, 2010).
  2. Nadja Brandt, Italy Drops Conspiracy Charges Against Ex-Curator Marion True, Getty Says, Bloomberg, October 13, 2010, http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-10-13/italy-drops-charges-against-ex-curator-marion-true-getty-says.html (last visited Oct 13, 2010).
  3. Elisabetta Povoledo, Case Involving Former Curator Marion True Ends, Arts Beat, New York Times, http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/10/13/case-involving-former-curator-marion-true-ends/ (last visited Oct 13, 2010).
Questions or Comments? Email me at derek.fincham@gmail.com

Stealing the Mystic Lamb Review

I’ve just finished reading Noah Charney’s “Stealing the Mystic Lamb:  The True Story of the World’s Most Coveted Masterpiece”.  This review should probably begin with a disclosure.  Noah is a friend and colleague, first an internet acquaintance, and now we meet up every summer in Amelia during ARCA’s MA certificate program which he founded. 

This work tells the story of one massive 2-ton altar piece, the single most stolen work of art of all time, and one that should be familiar to anyone who has taken an introduction to art history course.

After dropping the reader into history as allied forces are searching for the altar piece during World War II, we learn early on that this work was the prize of Hitler and Napoleon.  That this massive masterpiece was nearly destroyed many times over.  Yet somehow it has endured. 

And we should all be glad it has.  The object itself is stunning, Charney in the first chapter takes the reader through the importance of the painting itself, how it helped launch the career of Jan van Eyck, how art historians have puzzled over how much of the work was completed by van Eyck’s brother Hubert, how the artist used intricate symbolism, how it helped usher in the era of oil painting and beautiful detail.  But perhaps most importantly, the discussion of this painting and all it symbolizes reminded me why art matters, and how a stunning work of art can change the way we all see the world, and each viewer gets a chance to re-learn or even re-evaluate those shifts in opinion.  And in the end the work begins with a lively account for why individuals have stolen, mutilated, and coveted this work of art.

Next the reader learns about the artist himself, about the “Magician in the Red Turban”. the reader also learns about attribution, the recent decline of connoisseurship in the appreciation of art, how the movement of art can cause the re-appraisal of works of art as  happened when the Albert Barnes Collection is preparing to move and many of its Old Master paintings were found to have been misattributed.  We learn about the creation of the Louvre, the place the Ghent altarpiece played in the creation of that museum, and how many of the arguments made for a universal museum were made by Dominique Vivant Denon who served as the architect of the art looting during Napleon’s reign.   

Charney spends great care telling the story of the altarpiece during both World Wars, noting the debt we art theft writers owe to Karl Meyer, Robert Edsel and Brett Witter’s fine work telling the story of the Monuments Men, and Lynn Nicholas among many others.  Yet what really comes through in Charney’s book is a breathless story which merges history, towering figures like Napoleon or Hitler and their associates, art, artists, and imagery that revalidates why so many are interested in the study of art theft:  these are really good stories.  And it ends with an epilogue, yet another of the work’s enduring mysteries, that should not be spoiled here.  

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

    Will the Supreme Court Take Up Nazi-era Limitations Periods?

    It might.  The U.S. Supreme Court has asked the Solicitor General to submit a brief on the issue of whether states can enact more permissive limitations rules when they may conflict with the foreign affairs doctrine.  Marei Von Saher has been pursuing her claim against the Norton Simon Museum over these two works by Lucas Cranach the Elder.  Von Saher is seeking certiorari with the Supreme Court—and the court has not granted review, it just wishes to hear the position of the federal government first, before deciding whether to review the case. 

    The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled earlier this year that California may not set aside special rules for Nazi-era claims because it conflicted with the federal government’s ability to govern foreign affairs.  The claimant Marei Von Saher is the successor in interest to Jacques Goudstikker who bought the works in a 1931 auction in Berlin. The works remained there in Amsterdam until 1940 when the Nazis instituted a forced sale. After the war, Desiree Goudstikker reached a settlement with the Dutch government. She received some of her husband’s inventory, but did not claim another set of works because that would have meant returning the purchase price received from the Germans.

    The Dutch government transferred these Cranachs to George Stroganoff-Scherbatoff, the descendant of a noble Russian family who was thought to have lost the paintings to the Bolsheviks during the Russian Revolution.  Stroganoff-Scherbatoff sold these works to the Norton Simon Museum in 1971.  The 9th Circuit held first that California’s special limitations rule for works looted during the Holocauset era, Sec. 354.3 conflicts with the foreign affairs doctrine.  Though it does not conflict with Executive Branch policy via the President, it does conflict with a power reserved to the Federal government, as California created a “world-wide forum for the resolution of Holocaust restitution claims”. 

    As a consequence, the claim was left to general limitations principles.  In California the Discovery Rule applies.  A claimant must bring her action within three years of discovering her claim.  This means actual discovery, but also when a reasonably prudent claimant should have discovered she had a claim, and the work first went on display in 1977. 

    Yet even if the Supreme Court denies certiorari, Von Saher may have recourse under the new limitations period rules recently signed into law by Gov. Schwarzenegger, which attaches an actual discovery date on the beginning of an action, eliminating the sometimes difficult due diligence requirement.

    Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger last week signed into law a new art-theft bill that doesn’t mention the Holocaust but gives all claims seeking the return of stolen art from museums, galleries and dealers a better shot at withstanding the legal argument that they were filed too late. In suits over allegedly stolen art and other scientific, historic and cultural artifacts, the statute of limitations has been extended from three years to six, and the six-year clock starts running when the plaintiff first learned where the object was. Previously, a museum could argue that the clock began running when a work’s whereabouts was first publicized to the extent that someone seeking its return should have known about it then.

    “Adam and Eve”  went on display in 1977 when the Norton Simon opened, prompting Los Angeles Times art critic William Wilson to write that he had experienced “a plain shock of unmitigated aesthetic fulfillment” upon seeing them. Museum founder Norton Simon bought the Cranachs from an heir of Russian aristocrats in 1971, and The Times first reported on them in 1972, saying they were among the industrialist’s holdings that were being loaned to Princeton University for an exhibition.

    Von Saher’s attorney, Lawrence Kaye, said Monday that her legal team, which includes E. Randol Schoenberg, the Los Angeles attorney who in 2006 secured the return of five looted Gustav Klimt paintings from the Austrian government, will wait to see whether the U.S. Supreme Court reinstates the voided California Holocaust art law. If it does not, she would be able to amend her suit to proceed under the state’s new art-theft law. But the new law also would allow the Norton Simon Museum to use legal grounds other than the statute of limitations to press its argument that Von Saher waited too long to claim “Adam and Eve.”

    1. Mike Boehm, Norton Simon’s disputed ‘Adam and Eve’ getting closer look from Supreme Court | Culture Monster | Los Angeles Times (2010), http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/culturemonster/2010/10/art-adam-eve-holocaust-norton-simon-.html (last visited Oct 5, 2010).
    Questions or Comments? Email me at derek.fincham@gmail.com

    Cairo van Gogh Theft an Inside Job?

    The still-missing “Poppy Flowers”, by Vincent van Gogh

    An Egyptian minister said Sunday that an employee working at the Cairo museum likely participated in the theft.  Habib al-Adly told Egypt’s official news agency “There are many circumstances around the theft of the Poppy Flowers that point to the fact that a museum employee participated in the theft or stole it himself . . .  The location and placement inside the museum confirms this”.  This may explain why there was such a strong reaction to the arrest and a crack down on the museum’s own staff and security personnel, or it may be an attempt to find a scapegoat.  Either a museum employee was complicit in the theft, or there was gross negligence which allowed this work to be cut from its frame.  There are still precious few details, and the work remains missing.

     

    1. AFP: Egypt museum employee behind Van Gogh theft: minister, AFP, September 26, 2010, http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5iUQB5fPhmiFCuK-JufZ785Af9icg (last visited Sep 27, 2010).
    2. Hadeel Al-Shalchi, Security problems abound in Egypt’s museums, Associated Press, , http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/38884911/ns/technology_and_science-science/ (last visited Aug 28, 2010).

     cross-posted at: http://art-crime.blogspot.com/

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

      Tension Between Museums and Nazi Spoliation Claimants

      It should come as no surprise that there are tensions between museums and claimants over how to respond to claims for works of art stolen or appropriated by the Nazis.  Combine the general reluctance of many museums to allow transparency with the complicated stories of many works looted during World War II, and you have a recipe for ongoing disputes and mistrust.  This should explain why litigation may be a crude solution to many of these disputes, and why other nations—mainly in Europe—have done a better job at resolving these disputes than the United States. 

      Robin Cembalest gives an overview for ARTnews, offering reactions from both sides.  The dispute stems from a basic disagreement of what kinds of wrongdoing should constitute loot.  Is a forced sale, or a sale under duress the same as outright theft?  Wesley Fisher, director of resaearch at the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany argues “It is embarrassing that countries that previously did not have such good records in this field, such as Austria, are doing a very good job . . .  And the United States is not doing as well as it was.”  AAMD president Kaywin Feldman attributes the reluctance of some institutions to return objects to resources, “The real problem is that museums and claimants need help with research”.  I think both of those sides offer some truth, though paying for increased provenance research would surely be less expensive than litigating a claim.  At least part of the difficulty stems from different ideas of what constitute a looted work, and perhaps a commission modeled after the United Kingdom’s Spoliation Advisory Panel would offer a less controversial means of resolving these disputes.

      1. Robin Cembalest, Tensions are rising between the restitution community and U.S. museums over the proper way to handle Holocaust art claims, ARTnews, October, 2010, http://artnews.com/issues/article.asp?art_id=3073 (last visited Sep 27, 2010).
      Questions or Comments? Email me at derek.fincham@gmail.com

      Footnotes

      “Maya à la poupée et au cheval de bois”, Pablo Picasso
      Questions or Comments? Email me at derek.fincham@gmail.com

      Two Forfeited Works Returned to Brazil

      “Modern Painting with Yellow Interweave”, Roy Lichtenstein

      Art crime does not just include the theft of works of art or the looting of antiquities.  The value and portability of works of art make them a very convenient way to launder money as well.
      I am quoted in a piece for NPR affiliate WNYC discussing the return of two objects to Brazil. 

      This work by Roy Lichtenstein and another work by Joaquin Torres-Garcia were returned to the government of Brazil today during a ceremony in New York (press release).  The works were once owned by the disgraced Brazilian banker Edemar Cid Ferreira who was convicted and sentenced to 21 years in prison in 2006 for financial fraud. 

      A judge in Brazil ordered Ferreira to surrender his unlawfully-gained assets.  In an attempt to conceal some of these assets, these works were shipped to the Netherlands and then to New York where they were sold to unsuspecting buyers. The paperwork accompanying these works valued them at only $200, while they may be worth as much as $12 million. 

      This is an example of the use of civil forfeiture in policing the art and antiquities trade.  The “Portrait of Wally” settlement reached earlier this summer was also reached via forfeiture. Forfeiture allows prosecutors to bring a suit against an object which was part of a crime, and all claimants to the object come forward to challenge the forfeiture.  It is a powerful tool for prosecutors, as the burden of proof is far lower than the typical “beyond a reasonable doubt” standard typically involved in prosecutions.  Historically, federal prosecutors have intervened on behalf of origin nations or claimants when they have potential claims. Yet it has also been a useful tool in policing organized and white collar crimes. 

      1. Marlon Bishop, Lichtenstein and Torres García Paintings On the Way Back to Brazil, WNYC, September 21, 2010, http://culture.wnyc.org/articles/features/2010/sep/21/us-returns-brazilian-art/ (last visited Sep 21, 2010).
      2. Erica Orden, U.S. Returns Valuable Paintings Seized From Ex-Banker to Brazil, wsj.com, September 21, 2010, http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704129204575506181973997368.html (last visited Sep 21, 2010).
      Questions or Comments? Email me at derek.fincham@gmail.com

      My New Piece on Property and Heritage

      I have posted on SSRN a working draft titled “The Distinctiveness of Property and Heritage“.  I argue we need to be careful to observe and honor the differences between the competing ideas of property and heritage by discussing how the law may be shifting to meet new challenges.  The end result I think will be a renewed appreciation for cultural claims via a body of law which can be called “heritage law”.  As always any comments or criticisms would be most appreciated.  Also, if any readers have any works in progress they would like me to publicize, or if you have a recent piece you would like me to share, please do pass them along.

      Here is the abstract to my work in progress:



      This piece takes up the competing concepts of property and heritage. Recent scholarship views property as a series of connections and obligations – rather than the traditional power to control, transfer or exclude. This new view of property may be safeguarding resources for future generations, but also imposes onerous obligations based on concerns over environmental protection, the protection of cultural resources, group rights, and even rights to digital property. Yet these obligations can also be imposed on subsequent generations, and certain obligations are imposed now based on the actions of past generations.

      This article examines the multigenerational aspects of property via a body of law which should be called heritage law. Heritage law now governs a wide range of activities some of which include: preventing destruction of works of art, preventing the theft of art and antiquities, preventing the illegal excavation of antiquities, preventing the mutilation and destruction of ancient structures and sites, creating a means for preserving sites and monuments, and even righting past wrongs. This piece justifies the new conceptualization in two ways. First, by showing that properly distinguishing property and heritage will allow us to better protect heritage with a richer, fuller understanding of the concept. And second by demonstrating how current definitions lead to imprecise analysis, which may produce troubling legal conclusions.

      A growing body of heritage law has extended the limitations periods for certain cultural disputes. This has shifted the calculus for the long-term control of real, movable, and even digital property. This can be acutely seen with respect to cultural repatriation claims – specifically the claims of claimants to works of art forcibly taken during World War II; or the claims by Peru to certain anthropological objects now in the possession of Yale University which were removed by Hiram Bingham in the early part of the 20th Century.

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