Antiquities – Page 12 – Illicit Cultural Property

Cornell will repatriate 10,000 clay tablets

Jason Felch reported for the LA Times art blog that Cornell University is slated to return an astounding 10,000 clay tablets to Iraq. Some date to the fourth millennium BCE. The collection was donated by Jonathan Rosen. Rosen was a business partner of Robert Hecht for a time. Hecht’s name will be familiar to many, as he was a dealer with deep connections to many likely-looted antiquities.

Many of the thousands of tablets may have been looted after the 1991 Gulf War. Felch reports that one subsection of the tablets were valued at $50,000 when they were imported; but received a whopping $900,000 tax deduction when they were gifted to Cornell in 2000. That in a nutshell is the sad tale of how looted antiquities can pay big for wealthy collectors.

But also, neither Cornell nor Rosen will discuss how these tablets were acquired, or much of anything about their ownership history. Leading to the likelihood that some or all of the objects are stolen, looted, or even fakes.

From the piece:

Harold Grunfeld, attorney for Jonathan Rosen, said all of the tablets “were legally acquired” and that the federal investigation found “no evidence of wrongdoing.” He said the tablets at issue were donated by Rosen’s late mother, Miriam.

“It has always been the Rosen family’s intent that these tablets reside permanently in a public institution for scholarly research and for the benefit of the public as a vast informational tool in explaining life in the ancient world,” Grunfeld said.

The Iraqi government requested the return of the tablets last year, and the U.S. attorney’s office in Binghamton, N.Y., is brokering the transfer.

“We’re not accusing anyone of a crime, but we believe they should be returned,” said Assistant U.S. Atty. Miro Lovric.

Cornell officials declined to comment pending a formal announcement but issued a statement saying that the university “appreciates the opportunity it has had to participate in the preservation and study of these invaluable historical artifacts and welcomes the opportunity to continue this work in participation with the U.S. and Iraqi governments.”

Jason Felch, Cornell to return 10,000 ancient tablets to Iraq, Los Angeles Times, Nov. 3, 2013.

Dinosaur fossils as illicit heritage

Eric Prokopi with a Tyrannosaurus skeleton

The Telegraph has a good extended look at Eric Prokopi and the trade in illegal fossils:

The law regarding ownership of fossils differs from country to country. In the UK, they are normally treated as “minerals” and, thus, ownership of fossils lies with the person who owns the mineral rights to the land on which the fossil is found. In America, ever since a Sioux rancher won the right to sell fossils found on his land and went on to auction a skeleton of a T. rex, in 1997, for a staggering $8.4million, fossil-hunting has become an expensive activity. Ranchers now sell the rights to any fossils that may be found on their land to the highest bidder.

As, a result, people have started looking farther afield, to countries where the law is not so rigorously applied. Mongolia prohibits the personal ownership of items of cultural significance, such as dinosaur remains, and is also a signatory to a UN convention prohibiting the “illicit import and export of cultural property”. However, an area like the Gobi desert, with its vast, remote landscape, is not only difficult to police but also includes an expanse of sandstone – known as the Nemegt Formation – which is one of the top two dinosaur sites in the world, in terms of diversity of specimens. It has proved irresistible to black-market dealers.

Hannaford, Alex. “The Trade in Stolen Dinosaur Fossils” Telegraph.co.uk, October 30, 2013.

Federal and local cooperation in the Kapoor investigation

I heard Manhattan prosecutor Matthew Bogdanos present at a conference a few years ago. His discussion focused on his work in Iraq after the U.S-led invasion. But the main thing I remember was his stated intention to prosecute one dealer of looted antiquities. Just one. He may be getting closer to that goal.

The NY Times reports that the sister of Subhash Kapoor, a woman named Sushma Sareen, has been arrested and charged with hiding four bronze statues of hindu deities. They are valued at close to $15 million. Kapoor has been described as a dealer in looted and stolen art on a level which would far eclipse even Giacomo Medici or Robert Hecht. Upwards of 200 objects have been traced from Kapoor to prominent museums including the Norton Simon, the MFA in Boston, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Art Gallery of New South Wales, and others. He has been described by Federal Customs Enforcement Special Agent James T. Hayes as “one of the most prolific commodities smugglers in the world”. Kapoor is facing looting charges in India; but now it seems his family has become the target of federal and local prosecutors in New York.

Tom Mashberg reports:

The criminal complaint filed in Manhattan says Ms. Sareen took charge of her brother’s business operations after he was arrested and traveled to India to arrange for wire transfers and contact the smuggling network.

Ms. Sareen, 60, who is charged with four counts of criminal possession of stolen property, was released on $10,000 bail. Her lawyer, Scott E. Leemon of Manhattan, said that his client denied the charges.

In three raids after the initial seizures at the Art of the Past gallery, federal authorities confiscated more than $90 million in Indian antiquities from storage units in Manhattan linked to Mr. Kapoor. Simultaneously, they asked American museums to examine their collections for items they might have obtained from Mr. Kapoor. While some said they had drawings and terra cotta items donated by him, none have reported owning an ancient statue.

Tom Mashberg, New Arrest in Inquiry on Art Looting, The New York Times, October 11, 2013.

Art Theft Ring Uncovered in Albania

More than 1,000 works of art have been seized by authorities in Albania after the discovery of an art-trafficking operation. Albania’s Prime Minister Edi Rama was quoted by the BBC:

Welcoming the police operation, Mr Rama said the artwork had “risked joining the long list of works that have crossed the country’s borders”.

He said it was one of the largest operations against art trafficking, but that it marked just the beginning of a campaign in which he appealed to Albanians to “redress this lamentable plight of our heritage”.

Experts say that Albania’s Orthodox churches have been plundered of much of their art work since the fall of communism, and that the trafficking of stolen art is widespread.

“[Albanian society] has forgotten that this might be our temporary house, but it remains the perennial abode of generations to come and we owe it to them to pass on the country we inherited from our ancestors,” the prime minister said.

“Albanian Police Seize Stolen Art.” BBC, October 9, 2013, sec. Europe. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-24468977.

Thompson argues to protect Syrian heritage, don’t buy it

In an LA Times OP-ED, Erin Thompson argues Syria is home to a rich array of cultural heritage. Noting the risk to the works of art from thousands of archaeological sites, she highlights an under-acknowledged threat.

Continue reading “Thompson argues to protect Syrian heritage, don’t buy it”

Conflict and Syrian Heritage

As Congress debates whether to authorize military action in Syria in the wake of reported chemical weapons attacks, NBC’s science blog discusses the current state of looting and destruction during Syria’s ongoing Civil war:

Over thousands of years, a large mound, or tell, forms with layers of each civilization piled atop one another, said Jesse Casana, an archaeologist at the University of Arkansas and the chairman of the American Schools of Oriental Research’s Damascus Committee.

. . . Continue reading “Conflict and Syrian Heritage”

Will the Getty have to return “Victorious Youth”?

I’ve finished an essay looking at the question of whether Italy can successfully repatriate the “Bronze Statue of a Victorious Youth” (the Getty calls it the “Getty Bronze”). The answer? It is very likely if Italy can secure the assistance from the Federal Government. But Italy should have a very good case for receiving assistance because of a Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty first signed in 1982, and renewed in 2010.

Here’s the abstract:

Italy has been engaged in an ongoing fifty year struggle to recover an ancient greek bronze. The “Bronze Statue of a Victorious Youth” has a remarkable story. It was lost at sea in the Adriatic in antiquity; found by chance in international waters; smuggled into the Italian seaside village of Fano; hidden first in a bathtub, then a cabbage field; smuggled and hidden in Brazil; later conserved in Germany and London; and ultimately purchased by the Getty Museum only months after the death of the Trust’s namesake. J. Paul Getty. Getty refused to allow his museum to purchase the statue during his lifetime without a thorough and diligent inquiry into the title history of the Bronze. A step the trustees of the Getty did not take when it acquired the Bronze.

The question is not whether the Bronze was illicit when the Getty trustees made the decision to acquire it. It most certainly was, and still is. The question now is whether the Getty will be able to continue to retain possession. In the press and in cultural property circles the Bronze is considered nearly un-repatriatable given this convoluted history. But an Italian forfeiture action in Pesaro has quietly set in motion a means by which Italy can reclaim the Bronze through a Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty. This transnational forfeiture marks the creation of a useful new tool in the struggle to repatriate looted and stolen cultural objects. And perhaps more importantly the dispute signals a continuing trend in the importance of domestic law in source nations in cultural heritage law.

At present its a work in progress so please get in touch if you have any comments!

Fincham, Derek. Transnational Forfeiture of the “Getty” Bronze, (work in progress, 2013).

Looting in Egypt at a level not seen since Baghdad in 2003

The AP reported last week that the Malawi Antiquities Museum in a city called Minya had been ransacked. There really is no other word for it. Stolen objects included a 3,500 year-old statue, jewelry, and an estimated 1,000 other artifacts.

Most disturbing of all: the thieves and looters ransacked the building “for days”. From the AP report:

Among the stolen antiquities was a statue of the daughter of Pharaoh Akhenaten, who ruled during the 18th dynasty. Archaeologist Monica Hanna described it as a “masterpiece.” Other looted items included gold and bronze Greco-Roman coins, pottery and bronze-detailed sculptures of animals sacred to Thoth, a deity often represented with the head of an ibis or a baboon.

Continue reading “Looting in Egypt at a level not seen since Baghdad in 2003”

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 Cleveland Museum of Art Acquires 2 Antiquities

A Roman bust of Drusus Minor

Last week the Cleveland Museum of Art announced that it had acquired these two antiquities. Both are, based on the pictures, quite beautiful. And certainly would be objects one one expect to see at a museum. The problem with them though is we don’t know nearly enough about where they have come from, which means there is a very good chance they may have been looted from their context, stolen, or perhaps even fakes. And given that the museum returned 13 antiquities in 2008, and Turkey has also pressed repatriation claims, one would have thought that the museum would have been cautious to acquire newly-surfaced objects with

The Drusus Minor head has been listed on the AAMD’s object registry site. It is a kind of clearing house where museums can place objects with limited histories and allow potential claimants to come forward. The problem of course is how can a nation know an object has been looted from its context. The site lists the country of origin for the object as “probably Algeria although could be anywhere within the ancient Roman Empire”. Here is the history of the object listed there:

The Cleveland Museum of Art has provenance information for this work back to the 1960’s, but has been unable to obtain documentary confirmation of portions of the provenance as described below. The work was sold at public auction in 2004 when it first appeared on the art market. The work was initially identified and published as Tiberius, but was later (after 2007) recognized as a likeness of his son, Drusus Minor. A certificate of origin was issued dated the day after the auction by Jean-Philippe Mariaud de Serres (deceased 2007), who assisted the prior owner and consigner, Fernand Sintes. The certificate stated the sculpture came from the collection of Mr. and Mrs. Sintes of Marseilles; that the sculpture had been in Mr. Sintes’s family for many generations; that the family’s name was Bacri; and that they had lived in Algeria since 1860. The museum contacted Mrs. Sintes who confirmed on behalf of herself and Mr. Sintes that Mr. Sintes’ grandfather, Mr. Bacri, had owned the sculpture; that Mr. Sintes inherited the sculpture from his grandfather; that Mr. Sintes brought it from Algeria to Marseilles in 1960; that he had inherited it from his grandfather prior to bringing it to Marseilles; that the sculpture was sold at the Hôtel Drouot in 2004; and that they had worked with Mr. de Serres. The portrait, monumental in scale and of great historical importance, belongs to a major category of Roman imperial portraiture not otherwise represented in the collections of the Cleveland Museum of Art.

The acquisition of these objects-without-history has raised a great deal of attention. As David Gill notes, the earliest documented history of this object was 2004. And the rest of this history is I think little more than mere speculation, with very little solid evidence.

Rick St. Hilaire argues as much:

There is no explanation why the museum did not contact Fernand Sintes. There is also no information about Mr. Bacri’s first name, how he came to own the artifact, or if there was paperwork specifically describing that Fernand Sintes would inherit the marble head after his grandfather’s death. Did the museum seek out other family members or those in the Bacri family to get a more complete collecting history? That is not known.

A glazed Mayan vessel

And of course the Mayan vessel has a history which only slightly predates 1970. It has appeared in photographs in New York in 1969. But that was the time when the sites in Central and South America were being pillaged on a grand scale. Beautiful objects of course, but what price has been paid for them.

Randy Kennedy, Cleveland Museum Buys Antiquities, Stirs Ethics Debates, The New York Times, August 12, 2012, http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/13/arts/design/cleveland-museum-buys-antiquities-stirs-ethics-debates.html (last visited Aug 23, 2012)
Steven Litt, Cleveland Museum of Art buys important ancient Roman and Mayan antiquities The Plain Dealer – cleveland.com (2012), http://www.cleveland.com/arts/index.ssf/2012/08/cleveland_museum_of_art_buys_i.html (last visited Aug 23, 2012).

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