Repatriation – Page 4 – Illicit Cultural Property

Birkhold on ‘Double-Edged’ Repatriation

The Hopi village of Walpi, on top of the First Mesa on the Hopi Reservation

Native American objects make for popular, if controversial, auctions in France. And that trend looks to continue. Last month in Paris the auction house EVE had put up for auction a number of sacred native american objects. The objects had been held by French private collectors. Their history has not been uncovered by the press. Many of the object originated from the Hopi nation, and the Hopi went to French court to seek a return of the objects, but were unsuccessful.

The auction on December 9th proceeded and the objects all were sold. Yet the buyer was the Anenberg foundation. Speaking later, Gregory Annenberg Weingarten, vice president and director of the Anenberg foundation stated of the Hopi objects:

These are not trophies to have on one’s mantel, . . . They are truly sacred works for the Native Americans. They do not belong in auction houses or private collection.

As Matthew Birkhold argues, the Annenberg Foundation essentially purchased the right to decide what happens to the objects:

At the auction, the foundation purchased the ability to make the decision about who should own the cultural artifacts, notably, artifacts the tribes couldn’t — or wouldn’t — buy themselves, even after legal and diplomatic efforts to delay the auction failed. And even though the foundation arguably made the right decision to restore the artifacts to the tribes, it has legitimized the very situation it means to criticize, making the sacred objects seem fair game.

Moreover, the subjects of the tribes’ and the foundation’s censure — the auction house and those participating in the art market — are unlikely to hear the reproach, especially because the auction proved so successful. The auction house likely cares more about the $1.6 million in sales than who bought the contested items or what happens to them.

Maybe it would have been better for the tribes to have lost the objects. The tribes could have made a more meaningful statement by repudiating the sale and doggedly insisting on their legal claims to the items. Such a response would reaffirm the tribes’ sovereignty while rejecting the notion that a price can be put on sacred objects. However, the decision to make such a sacrifice — forgoing their cultural artifacts — has to come from the tribes.

The best bet for indigenous people to secure their cultural property is through the legal system, where taking a principled stand could pay dividends.

A good result was reached in this case for the Hopi. Their sacred objects can return home. And the Annenberg foundation certainly has the funds for this. But the underlying mechanics of auctions and heritage protection and preservation remain unchanged. Other groups without the goodwill of well-funded organizations will not see such a good result.

Annenberg’s Double-Edged Gift to the Hopi, Bloomberg, http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-12-26/annenberg-s-double-edged-gift-to-the-hopi.html
Tom Mashberg, Secret Bids Guide Hopi Indians’ Spirits Home, The New York Times, Dec. 16, 2013.

Mo Rocca on Repatriation

This is a slow time of the year for original reporting, and one popular set of stories for editors near the holidays are reports on art theft, Museums, and repatriation. This video rises above the usual and gives some serious discussion to a wide audience: Mo Rocca reports for CBS on repatriation and repatriation claims. Of particular interest will be the comments of Max Anderson at the Dallas Museum of Art. It must be said that he does not appear to be very sympathetic to most claims, and he seems to suggest repatriation is useful mainly as a tool to help museums collect.

The Monuments Men featured on CBS This Morning

Monuments Man George Stout using a pulley to lift Michelangelo’s Bruges Madonna out of a salt mine in Austria

Sicily says 23 works won’t travel

A depiction of Scylla, one of the objects from the "Morgantina Silver" collection recently repatriated — A depiction of Scylla, one of the objects from the “Morgantina Silver” collection recently repatriated

A good reminder that even when loan agreements are crafted, they don’t always produce a good deal for the source of this art. Sicily’s regional government has declared that 23 works of art should not go abroad for loans unless there are ‘extraordinary circumstances’. The list includes important paintings by Caravaggio, but also some antiquities, many of which have been the subject of recent disputes, including the Morgantina Silver, La dea di Aidone, the Gold Phiale, and other objects.

The reason for the ban? Loans are only going one way. When these objects are loaned abroad there is not sufficient art sent to Sicily. In essence it’s a one-way exchange, at least from Sicily’s point of view. If art is to be a good ambassador, the transfer should go both ways.

Hugh Eakin reports in the NYT that:

In recent years, Sicily, long a victim of looting, has gained back some of the most prized ancient art in the world, including a seven-foot limestone and marble Greek goddess from the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles. But many of the works reside in small regional museums that struggle to draw visitors. According to a report this year in the Corriere della Sera, a leading Italian daily, the museum in Aidone, which houses the silver and the cult statue, received 13,410 visitors in 2012.

A new administration that took power in Sicily in the last year has expressed disappointment with existing loan practices. In 2005, for example, the Sicilian region sent, on its own initiative, three Antonello paintings to the Met for a much publicized exhibition. Now, those three paintings are on the “immovable” list.

“It’s perfectly understandable,” said Philippe de Montebello, the former director of the Met who negotiated the museum’s 2006 restitution accord with Italy. “Sicily doesn’t have the depth. If you take away one of these top pieces, you’ve created a big gap.”

Hugh Eakin, Citing Inequity, Sicily Bans Loans of 23 Artworks, N.Y. Times, Nov. 26, 2013.

New York’s highest court orders return of Assyrian gold tablet to Germany

The Assyrian gold tablet excavated by German archaeologists before WWI

“Allowing the Estate to retain the tablet based on a spoils of war doctrine would be fundamentally unjust.”

So held New York’s highest court in a ruling today ordering the return of this Ancient gold antiquity to Germany. This was the second appeal to resolve the dispute over this small tablet. In an earlier probate proceeding, the estate was allowed to keep the tablet on the grounds that the German museum had waited too long to make its claim. The German claimant was the Vorderasiatisches Museum, a branch of the Pergamon in Berlin.

Here’s the story of the tablet based on the court’s ruling. Its a 3,000-year-old gold tablet which dates to the 13th Century BCE. The tablet was found before the first World War by German archaeologists near the Ishtar temple in Ashur, Iraq. The tablet was in the inventory of a Berlin Museum starting in 1926. The Museum was closed during the second World War, and its collection was put in storage. But in 1945 the tablet was discovered to be missing.

The tablet “resurfaced” in 2003 when its possessor, Riven Flamenbaum, passed away and his daughter and executor of his estate Hannah listed a “coin collection” in the accounting. But her brother Israel objected to the accounting and asserted that what he described as a “gold wafer” was an ancient Assyrian artifact and properly belonged to a German Museum.

The court opinion is silent on how Flamenbaum may have acquired the tablet. The story according to the family was that the elder Flamenbaum, an Auschwitz holocaust survivor, acquired the tablet from a Russian soldier in exchange for cigarettes. Hannah Flamenbau is quoted by the AP with respect to her claim that “The thought was if we’re allowed to retain it, put it on display in one of the museums, whether down here in Battery Park City in Manhattan or even in Israel. Use it as a way to talk about the Holocaust … and my parents’ story”.

The estate argued that it should retain the tablet because of the doctrine of laches, an equitable legal principle that essentially says it would be unjust to let a claimant wait this long to make a claim. However, the New York Court of Appeals held that though there may have been a delay, it was not unreasonable in light of the circumstances, and importantly no injustice would be done to the estate. Especially considering there was an indication that Flamenbaum knew the tablet rightfully belonged to a German museum.

The other claim was that when Russia invaded Germany, Russia acquired artifacts like the tablet from Germany as spoils of war, and thus the German Museum could no longer hold good title. This legal argument conflicts with the steady stream of domestic and international principles of the last 150 years. You cannot invade a nation and strip it of its works of art. And so, this unlikely dispute which arose out of a dispute between siblings who lost their father results in the return of this gold tablet to Germany.

In re Flamenbaum, 213 NY Slip Op 07510 (N.Y. 2013).

“Berlin Museum Seeks Return of Ancient Gold Tablet.” AP, October 15, 2013.

Lyndel Prott argues this idol should be returned to India

Bronze Idol of Shiva acquired from Subhash Kapoor

In an op-ed in the Australian, Lyndel Prott argues that Australia’s Attorney-General George Brandis should repatriate this Bronze idol to India:

Documents revealed in The Australian state the gallery, under director Ron Radford, paid alleged smuggling mastermind Subhash Kapoor $5.1 million for the 900-year-old statue. There have been several other notorious cases of similar bronzes. One arrived in the Norton Simon Museum, California, in 1973. India protested and, following an agreement in 1976 to allow its exhibition in that museum for nine years, it was returned to India.

…

These events, widely published at the time, should have put any potential purchaser on notice to research diligently the origin of any such item offered. Furthermore, the International Council of Museums has had a strict code of ethics since 1986 concerning acquisitions. A museum professional should not support illicit traffic and should follow national legislation and the principles of the 1970 convention, which require governments, for example, to take the necessary measures to prevent museums from acquiring cultural property originating in another state party and that has been illegally exported.

Australia adopted federal legislation to implement that agreement, the Protection of Movable Cultural Heritage Act 1986, and set up the National Cultural Heritage Committee to supervise its workings. It is an offence to import an object that has been exported illegally — as is the case of the idol in the hands of the NGA. If such an object arrives in Australia, it may be forfeited. A person who imports an object, knowing that the object is a protected object of a foreign country whose export was prohibited by a law of that country, is guilty of an offence.

Let us live up to our international commitments and our own legislation. We await a thorough and rapid review of this case and a decision from the new Attorney-General.

Prott, Lyndel V. “Bronze Idol Should Be Returned to India Now.” The Australian, November 6, 2013.

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.

Dispute over Klimt’s “Beethoven Frieze”

The “Beethoven Frieze” (1902), by Gustav Klimt

An interesting dispute is unfolding involving this terrific Klimt. It involves a sale of the work which was given at far below the market price in exchange for the export of other works of art. From the NYT:

The gold-painted frieze was owned by the Lederer family, wealthy Austrian Jews who were important patrons of Klimt’s. When the Nazis invaded Austria in 1938, the family escaped to Switzerland, but its extensive art collection was seized and its once formidable industrial empire bankrupted. Many of the family’s valuable works, including 18 Klimts, were destroyed in the final days of the war.

The mammoth frieze survived and was formally returned to Erich Lederer, the family heir, after the war. But there was a hitch. The Austrian government would grant him export licenses for his other artworks only if he sold the “Beethoven Frieze” to the state at a cut-rate price, Mr. Lederer’s heirs say.

In a 1972 letter to Bruno Kreisky, then the Austrian chancellor, Mr. Lederer complained about what he considered government extortion, writing that officials were “trying to force me to my knees” and thinking “why won’t he finally die, this LEDERER!”

Mr. Lederer finally agreed to sell the frieze to the government in 1973 for $750,000: half of its estimated worth at the time, according to an evaluation by Christie’s. Since 1986, it has been on view at the turn-of-the-century Secession gallery, where it was first shown at a 1902 exhibition named after Klimt’s breakthrough art movement.

Georg Graf, a law professor and restitution expert at the University of Salzburg, who is supporting the family’s claim, said, “While the Austrian Republic did formally return the artwork after the war, it ultimately forced Erich Lederer to sell it back in old age by upholding the export ban.”

Cohen, Patricia. “Heirs Press Austria to Return Looted Klimt Frieze.” The New York Times, October 15, 2013.

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).

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