Art Theft – Page 21 – Illicit Cultural Property

Native American Art Returned

Scott Sonner has an interesting AP story on the decision by the US Forest Service to return boulders bearing petroglyphs to the site they were removed from four years ago. Here’s an excerpt:

U.S. Forest Service officials never believed John Ligon’s claim that he dug up two boulders etched with American Indian petroglyphs four years ago to put them in his front yard for safekeeping.

But they did share a concern he voiced that someone would steal the centuries-old rock art on national forest land a few football fields away from a growing housing development. After they recovered the stolen property, federal land managers struggled for years with the question of what to do with the rock etchings of a bighorn sheep, an archer, a lizard and a wheel.

Now, after initially thinking it was best to place them in a state museum, the agency — in consultation with local tribal leaders — has decided to return them to the mountainside where they were for perhaps as long as 1,000 years before they were disturbed.

“It belongs out there,” said Linda Shoshone, cultural resources director for the Washoe Tribe in Nevada and California. She and others said removing the petroglyphs from the site takes them out of their spiritual context.

“I realize it is a tough decision on our part because we don’t want it to be damaged any more than it has been,” Shoshone said. “But I’ve come to the conclusion that maybe the more we educate John Q. Public at the sites, the more they will help us preserve stuff like this.”

The theft of the petroglyphs on the northwest edge of suburban Reno garnered national attention at the time and still reverberates through the community.

“The significant assault on Native American memories and cultural items is as bad as walking into a Catholic church and taking a cross off the wall,” said Arlan Melendez, chairman of the Reno-Sparks Indian Colony.

Archaeologists believe the rock pile where the drawings were located was a hunting blind where 800 to 1,000 years ago tribesmen lay in wait for deer and elk migrating from Peavine Peak toward the Truckee River valley below.

The site is visible three miles away from the upper floors of the federal courthouse in downtown Reno where the accused looters stood trial in 2003.

That’s an interesting problem with no easy solution. If they return the petroglyphs, they risk another theft. But the art loses something if its housed in a museum I think. The only real solution is to educate the public about the benefits of archaeology, why it is important, and how easy it can be to lose information from important sites forever. I think that is one of the biggest reasons why more nations should adopt the approach most of the UK has taken with the Portable Antiquities Scheme, which David Gill talks about today as well. As Professor Patty Gerstenblith has argued, a nation protects those elements of its past which it values. As Linda Shoshone, cultural resources director for the Washoe Tribe in Nevada and Colorado, said in the article “It is really hard to educate a society that has no culture here in the United States — our land. They left it in Europe… But when we teach fourth graders about things like this, they are going to teach their parents.”

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

Fourth-Largest Criminal Enterprise?

Cameron Skene of CanWest News Service had an overview of art theft over the weekend. He talked to the usual folks who speculate about the size of the art theft problem, and gave the normal ranking of art theft as the fourth-largest criminal activity.

Estimating the size of the illicit market is a difficult undertaking. Skene writes “Interpol ranks art theft as the fourth largest criminal enterprise after drugs, money laundering and weapons.” This appears incorrect, but its a common mistake. A number of media reports and even scholarly articles use this ranking, but I’m not sure its accurate. Interpol certainly does not endorse it:

We do not possess any figures which would enable us to claim that trafficking in cultural property is the third or fourth most common form of trafficking, although this is frequently mentioned at international conferences and in the media. In fact, it is very difficult to gain an exact idea of how many items of cultural property are stolen throughout the world and it is unlikely that there will ever be any accurate statistics. National statistics are often based on the circumstances of the theft (petty theft, theft by breaking and entering or armed robbery), rather than the type of object stolen.

The best estimates I have found are the FBI’s rough account of $6 Billion annually, and the various reports given to the UK’s Department of Culture Media and Sport Illicit Trade Advisory Panel which was given a number of very different estimates. I wonder, do any readers have any better or more concrete estimates? Empirical research is very popular in legal scholarships these days, does anyone have any ideas about how we could calculate the size?

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

"Loot" Reviewed

This weekend I’ve had a chance to finally finish Loot: Inside the World of Stolen Art, by Thomas McShane with Dary Matera. McShane worked as an undercover agent for the FBI for 36 years, and recovered a number of works of art. In order to win the confidence of the handlers of the stolen works, McShane had to adopt aliases, most notably Thomas Bishop, the elegantly dressed art buyer.

The book starts strong, revealing the recovery of Rembrandt’s the Rabbi. The theft from the Bonnat Museum was “[a]s is so often the case with art thefts…a crime of opportunity rather than precision planning. On 1 March 1971, a young French art student named Robert LeBec visited the Bonnat Museum as he often did to study the brushtrokes of the ancient masters.” The travels of the work reveal a great deal about art theft. The work was very easy to steal, but the handlers were unable to unload it, and it seemed to cause them nothing but trouble. I enjoyed the description of smaller art museums as “reminiscent of the ‘easy jug’ banks American bandit John Dillinger robbed with impunity 40 years earlier. Security was lax or non-existent. Alarm systems, if present, were rudimentary and easily overcome. The atmosphere was friendly and hands-on.”

Most of the book accounts how McShane transformed himself into his art buying alter-ego. He would invariably set up a “buy”, then authenticate the work, checking the brush strokes, paint composition, nails on the canvas; and then would signal the other agents listening in to make the bust. Interestingly McShane was always arrested with the thieves, to preserve his cover.

The stories are interesting, and fun to read. The book was great summer reading, but unfortunately it never seems to go below the surface. Part of that may be that McShane is unable or unwilling to reveal what goes on behind the scenes. For example, he would always get “tipped” that someone was looking to unload a Picasso or major work. It would be interesting to know how difficult it really is to fence stolen artwork. McShane gives a baseline. A thief can usually expect to get 10% of a stolen painting’s value. But how often to museums cave in and pay a ransom. What about insurance companies? Is it more important to recover the work or catch the thief?

One of the most interesting chapters involved Picasso’s still-missing Man with the Purple Hat. It was a 6 foot bright-purple canvas which was stolen on the way from Houston’s Jasper Museum to Manhattan. The work was sealed in a truck in Houston, but when it arrived in New York the painting was missing. The authors argue this is a likely “Dr. No” theft, where someone commissions a theft: “He, and she, exist all right. From Riyadh to Beverly Hills, they’re out there gazing up at their special prizes each and every day, proving once again that ‘stolen apples taste the sweetest.’ They’re just extremely difficult to catch.” There is no hard evidence that these evil geniuses are out there, but McShane should command some deference for his long service and many recoveries.

In the book’s second half, some momentum is lost, as the prose gets a bit muddled; and for some reason the author’s start describing each new character based on their likeness to Hollywood and tv Celebrities like Kojak and the like. Some of this is regained at the end with McShane’s take on the largest unsolved art theft: the theft of 13 works from the Isabella Stuart Gardner Museum in Boston in 1990. I enjoyed the speculation on that theft a great deal. But shockingly, if the thieves have sold the works on, the statute of limitations for the theft has expired, so the actual thieves may be able to collect on part of the $5 million reward. One wonders how often that goes on, but seldom is a full and open account given.

It’s a fun read, but ultimately it left me wanting more substance. In the epilogue a call is made for increased security and criminal penalties. But how? That does not seem to provide a complete picture, as museums are often strapped for funds, and they have to walk a balance between access to the public and security. No discussion of provenance was given, or how effective stolen art databases have become. I was also disappointed more was not said about current efforts at the FBI, including the Art Crime Team which seems to have had some notable successes. The authors seem to think this is still not enough, claiming that only one agent works full time on the problem. I had believed it was closer to half a dozen, but perhaps many of these agents have other duties. In any event it is a fun read, has some exciting stories to tell, but ultimately does not help us arrive at a better way of actually thwarting art theft.

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

Due diligence, a licit trade, and the Ka-Nefer-Nefer

David Gill over at looting matters has had some interesting things to say about due diligence in recent days. I agree with him on a number of points, including the problems caused by the destruction of archaeological sites, some of the silly rhetoric the numismatist-lobby has used on the internet and the scope of the antiquities problem generally. He has also contributed some excellent scholarly work by moving beyond mere anecdotal evidence towards concrete data.

I disagree with him strongly on the ability of a licit antiquities market to remedy some of these problems however. I think he misses the point on due diligence procedures in acquiring antiquities. You can argue they are voluntary, are not followed, or are too weak. But rigorous due diligence procedures are absolutely essential to a better state of affairs and can have a quick and quantifiable impact on the black market.

On Friday, he rightfully took John Merryman to task for using the acquisition of antiquities by Marion True for the Getty as an example of due diligence procedures which were unfairly criticized by archaeologists in 1989. Gill points out that the archaeologist’s criticisms of the policy were vindicated with the decision by the Getty to return 40 objects. I think Merryman should admit he was wrong on that point. However, Merryman’s more important point, and the one Gill fails to account for is that there needs to be a licit trade in antiquities with clean provenance, and the current state of regulation in source nations makes that impossible. We should also keep in mind that the new acquisition procedures of the Getty museum are now quite rigorous, and the Getty should be recognized for righting its ship. The Indianapolis museum of Art has also adopted some very strict procedures.

I do not think anyone would argue that the present legal framework of regulating antiquities works. Sites are looted, and the black market continues to thrive. The important question becomes how can we prevent that? Establishing provenance is a difficult thing to do, especially when they are often fabricated. Auction catalogs say “from a Swiss collection”. Such information is not enough to create a clean chain of title. Relying on such information is not enough to satisfy a proper due diligence inquiry either.

Article 4(4) of the 1995 Unidroit Convention makes a set of recommendations for the exercise of due diligence:

In determining whether the possessor exercised due diligence, regard shall be had to all the circumstances of the acquisition, including the character of the parties, the price paid, whether the possessor consulted any reasonably accessible register of stolen cultural objects, and any other relevant information and documentation which it could reasonably have obtained, and whether the possessor consulted accessible agencies or took any step that a reasonable person would have taken in the circumstances.

The next day Gill turns his attention to the Ka-Nefer-Nefer mask, pictured above. It was purchased by the St. Louis Museum of Art in 1998 from the Phoenix Gallery, run by the Aboutaam brothers who have had legal issues in both the United States and Egypt regarding antiquities transactions. An outstanding article by Malcolm Gay for the River Front Times revealed that the sculpture may have been stolen some time between its excavation in 1952 and its acquisition by the St. Louis Art Museum in 1998.

Gill points out that a number of the facts used to construct the provenance were highly questionable, including this exchange:

Hicham Aboutaam directed the Riverfront Times to a woman identifying herself as Suzana Jelinek, of Zagreb, Croatia. ‘I bought the mask many many years ago, and I sold it many many years ago,’ says Suzana Jelinek when reached at her Zagreb home. ‘I have so many things in my collection that my children don’t know what all I have.’

This raises a number of questions certainly. However, Gill fails to acknowledge the most important thing the museum did, it contacted the Cairo Museum in Egypt:

“I think for 1998, the year that this mask was acquired, the level of diligence that was done here is exemplary,” says Brent Benjamin. “We had an inquiry hand-delivered to the Cairo Museum’s director, Mohammed Saleh, saying that this was an object that had been offered to the museum for acquisition, and did he know any reason why the museum should not do that. We got a written response from Dr. Saleh that raised no concerns about the acquisition.”

The letter the museum sent Saleh contains sparse details. The letter, penned by Sidney Goldstein, the museum’s antiquities curator who initiated and oversaw the mask’s purchase, says the museum has “been offered a mummy mask of the 19th dynasty and I was wondering if you know of any parallels to this object. I have never seen anything quite like it with a reddish copper-like face probably owing to the oxidation of the gold surface. It is currently on exhibition in the Egyptian exhibition at the Museum of Art and History in Geneva. I would greatly appreciate your thoughts on any parallels you might know of this piece and hope that I might have the opportunity to speak with you in several weeks by telephone about this opportunity.”

Goldstein sent a photograph and physical description of the mask along with his letter to Saleh, but he did not mention Goneim by name, nor did he refer to the Saqqara excavations.

“The excavation information was not on the description of the mask because the letters [to Saleh] were sent out before the entire provenance was even discussed,” says Jennifer Stoffel, director of marketing for the Saint Louis Art Museum. “This was early on, when we were only considering the object.”

That is a very important fact Gill misses. To be sure, the acquisition should have raised a number of red flags; and I think the Egyptians probably have an excellent ethical claim for repatriation. But there will not be a tenable legal claim under US law. It does not appear Egypt had adequately documented their collection. If they had, and the collection was stolen from a storeroom as the article indicates, Egypt would have had an absolute legal right to the object because it was stolen, and the museum would have had a claim for the purchase price against the Phoenix gallery. This would have rewarded a diligent purchaser, punished the Phoenix gallery for selling a dubious work, and the object would have returned to Egypt.

A very important and inexpensive step which source nations absolutely must do is to document their collections. Granted, such a step may have been more difficult 10 or 20 years ago, and the letter could have provided more details to Saleh, but Egypt needs to make it easier to check provenance, not harder. The museum made a questionable acquisition to be sure, but Egypt dropped the ball as well. This reinforces Merryman’s persuasive argument that source nations should consider excess cultural objects which are merely gathering dust in a storeroom. At the very least I think antiquities leasing or long-terms loans should be used. It adds to the cultural exchange, and most importantly creates revenue which can be used to protect sites and excavate them before looting takes place.

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

Be careful what you throw away

Wild story from Earth times:

Vienna – An old cross recovered by an Austrian woman from a garbage container turned out to be an 800-year-old French masterpiece stolen from a Polish collection by the Nazi regime, Austrian police said on Thursday. In 2004, the woman from Zell am See in the province Salzburg got permission from her neighbours to look through a garbage container of things they had thrown out. Among other things, she took an old, gold-coloured cross. As nobody else liked it, the woman kept the gold-plate and enamel cross under her couch until showing it to art experts earlier this year. According to experts from Vienna’s Fine Arts Museum, the piece of garbage turned out to be a passion cross from a manufacturer in Limoges in France made around 1200. Similar pieces fetched up to 400,000 euros (537,000 dollars) at international auctions. Police traced the origin of the cross, showing the piece had been stolen by the Nazi regime from the Polish art collection of Izabella Elzbieta of Czartoryski Dzialinska in 1941. Pieces from the collection were moved from Warsaw to Austria, where the trail ended in 1945. The cross’s fate still remains unclear. The London-based Commission for Looted Art, informed by the Polish authorities, is representing the heirs. The local court in Zell am See decided that for the time being the garbage-treasure was to be kept at the local heritage museum at Leogang, where it could be properly stored.

Pretty cool find. One wonders how much is thrown away that does not get rescued. The case presents some interesting legal issues. I imagine the heirs of the deceased collector would perhaps have a claim. I’m not sure what the relevant limitations period in Austria would be, but it may be that the limitations has expired and the finder would get to retain title.

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

Napoleon III and the NSPA

Lomi Kriel of the San Antonio Express-News has an interesting account of the FBI’s confiscation of a carbine rifle owned by Napoleon III which was stolen from the Musée de l’Armée during WWII. French authorities saw an advertisement for the weapon on the internet. French authorities contacted interpol, which later involved the FBI’s Art Crime Team.

Napoleon III served as the emperor of France from 1852-70, and this carbine was one of the earliest breech-loading arms produced. Ralph Diaz, the special agent in charge of the FBI’s San Antonio Division said “In the big picture, the FBI doesn’t typically get involved in the pursuit of a rifle… But this weapon is of great historical value to the country of France.” One wonders how the rifle was stolen. I wonder if it was perhaps an American soldier, as was the case with the Quedlinburg treasures.

The FBI did not identify the seller, and it seems he did not know the weapon was stolen when he acquired it for his collection. Federal prosecutors are reviewing the case, but charges are probably unlikely. The rifle was listed for sale at $12,000, a sum which is likely far below what it would have fetched at an open auction.

There are a few interesting things about this case. First, it reveals the extent to which the National Stolen Property Act can impact the trade in art or antiquities. In this case, charges probably will not be filed, but the NSPA allowed authorities to seize the weapon and return it to France. Also, collectors of any object which might have cultural value would be wise to conduct a thorough provenance check, and if a seller cannot or will not provide one, red flags should be raised.

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

Catching Up

Frank Pasquale of Concurring Opinions talks about how the difference between viewing a digital reproduction on the internet is much less effective than viewing a photograph in person, and perhaps this is a good argument for strong IP protection of works of art.
Michael Lewis in Commentary magazine talks about efforts by the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation to compile a stolen art database of works taken from Prussia. Many of them are now in Russia, where they were removed after WWII.
Stephen Farrell of the NY Times reports on Baghdad hiring dozens of artists to paint murals on concrete barriers in the city.
Bradley Hope of the New York Sun reported on a ceremony to return an ancient Egyptian vessel which appeared in a Christie’s auction last year.
David Gill on looting matters compares archaeologists to animal rights activists; one would hope that not too many archaeologists take their ideas too far as some animal rights activists have done.

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

3 Picasso Works Recovered

Police have recovered 3 important works by Pablo Picasso stolen from the home of the artist’s granddaughter in February. These two canvases– Portrait de femme, Jacqueline pictured on the left and Maya à la poupée on the right. Another drawing, Marie-Thérèse à 21 ans was recovered as well. Details of the February theft are available here.

Three suspects have been arrested. In February police estimated the drawings may have been worth as much as $66 million. It seems the suspects were shopping the works to art dealers, and one of the dealers contacted French police. The suspects would have had a very difficult time selling the works, as they are widely known. Hopefully there will be a similar recovery of the works stolen from Nice on Sunday.

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

More on the Nice Thefts

Today Molly Moore of the Washington Post has more details on Sunday’s theft of four works in Nice. Traditionally most French museums are free on the first Sunday of the month, and such was the case on Sunday. The thieves ordered the guards to lie down on the floor at gunpoint. They stuffed the 4 works by Monet, Sisley, and Bruegel in their bags and left–two on a motorcycle and three in a car. It seems they were after a fifth work but left it behind because they couldn’t fit it in their bag. The works by Monet and Sisley were on loan from the Musee d’Orsay in Paris. One of the works taken is pictured above, Jan Bruegel the Elder’s Allegory of the Earth

Patricia Grimaud, the deputy curator said “Who could expect to be held up in broad daylight like that?… They were really bold and quick, it took them only 10 minutes. I can’t find the right words to describe what they did.”

Moore rightly points out that “it has become virtually impossible to sell the better-known stolen pieces on the public art market.” But why steal the works if there is no market? Speculation abounds that there must be some kind of market motivating these thefts. It could be a real-life Dr. No, organized criminals could be using the works as collateral, they may be hoping to ransom the works back, or the thieves may not have known how difficult the works are to sell.

As I said yesterday, the Monet and Sisley paintings had been stolen in 1999 and quickly recovered. The NY Times reports the Sisley may have been stolen in 1978 as well. Perhaps the Musee des beaux artes in Nice has some security problems?

Unfortunately the criminal and civil law does a poor job of preventing art theft. The risk of jail time is much lower than for other crimes like kidnapping or other armed robberies. The cost/benefit calculus favors art thieves in many cases as works by important artists will remain extremely valuable and there is no special legal status for important artworks. The law looks on them just like any other commodity.

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

Theft of 4 Works in Nice

On Sunday five men stole four important works from the Cheret Museum of Fine Arts in Nice. The works are:

Claude Monet, Cliffs at Dieppe (1897)
Alfred Sisley, Lane lined with poplars near Moret (1890)
Jan Breugel, Allegory of Water (17th Century)
Jan Breugel, Allegory of Earth (17th Century)

The first two works were stolen and quickly recovered in 1998. The then curator was implicated in the theft. This image is from the 1998 BBC story outlining the theft and recovery. Entry to this museum was free on the Sunday, and the men threatened the museum staff before leaving in a motorcycle and a car. As one would expect, the Police in Nice are speculating that the works have been stolen to order as the high profile of these works and the artists would make a good-faith sale near impossible.

(correction: It’s Claude Monet, not Money as I typed incorrectly earlier today.)

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