Tag: Auction

Art Theft in Los Angeles

The AP is reporting that a $200,000 reward has been offered for help in recovering 12 works of art stolen on August 23rd in the San Fernando Valley in California.

Two of the works, Peasants by Marc Chagall and Alicia Alanova by Kees van Dongen are pictured here. The works were insured, though that has potential drawbacks for the owners if the works are ever recovered.

Selling these works on the open market or at an auction house any time soon will be very difficult. As I’ve speculated before, there are four potential reasons why thieves may steal well known works of art.

The first, is that a wealthy collector admires the works, and hired a thief. This is often referred to as the Dr. No situation. This seems the least likely possibility, but the one that strikes a chord with the imagination. Writers and journalists frequently cite Dr. No as being responsible for thefts, and I admit it makes for good Bond villains, but there has been little convincing evidence that this is why people are stealing rare objects.

Second, the thief may not have known that the object was so rare as to make its subsequent sale difficult.

Third, the thief may simply be trying to kidnap the object. They could then insure its safe return for a generous reward. This is what the defendants in Glasgow are charged with in the theft of da Vinci’s Madonna with the Yarnwinder.

Finally, perhaps there is a market somewhere for these works. Perhaps it may not be all that difficult to sell these kind of works. This strikes me as the most troubling possibility, as these valuable stolen works will likely be widely-publicized and photographs will be circulated.

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

Another Deaccessioning Decision in Duluth

Donn Zaretsky has an interesting overview, with lots of links, to an emerging problem for the National Galleries of Scotland, which may have to find £50 million in the next four months to purchase Titian’s Diana & Actaeon.

It may have to do the same within the next four years for another one.

He concludes by arguing:

[T]o oppose the deal between Fisk University and Alice Walton’s Crystal Bridges Museum on “anti-deaccessioning” grounds just means that you would prefer that Fisk suffer whatever consequences follow from its inability to consummate the proposed sale (elimination of various athletic programs, faculty layoffs, etc.) than that the works at issue be relocated (and, in that case, for only half the time, and probably to a venue which would allow even more people to see them).

The difference in Scotland and the UK is the process is somewhat more regulated. If a work is slated for export outside of the UK, important “Waverley” level works are temporarily delayed so funds can be raised. Perhaps a similar idea could work in the United States, though that idea is anathema to the ethos of many American cultural institutions which are often eager to acquire works to build collections.

Another example is the city of Duluth, Minnesota which is considering selling this window featuring Princess Minnehaha, which is installed in the railroad depot in the city. The city is considering selling the window to help make up a $6.5 million budget gap. This window could fetch between $1-3 million at auction.

The window was commissioned by the State of Minnesota and was used in an 1893 Columbian Exposition in Chicago. A Duluth civic group bought the Tiffany window soon after the exhibition. City officials have tried to justify the sale, arguing it doesn’t have a strong Duluth connection, and that the city isn’t a museum. That may be true, but a window which has been in the city for well over a century must have begun to develop a kind of attachment to the city. I wonder what differences there might be between the city of Dulth’s potential decision to sell the window, and the Univeristy of Iowa’s potential decision to sell its Pollock.

I’d recommend to Duluth, that if it is considering selling the window, it give civic groups and interested parties an opportunity to raise funds to keep the window in Duluth (as the Waverley criteria accomplish in the UK), or try to work out a sharing agreement to allow the window to be viewed by its citizens. If so, then it seems like a good idea to allow the city to continue its day-to-day operations in exchange for auctioning off the window.

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

Andrew Wyeth Recovered (LATE UPDATE)


Artdaily is reporting on the recovery of A Bridge, Race Gate by Andrew Wyeth. The work was stolen from a Houston home, along with 22 other works in 2000. The painting was then registered on the ALR database.

The painting was registered on the ALR’s database of lost and stolen artworks and nearly a decade later, the painting emerged at Simpson’s Gallery in the very city from which it was stolen. When a suspicious would-be consignor arrived at his auction house looking to unload the Wyeth, Ray Simpson recognized the quality of the work and the celebrity of its artist. He agreed to take the picture in for an evaluation and suggested that its seller return in a few hours. Mr. Simpson, trusting his instincts and first impressions, then called the New York office of the ALR to request a search of the suspect picture, at which time it was matched by art historian, Erin Culbreth.

The story goes on to say “After significant research and assistance from Nationwide Insurance Company, the ALR was able to determine the owner of the painting and broker a deal for its return. In the end, it was the instinct of Ray Simpson that set the wheels of the recovery in motion.” I’d like to know a lot more about these details, because what generally happens in these cases is the original owner and victim of the theft has probably received an insurance settlement, which usually gives the insurance company title to the work. As such, that’s why the work will be sold at a Christie’s auction in Dec. 2008. The ALR may have been very helpful in this case to the insurance company, and the gallery owner should be commended, however this is still not a happy ending for the original owner, they don’t usually get their insured painting back.

UPDATE:

I’ve been informed that the original owner actually had an opportunity to purchase the work at a substantial discount, but decided against it because she did not need the money. The point I was attempting to make is it is often very difficult for a thief or subsequent possessors to sell a work by such a well-known artist after it has been stolen, which makes it a real shame because often times fully compensating the original owner is difficult if not impossible. That’s not the case here though as the owner had an opportunity to purchase the work and could have then auctioned the work and made a substantial profit perhaps.

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

The New AAMD Guidelines

While I was on my blogging holiday in recent weeks, the Association of Art Museum Directors (AAMD) set a new ethics policy for how art museums should collect antiquities. The AAMD issued a policy which stated essentially that in most cases a museum should not acquire an object unless evidence exists that the object was outside its “country of probable modern discovery bofeore 1970, or was legally exported from its probably country of modern discovery after 1970.”

Much of this is old news to many of you, but I found Randy Kennedy’s NYT article to be a very good summary of the new guidelines, with reactions from Prof. Patty Gerstenblith. I also saw that Mark Feldman, a negotiator of the original 1970 Convention had a very interesting Letter to the Editor, in which he welcomed the new measures, but cautioned that they “may not solve the problem”.

The debate has shifted now to encompass the date of 1970 as a cutoff, though these ethical guidelines are not hard and fast rules. They are guidelines, and art museums can derogate from them freely, though they do so at their own peril. They of course run grave public relations and financial risks when they do so, but this was already the case in recent years, as evidenced by the oft-mentioned repatriations to Italy from the MFA Boston, the Met, the Getty, Princeton, and elsewhere.

Souren Melikian has a follow-up article for the International Herald Tribune, and ties these new guidelines to the shifting antiquities market, though I don’t think this shift has much to do with the new guidelines.

At Christie’s, a sale of antiquities held on June 4 opened with sundry sculptures and other works of art from Ancient Egypt collected by the Swiss Egyptologist Gustave Jéquier, who died in 1946. Extraordinary prices were achieved for the greatest rarities from a collection that did not raise provenance questions.

The auction was only into its second lot when a limestone carving of a coiled snake, 19 centimeters, or 7½ inches, across, shot up to $338,500. This was more than 15 times the high estimate. Executed in the late 3rd to mid-2nd millennium B.C., the sculpture carries a royal dedication inscription to the god Osiris that enhanced its importance, and the Jéquier provenance guaranteed that any institution could acquire it without fear of being faced one day with a restitution lawsuit.

The phenomenon repeated itself as a fragmentary bas-relief carved in the second half of the 14th century B.C. came up. Christie’s thought that the limestone slab, which only preserves the upper part of two character’s heads, might sell for $15,000 to $20,000 plus the 25 percent sale charge. It ended up at $182,000…

A day later at Sotheby’s, bidders were even more willing to pay enormous prices for desirable antiquities that could irrefutably be proved to have reached the West well before 1970.

An elongated alabaster vessel from 6th century B.C. Etruria, reportedly dug up at Vulci, was unusual rather than breathtakingly beautiful with its four female masks carved on the base and the bust of a goggle-eyed woman ghoulishly smiling at the top. But it had been illustrated in 1963 in the magazine Antike Kunst. The alabastron, as containers of this type are called, nimbly climbed to $40,625, more than triple the estimate

I think it is certainly right that reliable provenance information which can establish a solid ethical basis for acquisition will certainly drive up the price of objects. This was already the case though, before the new guidelines, as the sale of objects from the Albright-Knox museum already has shown.

However, it is worth noting that some of this provenance evidence can be manufactured aor forged, and has often been done in the past. Continued scrutiny of the antiquities trade is needed, despite these new ethical guidelines. I’m not sure much has really changed. There is still no definitive account of which objects had been discovered or unearthed before 1970.

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

Achaemenid Gold Cup Found Under Bed?


On June 5th, Duke’s of Dorchester is set to auction this 2,500 year-old gold cup. It was rediscovered by its seller, John Webber, under a bed while he was in the process of moving. The cup was given to him by his “rag-and-bone” grandfather who had apparently acquired it in the 1930s. The cup may fetch between £100,000-500,000 at auction next week. A number of papers have jumped on the story, as its the kind of treasure-in-the-attic which makes the antiquities trade so interesting to many people. The Times Simon de Bruxelles notes:

Mr Webber, 70, has no idea how his grandfather came to acquire the cup or what it was doing in Taunton, Somerset, where he had his business before and during the Second World War. “My grandfather was originally a proper rag-and-bone man from Romany stock and lived in a caravan. He formed a scrap metal company in the 1930s and made enough to have his own house built.

“My father died in the war and afterwards my grandfather gave me some things shortly before he died. One of the things was the cup, which I remember playing with. I put it in a box and forgot about it. Then last year I moved house and took it out to have a look and I realised it wasn’t bronze or brass.”

Some find. I don’t mean to put an unhappy face on what appears to be a heartwarming story, but is it possible that this cup may not have spent 60 years under a bed? Experts from the British Museum have examined the cup, and dated it at the 3rd or 4th century BCE, and dates from the Achaemenid Empire. I suppose they or the auction house would have looked into the truth of Webber’s story, but given what we know about the antiquities trade and faked provenance this seems a bit suspicious, though that is mere speculation on my part. I have no real reason to doubt Webber’s honesty. If nothing else I would like to know how the cup got from the former Achaemenid Empire to Somerset.

Tom Flynn has found this story interesting as well, and takes it as a heartening reminder of a kind of antique shop experience that seldom exists anymore. I’d argue it doesn’t exist because of a better more responsible body of domestic and international regulation, which though badly flawed in many cases values professional and systematic excavation over this kind of chance “treasure” discovery which leaves us with many more questions than answers.

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

Can the West do More to Protect Iraqi Antiquities?


Dr. Bahaa Mayah, a special adviser to Iraq’a Minister of Tourism and Antiquities, has strongly criticized the response of the West to the trade in looted or stolen antiquities originating from Iraq. Dr. Mayah held a press conference yesterday at the British Museum, and argued it was the occupying forces’ responsibility to retrieve the valuable objects taken since 2003. He also urged a global ban on Iraqi antiquities via a UN Security Council resolution. He said “Our antiquities are scattered everywhere from America to Europe. This problem is not new but it has intensified since 2oo3 and is now becoming a bigger problem.”

Speaking of America specifically, he argued “America is co-operating and not co-operating at the same time. We were grateful when they returned the Statue of Entemena (from 2,430BC) but at the same time, you see auctioneers all over the country trading in our antiquities. No action is being taken”. This statement, curiously, comes on the same day the Department of State published a notice of an import Restriction to Protect the Cultural Heritage of Iraq.

You can also hear his comments on BBC Radio 4’s Front Row program here, his interview starts at about 18 minutes in, which David Gill has noted this morning as well.

There at three separate issues here, first is what can be done to prevent looting in Iraq and how to regulate the illicit trade in Iraqi antiquities. Second, is the damage done by occupying forces to important sites at Babylon and elsewhere. Finally, there is the claim for restitution for objects which have long in the British Museum collection. The first two, it seems to me are related. The final question, which speaks to the notion of Universal Museums, must be separated. Every time this kind of discussion spins off into a discussion of the Parthenon Marbles and other restitutions, I think we lose site of the present ongoing issue: the looting of sites, and the illicit trade.

I am sympathetic to Dr. Mayar, as he must find it difficult dealing with a myriad of different agencies in Europe, and he feels the burden is on the source nation to give evidence of of an object’s illicit nature. Unfortunately this is the regime which the 1970 UNESCO Convention has produced, and efforts to create an effective multilateral agreement in this arena have been notoriously difficult. I think that must surely be tied to the disagreement and acrimonious nature the debates often engender.

Prof. Patty Gerstenblith has noted before that a lot of the reporting and discussion of the law as it pertains to the antiquities trade is wrong, and misses the point completely. I have to agree. Dr. Mayar talks about the incomplete response of the West to the trade in Iraqi antiquities, but I think the US and the UK have taken the necessary steps to attach criminal penalties to this trade. International law already bans the trade in Iraqi antiquities, under UN Security Council Resolution 1483:

Decides that all Member States shall take appropriate steps to facilitate the safe return to Iraqi institutions of Iraqi cultural property and other items of archaeological, historical, cultural, rare scientific, and religious importance illegally removed from the Iraq National Museum, the National Library, and other locations in Iraq since the adoption of resolution 661 (1990) of 6 August 1990, including by establishing a prohibition on trade in or transfer of such items and items with respect to which reasonable suspicion exists that they have been illegally removed, and calls upon the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization, Interpol, and other international organizations, as appropriate, to assist in the implementation of this paragraph;

In the United Kingdom, the Theft Act 1968, the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002, and the Iraq (UN Sanctions) Order 2003 creates a criminal offence for merely being in possession of Iraqi Antiquities.

The United States has banned the import of Iraqi antiquities, and the National Stolen Property Act, as well as the powerful Civil Forfeiture mechanisms available to Federal Prosecutors strongly regulate the criminal aspects of the trade.

The difficulty of course, and its one that Dr. Mayar speaks to, is the difficulty in establishing evidence of the fact that an object originated in Iraq, when it could have originated from any one of a number of countries. Are there Iraqi antiquities currently being sold in the United States and United Kingdom? I’ll confess I don’t know. His comments strongly indicate they are, but I’m unaware of such sales, or any reports indicating this is the case.

Ultimately, I think the US and the UK in particular have taken nearly all the steps they can to regulate the criminal aspects of the trade. To shift burdens any further would, without being overly dramatic here, require Constitutional-level reworking, to allow fewer rights for criminal defendants. That is a step no thinking person can responsibly advocate. That’s at the core of my arguments about the utility of the criminal response to the illicit trade. The solution, as I see it, is to introduce a way for cultural property transactions to require title history, provenance and findspot information for antiquities. This would give real effect to the law. Without such information, the antiquities trade will continue to evade effective regulation. Think about the California searches from earlier this year, despite a dramatic raid, we have yet to see any charges filed. Though this is heresy to even suggest for many in the archaeological community, this will in my view require compromise and will almost certainly require a liberalization of the trade in some respects.

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

The Limited Effectiveness of the Art Loss Register


Georgina Adam has a very interesting article in the Art Newspaper on the dispute between Michael Marks and Aziz Kurtha over two works by Indian artist Francis Newton Souza. Pictured here is an unrelated work by Souza, Still Life, which was purchased in 1967 for a mere 50 pounds but was sold recently for 173,000 pounds. This increase in value now makes it more profitable for individual’s to bring claims for works by Souza which may have been stolen in the past.

As Adam states:

Mr Marks says he bought the two paintings, Head of a Portuguese Navigator, 1961, and Chalice with Host, 1953, in good faith in 2006. He had conducted a check against the Art Loss Register’s (ALR) stolen art database and was not alerted that there were doubts about the works’ ownership despite the fact that they had been registered with the ALR as missing.

Dr Kurtha, who owns a collection of over 200 works by Souza, said that, at some point in the 1990s, some of these were stolen…

The two paintings in the present dispute were registered by Dr Kurtha as missing with the ALR in 2005… Mr Marks, who was then unknown to the ALR, telephoned the organisation to check the provenance of the paintings and paid the ALR search fee with a credit card. Julian Radcliffe, ALR’s chairman, admitted in court that he deliberately misled Mr Marks by telling him there was no claim on the Souzas. Mr Radcliffe said that it was sometimes necessary to mislead people who make enquiries about the database in order to establish identity and bank details, which he did in this case; Dr Kurtha then took Mr Marks to court to recover the paintings.

Speaking to The Art Newspaper, Milton Silverman, the solicitor for Mr Marks, described this as a “potentially nightmare scenario for a dealer. He could buy works of art, certain in his own mind that they are free of any problems, only to find himself landed with a dispute on their title.” Mr Radcliffe told us that the circumstances were exceptional in that Mr Marks was unknown to them. ALR would not act in the same way with a known dealer, collector or auction house, he says.

The emphasis is mine. Marks now has a potential claim against whoever he purchased the works from in 2006, whoever that may be. One would assume such a claim would probably still leave Marks in a difficult position, as works by Souza have been increasing dramatically in value in recent years.

The priority for the ALR would seem to be to return paintings to their original owners, but not necessarily to guarantee the legitimacy of current transactions, as indicated by Radcliffe’s admission that the ALR misleads some. Add to that the fact that the ALR sometimes takes commissions for facilitating the return of works of art to original owners, and we are left with what appears to be a troubling state of affairs.

As an aside, I’m not sure what the ALR guarantees when one does ask for a search of the ALR, and I’d imagine they have done their best to disclaim liability in this situation, but I wonder if Marks may have some kind of claim against the ALR itself. Though in this case the paintings have been returned to their original owner, I wonder if perhaps this kind of misleading information would give dealers pause when they are considering whether to consult the database.

The ALR is the most widely-used and cited cultural property database, however it makes no claims to being a cure-all for the problems with the cultural property trade. Though the ALR is in some cases useful, it should not be mistaken for a check on cultural property transactions generally, and it should be pointed out that Julian Radcliffe and the ALR are quick to point out that they do not attempt to police the whole market. What they do, they do well, but there are limitations to its effectiveness. David Gill and Tom Flynn have both pointed out the dubious usefulness of the ALR with respect to recently unearthed antiquities and export restrictions. As the ALR counsel, Christopher A. Marinello has recently indicated via the Museum Security Newwork, “the database does not contain information on illegally exported artefacts unless they have been reported to us as stolen.”

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

Strong Criticism of the Artist Resale Right in the UK (UPDATE)


There exist strong differences of opinion with respect to the question of whether the sale of contemporary art–such Damien Hirst’s next “pickled shark”, or For the love of God –should be subject to a royalty scheme which takes a piece of the sale price and gives it back to contemporary artists. For two years now, the UK has implemented such a royalty scheme, commonly known as “droite de suite”.

A report by Toby Froschauer, sponsored by the Antiques Trade Gazette has strongly criticized the Artists’ Resale Right (ARR). The report indicates the ARR has “caused serious problems since its introduction in the UK two years ago.” The ARR pays royalties to artists on a sliding scale, and was dictated by an EU directive. Directive 2001/84/EC of the European Parliament was adopted in 2001. The ARR in the UK was implemented in the UK in February 2006 by SI 2006 No. 346.

Melanie Gerlis of the Art Newspaper explained the royalty scheme and Froschauers’s findings:

The royalty, which is paid to artists on a sliding scale of up to 4% of their works resold above E1,000 ($1,500; and with a E12,500 threshold), was found to have benefited just 1,004 EU artists (of which 568 were British) in the first 18 months of implementation. The top 20 artists—including Damien Hirst, David Hockney, Peter Doig and Banksy—were found to have received 40% of the total amount collected (£3.8m; $7.6m) in the first 18 months since ARR’s introduction. The bottom 30% received payments of less than £100 ($200), the report said. In his foreword to the report, Antiques Trade Gazette editor Ivan Macquisten, said that the ARR “singularly fails to benefit the very people it was set up to help”.

The Design and Artists Copyright Society (Dacs) is responsible for distributing the royalty payments to artists. The art market in the UK has claimed that the ARR puts it at a disadvantage when compared with other art markets without these so-called droite de suite arrangements. Dacs has responded to this study by saying the interviews with dealers and auctioneers are “not an acceptable scientific methodology”, and also that they are preparing data to send to the Antiques Trade Gazette.

A different survey by Maven Research, commissioned by Dacs last year found “87% of art market professionals say that the resale right has not damaged their business.” That would seem to comport with another recent study conducted by Katy Graddy, Noah Horowitz and Stefan Szymanski, “A study into the effect on the UK art market of the introduction of the artist’s resale right“. The study, sponsored by the UK Intellectual Property Office found “there is no evidence that ARR has diverted business away from the UK, where the size of the art market has grown as fast, if not faster, than the art market in jurisdictions where ARR is not currently payable.” It also found that there have been difficulties in establishing the nationalities of artists, and a “significant minority of art market professionals, including the major auction houses, deem the administration of ARR to be intrusive and burdensome”.

As an aside, one wonders if more of these royalty schemes might be implemented in the future, and whether they will expand. It strikes me that such a royalty scheme for antiquities might be a potential model for reinvesting the proceeds of antiquities transactions into source nations; though given the controversy surrounding the program with respect to contemporary art, the likelihood of such a change may be remote.

UPDATE:

Jamie Grace, who has done some research of his own on this topic has forwarded me a letter he wrote to the Art Newspaper with respect to their article:

Dear Sir/Madam,

I am an associate lecturer at the University of Derby, and I myself am conducting research into the resale right as part of a PhD programme over the next three years. Firstly, I must highlight how simply expected Froschauer’s findings are – the 2006 legislation is experiencing predictable teething problems. These are problems that need to be resolved, but a campaign for better understanding of the resale right itself might allow DACS and other organisations to better serve the interests of commercial artists.

Allow me to give one example:

Toby Froschauer has been attributed as reporting, by the ATG, that galleries are discouraged from promoting younger artists’ work as a result of the resale right reducing their margins – and instead are relying more so on established artists, whose prestige allows those galleries to preserve more of their profit.

I believe this is an incorrect assumption on the part of Froschauer; or perhaps a misinterpretation of the legislation guiding the resale right by the galleries concerned.

The 2006 Regulations quite clearly state (Regulation 12(4)) that no royalty be paid by a gallery or other art market professional on an original work sold within three years of direct purchase from the creator his or herself; and where the later sale by the gallery etc. does not exceed 10,000 Euros.

Clearly this exemption leaves a great deal of scope for the promotion of the interests of younger, up-and-coming or lesser-known artists.

Kind regards,

Jamie Grace.

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

Compensation for Restitution Experts

Elise Viebeck, a student writer for the Claremont Independent has an outstanding article about the conflicts of interest which arise when history and art history experts are brought in to assist the heirs of victims who lost valuable art to the Nazis during World War II. She details the actions of a CMC History Professor, Jonathan Petropoulos.

The article asks an important question: How should these experts, whose specialized knowledge can bring about the restitution of ultra-valuable masterworks be compensated? Swiss prosecutor Ivo Hoppler raided a Swiss safe in the Summer of 2007 as part of a “three-nation probe of a German art dealer accused of conspiring with an American at historian to withold a painting by French impressionist”. I talked about the discovery of the work at issue, Camille Pisarro’s Le Quai Malaquais, Printemps last summer, but was unaware of this controversy.

Here’s an excerpt of Viebeck’s interesting story:

The story of the Pissarro begins with Zurich resident Gisela Fischer, 78, who is of Jewish descent. She and her family fled Vienna in 1938 two days after the Nazi Anschluss. The Gestapo looted their home, and among the stolen items was a painting by impressionist Camille Pissarro, Le Quai Malaquais, Printemps.

After the war, Fischer’s father successfully located and reclaimed many of his family’s stolen assets. After her father’s death in 1995, Fischer concentrated her efforts on the Pissarro which had remained elusive. In early 2001, she registered the painting with the Art Loss Register (ALR), a London-based for-profit company involved in stolen art recovery.

The ALR began to research the painting’s provenance, or history of ownership, in the hope of ascertaining its location. There was no initial financial arrangement, as at that time the ALR did not charge for Holocaust and World War II art claims…

On January 8, 2007, at a meeting in Munich, a representative of the ALR gave Fischer a message from Petropoulos. He wrote in a letter dated December 7, 2006 that he had located the painting in Switzerland and was communicating with an unnamed contact of its owner. The owner was a “foundation created by the heirs of the person who purchased [the painting] in 1957.”

The foundation, he wrote, wished to remain anonymous.

Two days after the meeting in Munich, Radcliffe also sent Fischer a letter, this time to request a finder’s fee for the organization’s success in finding the Pissarro in Switzerland. Despite its earlier commitment not to charge Holocaust claimants, the company had changed its charging policy for Holocaust art claims, telling claimants that the company could complete restitution “at far less cost and often more efficiently” than the expensive lawyers who took some cases. The meeting with the ALR in January 2007 was the first Fischer knew of the ALR’s changed policy…

For the Pissarro case, Radcliffe proposed an elaborate compensation scheme, including 20 percent of the first $1 million, 15 percent of the second million and 10 percent of any additional value of the painting. Included in his price was a stipend for Professor Petropoulos, who had requested $100,000 from the ALR for his services.

In a letter dated January 23, Fischer’s lawyer, Dr. Norbert Kückelmann, rejected the ALR’s proposal. Three days later Petropoulos met with Fischer at the Hotel St. Gotthart in Zurich to try a new arrangement…

Radcliffe and Sarah Jackson of the Art Loss Register also went to Zurich, only to find themselves excluded from the dealings. “We went expecting to be included in the meetings with Ms. Fischer only to discover that they had already had meetings without us. We realized we had been cut out,” Radcliffe told the CI.

At the hotel, Petropoulos and Peter Griebert, a Munich art dealer, showed her digital photos of the Pissarro, claiming to have taken them that morning. According to an account published in ARTNews magazine, they did not give further details about its location or the identity of its owners at that time.

It’s a very interesting account, and I don’t think Petropoulos, nor even the Art Loss Register are painted in a favorable light based on this account. Though much nazi restitution litigation rests on the assumption that the law should compensate the victims of the holocaust and other misappropriation, the engine driving these claims are the large sums of money these works can bring at auction. I think an interesting issue which needs to be researched in more detail is how and to what extent these restitution experts owe a duty to claimants.

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

Rare Islamic Art Discovered at Auction

This rock crystal Fatamid ewer sold for only £220,000 after being miscatalogued as a French 18th-19th century claret jug with an asking price of £100-200. It is instead a rare and valuable 11th century Fatamid object; the last one which appeared on the market was in 1862 and was purchased by the Victoria and Albert Museum.

Lucian Harris of the Art Newspaper has the story. Is this really the way we should care for one of the world’s rarest examples of Islamic art?

One dealer who described the crystal ewer as a “Holy Grail” of Islamic art ruefully recounted how he had looked at the sale but failed to identify the ewer from the small, indistinct photograph of a “claret jug” on the website of the auction house. “I’ve spent my whole life hoping to find one” he said. “This may be the biggest sleeper ever to appear on the Islamic art market. It seems strange that it stopped at £220,000.”
Questions or Comments? Email me at derek.fincham@gmail.com