Feb 28, 2009

My Work in Progress on Increased Scrutiny of Good Faith

I've posted on SSRN a work in progress, Fraud on Our Heritage: Towards a Rigorous Standard for the Good Faith Acquisition of Antiquities. I attempt to make a case for heightened standards for good faith, particularly in the context of museums and antiquities. I would be delighted to hear any thoughts/reactions to the piece. Here is the abstract:

If a family of art forgers living in modest public housing in Bolton, England can easily fool some of the World's leading cultural institutions, then surely the current state of the antiquities market must be badly broken. Ideally a diligent enquiry before a purchase confers good faith status, allows purchasers to acquire good title, and gives the legal right to seek compensation from an unscrupulous seller. Despite these important advantages, good faith has been used merely to promote commercial convenience and economic efficiency. This article proposes a new theoretical foundation for increased scrutiny of the antiquities trade by constructing a broad basis for the recognition of good faith as a mechanism for eliminating the illicit trade in antiquities.

Though an existing body of law prohibits and punishes a variety of activities which further the illicit trade, these measures are severely hampered by the mystery surrounding antiquities transactions. With increased scrutiny and a more rigorous and diligent analysis, these legal measures will become far more effective. At present, details regarding authenticity, title, or even more basic questions such as the origin of an object are intentionally hidden and disguised from public view. When an object is acquired without a rigorous due diligence process, that acquisition defrauds our heritage by distorting the archaeological record; harms the legitimate acquisition of antiquities; perverts the important role museums play in society; and ultimately warps the understanding of our common cultural heritage.

Consequently, this article proposes a theoretical underpinning for a new and rigorous standard for the acquisition of art and antiquities. In so doing, it develops a theory which can successfully navigate the secrecy surrounding the trade and acquisition of antiquities. It concludes by offering a critique of the recent attempts by law and economics scholars to analyze the antiquities trade and concludes that they may offer some useful policy models so long as they account for the preservation of heritage and context in their "efficiency" models.

Feb 26, 2009

Student Comment on American Cultural Heritage Law

Katherine D. Vitale has posted on SSRN her Student Comment, The War on Antiquities: United States Law and Foreign Cultural Property, 84 Notre Dame L. R. 101 (2009). 

She criticizes the general trend of American cultural heritage policy, and is far too kind I think to museums and antiquities dealers generally.  She has some very interesting things to say about the AAMD Guidelines, and does a very good job putting the recent California searches in context, perhaps helping to explain why a year has elapsed with little apparent progress.  

From the Abstract:

The use of the National Stolen Property Act and Archaeological Resources Protection Act as mechanisms to protect cultural property taken from a foreign state through prosecution of individuals who buy, sell, and otherwise deal in such property is in direct tension with the Convention on Cultural Property Implementation Act ("CPIA"), a statute enacted in accordance with an international treaty to which the United States is a party. This Note explores how criminal liability under United States law for museum officials and others who acquire art, archaeological materials, and especially antiquities, originating in foreign nations conflicts with CPIA's treatment of foreign cultural property. Part I discusses the principle of protection of cultural property in international law and the manifestation of this principle in the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization's 1970 Convention on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property ("1970 UNESCO Convention"). Part II examines the 1970 UNESCO Convention's influence on United States civil law and policy regarding foreign cultural property, and on the acquisitions policies of international and domestic museums. Part III discusses criminal penalties under both the National Stolen Property Act and the Archaeological Resources Protection Act for those who knowingly acquire stolen foreign cultural property. Part IV analyzes the conflict between policies on foreign cultural property followed by the United States and domestic museums and the application of criminal penalties in art-trafficking cases. In addition, this Part explores the consequences of the conflict for both the United States and individuals, and suggests resolutions to the conflict through law. Finally, Part V concludes that in order for the United States to fulfill its obligation under the 1970 UNESCO Convention, it must stop conducting a war on antiquities-and those who acquire them.

Feb 25, 2009

"The sea is a vast museum of shipwrecks"

So says Texas A&M University's Prof. Shelley Wachsmann in a very good ABC (Australia) piece on the dangers facing underwater heritage sites in Greece, and a new Greek law which may open Greece's coastline to increased diving.

 
Greece's 1932 antiquities law says all artefacts on land and in the sea belong to the state, but it does not regulate scuba diving, . . .
A new law implemented in 2007 and designed to promote tourism opens most of Greece's 15,000km coastline to scuba divers, except for about 100 known archaeological sites.
Greece's archaeologists' union and two ecological societies have appealed for the law to be rescinded.
Meanwhile, some tour companies are luring tourists with the promise of ancient artefacts.
"Scuba diving in Greece is permitted everywhere ... Ideal for today's treasure hunter," says the website www.scuba-greece.com.
The director of antiquities at the Culture Ministry, Katerina Dellaporta, says metal detectors and bathyspheres allow treasure hunters to find artefacts with ease in the Adriatic and Aegean.
"It's good to have tourism, but we must protect antiquities," she said.
"Not every diver is an illegal trafficker... but we need to ensure these treasures remain for future generations." . . . 

Most of the world-famous bronzes in Greece's National Archaeological Museum, such as the 5th-century BC statue of Poseidon hurling his trident found off Cape Artemision, were salvaged from the sea.
Statues on land tended to be destroyed or melted down for coins or weapons.
Some were found in shallow-water shipwrecks like the one off Antikythera, believed to be a 1st century BC Roman ship carrying a haul of ancient Greek art back to Italy.
Other precious statues were dredged from the deep ocean in fishermen's nets.
Greece offers handsome rewards to prevent relics falling into private hands.
It paid 440,000 euros ($872,000) to a fisherman for a female torso off the island of Kalymnos in 2005.

French judge Denies China's Claim for Summer Palace Bronzes

A french judge on Monday denied China's claims for these two bronze objects, looted from the Old Summer Palace in Beijing in 1860, to be auctioned at the Yve Saint Laurent auction tonight in Paris.  They had been transferred a number of times during the 20th century, and the alleged wrongdoing took place nearly 150 years ago.  If China wants the objects back they have only two options.

First, as Pierre Berge, Saint Laurent's partner, offered earlier "The only thing I ask is for China to give human rights, liberty to Tibet and to welcome the Dalai Lama."

Or second,  they could purchase the objects at the auction.  As Barbara Demick's piece in the L.A. Times notes:

An entire museum in Beijing run by the Poly Corp., which is operated by a state-owned military enterprise, is filled with repatriated artworks, including several other bronze animal heads that along with the two held by Saint Laurent were part of the set of 12 representing the signs of the Chinese zodiac.

The museum bought the tiger, monkey and ox through auction houses in Hong Kong in 2000, while the pig's head was recovered in New York by Hong Kong casino magnate Stanley Ho, who in turn donated it to the museum.

But the Chinese are increasingly resentful at the high prices they've had to fork out. Ho reportedly paid $9 million in a deal brokered by Sotheby's to get the horse head back from Taiwan. Christie's was reported to be asking $10 million each for the rabbit and rat in behind-the-scenes negotiations in the last few years with prospective Chinese buyers.

"It is really shameful. They are like kidnappers demanding ransom to give back your own child," said Li Xingfeng, one of a group of 81 Chinese lawyers who filed the lawsuit last week in Paris trying to block the sale. They have vowed to pursue the case to recover the heads from whomever might buy them.

Feb 24, 2009

Happy Mardi Gras

No posting today, the Spaniel wants a piece of cultural heritage:  a Zulu Coconut

Feb 23, 2009

Student Comment on Repatriation of Flemish art in French Museums

Paige Goodwin has a Student Comment in the recent Pennsylvania Law Review, Mapping The Limits Of Repatriable Cultural Heritage: A Case Study Of Stolen Flemish Art In French Museums, 157 Penn. L. Rev. 157 673 (2008). 

On June 20, 1939, Adolf Hitler called upon Hans Posse, one of his chief advisors, to establish the Sonderauftrag Linz (“Special Project Linz”)—a cultural complex in the Führer’s hometown. The showpiece of the propagandistic cultural center would be the Führermuseum, a grand museum housing the most revered European artwork from every century. By the end of the war, the Nazis had stolen more than 21,000 paintings, sculptures, and other art pieces for Hitler’s museum. Upon discovering the large-scale pillaging when the war ended, the Allies mounted a well-publicized campaign to return the stolen art to its rightful owners. For essentially the first time in history, the international art community launched a coordinated campaign to repatriate stolen art and revise museum acquisition policies. Beyond returning many of the stolen works, the postwar movement resulted in the 1954 Hague Convention, which conceived the art world’s newest buzzword: “cultural property.”


Nearly two centuries before Hitler’s art campaign, revolutionary and postrevolutionary French governments, particularly under Napoleon Bonaparte, oversaw many national political changes that implicated concepts of cultural property. Chief among these was the nationalization of the royal art collection at the Luxembourg Palace, later renamed the Musée Napoléon (and now known as the Louvre). Like Hitler, Napoleon envisioned a spectacular art museum bearing his name and charged French troops with confiscating art at home and in foreign conquests. Between 1794 and 1813, art shipments arrived in France nearly every year from Italy, Belgium, Austria, the Netherlands, and Spain. When the Musée Napoléon became too cramped with the spoils of war, Napoleon transferred art to regional museums throughout the country. Although the 1815 Treaty of Paris ended the war in Europe, most works stolen by the Napoleonic armies remain in the Louvre or in French regional museums today.

Alderman on Cultural Property Law and Indigenous Peoples

Kimberley Alderman of the The Cultural Property & Archaeology Law Blog has posted a working paper "Ethical Issues in Cultural Property Law Pertaining to Indigenous Peoples".  From the Introduction:

The purpose of this paper is to identify ethical challenges in cultural property law pertaining to indigenous peoples. Doing so is a necessary step in promoting a meaningful discourse over key crises in the cultural property trade.  By addressing ethical concerns in a discrete manner, we can cut through rhetoric, facilitate communication, and propose solutions that more precisely target harms born of the illicit trade in cultural property and repatriation disputes. I focus on indigenous peoples because they have an ethical stake in cultural property disposition, and they are the least represented in the international cultural property debates.
 

. . .  In Part II, I provide the background and context within which this discussion arises, answering the question, “Why define the ethical issues?” I describe a model of ethical decision-making originally developed for use in business, called the 5Ps Method. I explain that we are starting at the base of the 5Ps pyramid with “Problem,” which requires identifying the ethical problem. In surveying the surrounding facts, I describe the ongoing crisis in the cultural property trade, including divisiveness in scholarly debates and lack of clarity as to legal versus ethical concerns. I also note the recent passage of the UN Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, which functions as an excellent backdrop to highlight indigenous concerns as independent from those of other stakeholders, including source nations.

In Part III, I parse several ethical concerns pertaining to indigenous peoples that emerge from the cultural property debates:

(1) Indigenous descendants of creator cultures are underrepresented in the cultural property debates;
(2) In cultural property law, control/possession and beneficial interest are inextricably linked, and indigenous peoples are not given adequate beneficial interest in their artifacts due to arguments against their getting control; and 

(3) Unsolicited representation of indigenous peoples constitutes a reinforcement of the idea that they are in need of custodial care, inherently undermining arguments that they are competent tocontrol cultural property.
 

In Part IV, I conclude with several recommendations. First, I suggest a more pragmatic approach to cultural property disputes, urging stakeholders to more clearly distinguish between legal considerations and ethical ones. Second, I urge indigenous peoples to assert themselves on the international cultural property front, independently from source nations, since ethical debates so often focus on the interests of indigenous groups. Recognizing this is not always possible, I encourage source nations to better involve indigenous peoples in repatriation initiatives. Finally, consistent with the purpose of this paper, I suggest that all stakeholders participate in pragmatic, meaningful discourse as to how these ethical issues might be creatively and categorically addressed.

Tyler Green on the $50 Million "Arts Stimulus"

He's not a fan, and I agree.  It is yet another sign of the lowly position given to federal arts policy.  He offers what I think is a very good suggestion:

. . . The arts community should take a lesson from how policy is made in Washington, from the policy-driven infrastructure of the city. The first step: The arts should join Washington's think-tank culture. Arts philanthropists should fund arts policy fellows at major think tanks, places such as the Center for American Progress and the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Smart arts thinkers would have the opportunity to be involved in policy debates, to develop new ideas about how government should be involved in the arts (and not just in one little agency, but across the federal apparatus).

Joining the Washington policy-making set wouldn't result in immediate, FY 2010 policy changes, but over time it would lead to new ideas and new ways that the federal government could engage with and support the nation's cultural vitality. Just as importantly: It would burrow cultural thinkers and backers into the culture of Washington influence, building a baseline of support for the arts amongst policy-makers who work in a range of fields. Perhaps, finally, a great nation would have the federal involvement in the arts that it deserves.
 

Feb 19, 2009

Adler on Moral Rights

Amy Adler, NYU School of Law, has an essay in the most recent California Law Review, Against Moral Rights. From the introduction:

Moral rights scholarship is startling in its uniformity. Scholars take it as gospel that moral rights are crucial for art to flourish and that, if anything, we need a more robust moral rights doctrine. Commentators routinely lament the gap between our modest American moral rights laws and the more expansive European ones. In contrast to copyright law, which has produced a vibrantbody of scholarship critical of the law’s excesses, the main scholarly criticism of moral rights is that they do not reach far enough. Wading through the largely repetitive law review literature, it doesn’t take long to get the implicit message: if you don’t support moral rights, you’re a philistine who doesn’t understand the sanctity of art.

This essay seeks to undermine the foundations of moral rights scholarship, law, and theory. My argument is that moral rights laws endanger art in the name of protecting it. Drawing on contemporary art theory and practice, I focus on the moral right of “integrity,” called “the heart of the moral rights doctrine.” This right allows an artist to prevent modification and, in some cases, destruction of his art work. As I show, the right of integrity threatens art because it fails to recognize the profound artistic importance of modifying, even destroying, works of art, and of freeing art from the control of the artist. Ultimately, I question the most basic premise of moral rights law: that law should treat visual art as a uniquely prized category that merits exceptions from the normal rules of property and contract.

To put it mildly, this is not a popular argument. Indeed, it challenges the key assumptions of virtually all moral rights scholarship. But moral rights scholars have overlooked a surprising problem: the conception of “art” embedded in moral rights law has become obsolete. As a result, the law is on a collision course with the very art it seeks to defend. In fact, as I will show, moral rights are premised on the precise conception of “art” that artists have been rebelling against for the last forty years. Moral rights law thus purports to protect art, but does so by enshrining a vision of art that is directly at odds with contemporary artistic practice. It protects and reifies a notion of art that is dead. In this Essay I ask the question: does moral rights law make sense in an era in which “art,” at least as we have known it for centuries, is over?

Feb 18, 2009

Mexico Denies Odyssey's Request

Mexico has denied a request by Odyssey Marine to explore a shipwreck located in the Gulf of Mexico(remember the UK granted similar permission recently to exploit the HMS Victory).  From the AP:


The ship in question, the galleon Our Lady of Juncal, was part of a fleet hit by a powerful storm in 1631 in "one of the greatest tragedies that has ever occurred in Mexican waters," according to Mexico's National Institute of Anthropology and History.

The proposal by Odyssey Marine Exploration Inc. of Tampa, Florida, "is not intended to conduct research and does not have the approval of archaeologists or an academic institution of recognized prestige," the Institute said. It added that "treasure hunters have always had their eyes on" the wreck site.

Odyssey Marine chairman Greg Stemm said in a statement that "the proposal presented to Mexico for archaeological services is in compliance with the UNESCO Convention and would keep all cultural artifacts together in a collection."

The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization says on its Web site that the convention aims to "preserve in situ all remains of human existence submerged for at least one hundred years."

Feb 17, 2009

Ratcheting Down the Antiquities (and Drug) Wars

The NYT has an article suggesting President Obama's choice for "drug czar" (the head of the Office of National Drug Control Policy) could substantially alter federal drug policy in positive ways (my emphasis):
The anticipated selection of Chief Kerlikowske has given hope to those who want national drug policy to shift from an emphasis on arrest and prosecution to methods more like those employed in Seattle: intervention, treatment and a reduction of problems drug use can cause, a tactic known as harm reduction. Chief Kerlikowske is not necessarily regarded as having forcefully led those efforts, but he has not gotten in the way of them.
Under John P. Walters, the drug czar during most of the administration of President George W. Bush, the drug office focused on tough enforcement of drug laws, including emphases on marijuana and drug use among youths. The agency pointed to reductions in the use of certain kinds of drugs, but it was criticized by some local law enforcement officials who said its priorities did not reflect local concerns, from the rise of methamphetamine to the fight against drug smuggling at the Mexican border.
 There has never been a "war" on antiquities looting which could approach the America's often wrong-headed illegal drug policy.  But it's hard not to notice the parallels between the potential shift in American policy on drugs and the efforts of the Portable Antiquities Scheme, which has achieved some notable policy successes by taking a pragmatic approach, aimed at similar kinds of "harm reduction".  
One of the weaknesses with prohibitionism is it restricts supply, without taking account of the potential demand.  This makes the targeted trade -- whether it's drugs or guns or antiquities -- this makes the illegal trade  more profitable, allowing better more sophisticated tactics to evade law enforcement.  There's a good argument I think that some prohibition helps create and incentivize large-scale criminal operations and organized crime networks. 

"it’s got great historical significance and ought to be returned.”

So says Patty Gerstenblith, quoted in today's New York Times article detailing the efforts of China to prevent the sale of two bronzes taken during the burning of the imperial Summer Palace in 1860:



Liu Yang, a Beijing lawyer who is helping to organize the lawsuit threatened in France, said he had located a descendant of China’s royal family to serve as plaintiff in the case.

“The Old Summer Palace, which was plundered and burnt down by Anglo-French allied forces during the Second Opium War in 1860, is our nation’s unhealed scar, still bleeding and aching,” Mr. Lui said. “That Christie’s and Pierre Bergé would put them up for auction and refuse to return them to China deeply hurts our nation’s feelings.”

Mr. Liu also asserted that the sale would violate a 1995 United Nations convention governing the repatriation of stolen or illegally exported cultural relics.

But Patty Gerstenblith, a professor of law at DePaul University in Chicago who specializes in cultural-property issues, said that France never ratified the convention and that even if it had, the agreement does not apply retroactively to objects looted decades or centuries ago.

“My view is this was looted, but it would be difficult to get that legally back,” she said in a telephone interview on Monday. “But it’s got great historical significance and ought to be returned.”

Professor Gerstenblith suggested that one solution might be for the Yves Saint Laurent and Pierre Bergé Foundation to negotiate with China and offer it at a reasonable price. “It would probably be in the best interest of everybody if they made a deal privately with China,” she said.
Previous posts on this dispute here and here.  

Feb 16, 2009

Nighthawking Report Published: Illegal Metal Detecting Has Decreased

The long-awaited report upon the impact of illegal metal detecting ("nighthawking") conducted by Oxford Archaeology on behalf of English Heritage, is now available from  the Historic Environment Local Management website.  It appears that illegal metal detecting in England has declined since 1995, the point at which soon after, in 1997, the Portable Antiquities Scheme first began its efforts.

Ownership declaration is an important legal strategy undergirding the protection of heritage; but this declaration in isolation does not necessarily create the best cultural heritage policy. Effectively guarding every archaeological site is impossible given limited resources. The looting of corresponding sites elsewhere in the World, particularly in North and South America is a travesty and presents a foudational problem with heritage policy. One potential solution is a policy framework and network of PAS-style liason officers. That's not to say that these states should encourage metal-detecting, but the efforts of the PAS have appeared to substantially decreased looting and illegal activity.  Education and outreach, even if it means compromise, are essential. Outreach and education is badly needed.

The PAS works in conjunction with the law, which was of course a compromise postion between heritage advocates and landowners. A very strong legal regime may in a perfect world be the best policy. But what good are they if they aren't meaningfully enforced? In the heritage context, the PAS and metal detectorists are producing contextual information. It's a different kind of information, which we can characterize as shallow but extremely broad; rather than a thorough documentation of sites which might be narrow but very deep.

The most interesting revelation of the report is the suggestion that metal detecting has substantially decreased since the PAS began.  In 1995, 188 scheduled monuments were reported damaged; in 2008, that number was 70.  In 1995, 74% of archaeological units reported their sites had been molested; in 2008 that number is 28%.  I take that as pretty strong support for the proposition I argued for in my recent piece on the Portable Antiquities Scheme, A Coordinated Legal and Policy Approach to Undiscovered Antiquities: Adapting the Cultural Heritage Policy of England and Wales to Other Nations of Origin, IJCP (2008).


Despite the overall decrease, the report still argues the criminal penalties remain insufficient, and the local enforcement officers and the Crown Prosecution Service need to do more to ensure individuals caught violating the law receive suitable punishment.  At present the maximum penalty is three months in prison and a £1,000 fine. 

The report provides a number of other key points:


  1. Provide clear guidance to the police, Crown Prosecution Service and Magistrates on the impact of Nighthawking, how to combat it, levels of evidence and possible penalties.
  2. Provide more information for landowners on identifying Nighthawking and what to do when they encounter it.
  3. Develop better ways to find out what is going on and establish and promote a central database of reported incidents of Nighthawking.
  4. Publicise the positive effects of responsible metal detecting and the negative effects of Nighthawking.
  5. Ensure the PAS is fully funded, so links between archaeologists and metal detectorists are further strengthened.
  6. Integrate metal detecting into the archaeological process, including development control briefs.
  7. Implement changes recently introduced in Europe which increase the obligation on sellers of antiquities to provide provenances and establish legal title, and urge eBay to introduce more stringent monitoring of antiquities with a UK origin offered for sale on their website.
Media Coverage:
Bloomberg, Telegraph, AFP, BBC, Guardian, Times

Feb 12, 2009

Iraq Museum to Reopen This Month

From Reuters,

Iraq will reopen later this month its renowned national museum, home to priceless artefacts plundered in the unchecked chaos following the 2003 U.S.-led invasion, an Iraqi minister said.


The long-awaited reopening marks a milestone in the government's efforts to retrieve and preserve artefacts and archaeological sites from Iraq's history after almost six years of theft, destruction and violence.

The country is said to be the site of the 'cradle of civilisation', the area between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, and the looting of relics -- some thousands of years old -- was seen as a tragedy for Iraq and for the world.

Qahtan al-Jibouri, Iraq's minister of state for tourism and antiquities, said the government had been renovating the museum in central Baghdad for several months and planned to open its doors to the public before the end of February.

Feb 11, 2009

334 Antiquities Returned to Peru... but what result?

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection have released a statement announcing the return of 334 objects to the Peruvian government.

Of particular interest is how the objects were seized:


On March 1, 2007, a CBP officer at Houston's Bush Intercontinental Airport referred Lanas-Ugaz, who had just arrived from Lima, Peru, for a secondary examination. During CBP's inspection of Lanas-Ugaz's luggage, officers noted several items in bubble wrap, including a clay figurine of a man in a chair and clay bowls. CBP officers held the five items as possible pre-Columbian Peruvian artifacts, which are protected under the Convention on Cultural Property Implementation Act. CBP contacted ICE, which had the artifacts evaluated by archeologists from the American Museum of Natural History. Museum archaeologists confirmed that the items are authentic pre-Columbian and have significant cultural value.
Four days later, ICE, CBP and Laredo Police Department officers executed a federal search warrant at Lanas-Ugaz's home in Laredo. They discovered many additional authentic artifacts, which included: textiles, ceramic figures, wood sculptures, and metal and stone art. All the items had been illegally exported from Peru into the United States. Lanas-Ugaz, a U.S. citizen, was arrested at his home without incident.

 Lanas-Ugaz reached a plea agreement:

Lanas-Ugaz pleaded guilty May 16, 2007, to one count of knowingly and fraudulently importing into the United States merchandise that is against the law to sell, and receiving stolen goods. On Sept. 13, 2007, he was sentenced to three years probation and a $2,000 fine; he also paid $100 to a crime victims' fund.

That's a pretty slight sentence for a crime which carries a maximum punishment of 5 years imprisonment and a $250,000 fine.   One thing the press release does not discuss is why the sentence was so slight, and if Lanas-Ugaz is continuing to trade in antiquities. 

According to the Department of Justice press release in 2007, Lanas-Ugaz operated a website, perularedo.com, which offers Pre-Columbian artifacts for sale.  A simple google search of "perularedo" reveals there is an ebay seller, by that name selling antiquities from Peru, the last sale appeared to be as recently as September 2008. 

One wonders if this antiquities dealer has decided to cooperate?  Has he left the antiquities trade for good?  Is he continuing to sell antiquities under a different name? 

Feb 10, 2009

German Court Rules for Nazi-era Poster Claimant

A German court has ruled that Peter Sachs' is entitled to an entire poster collection seized from his father in 1938.  The elder Sachs received about $50,000 in compensation for the collection which was then believed to have been destroyed. 

From the AP:


The Berlin administrative court ruled that Hans Sachs never gave up ownership of the collection of 12,500 posters taken from his home on the orders of Nazi Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels.


Sachs, 71, sued in a test case for the return of two posters — a 1932 poster for "Die Blonde Venus" ("Blonde Venus") starring Marlene Dietrich, and one for Simplicissimus, a satirical German weekly magazine, showing a red bulldog. The court ruled that it was unclear whether "Die Blonde Venus" was part of his father's collection, but that there was no doubt about the Simplicissimus poster and that it must be returned to him.


The ruling means that the court has backed the claim of Peter Sachs of Sarasota on the surviving portion of his father's collection — some 4,000 posters at the German Historical Museum in Berlin, said his attorney ,Matthias Druba.


"We are definitely delighted," Druba said . "It's a shame that we didn't get the Blonde Venus, but in the end what is more important is that the general question has been answered clearly in our favor: Peter is the rightful owner of the collection and he has a claim to get them back; we couldn't want more."


The posters include advertisements for exhibitions, cabarets, movies and consumer products, as well as political propaganda — all rare, with only small original print runs.
Only a handful of the posters on display at any given time at the German Historical Museum, but officials maintain they form an integral part of its 80,000-piece collection. The museum also points out that those in storage are regularly viewed by researchers.

"It is time for the American arts community to confront its stunning political ineptitude"

So says the Chicago Tribune's theater critic Chris Jones in an opinion piece yesterday on the shocking prohibition on funding for the arts in the stimulus:

It is time for the American arts community to confront its stunning political ineptitude. It has arrived at a place where there seems to be no one to make its case; no one, at least, free from the taint of self-interest.

After all, the argument that the labor-intensive arts are not job-creation engines is patently absurd; they just fuel different kinds of struggling workers, workers unaccustomed to bonuses. Their role in generating billions of dollars in ancillary economic activity for stores, restaurants and the travel business has been proven in bucketloads of surveys and analyses.

The contrast in priority with the last comparable American stimulus package is simply breathtaking. Funded by the Emergency Relief Appropriation Act of 1935, FDR's Works Progress Administration made the arts a priority. Federal Project Number One was, believe it or not, the largest of the WPA's endeavors.

Its mission was to give more Americans the chance to experience what Roosevelt called "a fuller life." Its legacy—from invigorating murals to landscape paintings to the careers of Arthur Miller or Orson Welles—is everywhere you look.

In less than 75 years, the arts have gone from the single largest priority in a government stimulus package to a toxic joke. It is a stunning turnaround.
I think this is a very timely, and very pointed criticism. Why must we view art in economic terms? Why does nearly every article or mention of a work of art also discuss it's potential market price? Art has some powerful non-economic benefits which are not always easily measured, and the arts community needs to do a much better job making its case.

Feb 6, 2009

Settlement in Nazi-Era Dispute

One of the week's big stories I haven't had a chance to talk about was the decision by the Museum of Modern Art and the Solomon R. Guggenheim foundation and the heirs of Paul and Elsa von Mendelssohn-Bartholdy to settle their ongoing claim.  The undisclosed settlement was announced earlier this week, just as jury selection was set to take place in U.S. District Court in New York. 

Unfortunately the settlement will not allow us to learn how these important works were acquired.  Both the claimants offered very different perspectives.  The issue would have likely been when the paintings were transferred -- in 1927 before the Nazi rise to power, or in 1935 when Hitler had become Fuhrer.  Said Judge Rakoff, "I find it extraordinarily unfortunate that the public will be left without knowing what the truth is ...  The public surely would want to know now and forever which of those diametrically different views was true, and the great crucible of a trial would have made that known".

Boy Leading a Horse, Picasso, 1905-06/Museum of Modern Art














Le Moulin de la Galette, Picasso, 1900/Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum

UNESCO Wants HMS Victory Preserved

Yesterday UNESCO released a statement concerning the announced discovery of the wreck of the HMS Victory by Odyssey Marine:


“I am delighted that such an exceptional example of underwater heritage has been located. The cultural and scientific value of this artefact is considerable,” declared Koïchiro Matsuura, Director-General of UNESCO. “In the spirit of the Convention adopted by UNESCO in 2001, I trust that all parties concerned will take the necessary measures to ensure this important vestige of British naval history is safeguarded and given appropriate attention, not used for commercial gain.”

The statement stands in stark contrast to this week's earlier interview by the company's own Greg Stemm.  UNESCO and the relevant Underwater Heritage Convention both strongly disapprove of the use of underwater sites for commercial gain.  Few of the World's major nations have signed on to this proposition.  The UK Government would seem to believe that scientific study can be accomplished with commercial exploitation, or at least that the commercial value may outweigh a more thorough study. 

Feb 4, 2009

9 Arrested on Cyprus

Today's Cyprus Mail reports on the arrest of 9 individuals attempting to smuggle a Syrian Orthodox bible from Turkey to the island for sale:

A TWO THOUSAND year-old Syrian Orthodox bible, believed to have been smuggled into the island from southeastern Turkey, has become the subject of major police operation in the north that has so far led to the arrest of nine suspects.

The bible, estimated to be worth around €2 million, was seized during a raid at the Famagusta bus terminal last Friday where smugglers were seeking to sell it to buyers in the north. It is thought Turkish Cypriot police had been tipped off about the impending sale.

Although the north’s ‘antiquities department’ refused yesterday to comment on the bible, because it was “the subject of an ongoing inquiry”, a statement from police said it was bound in deerskin, written in gold letters in the Syriac language, and believed to be around 2000 years old. The bible may have come from the heartland of the Syrian Orthodox community in southeastern Turkey, where a small community remains, despite often being caught in the crossfire between Kurdish rebels and the Turkish military.

“It is very likely to come from the Tur-Abdin area of Turkey, where there is still a Syriac speaking community,” Dr [Charlotte Roueche], professor of Late Antique and Byzantine Studies at King College, London told Reuters yesterday.

"You can be a good businessman and a good scientist "

So says Odyssey Marine's Gregg Stemm in an interview with Spiegel Online International

Here is an excerpt:

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Would you call yourself a treasure hunter?
Stemm: No, that sounds as if we just picked up treasures from the ocean and did not care about anything else. That is not what we do.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: You alway stress the scientific part of what you do rather than the quest for profit. Yet you are CEO of a publicly traded company and have to think about your investors.
Stemm: It is a fusion of business and science. Some people might be cynical about it, but I see no difference to medicine, chemistry and other sciences. They all earn money, yet nobody would doubt that they do valuable scientific work. You can be a good businessman and a good scientist at the same time.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: Still, marine archaeologists regard your trade with suspicion. They say commercial salvage companies destroy wrecks and disturb the dead.
Stemm: They do not have any evidence. During our work in the English Channel, we investigated 25 shipwreck sites. We took only very few artifacts and delivered them to the British government. We do not talk about marine archaeology, we practice it. Excavating a wreck like the HMS Victory costs $30 million. No government is willing to spend that kind of money -- even less so in a recession.

Feb 2, 2009

Interview on the California Raids After One Year

You can hear my thoughts on the California antiquities investigation in a piece by Adolfo Guzman-Lopez for NPR affiliate KPCC in Southern California which aired this morning, and again this evening.   He tracks the impact of the massive federal investigation and very public searches and seizures which took place last January, and the ripples the raids have created in the museum world, despite little apparent progress in any prosecutions.


You can listen to the audio here


As I said in the piece, I think there are a number of ways institutions can still fulfill their mission, without violating the laws of nations of origin or Federal and State law here in the US.  Despite the very tragic death of Roxanna Brown, the investigations have changed the ways antiquities are transferred, most notably with the revised acquisition policies promulgated by the AAMD. 

Rare Book Theft

Sandra Laville has the story in today's Guardian of a number of rare book thieves, including David Slade, who is due to be sentenced today:


Today at Aylesbury crown court, another member of this band of thieves faces a custodial sentence after admitting the theft of £232,880-worth of extremely rare books from one of the most powerful financiers in the world, Sir Evelyn de Rothschild. It is a case that has until now received no publicity. Like Jacques, 59-year-old David Slade is a well-educated and highly knowledgeable loner, but also the former president of the Antiquarian Booksellers Association in the UK, and a dealer who has sold internationally since he was 17. 
Slade was hired by Rothschild to catalogue the family book collection. As he did his work, visiting Rothschild's home, Ascott house in Buckinghamshire, two or three times a week, Slade discreetly removed the odd book, each of which was an extremely valuable and beautifully crafted production by one of the private presses that operated in the late 19th and early 20th century.
He took them to an auction house where his reputation was unquestioned and sold them for significant sums. It was during a routine audit that Rothschild noticed the books, 68 in all, had gone missing. Slade's guilty plea went unnoticed, but the ABA has now decided to speak out.
Alan Shelley, current president, said the only way to eradicate the trafficking of rare books was to work closely with libraries, auctioneers and dealers. 
The British Library has led the way by admitting when it is the victim of theft. But while major international libraries alert each other to details of stolen books or descriptions of thieves, these do not always reach the antiquarian book trade and not all libraries are honest about falling victim to theft. 
"We all need to be a bit more grown up," said Jolyon Hudson, from Pickering and Chatto antiquarian bookseller. "[Libraries] are the curators of the nation's knowledge, and when they lose it they are somewhat embarrassed to admit that."

This again echoes the same difficulties that plague the art trade and the antiquities trade.  There is insufficient scrutiny of the chain of title when these objects are transferred, bought and sold.  Relying on a seller's reputation does not provide a meaningful check on the process.  

HMS Victory Found



Odyssey Marine has announced today in a news conference in London the apparent discovery of the HMS Victory, which sank in the English Channel in 1744.  The wreck was discovered in May 2008.  The company has recovered two of the vessel's one-hundred brass cannons, pictured here. The wreck is rumored to contain more than a billion dollars in gold

 Note that Odyssey won't have the rights to this gold, unlike the "Black Swan" wreck, this vessel was clearly a British navy man-of-war, and as such any salvage will be property of the crown.  Odyssey is now negotiating with the UK Government.  A far different relationships than with the Spanish, who have been strongly critical of the company, including bringing suit in federal court in Tampa Florida over the "Black Swan". 


From the Guardian:


The Ministry of Defence has given the company permission to go back down to the wreck to try to find the treasure.

The British Government will legally own any gold that is recovered, but Greg Stemm, chief executive officer of Odyssey Marine Exploration, said he was in negotiations and would expect to be rewarded for the find.

Mr Stemm said: "The money is not as important as the cultural and historical significance of the discovery. It is a monumental event, not only for Odyssey but for the world.

"It is probably the most significant shipwreck find to date. HMS Victory was the mightiest vessel of the 18th century and the eclectic mix of guns we found on the site will prove essential in further refining our understanding of naval weaponry used during the era."
Stemm certainly appears to be playing up the heritage and cultural significance angle.  Again the question worth asking is, will Odyssey be undertaking serious archaeological study?  Will the Government insist upon such an examination?  It's worth noting as well that Odyssey is traded on Nasdaq.  Might its stock increase today?  Should we be treating the discovery of underwater heritage in this way?

Loss of HMS 'Victory', 4 October 1744, by Peter Monamy. 

Nearly 38,000 French Works Missing

In a French report last week it was learned that the French have lost or mislaid a staggering number of works.  From Adam Sage for the Times:


The tale of what may well be art’s greatest mystery was published in France this week amid claims of greed, negligence and dishonesty at the heart of the State. 
Take, for example, the tapestry by Joan Miró that has gone missing from the French Embassy in Washington. Or the drawing by the 20th-century French painter Raoul Dufy, which vanished from a museum in Marseilles; or the oil painting by the Slovene artist Zoran Music, lost by the French Finance Ministry. 
Where they have gone, nobody knows – or, at least, nobody is saying. They have just “slipped on to picture rails inaccessible to the public”, in the discreet but damning words of Jean-Pierre Bady, a civil servant who has recounted in arid bureaucratic language the ten-year hunt to find thousands of artworks that have disappeared.
In all, 306,993 paintings, sculptures, antiques, porcelain and other works are supposed to adorn ministries, embassies, local government offices and official residences, including the Elysée Palace, he said.In fact, Mr Bady discovered that 37,658 French state artworks were missing, of which 3,444 are known to have been destroyed and 145 reported stolen – with the rest simply mislaid.

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