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October 18, 2012

Rotterdam Art Heist: ARCA in the Media

Here's a few links to ARCA associates recently published in the media:

In Noah Charney's "Secret History of Art" column for artinfo.com, the founder of ARCA writes on "Rotterdam Art Heist Likely for Ransom".

In The New York Times, ARCA Trustee Anthony Amore, Security Director for The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, writes as an Op-Ed Contributor about "Debunking the Myth of Glamorous Art Thieves" in "No 'Thomas Crown Affair'".

Niels Rigter of Metro published an article online here (in Dutch, loosely translated into English) quotes ARCA's CEO Lynda Albertson (also pictured) about the difficultly of selling stolen art.

Bloomberg's Catherine Hickley article, "Art Thieves Struggle to Convert Monet, Picasso Into Cash", includes an interview with ARCA CEO Lynda Albertson.

ARCA Instructor Tom Flynn's blog "artknows" in "Will we never learn from art theft? Value is in the eye of the beholder" points out that  stealing art is done for all sorts of reasons -- especially if the paintings are displayed in buildings that are "woefully deficient in security"as pointed out by Dutch security consultant Ton Cremers.

Kunsthal Rotterdam Art Heist: Conferring with Charley Hill, former Scotland Yard art detective and undercover agent

By Catherine Sezgin, ARCA Blog Editor-in-Chief

Charley Hill, former Scotland Yard art detective (who helped to recover "The Scream") and private investigator, shared his expertise and opinion with the ARCA Blog on the Rotterdam art heist at the Kunsthal art gallery on October 16, 2012.

ARCA Blog: The space at the 20-year-old Kunsthal Rotterdam shows temporary exhibitions and has no permanent collection. Rotterdam Police have said that the Kunsthal had a very good technological security system but no on-site guards. Did this make the Triton Foundation's collection vulnerable to theft? After all, the exhibit featured paintings by artists known to fetch high prices at highly publicized auctions.
Mr. Hill: If a museum is to show works of great art, it cannot be Fort Knox, nor a high security prison. So whatever the security at a museum, and the state of its alarm system, it will be vulnerable to attack. The best system is a combination of locks, bolts, strengthened glass, CCTV (seeing someone walking around with a balaclava on should be a clue that all is not well, if anyone is watching the monitor) and alarms with good human resources managing them 24 hours a day. That is expensive, and most museums cannot afford that combination, but they should always aspire to it and try to achieve it as best they can, particularly when they have other people's art treasures on loan for an exhibition.
ARCA Blog: This month in Santa Monica, California, a private collector, Jeffrey Gundlach, recovered stolen art valued around $2 million after offering a reward. However, other paintings from art heists -- Montreal Museum of Fine Arts in 1972, the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in 1990, and the Van Gogh Museum in 2002 have never been recovered. What are the chances of seeing these seven stolen works taken from the Triton Foundation while on display at the Kunsthal?
Mr. Hill: These stolen works of art are likely to turn up again because they were stolen in an intelligent way, probably little damaged. But overall, stealing masterpieces is the most stupid thing a thief or thieves can do. They are not readily realisable as cash assets. They are unsaleable on the open market. The values attributed to them, and I read in the Independent this morning here in London that a figure for all of the stolen pictures was put at £250 million. What nonsense.
I also read that they were for some secret collector and his secret collection. More stuff and nonsense. In my experience the only Captain Nemo or Dr. No character I have ever met who collected stolen works of art is George Ortiz of Geneva. He used to show anyone his superb collection of looted antiquities, and every one of his friends and enemies knows what he has got. His main friends are the city fathers of Geneva who are set to inherit it all, and his enemies begin with Lord Renfrew, the famous Emeritus Professor of Archaeology at Cambridge University. Jules Verne and Ian Fleming (actually, Cubby Broccoli) invented all of that secret collector nonsense. These pictures will turn up in drugs raids and other searches over time, unless the police in Rotterdam get a good tip off soon and hit the place where they are stashed now.
ARCA Blog: The Santa Monica Police and Pasadena police in California were able to recover the stolen paintings from the Jeffrey Gundlach collection at a car stereo business and at a nearby residence. One of the paintings was recovered in Glendale during what appeared to be a sale preview. In the Gundlach robbery, the thieves also stole a Porsche and watches. This robbery is more focused on the art.
Mr. Hill: My view is that this theft was particularly well organised, done quickly and in the almost certain knowledge that the thieves and what they stole would be long gone by the time the police arrived. Also, the thieves were apparently not opportunists such as the two with a ladder at the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam some years ago who smashed a window and took the two pictures nearest the broken glass, nor were they Balkan bandits with machine pistols like the ones who hit the Munch Museum in 2004, or the Buhrle Collection in Zurich a few years ago.
The closest pattern I know is of Irish Traveller raids on art in the 1980s through 2010. The pattern in Rotterdam the night before last was closer to that. See the art crimes of The General as he called himself, Martin Cahill of Dublin. Interestingly, one of Cahill's gang, George Mitchell, known as The Penguin, lives close to Rotterdam where he works in commodities with his Colombian, Russian, Dutch, Brit, Irish and other friends. I wonder if he has a part to play in this? He could do something about getting those pictures back, I'm sure, if any good Dutch police officer not in his pay asked him for some help.
Readers may read about Charley Hill's undercover work to recovery Edvard Munch's Scream stolen from the National Gallery in Oslo in 1994 in Edward Dolnick's book The Rescue Artist. The exploits of Dublin criminal Martin Cahill are told in Mathew Hart's book The Irish Game.

We emailed a few questions to Mr. Hill that he thought we should address to our readers in the hopes of generating a thoughtful discussion:
What about the Serbian gangs who had been involved in the theft of the two Turners from the Tate Gallery which had been on loan to Frankfurt (as documented in Sandy Nairne's book Art Theft and The Case of the Stolen Turners)? Do you think the paintings, if taken by someone like that Irish gangs, would be shipped into Britain? If you were to steal these paintings from Rotterdam, what country would you ship them to?

October 17, 2012

Rotterdam Art Heist: What is the Triton Foundation?

Book cover for a volume Yale Press
 is publishing this December
by Lynda Albertson, ARCA CEO

The Triton Collection was built over twenty years by Rotterdam oil and shipping magnate Willem Cordia and his wife Marijke van der Laan.  The collection includes approximately 250 paintings, drawings and pieces of sculpture.  The core of the collection consists of Western art dating from 1870 to 1970 and is reputed to be one of the 200 most important private collections in the world.

An entrepreneur and investor, Willem Cordia served as an officer with the Holland-America Line and later became a strategic investment developer and port magnate in Rotterdam.  His wife’s family was well known in the Dutch shipping world, making their fortune in the worldwide transport of dry bulk cargo like ore, coal and grain.  At the time of his death, Cordia's wealth was estimated at  € 330 million.

The Triton Collection was bequeathed to the Dutch Foundation Triton at the time of Cordia’s death.  Starting with the goal of making the collection and new acquisitions more accessible to the general public, the foundation’s overseers have loaned works from the collection to museums and temporary exhibitions.  Artworks from the collection have been loaned to international art museums such as the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum in Madrid, the Seoul Museum of Art and locally within the Netherlands to the Van Gogh Museum as well as the Hague Municipal Museum.

The Triton Collection focuses on innovators in modern art and includes artworks by Bonnard, Braque, Cézanne, De Kooning, Dufy, Fontana, Freud, Giacometti, Kelly, Klein, Manzoni, Modigliani, Mondrian, Monet, Picabia, Picasso, Stella, Uecker, Van Dongen, Van Gogh, and Vuillard.

From 2006 to 2011, Peter van Beveren served as curator of the Triton Foundation.  The Collection is now curated by Marlies Cordia-Roeloffs, daughter of Willem Cordia and his wife Marijke van der Laan.  The exhibit on loan to the Kunsthal Rotterdam from 7 October 2012 to 20 January 2013 included more than 150 artworks selected from over 100 different artists from the vanguard, the avant-garde of western art history.  Many of the works were on display for the first time publicly.

Between the evening of the 15th and the morning of the 16th of October 2012, the following seven paintings were stolen from the exhibition:

•           Pablo Picasso : Tête d'Arlequin (1971)
•           Henri Matisse : La Liseuse and Blanc et Jaune (1919)
•           Claude Monet : Waterloo Bridge, London (1901)
•           Claude Monet: Charing Cross Bridge, London (1901)
•           Paul Gauguin : Femme devant une fenêtre ouverte, dite la Fiancée (1888)
•           Meijer de Haan : Autoportrait (circa 1889-1891)
•           Lucian Freud : Woman with Eyes Closed (2002)

Rotterdam Art Heist: The Day After

by Catherine Sezgin, ARCA Blog Editor-in-Chief

Questions remain the day after seven stolen paintings estimated to be worth "tens of millions" remain missing from the Kunsthal art gallery when yesterday morning the 20-year-old building's "state of the art" security system alerted private security, then the Rotterdam police, that the contemporary art space had been robbed.  A Picasso, two Monets, a Gauguin, a Matissee -- five of the paintings were attributed to artists favored by thieves for their fame and perceived value -- plus another by Lucien Freud (famous contemporary artist) and Meijer de Haan (1852-1895), whose name may not be as recognizable but the Dutch artist's paintings are in the Musée d'Orsay in Paris and the Norton Simon Museum in Pasadena (Meyer de Haan painted with Gauguin in Brittany).

Here are links to CBS News (video and text) on the heist and speculation as to whether or not it was an inside job because, as discussed by Chris Marinello of The Art Loss Register, the theft "just went too smoothly".   In the later segment, CBS News correspondent John Miller, a former FBI deputy director, describes art thieves not as sophisticated urbanites (see Pierce Brosnan in The Thomas Crown Affair) but "knuckleheads" who put a lot of time into taking the paintings but will either seek assistance in selling the paintings that usually involves undercover agents, or will try to ransom the paintings back to the insurance company, or will keep the paintings for years as a 'get out of jail card'.

The question after an art heist is more overwhelmingly not who took the paintings but when or if they will ever be recovered.  Listing the stolen paintings into the database of The Art Loss Register, with the media, and other law enforcement agencies is meant to stop the sale of the works through legitimate art dealers and auction houses.

In Kate Connolly's piece yesterday in The Guardian ("Rotterdam art thieves take valuable paintings in dawn heist"), "security experts speculated that the thieves might have taken advantage of Rotterdam's port -- one of the largest in the world -- to swiftly move the paintings abroad" and that the paintings could have been "stolen to order" or held for ransom.

According to the Associated Press (published online here with the Winnipeg Free Press), Dutch police are following up on "15 tips from the public", "studying video surveillance images", and have "focused their attention on a rear door that thieves most likely used to get into the gallery before snatching the paintings."

Here DutchNews.nl reports that the Kunsthal reopened Wednesday and replaced the spaces formerly occupied by the stolen paintings with works from the Triton Foundation (and notes that journalists outnumbered visitors inside the museum).

The Journal of Art Crime, Fall 2012: Columnist David Gill on "Fragmented Pots, Attributions and the Role of the Academic" in Context Matters

In the Fall 2012 issue of The Journal of Art Crime, columnist David Gill writes on "Fragmented Pots, Attributions and the Role of the Academic" in Context Matters:
In January 2012 the Italian government announced the return of some 40 archaeological fragments from the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.  The fragments had been bequeathed by a deceased American collector ("riconducibili alla collezione privata di un cittadino americano, deceduto").  The following day, the Italian journalist Fabio Isman reported, in Il Messaggero, that the anonymous collector was, in fact, Dietrich von Bothmer (Isman 2012).  Isman was able to add that some of these 40 fragments were part of objects that had already been returned to Italy from North American collections, or from objects that had been seized by the Carabinieri.  Bothmer had himself indicated that he "always gave fragments of mine when they would fit another vase in the collection" (Nørskov 2002:31). 
The Italian report specifically added the information that some of the fragments came from the Onesimos cup, returned by the J. Paul Getty Museum and now on display in the Villa Giulia in Rome (Sgubini 1999; Godart and De Caro 2007:78-79, no. 10); see Gill and Chippindale 2006: 312).  The first parts of the cup were acquired in 1983 from "the European art market" (Walsh 1984: 246, no. 73, inv. 83.AE.362).  At the time, it has been presented to the Museum, accession number 84.AE.8:" its acquisition was reported the following year (Walsh 1985: 169, no. 20, inv. 84.AE.80; see Williams 1991).  Further fragments, from the "European art market", were added in 1985 (Walsh 1986: 191, no. 47, inv. 85.AE.385.1-2).  It is significant that Dyfri Williams, who published the "Getty" cup, noted that he was shown photographs of "a rim fragment, made up of three pieces" in November 1990.  He does not specify who owned the pieces.  Subsequent research has shown that the fragments were derived from Galerie Nefer (owned by Frida Tchacos-Nussberger), and the Hydra Gallery (Gill and Chippindale 2006: 312).
David Gill teaches at University Campus Suffolk, Ipswich, England.  He is a former Rome Scholar at the British School at Rome and was a member of the Department of Antiquities at the Fitzwilliam Museum, University of Cambridge.  He has published widely on archaeological ethics with Christopher Chippindale.  He has recently completed a history of British archaeological work in Greece prior to the First World War.

You may read Dr. Gill's Context Matters by subscribing to The Journal of Art Crime through the ARCA website.

October 16, 2012

Experts opine professional thieves may have stolen seven paintings from Rottendam gallery for ransom or to be sold later on the black market for a fraction of their worth

Monet's "Charing Cross Bridge, London" 1901/AP
On October 7, Kunsthal Rotterdam, a showcase of temporary exhibitions, opened "Avante Garde" to celebrate the art gallery's 20 anniversary and to display for the first time in public 150 works collected by Willem and Marijke Cordia-Van der Laan.  Just nine days later, the Kunsthal's alarm system went off shortly after 3 a.m., alerting the exhibition hall's private security detail.  Security personnel arriving by car noticed that seven paintings were missing and informed the Dutch police who began their investigation -- sending in a forensics team to fingerprint the area and collect any physical evidence, interviewing potential witnesses in the area, and reviewing security camera footage.

Monet's "Waterloo Bridge, London" 1901/AP
Within hours, Dutch police and museum officials released the names of the stolen artwork: Pablo Picasso's "Tete d'Arlequin"/"Harlequin Head" (1971); Claude Monet's "Waterloo Bridge, London" (1901) and "Charing Cross Bridge, London" (1901); Henri Matisse's 'La Liseuse en Blanc et Jaune'/"Reading Girl in White and Yellow" (1919); Paul Gauguin's 'Femme devant une fenêtre ouverte, dite la Fiancée'/"Girl in Front of Open Window"/(1898); Meyer de Haan's 'Autoportrait'/"Self-Portrait"/ (circa 1890); and Lucian Freud's "Woman with Eyes Closed" (2002). (The images of the paintings here were provided by the Rottendam police to the Associated Press and made available through Spiegel Online).

Gauguin's "Girl in Front of Open Window" 1898
According to security consultant Ton Cremers, the high visibility of the art through the art gallery windows was more of a vulnerability than the lack of night time security guards who could have been taken hostage.  Noah Charney, founder of ARCA, writes that the paintings were likely stolen for ransom.  Chris Marinello of the Art Loss Registry also speculates that the paintings would be ransomed or sold for a fraction of their worth.  Retired Scotland Yard art detective and private investigator Charley Hill believes that the thieves were professionals.

The Kunsthal gallery, normally closed on Mondays, remained closed on Tuesday for the police investigation but planned to reopen on Wednesday.

Picasso's "Harlequin Head" 1971
Spiegel Online offers a photo gallery of the crime scene and the stolen artworks.

Matisse's 1919 "Reading Girl in White and Yellow"
Meyer de Haan's "Self-Portrait" c. 1890


Press conference on Rotterdam art heist

Lucien Freud's "Woman with Eyes Closed"
Journalist Niels Rigter of metronieuws.nl in The Netherlands pointed to the press conference on today's art heist in which seven paintings were stolen from the Kunsthal Museum in Rotterdam.

Mr. Rigter forwarded to the ARCA blog the link to the Rotterdam-Rijnmond Police's website and the two press releases on this art theft:

http://www.politie-rotterdam-rijnmond.nl/over-ons/actueel/detail.aspx?id=1
Police show pictures of stolen Kunsthal paintings

http://www.politie-rotterdam-rijnmond.nl/over-ons/actueel/detail.aspx?id=2
Police investigating burglary at the Kunsthal

Here on metronieuws.nl museum officials announce that the Kunsthal will reopen on Wednesday, that no security guards were on site at night, and that the paintings were insured.

 Henri Mattise's La Liseuse en Blanc et Jaune
 painting before theft.  Photo credit Reuters




Two hooks on the wall mark the place where
 the stolen Henri Mattise's La Liseuse en Blanc
 et Jaune 
painting was hanging.
Photo credit Reuters

Early morning art theft at the Kunsthal in Rotterdam

CNN: "An investigator searches the Rotterdam Kunsthal
 museum after a pre-dawn break-in on October 16, 2012.
  Photo by AFP/Getting Images".
By Lynda Albertson, ARCA CEO

Limited news coming out on the theft early this morning at the Kunsthal, an art gallery in Rotterdam.  Police are reviewing videotape footage from the museum and are asking for any possible witnesses to the crime to please contact them.

According to Ben Brumfield reporting for CNN ("Famous modern art stolen from museum in the Netherlands") with a contribution from Journalist Dominique Van Heerden:
The Kunsthal's alarm system went off shortly after 3 a.m. local time, alerting the exhibition hall's private security detail.  When security staffers arrived by car, they saw that the paintings were missing, Rotterdam police spokesman Roland Ekkers said.  They informed police, who started an investigation.
The Association Press via NPR ("Picasso, Matisse, Monets Stolen from Dutch Museum") reports:
Seven paintings by artists including Pablo Picasso and Claude Monet were stolen ... The theft at the Kunsthal museum is one of the largest in years in the Netherlands, and is a stunning blow for the private Triton Foundation collection, which was being exhibited publicly as a group for the first time.
The stolen works were Picasso's 1971 "Harlequin Head"; Monet's 1901 "Waterloo Bridge, London" and "Charing Cross Bridge, London"; Henri Matisse's 1919 "Reading Girl in White and Yellow"; Paul Gaugin's 1898 "Girl in Front of Open Window"; Meyer de Haan's "Self-Portrait," around 1890, and Lucian Freud's 2002 work "Women with Eyes Closed".
The museum's director Emily Ansenk had been in Istanbul, Turkey, on business but was returning Tuesday.
The Kunsthal (above, photo provided by Kunsthal) was
designed by Rem Koolhaas/Office for Metropolitan Architecture
Part of the twentieth anniversary celebrating the Kunsthal art gallery, the exhibition ‘Avant-Gardes' (which opened October 7) displayed works from the Triton Foundation assembled by the now deceased shipping industrialist, Willem Cordia and his wife Marijk Cordia-Van der Laan.   According to ARTnews the Triton Foundation collection belongs to the global top 200 most important collections.

Through the Kunsthal website, Willem van Hassel, Chairman of the Board, wrote in "Theft in the Kunsthal":
Due to the theft which occurred in the Kunsthal Rotterdam last night, the Kunsthal is closed to the public today. All contacts with the press run through the Information Department of the police (+31 10 - 274 8107). Concerning the ongoing investigation, no further statements will be made until further notice.
Reporter Charles Onians for AFP ("Picasso, Monet, Matisse stolen from Dutch museum") reports that Rotterdam police are collecting forensic evidence at the scene of the art heist and describes the robbery as "well-prepared" in a quiet area of the Rotterdam museum park.  The AFP lists the seven stolen paintings:
Pablo Picasso's "Tete d'Arlequin"
Henri Matisse's "La Liseuse en Blanc et Jaune"
Claude Monet's "Waterloo Bridge, London" and "Charing Cross, London"
Paul Gaugin's "Femme Devant une Fenetre Ouverte, dite La Fiancee"
Meyer de Haan's "Autoportrait"
Lucian Freud's "Woman with Eyes Closed".

The Journal of Art Crime, Fall 2012: "Planning Revenge: Art Crime and Charles Frederick Goldie" by Penelope Jackson

In the Fall 2012 issue of The Journal of Art Crime, Penelope Jackson writes about "Planning Revenge: Art Crime and Charles Frederick Goldie":
Charles Frederick Goldie is one of New Zealand's best-loved artists.  His portraits of Maori have been the victims of theft, vandalism, and forgery for decades.  Goldie's portraits remain highly prized and valuable.  This article highlights and gives an overview of the art crime that Goldie's oeuvre attracts, and offers some explanations behind what has become a catalogue of illegal practice.
Penelope Jackson is the Director of the Tauranga Art Gallery Toi Tauranga, New Zealand.  She holds an M. Phil (University of Queensland) in Art History and an MA (Hons) in Art History (University of Auckland).  The author of Edward Bullmore: A Surrealist Odyssey (2008) and The Brown Years: Nigel Brown (2009), she has contributed to The Dictionary of New Zealand Biography and journals including Art New Zealand, Art Monthly Australia, Studies in Travel Writing and Katherine Mansfield Studies.

You may read this article by subscribing to The Journal of Art Crime through the ARCA website.

October 15, 2012

"Fingerprinting Objects for the Control of Illegal Trafficking" by Dr. W. (Bill) Wei in The Journal of Art Crime, Fall 2012

In the Fall 2012 issue of The Journal of Art Crime, Dr. W. (Bill) Wei writes on "Fingerprinting Objects for the Control of Illegal Trafficking":
One of the main problems in the fight against the illegal trafficking of objects of cultural heritage is their irrefutable identification. Provenances, photographs, expert testimonials and other written documents can always be fabricated or forged. This makes it difficult for customs officials, law enforcement agencies, and hoest buyers and sellers to determine if an objects has been illegally acquired. An excellent solution to this problem has been provided by a recently completed European project, FINGaRtPRINT. It makes use of the non-contact measurement of the micro-roughness of an object at a location selected by the owner. The micro-roughness can be measured on a scale of less than a micrometer (thousandth of a millimeter), that, is, less than the size of a pigment particle. At that scale, the roughness is unique and can thus serve as an identifying "fingerprint" of the object. It is not forgeable, assuming that a criminal even knows where on the object it was taken. The fingerprint can thus serve as a key component of an "object passport" which can be used to control the sale and purchase of objects. While some optimization work is necessary, the major obstacle to the successful application of the FINGaRtPRINT system is the long process is required for the development and acceptance of international laws for illegal trafficking. The partners of the FINGaRtPRINT project are therefore looking to private investors, collectors, and museums to develop an international fingerprint/passport system in order to accelerate this law making process.
Bill Wei is a senior conservation scientist for the Netherlands Institute for Cultural Heritage.  He has a B. S. E. in Mechanical Engineering (Princeton University, USA 1977), and a Ph.D. in Materials Science (University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, USA 1983).  Dr. Wei was initiator and head of the FINGaRtPRINT project and is coordinator of the ICOM-CC Working Group Legal Issues in Conservation.  His research includes the effect of aging and treatments on the appearance and perception of objects of cultural heritage, and the effect of vibrations on their condition.

You may read this article by subscribing to The Journal of Art Crime through the ARCA website.

October 12, 2012

The Journal of Art Crime, Fall 2012: "Repatriation via the Art Market: A New Type of Recovery, New Trends Coming from China" by Johanna Devlin

In the Fall 2012 electric edition of The Journal of Art Crime, Johanna Devlin writes on "Repatriation via the Art Market: A New Type of Recovery, New Trends Coming from China":
The aim of this study is to highlight new trends in the art market and the different ways in which issues concerning ownership of cultural objects have been revealed. In investigating the reasons behind the repatriation of Chinese art via the art market and analyzing its impacts on the art market, this paper will try to uncover what lies behind this new type of recovery.
Ms. Devlin is a graduate of the ARCA Post-Graduate Certificate Program and King's College London. she has worked at Christie's and has studied in China.  She is currently based in Paris.

Here's a link to ARCA's website and information regarding subscribing to The Journal of Art Crime.

October 11, 2012

The Journal of Art Crime, Fall 2012: "Getting Governments to Cooperate Against Looting: Insights from the American and British Experience" by Asif Efrat

In the Fall 2012 electronic issue of The Journal of Art Crime, Asif Efrat writes on "Getting Governments to Cooperate against Looting: Insights from the American and British Experience":
Why would countries that had long resisted the efforts against archaeological plunder reverse course and join these efforts?  The article solves this puzzle by examining the American and British decisions to join the 1970 UNESCO Convention.  Initially skeptical of UNESCO's endeavors, the United States and Britain changed their policies and came to support the international efforts in the early 1970s and early 2000s, respectively.  I argue that the two countries' policy shifts had similar causes.  First, archaeologists advocacy made policymakers aware of the damage caused by the illicit antiquities trade and the art world's complicity.  Second, public scandals exposed unethical behavior in the American and British art markets and demonstrated the need for regulation.  Third, the U. S. and British governments established domestic consensus in favor of regulation through advisory panels that included the major stakeholders: archaeologists, dealers, and museums.  Yet because of divergent bureaucratic attitudes, the U. S. government has ultimately been more vigorous in its efforts against the illicit antiquities trade than has the British government.
Dr. Efrat is Assistant Professor of Governmnet at the Interdisciplinary Center (IDC) Herzliya, Israel.  He received his Ph.D. in government from Harvard University and has taught at Cornell Law School.  His book Governing Guns, Preventing Plunder: International Cooperation against Illicit Trade has been published by Oxford University Press.

Here's a link to the ARCA website and more information about subscribing to The Journal of Art Crime.

October 10, 2012

The Journal of Art Crime, Fall 2012: "Estimating the Volume of Counterfeit U.S. Currency in Circulation Worldwide: Data and Extrapolation" by Ruth Judson and Richard Porter

In the Fall 2012 electronic edition of The Journal of Art Crime, authors Ruth Judson and Richard Porter  write of "Estimating the Volume of Counterfeit U.S. Currency in Circulation Worldwide: Data and Extrapolation":
The incidence of currency counterfeiting and the possible total stock of counterfeits in circulation are popular topics of speculation and discussion in the press and are of substantial practical interest to the U. S. Treasury and the U. S. Secret Service.  This paper assembles data from Federal Reserve and U. S. Secret Service sources and presents a range of estimates for the number of counterfeits in circulation. In addition, the paper presents figures on counterfeit passing activity by denomination, location, and method of production.  The paper has two main conclusions: first, the stock of counterfeits in the world as a whole is likely on the order of 1 or fewer per 10,000 genuine notes in both piece and value terms; second, losses to the U. S. public from the most commonly used note, the $20, are relatively small, and are miniscule when counterfeit notes of reasonable quality are considered.
Dr. Judson is an economist in the Division of International Finance at the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System in Washington, D. C.  She holds an A. B. in Russian Civilization from the University of Chicago and a PhD in economics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.  Her research and policy work is wide-ranging, and has addressed topics in cross-country growth, panel data estimation methods, monetary policy implementation, the monetary aggregates, and the measurement and analysis of U. S. dollar usage outside the United States, and, most recently, cross-border capital flows.  Along with Richard Porter, she received a certificate of appreciation in special recognition of efforts and superior contributions for the International Currency Audit Program (ICAP) to the law enforcement responsibilities of the United States Secret Service in 2000.  The analysis in this article grew out of work on the ICAP.

Richard Porter is a vice president and senior research advisor, payments in the economic research department of the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago.  Before joining the Bank, Porter served as an economist at the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System for over three decades, most recently as a senior adviser in the Division of Monetary Affairs.  Prior to that, Porter was an assistant professor of economics at Ohio State University.

Here's a link to the ARCA website and information about subscribing to The Journal of Art Crime.

October 9, 2012

Tuesday, October 09, 2012 - No comments

Possible Federal Plea Deal for Leads on Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum Heist?

By Lynda Albertson, ARCA


Last February a reputed Genovese soldier Robert Gentile and his alleged long-time associate Andrew Parente were charged with trafficking prescription painkillers in Hartford, CT.  While searching Gentile’s Manchester home investigators found a cache of handcuffs, guns, explosives, a silencer and brass knuckles along with $22,000 in cash hidden inside a grandfather clock.

During that time Assistant U.S. Attorney John Durham reported that federal investigators had listened through telephone taps to conversations in which Gentile and Parente discussed their alleged drug business,  at one point implicating another reputed ganster, Anthony Volpe who the two felt was encroaching on their sales of Oxycontin.  Volpe, who died in 2010, was reported to be affiliated with the Genovese crime family who once controlled the gambling and extortion rackets that the group ran in Greater Hartford which included a network of hidden gambling parlors in the city's South End. 
Stolen from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, 1990



Not nice men, by any standards, Gentile was also suspected of having some involvement with the long unsolved heist at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston.  The theft netted the thieves a Manet, five drawings by Degas, three Rembrandts and a Vermeer, making it the biggest museum art theft in history:  a theft so substantial that a $5 million reward has been offered for the recovery of the art, valued at more than $500 million. 

While Gentile, a reportedly made member of the Mafia, has long denied having any knowledge of the theft or of the locations of the paintings, Boston Herald journalist Laurel Sweet reported that it now seems that Parente may have decided it was worth his while to speak if a plea deal could be arranged. He was scheduled to go on trial October 9th for conspiracy to sell drugs and for the sale of oxycodone.  If a plea agreement is truly in the works and he does have useful information about the person's behind the museum theft 22 years ago or the location of the paintings, investigators may have some interesting leads to follow up on. 

Then again, it may be one Mafioso’s way of sandbagging another through implication and innuendo, as this case has involved other leads that have gone nowhere in the past and at 75, Andrew Parente probably isn’t thrilled with the idea of spending his golden years in prison.

Tuesday, October 09, 2012 - ,,, No comments

The Journal of Art Crime, Fall 2012: "The Role of the Police in the Co-Production of Art Security in London" by John Kerr

In the Fall 2012 electronic edition of The Journal of Art Crime, criminologist John Kerr examines the role of the police in the co-production of art security in London in an article:
It draws on empirical research conducted on the under researched security network for art in the capital. In light of ‘new policing’ theses (McLaughlin 2007), the article investigates how the theory of nodal governance (Johnston and Shearing, 2003) can operate in an actual policing arena. With other government nodes and private stakeholders producing much of the art security, this article argues that a nodal governance framework is beneficial to the public police as it allows them to take an important role in the policing when they are best suited to doing so, and a lesser role in other areas when and where other nodes have greater capacity.
John Kerr is a lecturer in criminology at the University of Roehampton in London.  Until 2012, he was based at City University, London, and also lectured at London South Bank University.

Here's a link to the ARCa website and information about subscribing to The Journal of Art Crime.

October 8, 2012

The Journal of Art Crime, Issue 8: Fall 2012

The Journal of Art Crime is edited by Noah Charney and published by ARCA Publications twice a year. The electronic version of the journal is available through a subscription. The eighth issue of The Journal of Art Crime for Fall 2012 includes academic articles, regular columns, editorial essays, and reviews in addition to a "Q&A with Joshua Knelman" by Noah Charney, a Summary of Papers Presented at the 2012 ARCA Conference on the Study of Art Crime and Cultural Heritage Protection, and a list of the 2012 ARCA Awards.

Academic articles: John Kerr on "The Role of the Police in the Co-production of Art Security in London"; Ruth Judson and Richard Porter on "Estimating the Volume of Counterfeit U. S. Currency in Circulation Worldwide: Data and Extrapolation"; Asif Efrat on "Getting Governments to Cooperate against Looting: Insights from the American and British Experience"; Johanna Devlin on "Repatriation via the Art Market: A New Type of Recovery, New Trends Coming from China"; Penelope Jackson on "Planning Revenge: Art Crime and Charles Frederick Goldie"; and Dr. W. (Bill) Wei on "Fingerprinting Objects for the Control of Illegal Trafficking".

Regular Columns: in Context Matters, David Gill writes on "Fragmented Pots, Attributions and the Role of the Academic" and in Lessons from the History of Art Crime, Noah Charney writes on "Counterfeit Money".

Editorial Essays: John Daab on "The Lord Byron Forged Letter: Where's the Questioned Document Analysis (QDE)?"; Aaron Haines on "The Hattusa Sphinx and Turkish Antiquities Repatriation Efforts"; and Mario Buhagiar on "The Sword in the Museum: On Whether La Vallette's Sword and Dagger, Currently Housed in the Louvre, Should be Returned to Malta".
  
Catherine Schofield Sezgin reviews Andrew Shea's documentary film "Portrait of Wally"; Edmund de Waal's book "The Hare with the Amber Eyes: A Hidden Inheritance"; and Anne-Marie O'Connor's book, "The Lady in Gold: Extraordinary Tale of the Klimt Paintings".

In October we'll run subsequent posts on the blog with more information about each submission.

October 5, 2012

Intriguing Headlines Tout Second Mona Lisa But What Do the Experts Opine?

Isleworth Mona Lisa (Wiki)
'La Joconde' (1503-1506) has mostly hung in the Louvre (INV. 779) since Francois I acquired it in 1518.  Last week The Mona Lisa Foundation reintroduced the 'Isleworth Mona Lisa' which had not been seen in public for more than 40 years and declared that it was an earlier unfinished portrait of Lisa Gherardini del Giocondo by da Vinci.

Jamie Keaton for the Associated Press (published online here in Business Week) reported on the unveiling of the Isleworth Mona Lisa in Geneva on September 28.  Keaton points out the Alessandro Vezzosi (see below) 'declined to line up behind the foundation's claim that it was truly a "Mona Lisa" predecessor painted by da Vinci.  Here, on the Museo Ideale Leonardo da Vinci's website, Professor Vezzosi clarifies that research on  the "Isleworth Mona Lisa" will continue.

The Mona Lisa Foundation, a non-profit organization based in Zurich, has on its website a 22-minute video that walks the viewer through its claim, using historical documentation (including writings of 16th century art historian Giorgio Vasari), connoisseurship, critical comparisons and physical and scientific examinations.  Participants in the video include Professor Alessandro Vezzosi, Director of the Museo Ideale Leonardo da Vinci; Professor John F. Asmus, Research Physicist at the University of California in San Diego; Stanley B. Feldman, and art historian and principal author of "Mona Lisa - Leonardo's Earlier Version".  The video asks if it is possible that there was another Mona Lisa and if so, what could have happened to it? It is claimed that Giorgio Vasari and Agostino Vespucci mention a painting left unfinished.  In the early 20th century, Hugh Blaker, curator of The Holburne Museum  in Bath, believed in the two Mona Lisa painting theory and spent a decade looking for the unfinished version until he found it "in the Somerset home of an English nobleman" "who's family had owned the painting for nearly 150 years."  Blaker brought it to his London studio in Isleworth, then shipped it to the United States where it hung in the private offices of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, according to the video.  Then in 1922, Blaker sent the Isleworth Mona Lisa to Italy for the opinion of experts there.  In 1926, Baker's stepfather, John Eyre, published "The Two Mona Lisas."  Henry F. Pulitzer, over a period of 26 years, liquidated his Kensington estate and part of his art collection to purchase the Isleworth Mona Lisa.  In 1979, after Pulitzer's death, the painting was locked up in a Swiss Bank vault "where it would remain for more than four decades."  "Can science at least succeed where connoisseurship has failed [in establishing the painting's authenticity]?" In 2004, the Isleworth Mona Lisa was removed from its security vault and "entrusted to world renowned art auctioneer David Feldman" (Vice President of the Mona Lisa Foundation).  "Over the next 12 years, the painting went through every test" including examination by Professor Asmus who has also examined the Louvre Mona Lisa who saying "Leonardo's hand" is evident in some aspects of the Isleworth Mona Lisa.

In ABC New's "Second Mona Lisa Unveiled for First Time in 40 Years", Mathew Rosenbaum quotes Martin Kemp, Oxford University professor and da Vinci expert, as proclaiming the Isleworth Mona Lisa a "well-made early copy".  [Professor Kemp outlines his opinion in more detail on his blog here where he refutes the 'evidence' of a second Mona Lisa and identifies the poor qualities of the painting: "Everything points to the Isleworth painting being a copy.  There is a comparable copy -- island and all -- in the National Museum in Oslo."]

On ABC's Good Morning America and World News segment, Alexander Nagel, Professor of Fine Arts for NYU, says that the Isleworth Mona Lisa is "suspect" as it is painted on canvas and Leonardo painted on wood.

"A Second Mona Lisa? We've known about it for 100 Years" is the headline for the blog post by Joe Medeiros, director of the documentary, "The Missing Piece: Vincenzo Peruggia and the Unthinkable Theft of the Mona Lisa".  This painting is nothing new, according to Medeiros and reprints the article from The New York Times on February 5, 1914: Another Mona Lisa Found in London? Expert Accepts It as a Version Painted by Leonardo "In No Sense A Copy".  According to this article, a version of the Mona Lisa painting turned up in the possession of a Mr. Eyre, an author and novelist living in Isleworth.  P. G. Konody, a Special Correspondence for The New York Times, writes that the Isleworth Mona Lisa is 'of such superb quality that it more than holds its own when compared to the much restored and repainted Louvre masterpiece':
But there are more potent reasons to attach the greatest importance to the new discovery.  There is, in the collection of old master drawings at the Louvre an original pen drawing by Raphael, which is reproduced in Muntz's great work on Leonardo, and which is generally admitted to be a memory sketch by Raphael of Leonardo's "Mona Lisa."  Now this memory sketch is framed at both sides by two columns of which no trace is to be found in the Paris "Mona Lisa." These columns appear in the identical place in the Isleworth picture and are of immense value to the harmonious balance of the composition. 
In the notice sent out to the press it is stated that these columns are mentioned by Vasari, which is as little in accordance with facts as most of the other statements made.  Thus, one of the points quoted in favor of the authenticity of the picture is one of Leonardo's letters to Marshal de Chaumont.  In this letter occurs the passage: "E portar con mecho due quadri di due Notro Donne di varie grandezze le qual son fatte pel cristianissimo notro re."  While most art historians have misread this to mean that Leonardo took with him "two pictures of Our Lady, of different sizes," the writer of the widely circulated notice says that the existence of two versions of the "Mona Lisa" is proved by Leonardo himself referring to two portraits.  A literal translation of the quoted passage would however run as follows: "And take with me two portraits of two of our ladies, of different sizes, which have been painted for our most Christian King", the letter thus reflecting clearly to two different ladies and not to two versions of the same. 
However, no specious arguments are needed for the Isleworth picture, the quality of which may speak for itself.  And a close investigation of the picture leaves the firm conviction that, though not altogether from the hand of Leonardo da Vinci himself, it emanates most certainly from his studio and was very largely worked up by the master himself.  The hands, with their careful and somewhat hard drawing and terra cotta coloring, suggest at once the name of Leonardo's pupil, Marco d'Oggionno, whereas the inimitably soft and lovely painting of the head and bust, the exquisite subtlety of the expression, the golden glow of the general coloring, can be due only to Leonardo.  The face shows none of the defects of the Louvre picture, which are probably due to clumsy repainting. 
The present owner of the picture acquired his treasure only about a year ago.  He found it hidden in a Somerset mansion where it had been for a century and a half, and whither it had been brought from Italy.
It's an intriguing subject involving a genius and a famous painting that grabbed headlines a century ago and continues to this day.

Written by Catherine Schofield Sezgin, ARCA Blog Editor-in-Chief

"Rembrandt" painting seized by Croydon police four months ago declared a fake (Scotland Yard confirmed to Croydon Advertiser)

Reporter Gareth Davies, in an exclusive article, reported the arrest of a businessman 'in possesion of what is believed to be a stolen Rembrandt painting' in June (This Croydon Today, UK, 'Stolen Rembrandt' painting seized in Croydon police raid, June 22, 2012):
The oil on canvas, believed to be worth more than £2 million, was recovered during a special police operation in Croydon High Street on Monday last week. A man in his sixties was arrested and taken to Croydon Police Station. Scotland Yard said the arrest was part of an ongoing Proceeds of Crime Act investigation by officers from the Met's specialist crime directorate. Detectives refused to comment on whether a painting by Dutch master Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn was among the items seized during the operation. But a source told the Advertiser: "The way the officers were handling the painting and keeping it safe, they clearly believed it was a Rembrandt." It is understood the painting has been sent away to experts to be authenticated. The arrested businessman, who cannot be identified for legal reasons, lives in Surrey.
Tom Gardner for the Daily Mail asked: "Has 'stolen Rembrandt worth £2million' been found in CROYDON? Businessman arrested after police raid as art experts try to verify painting" (June 22, 2012):
Police were seen treating the potentially precious object with extreme caution as they removed the work from the building in south London following the raid on Monday June 11. Now experts have been called in to examine the work of art to establish if the work recovered, really is a Rembrandt masterpiece. Scotland Yard, who are being tight-lipped about which one of the 205 currently missing works by the Dutch master, also arrested a businessman in his sixties. Detectives from the Metropolitan Police's specialist crime directorate made the discovery during a long-running investigation aimed at recovering assets from criminals.
Gardner interviewed Dick Ellis, an ARCA Trustee and lecturer:
Security expert Richard Ellis, who has worked with the Met Police's specialist Art and Antiques squad, said: 'If this is a genuine Rembrandt oil painting, I think £2million would be a massive undervaluation. 
'If you were to put one before an auction today it would fetch between £30million and £50million. 
Mr Ellis, who last year was part of the team which recovered two paintings by Pablo Picasso stolen from a Swiss exhibition in 2008 in Belgrade, Serbia, added: 'To sell a real Rembrandt on the open market would be really, really difficult. 
'Any buyer undertaking their due diligence would look at the catalogues of Rembrandts and it wouldn't take them very long to see it was stolen.' 
'Stealing to order is fiction. They may get stolen and used as a form of currency or as collateral. 
'The media would publish the valuation at the time of the theft and the criminal would work on the basis that it would be worth to them anywhere between three and ten per cent, because that's what it can get passed across on the black market. 
'It acts as a sort of international currency.'
In October, less than four months after the initial report, "GarethD2011" reported for the "Croydon Advertiser" that the "Rembrandt masterpiece seized in Croydon was a fake" (October 4, 2012):
A REMBRANDT masterpiece seized in Croydon was a fake, the Advertiser can reveal. Businessman Shaun Stopford-Claremont, 62, was arrested in possession of the painting during a special police operation in Croydon High Street in June. The painting was then sent to top art experts to be authenticated. If a genuine work of the Dutch master it could have been worth as much as £50 million. But this week Scotland Yard confirmed to the Advertiser the painting is a forgery. Mr Stopford-Claremont, of Redhill, Surrey, has since been re-bailed until December 11. His arrest was part of an ongoing Proceeds of Crime Act investigation by officers from the Met's specialist crime directorate. Police would not initially confirm the painting was among a number of items seized.

October 3, 2012

One Step up the Looting Pyramid

by Lynda Albertson, Chief Executive Officer, ARCA

To some individuals, the scandal surrounding the Met’s 1972 purchase of the Euphronios krater and similarly shady procurements by some US and European museums seems like old news.  For others, like Italy’s Soprintendente per I Beni Archaelogici dell’Etruria meridionale, Alfosina Russo Tegliente and the Villa Giulia’s scientific experts Daniela Rizzo and Marizio Pelligrini, the watershed accord signed in February 2006 between the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Italian government, which returned this spectacular vase to Italy, was just the tip of a very large iceberg.

Returned to Rome in 2008 after a protracted return-plus-loans agreement, the Euphronios krater, with its delicate images of the dying Lycian king, Sarpedon, leader of the Trojans' allies and offspring of the god Zeus and the mortal Laodamia, has become the poster-child example of bad museum acquisition practices.


I visited the Musei Nazionale Etrusco di Villa Giulia on the opening day of their new exhibition, I Preditori dell’Arte e Il Patrimonio Ritrovato…le Storia del Recupero (The Predators of Art and Rediscovered Heritage - The History of Recovery), running in Rome from September 29th through December 15, 2012.

I didn’t come to see the Euphronios krater.   Near perfect in its restoration, it is housed in a discreetly simple glass case, approachable on four sides, located on the second floor of the villa in a section reserved geographically for artifacts from Cerveteri.

I didn’t come to see the Fifth-century BC Attic red-figure kylix, a cup also signed by Euphronios as potter and painted by Onesimos with scenes of the Trojan War.  This fragmented cup sits in its own glass case, alongside the krater.  It too was surrendered by a US museum -- the J. Paul Getty Museum in 1999.

I came to see the new exhibit, one that follows the “long and silent journey” to use the words of the curators, of not just these two objects but approximately ninety others on exhibition at the museum, which have been returned to Italy, due in a large part to the doggedly difficult work of Daniela Rizzo and Marizio Pelligrini, Villa Giulia’s scientific experts.  Their work and the work of the staff of the Soprintendente per I Beni Archaelogici dell’Etruria meridionale, Italy’s public prosecutors, and the Italian Carabinieri along with collaboration from the Swiss judiciary helped reconstruct the chain that created a buyer’s market for looting of archaeological sites, in Italy and elsewhere. This exhibition is the fruit of their labor and underscores the material and intellectual consequences of contemporary collecting.

Tracing the collection life of these objects, from tomborolo to trafficante (tomb raider to trafficker) the exhibit shows not only the route these objects took before arriving in some of the world’s finest museums but also examines some of the methods used by traffickers to launder looted antiquities through the world’s most important auction houses.   


Included in the exhibition is an Etruscan antefix in the form of a Maenad and Silenos dancing.  An anteflix is an upright ornament used by builders along the eaves of a tiled roof to conceal tile joints. This particular anteflex, pictured on a now famous Medici polaroid, was acquired by Barbara and Lawrence Fleischman through Robin Symes and then acquired by the J. Paul Getty Museum in 1996.

Once it even graced the cover of an exhibition catalog highlighting the Fleischman’s collection.  The presence of the anteflix in The Villa Giulia exhibit serves to illustrate how museums, private collectors and auction houses have allowed themselves to be links in the looting chain.

To many of the exhibit attendees in Rome, seeing this simple household decoration as part of this exhibition is equal parts joyous victory and painful reminder.  As I mentioned in the start of this article, having these objects come home is just the tip of the iceburg, or to use Daniela Rizzo’s words who spoke with the visitors about her work, “the first step of the Pyramid”.

When the Italian Carabinieri raided Giacomo Medici’s warehouse in the Geneva Freeport they recovered 3,800 objects and more than 4,000 photographs of objects that had previously passed through Medici’s hands. (Watson and Todeschini 2007, 19-24, 48-79, 363-83).  The recovered items in this exhibition represent only a small fraction of the objects looted by just one organization of traffickers.  Imagine how many more are out there.

Some museums, through cooperative agreements with Italy and or law enforcement organizations in their own countries, readily relinquish artifacts whose origins can be traced back to the looters through the documentation of the Medici and Becchina dossiers.  Others take more insistent prodding.

It wasn’t until June 20th of this year that the United States Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Ohio issued a press release stating that an agreement had finally been made with the Toledo Museum of Art in conjunction with a Federal Verified Complaint in Forfeiture to return a 510 B.C. Etruscan black-figure kalpis attributed to the Micali painter or his workshop.  This despite being presented with a copy of an incriminating polaroid, seized from Medici during the 1995 raid showing the still mud-encrusted pot and another polaroid from a separate raid in Basel 2002 proving that  the kalpis had also passed through the hands of Gianfranco Becchina.

One more step up the pyramid.  One more long and necessary step.


Photos contributed by Soprintendente per I Beni Archaelogici dell’Etruria meridionale, Musei Nazionale Etrusco di Villa Giulia

October 2, 2012

California State Mining and Mineral Museum Closed for Repairs After Robbery; Inventory to Determine Value of Theft

Tourists often overlook Mariposa on their way to Yosemite Valley, but last week the small historic town in Northern California created headlines last week when thieves reportedly stole millions of dollars of gold from the California State Mining and Mineral Museum located on the Mariposa County Fairgrounds.

The museum, operated by the California Department of Parks and Recreation, issued a press release October 1 informing the public that the institution celebrating the 19th century Gold Rush will be closed "for repairs following the robbery" and that an inventory would determine the number and value of the items stolen.
In the robbery, a number of display cases, doors and other items were damaged by the approximately two suspects who entered the museum and stole an undetermined amount of precious minerals.  It is the goal of State Parks to make the repairs quickly in order to reopen the museum to the public as soon as possible. 
There were two State Parks' employees at the museum at the time of the robbery.  Neither was injured and while both remain shaken from the experience, both report they are doing fine. 
An inventory of the stolen items will be getting underway this week.  Until it is completed, State Parks will not have a listing of what was taken or the dollar amount of the items.
Jim Ballinger, Editor of the Mariposa (Weekly) Gazette, reported September 27 that the museum had been robbed by 4 o'clock Friday afternoon.  According to witnesses cited by Ballinger, two men wearing black clothing and night vision goggles and armed with pick-axes 'herded park rangers to one  area of the museum and headed into the vault' but the alarm sounded, the vault door began to close and the men were denied entry.  Law enforcement arrived 'within minutes' but the suspects escaped.

ABC News' reported that evening (here's a link to the video) and its source for the theft of millions of dollars was from a concerned board member of the museum, although the reporter, Rick Montanez, noted that the museum's treasure, the Fricot "Nugget" had not been stolen.  The Fricot "Nugget" is a 13.8 crystallized gold specimen found in the American River in 1864.

Friday night, almost six hours after the theft, Jacob Rayburn for The Fresno Bee also quoted a California State Parks spokesman that an estimated $2 million worth of gold nuggets and precious gems had been stolen.

Diana Marcum for The Los Angeles Times reported the day after the theft that up to $2 million in gold and gems may have been taken from the museum, but also noted that the Fricot Nugget was still in its iron safe in a vaulted room.  Ms. Marcum also reports that until recently the collection had been planned for storage until it was discovered that the Parks Department had $54 million it had not reported to budget officials.

The collection of more than 13,000 objects relating to the mining of gold and rare minerals in California began in 1880 and moved from San Francisco to Mariposa in 1983.  The museum became a state park in 1999.

The lead agency for this investigation is the Central Division Investigative Services Unit (ISU) of the California Highway Patrol.