Virginia Curry and Dick Ellis holding a painting  by David Teniers, Peasant Filling His Pipe,  stolen from the Richard Green Gallery in London.

Presenting our partnership with Stonehill College, in which we take full advantage of the beautiful campus and the rich resources of the greater Boston area we offer participants a "hands on" connection and an exceptional experience of scholarship and professionalism with art.  There will be lecturers on campus each morning focusing on topics which initiate the novice aficionado to the economics of art, provide suggestions for researching their own areas of art interest and of course we will discuss crimes against art and share our first hand international experience, scholarship and current topics in the field. 

In the afternoons we visit several museums, premier art galleries and conduct practical exercises, such as participation in a mock auction at Stonehill, and learn about how auctions are conducted at a major Boston fine art auction house our behind the scenes visit.   We will meet museum professionals who will explain their function in regard to exhibition preparation and curation. We’ll try our hand at solving the most important unsolved museum heist in U.S. history. We will observe how conservation specialists work and how security managers manage the risk of the exposure of their treasures.  We'll speak with the curator of an important corporate collection to see how business collects and presents investment art. We'll experience the culture of Boston from the Red Sox at Fenway Park to the clambakes of Cape Cod.  This unique seminar adventure equips you to pursue your interest in collecting and appreciating art and understanding the diverse crimes against art like none other.

Lunches on site at Stonehill College are included.  Transportation for excursions is included.  Scheduled evening events and socials such as the opening Sam Adams Boston Lager toasting reception, Boston Red Sox game, and the closing clam bake, barring inclement weather or unforeseen emergency, are included.  All basic course materials (handouts, etc.,) are included.  Other evening meals and meals off campus are at personal expense.  Local lodging at a discounted rate is available, which includes breakfast and transportation to Stonehill College and return.  Discounted airfare has been arranged through American Airlines for travelers.

Cost: $2,250. A Deposit of $300 is required to reserve your place by May 1, 2012; balance must be received by June 1, 2012.  Kindly respond early since participation is quite limited.

The case that The New York Times has called “the world’s largest unresolved Holocaust art claim” may provide an answer to that question. In de Csepel v. Republic Of Hungary (10-cv-1261), heirs of the Hungarian banker Baron Mor Lipot Herzog sued in United States District Court in Washington seeking the return of a collection worth more than $100 million. Since the suit is against the Republic of Hungary (and several of its state-run museums, where much of the collection still hangs), the question of foreign sovereign immunity naturally presents itself. The plaintiffs say the doctrine doesn’t apply because the works were taken in violation of international law -- even though it is well-established that a state’s taking of the property of its own citizens cannot violate international law. In a recent decision (issued September 1, 2011), the District Court agreed.

Every morning on their way to the Notting Hill tube many individuals run into (sometimes literally) Nadim Karam's Carnival Elephant sculpture, idly evoking the movement of people around it with it's gently revolving fan, spinning in unison with the whirlwind of activity at the Newcombe Piazza. Last week, however, the fan was not moving: some rascal had indiscriminately broken off one of the blades. The stasis causes many to wonder how and when the watchful elephant will be repaired, following the unholy act of animal cruelty enacted upon it. 

Deliberate damage upon public sculptures and monuments is by no means a modern development. Indeed even medieval morons pried bronze clamps and support bars from inside the walls of Rome’s Colosseum for use elsewhere in the city, owing in part to their own inability to manufacture the building materials they required.

Over the years there has been a major change in the way countries have sought to reclaim archaeological material that had been looted. Claims have been made against the background of the 1970 UNESCO Convention on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property. This was accepted by the USA in 1984 and by the United Kingdom in 2002. 

Attempts to reclaim material were extended and tended to take time to go through the legal channels. Such disputes included the Kanakaria Mosaics to Cyprus, the Dekadrachm Hoard and the Lydian Treasure to Turkey, and the Aidonia Treasure to Greece. The case of the Sevso Treasure is unresolved as although it was certainly removed from its archaeological context by unscientific means, it has not been possible to confirm where this hoard was found. 

The seizure of the Medici Dossier in the Geneva Freeport (and related photographic archives in Basel and in Greece) has allowed the Italian authorities to adopt a different strategy. Images of objects in a fragmented state or still covered in mud have been an emotive force in the rhetoric surrounding the returns. Museums that were reluctant to negotiate were persuaded that bad publicity could be avoided if discussions about returns were initiated. In one case a major North American museum was shown images in 2005 and less than a year later had arranged to return 13 antiquities to Italy. It was, and is, hard to argue that something was in “an old collection” when the object had been recorded in a distressed state subsequent to the 1970 UNESCO Convention. 

Yet compliance has been reluctant in some quarters. Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts was aware nearly twenty years ago that the torso of a Weary Herakles fit the abdomen and legs of a statue that had been excavated at Perge in southern Turkey. The presentation of a collection history that suggested that the torso had surfaced in Germany in the 1950s was a distraction. The situation was made more complicated as the donors had retained part ownership of the torso. Full title was eventually transferred to the MFA.

Abstract: Spain is rich in art treasures: artwork ranging from religious works, modern paintings, ancient architecture, Roman ruins, and Visigoth remnants are densely scattered across Spain’s cities and countryside. Whereas some of the art is world-renowned and protected, much of the art is still hidden in churches and in depopulated towns and is left vulnerable to damage and theft. 

Spain’s cache of hidden works has great cultural value to the Spanish cultural identity; however, these works are often misappropriated because their existence is virtually unknown or unprotected. In light of the international upset over the theft of the Codex Calixtinus, this paper sets forth recommendations for Spain to follow to protect is patrimony, most importantly the necessity of creating an extensive catalogue, encompassing both State and Church property.

ABSTRACT: An exploration of the scientific and stylistic processes employed to determine the date and authorship of an ink on vellum drawing of a young girl. Sold by Christie's as a pastiche by a German 19th century artist, the results of the investigation nominated Leonardo da Vinci as the probable author of the drawing. An examination of critical response and possible implications of the phenomenon known as 'CSI effect is also considered.

The nineteenth-century forger emerged as an unlikely model of middle-class selfhood, embodying the bourgeois ideals of industriousness, education and thrift. More than this, he offered an example for living in a capitalistic society without being contaminated by it. Although his artistic productions supplied a market demand, he escaped the charge of base materialism. Representations of the forger were rigorously gendered; he was always male. The forger embodied a set of prized masculine values that had to be guarded from female intrusion. Contemporary literary, artistic, and journalistic texts constructed the figure of the female copyist to guard the parameters of faking. The depicted the copyist as the forger’s imperfect double; while their work methods were often the same, they were separated by a world of difference.

"As ARCA's new CEO I hope to raise awareness at the grass roots level of another type of art crime: public apathy: public apathy and destruction to our collective cultural patrimony. I want to encourage cultural stewardship and promote public awareness at the individual level as well as the professional one, to facilitate greater community awareness that each of us has a social responsibility for the protection and care of the art, places, and material culture that define us as not only a civilization but as human beings."

As a pair of armed robbers bound and gag a security guard to steal dozens of ancient artifacts from the Olympia museum in Greece, Channel 4 News goes hot on the trail of the illicit antiquities trade. "It has become an organised crime business," said Richard Ellis. A former Scotland Yard detective who set up the Metropolitan Police's Art and Antiques Squad, the specialist art and antiquities crime investigator has worked on the recovery of some of the world's most famous paintings, including Edvard Munch's The Scream. 

The latest known theft to have taken place only happened this morning, when two armed robbers broke into an Olympia Museum and made off with between 60 to 70 bronze and clay pottery objects. They tied up and gagged the female security guard before using hammers to smash display cases and grab the loot. That followed the theft last month of a Picasso and a Mondrian from the capital's National Gallery. Today's incident prompted the culture minister, Pavlos Geroulanos, to tender his resignation, amid outcry that the nation's priceless treasures were no longer safe in state hands. Now, Mr Ellis told Channel 4 News, "the incentive is there to make money in Greece". And they may well begin a life which sees them travel from the poorer hands of the lowly thieves who broke into the museum to reach the lucrative shores of London or New York, and in some cases, find themselves auctioned off for tens of millions of dollars. "I am sure the current economic situation is Greece is triggering people to become more active," Mr Ellis said. "I would expect these objects are going to get moved. It's a transitional country for other stolen goods, and they can go west or east." 

According to Mr Ellis, many are looted or excavated by poorer local people looking to make some fast yet small amounts of cash, before being sold on to intermediaries. The real mark up, he says, comes in the stage after that, after they have been passed on to dealers. From here they can end up in auction houses or with private collectors, having changed hands for millions of dollars. In some cases, Mr Ellis said, collectors are aware they are trading in illegal goods, despite a rise in 'due dilligence' to establish the provenance of items.

"All the countries that are in decline, with financial problems, and yet hosted ancient civilisations, such as Greece, Italy and Egypt - they are going to see big problems. In Greece, this is connected with the financial situation. We will have more of such things coming up in the next few months. The people who stole this are uneducated people with no money, who are not aware it will be difficult to give these objects to the market as they are recorded, and there are pictures of them. They do it for money, but they are not aware it will be really difficult to get rid of them." It may be the case that some of them end up in refrigeration trucks transporting food in order to be smuggled across borders, through Turkey and the former Yugoslavia, before reaching Europe where they are likely to fetch up a higher price. Another popular route for other goods illegally seized or excavated from Asia, Mr Tsirogiannis said, is aboard ships to Italy. From there they may make their way to Switzerland, and from there, he said, they may be laundered in auctions in London and New York before being sold to private museums and collectors.

Perri Osattin at Ephesus, Turkey

by Catherine Sezgin, ARCA Blog Editor

Perri Osattin: The ARCA program broadened my conception of what constitutes "art crime" and heightened my understanding of the need to approach it as both a scholarly discipline and a matter of daily, practical concern. In particular, I was struck by the fact that although art crime is a truly international issue (and business), encompassing legal and moral questions, there are no global standards for combating it and levels of awareness and passion vary greatly from country to country, both among the general public and law enforcement entities. I was especially surprised at the apparent lack of cognizance or punishment of art crime in the U. S., which led me to pursue my thesis topic.

Perri Osattin: For my final dissertation I researched a specific and controversial case of trafficking in Native American artifacts in the Southwestern U. S. I analyzed the legal and law enforcement approaches to the case, as well as local public opinion and the media's interpretation of the events.

Perri Osattin: I still read ARCA blog updates regularly, troll for crime-related articles on Artdaily.org everyday, and attended a talk by Sandy Nairn at Sotheby's in New York in the fall with a group of fellow ARCA students. Since I came to understand that the art market and art crime are inextricably, if unpredictably linked, I've also (belatedly) read some well-known and wonderful accounts of the commercial art world, including Seven Days in the Art World and An Object of Beauty. Finally, I ask as many security-related questions at my new job as I can without making my coworkers suspicious!

Perri Osattin: What didn't I enjoy? I really miss the inexpensive, individual squares of pizza at the hole-in-the-wall joints (even more than the thin-crust pies at the regular restaurants). I miss hearing the gossipy chatter of my older neighbors outside in the evenings while doing work at the dining room table with my flat-mate. I miss my early morning runs in the valley below the city. Mostly, I miss the vistas, the cappuccino ritual, and my fellow students and professors! Being that we are currently in the midst of winter, I could also use some of those wonderfully warm summer breezes...

Marc Balcells at The Met, NY

Marc Balcells: Well, my interest on researching art crime has grown, of course. That was easy because of two reasons: first, because as a researcher/scholar/proud "ambassador" of the topic, I am very happy on conducting research non-stop. I do take it very seriously, so we can advance the field by very serious academic work.

Also, because those 10 weeks were fantastic, on the educational side... I have no words to really express how enriching that was! Professors, materials, books... On the book side let me tell you that when the girl at the check-in counter at Fiumicino wanted to weigh my trolley bag, well... it weighed more than 25 kilos out of how many books I bought in Amelia regarding art crime. I still remember her face! Nerdish? Maybe, but now imagine for three months a professor recommending this book, a guest speaker another, a panelist another... Your trolley will resent you!

Marc Balcells: I am a criminologist conducting research on organized crime and the links with the art world, so it was obvious that my thesis went on that direction. Because I am in academia my thesis is just a first step on what it will be a longer project (and article) on defining organized crime operations in the art world (for my thesis I just used a small example), getting even to challenge that concept to the extent that maybe when we are talking organized crime in some cases it can be another thing (like occupational crime), changing the players and the scenarios where they act. I hope that more data and some crime-explaining theories will be useful on debating that point.

Marc Balcells: Well, since leaving the program the show just goes on and on! When I do teach, I like to use a lot of examples from my own research, or even from colleagues' and professors' experiences that I learned during the summer. So my students at John Jay College at the City University of New York get a good deal on art crime in both courses I teach. But I also must confess that ARCA's Postgraduate program really confirmed my belonging in this field, and I do take very seriously (no kidding here!) on producing serious empirical work that may establish art crime as a form of criminality that can rival any other better researched form of crime.

I do also take very seriously my "ambassador" role, and I feel that my columns on art crime, or my guest talks (both in an academic environment or on TV, radio or press: yes, future ARCA students, now you know a lot about that and media may want to hear what you have to say!) have to be very seriously addressed: that is, not only talking about the fancy crimes that everybody wants to hear, but also on the serious consequences art crime may have.

Marc Balcells: Oh, I miss many things from Amelia. One of them could be the silence that allows you to contemplate every single building on the old part (works fantastic for working, or reading a good novel), even during week days. But I have to admit I treasure all the laughs and drinks we all shared at Fuori Porta or the bar at the Park. There were nights that were, simply put, memorable. On the foodie side, I miss the trofie al Pesto or the ragu alla lepre from Punto di Vino (and the cappuccinos), the Porcella pizza at Porcelli's; the lemon ice cream at Tropicana or my favorite breakfast, ciambelle, at Bar Leonardi! And even though I am a city boy, it will be fun being back for the conference, meeting the new cohort, and well... you know what they say about criminals: they like to go back to the scene of crime!

Robert Hecht Jr in front of the Euphronios Krater  at The Met which was returned to Italy; now on display at  the National Etruscan Museum at the Villa Guilia in Rome.

"Since the 1950s, Hecht had sold some of the finest pieces of classical art to emerge on the market. His clients included dozens of American and European museums, universities, and private collectors ... For decades, Hecht single-handedly dominated the antiquities market with his brilliance, brutality and panache.... Even those who sold directly to museums gave Hecht a cut of the deal, earning him the nickname "Mr. Percentage".

Hecht was a career criminal, and a remarkably successful one. We've detailed his crimes and the damage they caused in Chasing Aphrodite at length. He was investigated several times in several countries and never successfully prosecuted. Obviously that's a failure of justice. 

That said, I rather liked Hecht. I first met him in 2006 in New York City and continued to talk and occasionally meet with him over the years as I investigated the illicit antiquities trade. During those same years I also met with several other key middlemen in the trade. All were interesting men, but most were unpleasant. Medici was overbearing and boorish, fond of speak of himself in the third person. [Gianfranco] Becchina was hard to read and rather ominous. [Robin] Symes, who I never met but Ralph interviewed in jail in London, came off as a shrill pill. 

Hecht, by contrast, was fascinating and, for the most part, a pleasant dinner companion. He was very sharp, evasive and often witty. He told me his story and the story of the trade, while always remaining coy about certain details. He had deep knowledge about ancient art of all kinds and was clearly passionate about the subject. So much so that he was a lousy businessman, perennially broke because he couldn't say no (and because of a nasty gambling habit.) He was driven less by greed, it seems, than by a passion for the objects and the collector's obsession to possess. He was brilliant at what he did, and had he continued with his studies at the American Academy he would have made a remarkable archaeologist. Instead, he chose the dark side.

He also had a curious sense of honor, one honed during decades of working in a criminal underworld. The latest example was telling. About a month after I sent him a copy of Chasing Aphrodite -- which contain dozens of damning references to Hecht's role in the illicit trade -- he called me at my desk at the Times. Well written, he said, but you got one thing wrong. I asked: Was it that part about you running the illicit antiquities trade for decades? Or perhaps the part where Marion True describes you as an abusive, occasionally violent alcoholic? No, Hecht was upset that we had suggested he had ratted out the competition (something his competitors accused him of in sworn testimony.) He had never done so, he insisted, and our suggesting otherwise was "bad for business."

My job occasionally requires me to spend time with criminals. Many are awful people. I found Hecht to be a likable rogue. Someone should make a movie.

Dr. Nemeth: I appreciate your asking about the research. I embarked on the study in 2009 to explore quantitative means of assessing risk in looting of and trafficking in cultural artifacts. By collecting data from auction sales archives, I had a chance to experiment with comparing changes in trade volume and average market value of cultural artifacts by geographic region of origin over a nine-year period. For the dataset to which I had access, African tribal art stood out as increasing along both parameters relative to classical antiquities, pre-Columbian art, Islamic art, and Indian and Southeast Asian art. After analyzing the data, I had two thoughts on how such analyses might support risk analysis. 

Does trading of cultural artifacts reflect political and economic conditions in regions of origin for the objects? For example, quantitative measures of demand for cultural artifacts by region of origin over time could be compared against events in politics and economics for nations in the region. Can the auction market for cultural artifacts provide a quantitative, albeit indirect, measure of the illicit trade? The opaque illicit market has proven challenging, if not impossible, to quantify accurately. Perhaps a structured study of the auction market can help in devising a well defined estimate of the size of the illicit market for antiquities, tribal art, and other cultural artifacts.

Dr. Nemeth: Cultural security is a rapidly evolving field. I expect to expand on what the course will cover between now and the summer, but here is what I have in mind so far. I will start with what I would call a traditional understanding of the relationship between culture and security, namely protection of artworks and historic structures during wartime and restitution cases for and repatriation of cultural property after conflict. I plan to examine the relationship in different periods—World War II, the Cold War, and the post-Cold War—which have shaped the political clout of cultural property. The post-Cold War provides a lead-in to a perceptual dimension of the relationship with the targeting of religious monuments in political violence. The simultaneous increase in the financial volume of the art market since World War II adds an economic dimension and forms a relationship between culture and financial security.

I consider myself an integrator of various disciplines in pursuit of an understanding of the evolving role of culture in identity and perception of security, and I anticipate that the students may have greater depth of knowledge than I in particular areas such as history of art, archaeology, criminology, and law. I trust that the students will gain an appreciation for the potential of bridging disciplines to enhance and expand their own areas of specialization. Accordingly, I plan to assign readings of cross-disciplinary studies. Here are a few examples of potential sources. Art and Crime: Exploring the Dark Side of the Art World brings together scholars from a range of disciplines, and Cloak and Trowel by David Price creatively examines the controversial relationship between security-intelligence services, anthropologists, and archaeologists. On the perceptual side, science can lend insight into the emotional and symbolic significance of artworks, and Inner Vision by Semir Zeki provides an intuitive introduction to the field of neuroaesthetics. I have other sources in mind, and I suspect that I will work in some of my own publications as well.