A total of seven artworks by Austrian Expressionist Egon Leo Adolf Ludwig Schiele once owned by Franz Friedrich 'Fritz' Grünbaum will be handed over in a public ceremony livestreamed today from  the office of the New York District Attorney's Office in Manhattan at 15:00 EST.

Each of the artworks were voluntarily relinquished by the Museum of Modern Art and the Morgan Library in New York, the Santa Barbara Museum of Art (California) and the legal representatives for the private collections of Ronald Lauder and the estate of the late Serge Sabarsky.

The artworks being returned to the collector's heirs are:

 Prostitute, 1912 by Egon Schiele
Watercolor and pencil on paper

Sold via Gutekunst & Klipstein, Bern to Galerie St. Etienne in New York
Lastly with the Museum of Modern Art 

 Portrait of a Boy (Herbert Reiner), 1910 by Egon Schiele

Guache, watercolor, and pencil on paper

Sold as per Kallir: Gutekunst & Klipstein

Galerie St. Etienne, New York

as per S.S.G. records: John Herring Inc., New York, until February 1993 

Serge Sabarsky Gallery, New York since February 1993

Lastly on display at the Neue Galerie, from the estate of the late Serge Sabarsky

I Love Antitheses, 1912 by Egon Schiele
Watercolor and pencil on paper

Lastly from the private collection of Ronald Lauder

All seven of the artworks were relinquished following investigations by the Manhattan prosecutor's office.  A process to recover Grünbaum's art collection  began as early as 1998 when former Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgenthau seized “Dead City III”, an oil on wood painting by Schiele which Timothy Reif's, family claimed.  At the time, the Reif claim was weaker than Lea Bondi's claim for the Portrait of Wally, and Dead City III went back to Austria to the Leopold Museum.

Fast forward to 2018, and working from the basis of the civil court ruling by Judge Charles V. Ramos in the case of Reif v. Nagy in New York County Supreme Court, we finally have some justice for the family.  In his ruling Ramos concurred that the power of attorney signed on/around 20 July 1938 by the artworks' owner, Austrian Jewish cabaret artist, song writer, and actor, Franz Friedrich 'Fritz' Grünbaum, while imprisoned at Dachau Concentration Camp, and signed under extreme duress gunpoint did not represent a valid conveyance.

In making his 2018 ruling Judge Ramos also cited the introduction of the Holocaust Expropriated Recovery Act of 2016 and ruled that Grünbaum’s descendants rightfully owned two other Schiele works named in the civil proceedings, “Woman in a Black Pinafore” and “Woman Hiding Her Face.”

Grünbaum was murdered on 14 January 1941 at Dachau Concentration Camp.

As mentioned in an earlier article this month, much of Grünbaum’s extraordinary 449-piece art collection was sold through Eberhard Kornfeld, a Swiss auctioneer, and art dealer based in Bern.

Given that all seven of these Schiele artworks had been in circulation via New York  dealers, the New York District Attorney's Office held jurisdiction and could build a case for their (and other) restitutions on the basis that pursuant to a criminal investigation into Nazi looted art, by being the property of Fritz Grünbaum’s heirs: David Fraenkel, Timothy Reif, and Milos Vavra, the artworks from his collection, which have been sold onward, each constitute stolen property from the claimants according to New York state law.  

Remembering the artwork's original owner, it is said that Fritz Grünbaum never stopped entertaining people. Even as death approached at Dachau, he mocked the Nazis and found levity in the grim absurdities of life in a death camp. One former inmate remembered Fritz comforting the other inmates by arguing that absolute deprivation and systematic starvation were the best defence against diabetes.

By:  Lynda Albertson

"Looters imperil unknown people's past."  That was the title of an article written by Barbara Crossette, the Bangkok bureau chief of The New York Times on September 9th 1986.  Her report described the destruction to archeological sites caused by grave diggers operating in the densely forested mountains of western Thailand.  There, subsistence looters had been systematically plundering a wide variety of antiquities, hauling away various grave goods, including high-quality ceramics, some found at  hilltop ring-ditch burial sites that belonged to a then-unknown group of people that defied cataloguing.

See Reference at the end of this article

But the damage done by plunderers didn't just strip away treasures.  In addition to the grave goods they stole, looters took with them many of the geological and cultural clues that could have lead us to better understand who left these graves here in the first place.  

What remained in their wake, was only a series of useless pits, scattered with broken and discarded ceramic fragments and the outline of the the graves themselves.  Archaeologists who later explored the sites have since documented that the inhabitants of the past had a vibrant trade in ceramics,  identifying pieces coming from Thai, Burmese, Vietnamese and Chinese production centres.

Unfortunately, so little remained after the thefts, that researchers still remained puzzled as to who the peoples were, who cremated their dead, placing their ashes in urns and interring them in the mountains, accompanied with valuable objects.   All that was known was that this population were likely not Burmese or Chinese, nor Khmer or Thai.  Perhaps even a transitional culture which eventually died out or merged with others from the area.

At the heart of the plunder in this area of Thailand were some 100 burial sites dating from the 12th or 13th century, up through the 16th century CE, scattered along a 60-mile swath of western Thailand between Umphang, on the Myanmar, (then-Burma) border south of Mae Sot, and north to Chiang Mai which contained the inexplicable mixture of Chinese, Thai, Burmese and Vietnamese ceramics, as well as other pottery never documented previously. 

Barbara Crossette, speaking with John Shaw MBE, an expert on Southeast Asian ceramics who lived in the northern Thai city of Chiang Mai, quoted British-born collector and Honorary Consul to Chiang Ma, John Shaw, who described the area of the new finds as ''beyond the writ of the law' who stated ''It would take the whole Thai Army to protect those hills.'' 

Illegal digging at Som Poi Burial Site, 1984.

In February 1985 Shaw states that another batch of freshly looted ceramics surged into the antique market, this time coming from the Mae Tun - Om Goi area further north, showing that as long as there was a demand, there would be regional people to supply the market. 

But why bring a pattern of looting and subsequent fossicking in Thailand that happened 37 years ago?

Earlier this September, Thailand's Central Investigation Bureau (CIB) reported on a collaborative investigation with the country's Department of Fine Arts, which apprehended three individuals involved in present-day illegal excavation and trade of antiquities. The suspects were identified after having advertised their plunder on Facebook.  In a multi-province operation, authorities eventually seized 11 metal detectors, excavation equipment, and nearly 970 items believed to be ancient artefacts during searches conducted this month at nine seperate sites, including, again, one of which was in Chiang Mai.  

Like almost 4 decades ago, authorities have seen a spate of robbery at archeological sites across Northern Thailand, from Sukhothai to Lampang, and from Chiang Rai to Chiang Mai, this time also sold digitally. 

And while these recovered examples of ancient jewellery, coins, and tiny ornaments suitable for someone's mantelpiece may seem relatively harmless when compared to some of the higher profile Thai sculptures being returned from various museums, the cumulative process to seek, loot, and put these materials on the market for consumers is significantly more destructive towards our knowledge of the past than what individuals, and collectors, often perceive.

The times, they are (not) a-changin. 

By Lynda Albertson

--------------------

References

Grave, Peter, The ring-ditch burials of Northwestern Thailand and the archaeology of resistance - Bulletin of the Indo-Pacific Prehistory Association, 3: 61-166, 1997.

Hearn, Ray,  Thai Ceramics, Lao Na and Sawankalok: An Interview with John Shaw, 2000/03.

The Shaw Collection. ‘Tak Hilltop Burial Sites Introduction’. Accessed 18 September 2023. http://www.shawcollection.com/item.php?cid=221.

Fritz Grünbaum's prisoner registry card at Dachau Concentration Camp

On Wednesday, the New York District Attorney's Office in Manhattan executed  search warrants at three US museums, seizing three artworks by Austrian Expressionist Egon Leo Adolf Ludwig Schiele.

The Schiele works are: 

Russian War Prisoner, 1916, a watercolour and pencil on paper hand drawing seized at the Art Institute of Chicago; 

Portrait of a Man, 1917, a pencil on paper drawing seized at the Carnegie Museum of Art; 

Girl With Black Hair, 1911), a watercolor and graphite pencil on paper hand drawing seized at the Allen Memorial Art Museum at Oberlin College.

According to the warrants and Manhattan prosecutors,  “there is reasonable cause to believe” that the works constitute stolen property taken from Franz Friedrich 'Fritz' Grünbaum, an Austrian Jewish cabaret artist, operetta and popular song writer, actor, killed during World War II.  Grünbaum’s extraordinary 449-piece art collection was stolen by the Nazis only to have much of it sold through Eberhard Kornfeld, a Swiss auctioneer, and art dealer based in Bern, without the collector's heir's consent. 

A World War II tragedy, like so many others. 

After the Anschluss, (the annexation of the Federal State of Austria into the German Reich forming a "Greater Germany"), Fritz Grünbaum and his wife Elisabeth "Lilly" (nee Herzl) Grünbaum try unsuccessfully to escape to Czechoslovakia. 

Apprehended and arrested Fritz Grünbaum remained imprisoned in various concentration camps until his murder. On 16 July 1938 while Fritz Grünbaum was imprisoned at Dachau, the Nazis forced him to execute a power of attorney in favour of his wife Lilly. 

Shortly thereafter, and acting pursuant to her husband's under duress power of attorney Elisabeth Grünbaum is compelled to permit Austrian art historian and art dealer Franz Kieslinger, who was a member of the Nazi party, to inventory Grünbaum's property, including his art collection of over 400 pieces to be valued at 5,791 Reichsmarks (RM).  In this collection were 81 pieces by Schiele. 

Kieslinger inventory documented Grünbaum's Schiele artworks: 

Grünbaum's collection also included French watercolours and pieces by French Impressionist Edgar Degas, the German artist Albrecht Dürer, Dutch Golden Age artist Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn, known as Rembrandt, and French sculptor François Auguste René Rodin.  All of the latter were identified by name in the Kieslinger inventory. 

Sometime following Kieslinger's inventorying, the Grünbaum's entire art collection was deposited with Schenker & Co., A.G., a Nazi-controlled shipping company, with the firm the applying for an export license on behalf of collector "Lilly Grünbaum" in November 1938.  Gruesomely, Lilly's address is listed as "formerly Vienna . . . now Buchenwalde," the Nazi concentration camp established on Ettersberg hill near Weimar, Germany.

On January 14, 1941 Fritz Grünbaum was murdered at Dachau in southern Germany. His wife then signed a declaration before an Austrian notary in connection with obtaining her husband's death certificate, stating: 

"[T]here is nothing left," in other words, there is no estate. Therefore, "[b]ecause of a lack of goods or property, there [was no] estate proceeding for inheritance" before the Dachau Probate Court.

She in turn, is murdered four months later, on October 5 1942 at Maly Trostenets death camp near Minsk in Belarus. 

By the early 1950s some 25% of the Grünbaum's collection, including the three seized artworks, was in circulation on the art market through Bern, Switzerland dealer Eberhard Kornfeld.

Seized in place, prosecutors say 3 seized artworks belong to the three living heirs of Fritz Grünbaum and will be transported to New York at a later date.

By:  Lynda Albertson

During the night, between September 12th and 13th, yet another museum theft involving Chinese objects of porcelain occurred at the Museum für Ostasiatische Kunst theft in Köln (Cologne), Germany.  Around midnight, two burglars, one carrying a grey backpack, accessed the museum and one of the exhibition rooms after prying open a glazed side window facing Universitätsstrasse.  Once inside, the culprits made off with a total of nine objects from the museum's display cases, including porcelain vases, plates and jars dating from the the 16th to 19th century.  The works are believed to be worth more than 1 million euros. 

The city of Cologne has published photos of the nine rare objects taken during the incident.  They are: 

A Qing-Dynastie, Yongzheng-Period (1723-1735) Chinese Fencai rose coral-ground bowl with a Jiaqing seal mark of the period;

A large dish with dragon and phoenix design, 1 of 2, China, Jingdezhen kiln, Qing dynasty, Yongzheng period, (1723-1735);

A rare Ming Dynasty (1573-1619) Wucai "Phoenix" Double Gourd form Wall Vase depicting a pair of phoenix in flight amid ruyi-shaped clouds below a band of downward plantain leaves;

A Fencai Imperial Qing Dynasty (1796-1820) vase with Jiaqing mark and period;

A very rare Ming Dynasty (1521-1567) yellow-ground and iron-red decorated 'Dragon' jar, mark and period of Jiajing;

A porcelain, enamel dish with dragons and clouds, China, Imperial Porcelain Factory, Jingdezhen, Qing dynasty, Kangxi period (1662-1722);

A Qing Dynasty, Qianlong Period (1736-1795) lotus pot; (NB The lid was left behind. )

A Qing Dynasty, Qianlong Period (1736-1795) yellow-glazed nine dragon vase;

and an early 16th century (1506-1521), Ming Dynasty porcelain plate with Zhengde mark and period.

One of an ongoing series of thefts of this type, another was reported on the 14th of February at the Keramiekmuseum Princessehof in Leeuwarden.  In that incident, which also occurred in the early morning hours, the burglar, or burglars, entered the museum through its roof and stole 11 rare Chinese ceramics from the first floor. 

In ons museum is vanochtend vroeg ingebroken. Bij de inbraak zijn elf voorwerpen uit een installatie Chinees keramiek meegenomen, waarvan er zeven sneuvelden tijdens de vlucht naar buiten. Deze week houden we onze deuren gesloten i.v.m. politieonderzoek. https://t.co/ezapvQynUy pic.twitter.com/aJXLN7cxjG

— Princessehof (@Princessehof) February 13, 2023

Pursuant to a seizure order signed by New York Judge Ruth Pickholz on August 14, 2023, following investigations conducted by the New York District Attorney's Office in Manhattan, a bronze draped figure believed to represent Marcus Aurelius, is seized from at Cleveland Museum of Art.  According to New York law, the statue of the Roman emperor, known for his philhellenism and Stoic writings, constitutes evidence of, and tends to demonstrate the commission of the crimes of, Criminal  Possession of Stolen Property in the First Degree, Penal Law § 165.54, and a Conspiracy to commit the same crime under Penal Law § 105.10(1). 

But how and why was this statue seized?

By the mid-1960s, a number of bronze figures, including portrait heads, never before seen in documented collections, began circulating on the ancient art market in the United States and Europe.  By May 1967, law enforcement authorities from the Republic of Türkiye had uncovered their first lead as to these objects eventual origins, after a large, ancient bronze statue was found hidden in a house in the village of Ibecik, located in the mountainous region of the Gölhisar district of the southern province of Burdur, less than 100 kilometers from the southwest Turkish coast.

Their investigation, coupled with studies by Turkish archaeologist Jale İnan on behalf of the museum in Burdur, as well as notes gathered and seized from a local treasure hunter during investigations, have helped establish the find spot for these sculptures which is believed to be the eastern Roman Empire city of Boubon, on the summit and slopes of Dikmen Tepe.

According to the ancient Greek geographer Strabo, the city of Boubon formed a tetrapolis with its neighbouring cities of Cibyra, Oenoanda and Balboura.  Culturally diverse, at its pinnacle its inhabitants are said to have spoken as many as four languages: Greek, Pisidian, Solymian and Lycian. 

Travellers to Bubon as late as the mid-19th century described finding a walled acropolis, a small theatre of local stone, and the remains of tombs, temples, and other large structures in what remained of the ancient city. Few of these survive today.  Decimated by at least one large-scale looting operation, the unprotected ancient city's movable cultural heritage became the victims of poverty and art market greed during the mid-20th century, with much of what had survived throughout history, being carried off for profit.

The Sebasteion at Boubon

Inside this Sebasteion, archaeologists discovered two inscribed podiums along the north and the east walls of the room, and four free-standing bases along the west wall where statues of emperors and members of the Imperial household would have been displayed.  The majority of the dedications found here date from the half century beginning with the joint reign of Marcus Aurelius and Lucius Verus (161-168 CE) and ending with the sole reign of Caracalla (211-217 CE). Unsurprisingly, by the time archaeologists set about documenting the site, all but one single headless statue had been illicitly excavated and removed.  

As part of this documentation, Jale İnan assigned names to seven of the missing bronzes, based on seven of the 14 dedicatory inscriptions documented in situ inside the Sebasteion.  According to this researcher's reconstruction, patrons or visitors entering this room in the middle of the 3rd century CE, would have seen bronze statues of Nerva, Poppaea Sabina,  Lucius Verus, Commodus, Septimius Severus and lastly, Marcus Aurelius on the podium facing the entrance.

An inscription documented in İnan's 1990 excavation notes on stones forming the top course of the north podium reads:

[Μ.Αυρήλιο]ν Άντωνεϊνον

The Emperor as Philosopher Image Credit: Cleveland Museum of Art

After a whirlwind of touring from 1967 to 1981 at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, the Indianapolis Museum of Art, the Minneapolis Institute of Arts and Rutgers University, one of Lipson's bronzes, the draped figure, was purchased by the Cleveland museum in 1986.  It was quickly dubbed "The Emperor as Philosopher, probably Marcus Aurelius".   

At the time of sculpture's purchase, museum press releases and follow-up publications openly admitted that the bronze was part of a “group of Roman bronze figures and heads, believed to have come from Turkey” that represented various emperors and empresses, which had been created for a structure honouring the imperial cult in the mid-2nd century. All details which match the statues which likely once filled the Sebasteion.

In February and March of this year the New York District Attorney's Office in Manhattan seized and subsequently restituted another extremely important Boubon bronze statue from the same Sebasteion, this one representing the Roman emperor Septimius Severus.  In that instance, DANY's Antiquities Trafficking Unit, with the assistance of officials from the Republic of Türkiye, were able to locate and interview one of the individuals who actually looted and smuggled this statue and determined that the bronze had been smuggled into Switzerland by Robert Hecht.  Later this statue was circulated onward via Charles Lipson, first via an exhibition at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston and later loaned long term to the Metropolitan Museum of Art via a private collector.  

After proper packing, The Emperor as Philosopher, one of the finest Antonine imperial portraits in existence, will be transferred this month from the Cleveland Museum of Art to New York City.  There it will be held as evidence in an “ongoing criminal investigation into a smuggling network involving antiquities looted from Turkey and trafficked through Manhattan.”

To read more about this important and long plundered site, and its confirmatory details with respect to this antiquity, please see the publication Boubon. The Inscriptions and Archaeological Remains. A survey 2004 - 2006 by Christina Kokkinia