TEFAF Maastricht 2022 Image Credit: ARCA

On 15 April 2024 and 19 April 2024, ARCA published two articles building on an announcement made by Spain's Ministry of the Interior which involved the identification of a looted Egyptian object. That investigation involved the Policía Nacional's Historical Heritage Brigade in collaboration with the Dutch Politie, the expertise of an extremely knowledgeable forensic scholar, and the assistance of a cooperating art gallery. With their combined efforts, the Swiss dealer voluntarily relinquished the suspect antiquity to the Dutch police.

Yesterday, Caretaker Prime Minister Dick Schoof, in a meeting with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, announced that the Netherlands will hand over that same stolen sculpture by the end of the year.

Too frequently, antiquities restitution reporting becomes formulaic, providing only cursory information on an object's country of origin, value, age, and the agencies responsible for its seizure or restitution. This happened once again in this case, where one Dutch article reduced the historic object to its most basic description, “a 3,500-year-old stone head from the dynasty of Pharaoh Thutmose III,” followed by a brief paragraph speculating that the piece might be put on display at Egypt's the Grand Egyptian Museum in Cairo, which officially opened yesterday.

Basic shapes of block statues

ARCA, being a research-based organisation which specifically examines  crimes that impact art and artefacts, does its best to provide more details to problematic pieces and the problematic dealers that profit from them. Our reporting serves as a means of holding people accountable and reminding individuals of the need to collect responsibly. 

The artefact being returned is not just an Egyptian "head".  It is a decapitated head broken off of an 18th Dynasty Egyptian block statue that was likely intentionally hacked off its body, or deliberately broken at the shoulders for ease of smuggling. Had it been intact, this memorial statue would have shown a man crouched and wrapped in a cloak, inscribed, at the very least with the name of the owner, incised on the body, the base, or the back pillar if one existed. 

Our original reporting touched on what we were able to ascertain about this disembodied head of a squatting man. We knew he was documented on social media sites and came up for sale through a Swiss-based art dealer during the short-lived European Fine Art Fair in 2020 and again with this same dealer when the fair reopened post-Covid in 2022.  Having been the subject of a joint-European policing initiative we know that authorities were convinced he was illegally exported from Egypt in contravention of the country's cultural property laws, then transited through intermediaries in Thailand before being first put up for sale in Barcelona, where it was sold by controversial gallery owner, Jaume Bagot Peix, of J. Bagot Arqueología.

As early as 2015 Bagot's problematic purchasing had placed him on the radar of Policía Judicial y de la UCIE de la Comisaría General de Información.  In 2018, he and Oriol Carreras Palomar were formally charged for their alleged participation in a crime of financing terrorism, belonging to a criminal organisation, concealment of contraband, and use of forgery for their roles in facilitating the sale of illicit antiquities involving pieces trafficked from a second war torn country, Libya.  

Bagot also was charged, and subsequently convicted in Italy, related to a stolen Roman statue and has been linked to a stolen Egyptian ushabti from Sudan, which was again circulated on the art market with falsified provenance documentation. That artefact was sold to the Rijksmuseum van Oudheden in the Netherlands.  

But despite being suspected of trafficking material from at least three war-torn countries, and having one conviction in mainland Europe while other cases in other jurisdictions pile up, Bagot continues to receive favourable coverage in the press and has been described as operating "one of the most renowned ancient art galleries in Spain."  He also continues to be granted booths and promotion by Spain's Feriarte, an important annual art fair held at IFEMA Madrid, most recently from 18 to 26 October 2025, as well as at ANTIK Almoneda, another Madrid art sales event held from 22 to 30 March 2025.

All this demonstrates how long justice can take. In this Dutch restitution, it will have required five years from this objects initial sighting and identification at TEFAF in 2020 until its ultimate return to Egypt later this year and even longer for these problematic Spanish dealers to face the consequences of their actions. This case, like a second Bagot-related case in Belgium involving the the recent restitution of the Egyptian coffin of Pa-di-Hor-pa-khered, which was stolen from an archaeological site in Egypt in December 2015 and restituted in July 2025 both serve as reminders that restitution is not simply a bureaucratic exercise; it is a fight against a global market that too often rewards negligence and turns a blind eye to complicity. 

Until the art trade adopts a genuine commitment to better behaviour, transparency and due diligence, and holds its art market actors accountable, the cycle of loss, recovery, protracted restitution, and delayed accountability will continue, slowly, one object at a time.

TEFAF Maastricht 2022 Image Credit: ARCA

Earlier this week, ARCA published an article building on an announcement made by Spain's Ministry of the Interior which involved the identification of a looted Egyptian object.  This investigation involved the Policía Nacional in collaboration with the Dutch Politie, and the expertise of forensic scholars, as well as the assistance of cooperating dealers and the support of art fair personnel.  These combined efforts resulted in the voluntary handover of the trafficked artefact in the Netherlands, and later, the reported arrest of a Barcelona-based ancient art dealer who, although unnamed by the authorities, was stated to have been charged with money laundering, smuggling, and document falsification.  

ARCA's article touched on its own research into the circulation of this suspect antiquity and to the object's identified Spanish handler.  In it, I named the dealer whom I (too) had ascertained as having been in possession of this piece after it arrived to Spain from Bangkok before being sold onward to other ancient art dealers in Germany and Switzerland.  

Shortly following the Spanish announcement, the bulk of the reporting by mainstream media covered this investigation by simply regurgitating the Spanish  government's official press release.  ARCA, being a research-based organisation which specifically examines (and sometimes reports on) forensic crimes that impact art and artefacts, opted to provide more detail.  To do so we discussed both the object itself and named its first seller, while also ensuring that in doing so we haven't compromised the work of international police forces.

Too frequently, trafficked artefact reporting becomes routinely formulaic, giving readers cursory information on an object's country of origin, value, age, and the names of involved agencies responsible for that object's recovery.  In this type of reportage, the artefacts themselves take second stage, often reduced to photo opportunities, where they are frequently overshadowed by fancy diplomatic handshakes. Whereas the story of the piece itself, its trafficking journey, its good faith and bad faith handlers and its place in history are often unconsidered, or left to vague statements and assumptions, much in the same way, archaeologists and art historians lament the loss of context when an artefact is extracted from its find spot and the object's history is lost during a clandestine excavation.  

Basic shapes of block statues

Likewise, when describing this partial 18th Dynasty Egyptian block statue most of the published news articles reduced the artefact to its period of creation, i.e., "a stolen Egyptian sculpture dated from 1450 BCE" or spoke to its rudimentary aesthetic characteristic, referring to the piece as simply as "an Egyptian head".  Smuggled clandestinely, often over great distances and hidden in shipments through multiple transit countries, by the time such looted antiquities appear on the ancient art market, where they are displayed in glittering European art galleries and art fairs, the pieces are no longer intact.  

In this case, the less informed buyer, might appreciate this sculpture's beautiful depiction of the head of an Egyptian male.  I, on the other hand, see its decapitated form as evidence of a crime scene.  I question whether or not this anonymous severed head, had likely been hacked off its body, or deliberately broken at the shoulders for ease of transport and smuggling, knowing that unfortunately this once complete representation of a man, is now absent the rest of his body.  

During Egypt's Eighteenth Dynasty, the artisan who sculpted this black-granite representation of a once-living human would have worked the hard stone with care and precision.  The focus of his efforts would have been to respectfully express the belief that the deceased person's Ka, his eternal life force, when separated from his earthly body at death, would be travelling between the worlds of the living and the dead and would need to find his eternal home inside this single memorial block statue, created expressly for this purpose.  Carved to represent the likeness of the deceased and placed inside a sanctuary, had this head remained with the rest of its body, we might also have learned, through inscriptions, the name of the esteemed person the sculptor sought to portray when he had creating this memorial artwork.  

But why the need for a second article? 

Over the past several days there has been scattered chatter via various social media sites where the veracity of my statements regarding who the arrested Spanish dealer was have been the subject of discussion.  

Art News journalist Karen Ho, doing her best to report the news and remain impartial to the contentious subject, wrote: 

...the Association for Research into Crimes Against Art, has claimed in a blog post that the individual in question is Jaume Bagot Peix, operator of the J. Bagot Arqueología gallery in Barcelona, Spain.

Art lawyer Justine Philippart, when pointed to ARCA's original blog article, stated on LinkedIn:

This article is fake news. Nothing is true. Thus, for example, Mr. Bagot was not arrested.

TEFAF Maastricht 2020 Image Credit: ARCA

According to Spain's Ministry of the Interior, following an investigation begun in 2023, the Policía Nacional have arrested a Barcelona gallery owner (Jaume Bagot Peix, operator of J. Bagot Arqueología) for allegedly committing the crimes of money laundering, smuggling, and document falsification in relation to this black granite head of a funerary monument for a high ranking official from the reign of Hatshepsut or Tuthmosis III in Egypt. 

TEFAF Maastricht 2022 Image Credit: ARCA

Valued at 190,000 euros, the circa 1504-1450 BCE artefact had been acquired by the Barcelona ancient art dealer in July 2015 via an intermediary in Bangkok, Thailand.  ARCA notes that this partial statue was documented on social media sites and up for sale through a Swiss-based art dealer during the short-lived European Fine Art Fair in 2020 and again with this same dealer when the fair reopened post-Covid in 2022.  

Having been the subject of a joint-European policing initiative which resulted in law enforcement authorities with the Dutch Politie in the Netherlands sharing evidence with their Spanish counterparts, police in Spain were able to concretised that this Egyptian artefact was illicit, despite it having been in free circulation for seven years through several sales passages occurring via dealers in Spain, Germany, and Switzerland.  Prior to these transactions, the object had traveled though the transit county of Thailand via an intermediary in Bangkok. 

The 18th Dynasty head depicts its patron wearing a short wig revealing the ears as well as defined almond-shaped eyes and prominent eyebrows.  In its complete and original form, the head would have once been attached at the shoulders to the rest of its memorial block statue representing a seated non-royal person.  

The Swiss gallery that had purchased the artwork via another ancient art dealer in Germany, freely relinquished the artefact to the Dutch authorities once it was determined that the piece was suspect and had been acquired via the Spanish gallery owner, who had already been linked to the illicit trade in antiquities in conflict zones such as North Africa and the Middle East. 

To circulate this illicit artefact, the Spanish gallerist provided his trusting buyer, with a document that substituted collected information relating to several archaeological pieces belonging to a Spanish collection from the 70s making it appear as though the head had been part of a legitimate and documented collection prior to Egypt's antiquities laws tightening in 1983.  A not uncommon technique, suspect dealers have often attempted to "whiten" freshly looted material, by substituting, reusing, or outright fabricating documents of ownership, which, if not carefully explored, cosmetically appear to provide a legitimate "pedigree" to an antiquity which in reality is more recent plunder from an illicit excavation.  

It is for this reason, that the dealer who has been arrested has been charged not only with smuggling and money laundering, but also with document falsification of the object's provenance record. 

Point of reference in 2018, Frédéric Loore revealed in Paris Match that Jaume Bagot's network used various smuggling routes, notably via Egypt and Jordan to the United Arab Emirates, before returning to Catalonia after transiting through Germany or Thailand.

By:  Lynda Albertson

NB: For now, the Spanish authorities have elected to publish their arrest announcement withholding the name of the charged ancient art dealer.