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Showing posts with label Carabinieri Tutela Patrimonio Culturale. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Carabinieri Tutela Patrimonio Culturale. Show all posts

October 15, 2024

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Urban Tombaroli and Two Clandestine Excavations: Near the Villa at Oplontis and in Central Naples


The Carabinieri have uncovered a clandestine excavation in Torre Annunziata, believed to be aimed at looting artefacts from the renowned Villa A (“of Poppaea”) at Oplontis, an ancient luxurious Roman seaside villa located a short three kilometers away from the more famous archaeological site of Pompeii. The discovery was made during a coordinated operation led by the Carabinieri’s investigative unit from Torre Annunziata, with assistance from agents specialising in cultural heritage crimes. 

Map from Oplontis: Villa A (“of Poppaea”) at Torre Annunziata, Italy. Volume 1.
The Ancient Setting and Modern Rediscovery
by John R. Clarke and Nayla K. Muntasser

Acting on a tip-off, the Carabinieri officers raided a cellar on Corso Garibaldi, number 106, just one minute's walk from the historic villa.  There the investigators  found three partially collapsed but still accessible tunnels, all leading in the direction of the Villa of Poppea, with its striking wall paintings  The officers also found a striking number of tools used for the illicit excavation, as seen in the video below.  These included aerators, shoring materials used in the tunnels' development, and containers already filled with volcanic lapilli removed during the advancement of the digging operation.

The owner of the cellar, a 53-year-old local carpenter with no prior criminal record, has been charged with conducting illicit works under Article 169 of Italy’s cultural heritage code. 

Investigators believe the tunnels were dug with the intent of reaching and stealing artefacts from the archaeological site, a UNESCO World Heritage Site known for its exceptionally preserved frescoes and structures dating back to ancient Rome.

The Villa of Poppea is a significant part of the Oplontis site and has long been a target for tomb raiders due to its rich archaeological significance. Authorities are continuing their investigation, focusing on whether the carpenter was working alone or, given the abitious nature of materials found, as part of a larger network of artefact thieves.

Earlier this month, a similarly ambitious illicit excavation was uncovered in the heart of Naples.  There officers discovered the remains of an 11th century medieval church eight meters below street level, 2 km away from Naples central train station near Piazza Bovio. 

The raider in this instance is a local entrepreneur, digging directly under an existing palazzo.  Recovered at the scene, officers seized some 10,000 archaeological fragments from the Roman and medieval eras, believed to be from the suburban sector of the ancient Magna Graecia city of Neapolis, as well as 453 intact archaeological finds from the Roman era , including: red-figure craters, amphorae, terracotta lamps and pipes, as well as Roman and medieval coins.

The previously undiscovered church is said to be a rare example of medieval art of the 11th century, whose decoration are similar t the nearby Sacello di Sant'Aspreno. 

Both incidences highlight the significant challenges posed by urban illicit excavations for both law enforcement and cultural heritage protection.  These unauthorised digs, often conducted covertly beneath residential or commercial properties, not only pose safety hazards due to unstable tunnels and potential structural damage, but they also risk irreparable harm to the archaeological context of the site. 

In cities with rich histories like Cairo, Rome or Naples, contemporary city expansion has often built over ancient treasures, making it difficult to monitor such hidden operations.   Looters seeking valuable artefacts frequently destroy layers of history, removing items from their context and severing crucial links to the past.  This not only deprives the public of valuable cultural knowledge but also fuels the black market for antiquities, undermining legitimate efforts to preserve and study historical sites. 

The challenge for authorities is compounded by the difficulty of detecting these operations in densely populated areas, where excavations can go undetected for years, beneath seemingly ordinary locations.

May 3, 2024

Friday, May 03, 2024 - , No comments

Carabinieri Command: Safeguarding Italy's Cultural Heritage for 55 years


Fifty-five years ago today, on May 3, 1969, a crucial chapter in the protection of Italy's rich cultural heritage was written with the establishment of the special department of the Arma dei Carabinieri known as the "Nucleo Tutela Patrimonio Artistico." Since its inception, this unit has been entrusted with the vital task of safeguarding and protecting the nation's artistic legacy. Over the decades, it has evolved into the esteemed "Carabinieri Command for the Protection of Cultural Heritage," earning recognition both nationally and internationally for its unwavering dedication and exemplary work.

At the core of its operations lies a commitment to investigative, informational, and analytical functions aimed at combatting the illicit trafficking of cultural artefacts. Central to its success is the utilisation of the Leonardo Database of illicitly stolen cultural heritage, the largest repository of its kind globally. This database, containing comprehensive information on assets, primarily of Italian origin, and serves as a powerful tool in the ongoing efforts to locate and repatriate stolen treasures.

Moreover, the Carabinieri Command for the Protection of Cultural Heritage extends its expertise and support to other law enforcement agencies, fostering collaboration and synergy in the fight against cultural crime. Its partnership with the Ministero della Cultura ensures a comprehensive and coordinated approach to preserving Italy's cultural legacy for future generations.

As we commemorate their milestone, we salute the men and women of the TPC for their tireless efforts in protecting their country's cultural heritage. Their dedication serves as a model in the ongoing battle against the illicit trade in cultural property and affirms Italy's commitment to preserving its cultural identity.


January 20, 2023

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Ceremony on the return of 58 antiquities to Italy

On Monday, January 23, 2023, at 1 pm in Rome, a formal ceremony will be held regarding the return to Italy, from the United States, of 58 antiquities valued at nearly $19 million.  This event will be held at the Ministry of Culture's Sala Spadolini inside the Consiglio Nazionale al Collegio Romano.

The objects returned are the direct result of investigations in the United States regarding international traffickers of antiquities conducted by the Antiquities Trafficking Unit at the District Attorney's Office in New York in Manhattan, in collaboration with the Comando Carabinieri Tutela Patrimonio Culturale (TPC).  

Present for the event will be the Italy's Minister of Culture, Gennaro Sangiuliano,  the Deputy Prosecutor of the Republic at the Court of Rome, Angelantonio Racanelli; the Commander of the Carabinieri TPC, General B. Vincenzo Molinese; and New York Assistant District Attorney Col. Matthew Bogdanos. 

This event will be direct streamed via the YouTube channel of Italy's Ministry of Culture for those who wish to attend the ceremony digitally. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x-RcYKNBHtk&ab_channel=MiC_Italia

Marble head of Athena, ca. 200 BCE

In discussing these returns in a press release issued by the New York County District Attorney's Office, the New York authorities stated that these artefacts had been trafficked by Giacomo Medici, Giovanni Franco Becchina, Pasquale Camera and Edoardo Almagiá.  Twenty one of the pieces had been seized from the Metropolitan Museum of Art while the other thirty-seven were recovered from a New York collector and an antiquities dealer.

When speaking of these objects homecoming to Italy, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin L. Bragg, Jr., was quoted as saying:

“These 58 pieces represent thousands of years of rich history, yet traffickers throughout Italy utilised looters to steal these items and to line their own pockets. For far too long, they have sat in museums, homes, and galleries that had no rightful claim to their ownership.”  

Discussing the recent Italian restitutions Bragg also addressed the difficulty and time needed to work these complicated cultural property crime cases stating:

“Exposing these schemes takes years of diligent and difficult investigative work, and I applaud our team of prosecutors and analysts, who in coordination with our law enforcement partners, are continuing to make unparalleled progress in returning stolen antiquities.”  

Assistant US District Attorney Col. Matthew Bogdanos, who heads up the Manhattan Office's Antiquities Trafficking Unit, and who will be present at Monday's ceremony, has often related his department's work to an axiom of jurisprudence “that justice should not only be done, but should manifestly and undoubtedly be seen to be done.” R v. Sussex Justices, ex parte McCarthy, 1 KB 256, 259 (1924).  Something this publicly streamable restitution will undoubtedly demonstrate.  

Each of these objects should be viewed as a reminder to collectors, dealers, and art institutions, that the US authorities treat stolen cultural property seriously and public prosecutors continue to pursue the rightful return of plundered goods.

April 8, 2022

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What about the well known looted vases in the Altes Museum in Berlin?

Left: Medici Archive Polaroid with fragments of the Crater of Persephone,
attributed to the Painter of the Underworld,
Right: 4th century BCE crater as seen at the Altes Museum, Berlin

Tonight there was an interesting plot twist to this year's formal demand by the Public Prosecutor's Offices of Rome and Foggia, who in late January 2022 issued two confiscation decrees, the first from the Gip of Foggia, and the second from the Gip of Rome, Alessandro Arturi, at the request of the Procura del Tribunale Capitolino. These European confiscation orders were sent with an international rogatory request through the Directorate General for International Affairs and Judicial Cooperation of the Ministry of Justice asking for the return of 21 ornate South Italian artefacts currently on exhibition in Germany.   Tonight, at 20:30 CET, on RAI tg24  Spotlight, journalists, archaeologists, curators, and carabinieri officers discuss these artefacts' murky origins.  All the while the viewing audience got to see the overly simplified foot-dragging reticence of the management at the Altes Museum in Berlin towards Italy's determination to prove the illicit nature of these pieces, and to get these objects back.  

Many of the spectacular contested artefacts, date to the 4th century BCE and fall into distinct workshop groups, giving us a rich opportunity to examine how the peoples native to southern Italy used Greek myth to comprehend death and the afterlife in their funerary customs.  Some of the Apulian vessels share stylistic markings which demonstrate that they likely were created by the same attributed "hands", leading Italian experts to strongly believe that the artefacts may have been derived from a singular burial grouping.  

The artisans represented include the Group of Copenhagen 4223, the Varrese painter, the Darius painter, and the Underworld painter.  All of the artefacts had at one point been broken into fragments before being carefully restored and sold on to Wolf Dieter Heilmayer between 1983 and 1984, then at the Berlin archaeological museum located in West Germany.  The German museum director purchased these artefacts via Christoph Leon for 3 million German marks, under the pretext that they had been purportedly part of a historic collection belonging to a Basel family named the Cramers. 

In reality, the red figure vases are believed by the Italian authorities to have been looted, having once adorned a large chamber tomb, likely near Taranto, the coastal city and production centre in southern Italy from c. 430 - c. 300 BCE where many of these vases originate.  The single tomb grouping is something that Martin Maischberger, Deputy Director of the Collection of Classical Antiquities of the National Museums in Berlin contested during his interview, saying that most massive volute-kraters are found in pairs, not in groupings of seven, (three alone attributed to the Darius painter) like those purchased with the fictitious Cramer provenance bought by the museum director's predecessors.  

Strikingly, the German director doesn't take into consideration the wealth of material found at other sites in the Southern half of Italy, sites like Ruvo and the richness of its own tomb-groups or other impressive object groupings from the tombs at Gravina and Rutigliano in Peucetia, where contacts with both Greece and Etruscan painters clearly demonstrate tombs proportionately rich in burial goods. 

While not all the artefacts in the Berlin Tomb group appear in photographs in the now famous Medici Archive, four of them are, and point clearly towards the illicit nature of these finds.  

In this case, in three different groupings of Polaroids, specifically:
  • one grouping of fifteen photographs, 
  • one grouping of six photographs,
  • and one grouping of two photographs. 
All three sets of images depict artefacts now in the Altes Museum in various stages of restoration, the most important of which is the exceptional krater by the Darius Painter.

Giacomo Medici archive photos of looted artefacts
presently on display at the Altes Museum

While not all of the Apulian artefacts have a "smoking gun" looter photo, the names attached to this transaction are the same, and have been problematic in the past. 

The former head of archaeology at Geneva Museum, Jacques Chamay had previously announced that his research had begun after he had examined a fragment of one of the vases in the Cramer family’s old library, though in tonight's program, reached by phone, he had nothing to say. 

Discounting the judicially soft, but diplomatically polite, cultural diplomacy negotiations as "informal", which up until January had been the preferred approach of the Carabinieri and the Procura of Foggia,  Dr. Maischberger at the Altes Museum remarked that the European confiscation request was the first time the museum had been formally asked to give back the vases.  In this instance, it seems the museum decided the Italian's less stick, more carrot approach meant they weren't serious or that a decision could be avoided?  In either case, asking nicely didn't incentivise or compel the museum's management towards restitution because only 4 of the disputed artefacts have definitive proof of looting photos seized from Giacomo Medici's storage facility on the fourth floor of the Ports Francs & Entrepôts de Genève, specifically Corridor 17, Room 23, on the 13th of September 1995.   

Giacomo Medici at the Metropolitan Museum of Art

During the Italian Spotlight news broadcast, Italians also heard from someone at the heart of Italy's illicit art market and the original holder of the Medici Polaroids, Giacomo Medici himself. 

Interviewed on camera for the first time, by investigative journalist Raffaella Cosentino, the former antiquities dealer seemed both soundly arrogant and at times cagy, admitting little even under direct questioning.  He avoided answering tough questions and instead preferred to underscore that he had served his time and paid his fines.  He also reminded his interviewer that in some instances the judicial process did not prove conclusively he had committed certain crimes.  

While Medici matter of factly talked about the seven boxes of photographs returned to him at the closure of his court case, he skipped over the fact that these images  represent the massive corpus of some 4000 artefacts that he handled during his years as an antiquities dealer.  He also failed to mention that he cultivated contacts among Italy's impoverished tombaroli, other wealthy corrupt dealers, Museum directors and conservators, who all turned a blind eye to the less than pristine origins of his wares.  Instead he preferred to mention loopholes or that he sold his antiquities of Switzerland, because Italy had rules against selling objects illicitly excavated. 

For what it is worth, and as a reminder, on 13 December 2004 Giacomo Medici was charged with receiving stolen goods, illegal export of goods, and conspiracy to traffic via the Tribunal of Rome. The judge found that more than 95% of Medici’s antiquities—both those found in his Geneva warehouse as well as those depicted in the 4,000 seized photographs— were looted from Italy. Therefore, concerning the 3,800 antiquities recovered from the Geneva warehouse, the judge ordered the confiscation of approximately 3,400. Of the 400 that were not confiscated, 258 were returned to Switzerland: 179 because they had been looted in Greece, from sites on Paros, Crete, and the mainland (and, therefore, not subject to Italian law), and 79 because they were not authentic (and, therefore, were not the subject of the criminal investigation). For fewer than 150 of the 3,800 hundred antiquities—3.9% of his collection—did Medici provide any prior provenance.

On 15 July 2009 the Italian Appellate Court affirmed Medici's convictions for receiving stolen goods and conspiracy relating to the illicit trafficking of antiquities.  The affirmed a sentence of eight years of imprisonment alongside a €10 million fine, while the final count, for trafficking, was eliminated due to the expiry of the statute of limitations. 

Despite appealing the Appellate Court's ruling via Italy's Court of Cassation, on 7 December 2011 Giacomo Medici's final appeal was rejected.   Born in 1938 and already a senior citizen by that point, he was allowed to serve his judicial punishment primarily on house arrest at his villa in Santa Marinella, shortened by time off for good behaviour. 

By:  Lynda Albertson


April 23, 2021

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Stealing venerated relics: An ancient pastime that lives on today

The Cistercian abbey of San Galgano

The Carabinieri for the Protection of Cultural Heritage (Comando Carabinieri Tutela Patrimonio Culturale - TPC) have recovered the Reliquary of San Galgano, a work possibly attributed to the 14th-century goldsmith Ugolino di Vieri.  The Medieval Christian object of faith was stolen from the Seminario Arcivescovile Siena more than 30 years ago, in 1989.

Over time, by accident and changes, little remains of San Galgano except for some of the church's relics and a fantastic sword which is a story unto itself.  Most of the accessory structures of the Cistercian abbey are gone, leaving us with only the roofless building's stone skeleton with its grouped piers and ribbed vaults.  Despite its ruin, it is an impressive Gothic architectural masterpiece and one of the most exquisite religious structures in Tuscany. 

Recovered along with ten other stolen works of art, the Reliquary of San Galgano's is believed to have been stolen as a theft to order.   And as sacrilegious as that may sound, given what reliquaries are used for, stealing venerated religious objects is not as uncommon as one would like to think.  

Nor should the theft of these types of liturgical items be underestimated, as their intrinsic worth is more than the sum of their antiquarian value.  Their uniqueness being more that just the costly materials they are made from, or the fame of the artist who crafted them.

Creepy though it may be, their true value lies in the “valueless.” For its the bits and pieces, things like the skull, jaw, left ilium, or even the foreskin of the departed that catch the eye of Church devotees as well as thieves.  In 1087, shortly before the First Crusade, sixty-two sailors from Bari stole the actual bones of St. Nicholas, interred at a church in Myra, a city in modern-day Turkey.  Back then, in the beginning of the High Middle Ages, religious relics were big business. Having a relic brought pilgrims, and with pilgrims came money. So it's no small wonder that a new church, the Pontifical Basilica di San Nicola, was built afer his bones were taken, as Nicholas' disinterred remains drew quite an audience.

St. Catherine of Siena, who died in Rome in 1839 lies buried inside the Basilica of Santa Maria sopra Minerva. Her dismembered holy head however, was parted from her body and secreted back to her home town where her patrons in Siena inserted it into a gilt bust of bronze. Other parts of her body are scattered inside and outside of Italy.

But not all thefts where committed by the religiously well intentioned, intent on veneration.  Flash forward to the modern era and the reliquary of San Franco, known as the Hermit of Gran Sasso, was stolen in Assorgi in 1974 only to be found later with an antique dealer in Milan.  Likewise, the remains of the immensely influential philosopher  St. Thomas Aquinas were stolen in Naples in 1978 with some saying all that was left was an odor of sanctity.  His silver case ended up as a religious novelty on a collector's shelf.

Having said that, not all church thieves steal for a quick and easy payout. Some commit acts which are even more blasphemous, ghoulishly holding the very bones of the venerated hostage.   On November 7, 1981 two men armed with guns struck the Chiesa di San Geremia in the Cannaregio area of Venice. Breaking into a glass coffin on the main altar, the hooligans snatched the wrapped remains of Saint Lucia, one of the early church's most famous martyrs, leaving the scene so quickly they left her head and mask behind.  

Six and a half years later, on April 18, 1988, the remains of Pope Celestino V were swiped from the Basilica of Santa Maria di Collemaggio in L'Aquila.  Thankfully, his bones were recovered two days later in a niche of the cemetery of Cornelle and Roccapassa where the crooks had parked the Pope temporarily, hoping to lay low until the investigation died down.  

A year later thieves also took the bones of the peasant who became a friar, St. Joseph of Copertino (the patron saint of flyers).  And, as recently as 2020, a gold and crystal casing holding droplets of blood from Pope John Paul II was nicked from the  Cathedral in Spoleto.

Despite breaking one of the Church's Ten Commandments, no one but the thief and his maker may understand what provoked each of these individuals to steal a particular relic, or in the case of the Reliquary of San Galgano, why the thief's sponsor coveted this particular item. But it is up against this backdrop that we can understand a little bit why some see the return as a small miracle.

The restitution ceremony for this and the other recovered artworks will be held at 3:00 pm on Monday, April 26th at the Sala del Palazzo Arcivescovile di Siena.  Presided over by Italy's Minister of Culture, Dario Franceschini, as well as the cardinal, his most reverend eminence, Augusto Paolo Lojudice, Roberto Ricciardi, Commander of the Carabinieri for the Protection of Cultural Heritage; Barabra Jatta, Director of the Vatican Museums and Gianluigi Marmora, Commander of the Carabinieri Unit for the Protection of Cultural Heritage of Palermo there is sure to be an interesting story to tell. 

The event will also be "live" streamed on the Archidiocesi di Siena YouTube channel should you like to listen in. 

January 20, 2021

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Restitution: Belgian authorities hand over a 1st century BCE Roman statue stolen from Rome in 2011

Today, authorities from the General Directorate of the Economic Inspection of the SPF Economie in Belgium turned over a lifesize 1st century BCE Roman statue of a man to officers from the Carabinieri Command for the Protection of Cultural Heritage.  The seizure, and subsequent restitution, come at the conclusion of an investigation conducted by Belgium's Economic Inspectorate, in cooperation with the Brussels public prosecutor's office.

Stolen during a theft in Rome in 2011, this headless 2000-year-old Roman marble togatus was located in a Brussels' gallery by the Carabinieri TPC and was then determined to be on consignment by an individual already on the radar of the Italian authorities.  According to the report given by the Belgian authorities, the sculpture's restitution is the first result of a series of investigations linked to fraud in the art market, which are currently being carried out by the Economic Inspectorate under the aegis of the Brussels judicial authorities.  It also shows how law enforcement in multiple jurisdictions can, and are, actively working together to investigate and combat cross-border thefts and trafficking of art and antiquities. 

As the Belgian authorities indicated this is just the first of a series of investigations. And given the frequency illicit antiquities continue to penetrate the legitimate art market, frequently in Brussels' Sablon, embroiling its galleries and their owners in the repetitive drama of plausible deniability, it might be wise for dealers to take a look at their consignment practices.   Being complacent when handling stolen and illegally-exported (illicit) antiquities, is never good for one's reputation, even if the items are accepted in good faith.   It would behove dealers to be more stringent when accepting works of art from potential consignors, not only to ensure that they are not support organized criminal enterprise through the illicit antiquities trade but also so their client's don't lose faith in their expertise and ability to satisfactorily vet the artefacts they recommend to their clientele. 

Likewise, the prudent purchaser should do their own homework, carefully vetting the trophy works that they wish to purchase for their collections. In cross-checking all of the accompanying documentation, they should ask themselves, the gallery and where applicable the consignor

  • Does your toga-wearing headless man have an export license? 
  • Does his documentation look authentic? 
  • Might the license be falsified?  
  • Is the country of origin falsified? 
  • Does the country of export match with the country of the object's origin?  
  • Does the object have a known find spot?   
  • How far back can the chain of ownership be demonstrated? 
  • and lastly, are there any other red flags like "property of an anonymous Swiss collector"?

By:  Lynda Albertson


September 28, 2020

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Two Arrested for Robbery and Vandalism at Church of Sant’Agata al Collegio in Sicily


Image Credit: Associazione Gesù Nazareno - Caltanissetta

Article By: Lynette Turnblom

For the second time in under two months the Chiesa di Sant’Agata al Collegio in Caltanissetta, Sicily has been damaged by acts of vandalism and the theft of sacred objects.  On 22 September 2020, two suspicious suspects were seen walking at a fast pace away from the zone surrounding the church carrying an unusually shaped wrapped object.  Upon noting patrolling officers nearby, the pair picked up their pace, leading the city police to call for backup in order to stop them for questioning. 

Image Credit Radio CL1

The young men, later identified as Alessio Pio Raul and Giannone Salvatore, were located and stopped by the police ten minutes south of the seventeenth-century Jesuit church.  In their possession, law enforcement officers found a golden brooch, a church reliquary, a container for holy oil, and 161 euros in coins.  

Image Credit: Associazione Gesù Nazareno - Caltanissetta

Reviewing video surveillance cameras installed in the area, police were able to reconstruct the events related to the church burglary, which showed two suspects breaking in through the door of the church library, where the pair went on to ransacked an office and vending machines where they likely removed the large sum of coins they were carrying when stopped by police,  The duo then moved on to the church itself.

In addition to theft and vandalism of the music school and library, once inside the Baroque church the two thieves attacked various altar spaces, removing a chrismarium, (a ceremonial container for holy oil) and a church ciborium used to hold hosts for, and after, the Eucharist.  



Rushing to steal what they could carry, the thieves left communion host wafers scattered in their wake and heavily disrupted the church's sleeping Madonna, a memorial representation of Mary's uncorrupted body and soul representing the moment of transit from earthly life to the Assumption. 

It is from this peaceful representation of the mother of the church that the thieves filched the gold brooch, later recovered when the pair were stopped by police.  And as if that wasn't enough, the marauders had also gathered up all of the church's candlesticks, piling them in a corner, probably in order to return for them at some later time.  Thankfully, at least in this instance, following the suspects' apprehension, all of the stolen items have now been returned to the parish priest. 

Yet, as mentioned earlier, this act of theft and vandalism came less than a month after an earlier attack on the church.  The first occasion was reported on the 23rd of August.  Similar to the second theft, thieves again had entered the vulnerable church through its library vandalizing the parish and taking offering coins.  At the time of this first theft, Father Gaetano Caneletta said, “it is an offense to our faith and a serious wound to our artistic heritage.”

As shown by these two back-to-back attacks on Chiesa di Sant’Agata al Collegio in such a short time frame, churches are can be viewed as easy targets for thieves.  As Domenica Giani, the head of Vatican police has said, “Humanity’s spiritual thirst and desire to praise God have given life to works of inestimable value and to a religious patrimony that gives rise to greed and the interest of art traffickers.”

While the sacrality of churches may prevent some thieves from targeting them, the abundance of invaluable art housed within them may be too tempting a target for others.  The FBI and the Carabinieri TPC have each outlined several ways that churches can help to protect their artworks and sacred objects: 

  1. Develop an inventory This proves crucial in identifying and locating and recovering items of historic, cultural, or artistic value. The house-of-worship staff should retain a comprehensive list of all valuable church property. Detailed written records of objects should include the medium, dimensions, material, proof or artist marks, and any other similar details and should be reviewed periodically to ensure all objects are present and accounted for as not all thefts are not discovered immediately. 
  2. Establish and maintain a current and up to date photographic record: While maintaining written files of artifacts is essential, digital photography makes it easy for staff may store and, if necessary, print high-quality color photos of each item. These pictures can be extremely useful when reporting a loss to the police or notifying registries of objects stolen during a theft or burglary. Photographic records should include all sides of the object.  
  3. Marking items: Initially, it may appear impossible to mark all church related items because of composition or intrinsic value; however, contemporary options to consider for high-value objects could be the use of a forensic asset marking agent, or radio-frequency identification (RFID) which uses electromagnetic fields to automatically identify and track tags attached to objects sounding an alarm when objects are moved. 
  4. Insure property: Where financially feasible, office staff and clergy should review the church's casualty insurance coverage to ascertain that the property protection program includes a clause for all historic artifacts and lists particularly high-value items separately.

Maintaining a relationship with local law enforcement is also integral for church officials and can result in more rapid response time and a smoother investigation in cases of theft.  In the case of the attempted theft at Santa Maria Maddalena in Liguria in 2019 the police and the church were able to work together to replace a targeted painting by the 17th-century Flemish artist Pieter Brueghel the Younger with a copy when they received advanced intelligence of a potential theft.  Through their collaboration, the church was able to continue operating as normal without the risk of losing their €3.4 million masterpiece.  

In this recent case at Sant’Agata al Collegio, the alert police officers in Caltanissetta were able to respond quickly to the robbery and to retrieve the church's stolen objects.  Police are still investigating the involvement of possible co-conspirators including two other suspected accomplices, one male and one female, both also in their twenties. 

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

Bibliography:

Arma dei Carabinieri. ‘Linee guida per la tutela dei beni culturali ecclesiastici’. Ufficio Nazionale per i beni culturali ecclesiastici:, November 2014. https://www.beniculturali.it/mibac/multimedia/MiBAC/documents/feed/pdf/Linee%20Guida%20Tutela%20Beni%20Culturali%20Ecclesiastici-imported-48392.pdf.
Comando Carabinieri Tutela Patrimonio. ‘Caltanissetta, vandalizzata la chiesa di Sant’Agata al Collegio. Malviventi rubano anche le offerte’. Seguo News, 23 August 2020, sec. Seguo News - Notizie Caltanissetta. http://www.seguonews.it/caltanissetta-vandalizzata-la-chiesa-di-santagata-al-collegio-malviventi-rubano-anche-le-offerte.
Federal Bureau of Investigation. ‘Theft: A Real Threat to Religious Heritage’. Government. Federal Bureau of Investigation, 7 December 2016. https://leb.fbi.gov/articles/featured-articles/theft-a-real-threat-to-religious-heritage.
Giuffrida, Angela. ‘Italian Police Reveal “€3m Painting” Stolen from Church Was a Copy’. The Guardian, 13 March 2019, sec. Art and design. https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2019/mar/13/thieves-steal-3m-painting-by-brueghel-the-younger.
Polizia di Stato. ‘Caltanissetta, Arrestati Dalla Polizia Di Stato Due Ventenni Responsabili Del Raid Notturno Alla Chiesta Di Sant’Agata al Collegio.’ Government. Polizia di Stato, 23 September 2020. https://questure.poliziadistato.it/Caltanissetta/articolo/7945f6aec1680d6c151646476.
Povoledo, Elisabetta. ‘Thieves Trying to Steal Precious Painting Get Worthless Copy’. The New York Times, 14 March 2019. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/14/arts/design/brueghel-crucifixion-painting-stolen.html.
Radio CL1. ‘Arrestati Dalla Squadra Mobile Gli Autori Del Raid Nella Chiesa Di Sant’Agata’. Radio CL1, 22 September 2020. https://share.xdevel.com/.
Stewart, Nan. ‘Thieves Stole a $3.4 Million Bruegel From a Rural Italian Church—or So They Thought. Here’s How the Village Tricked Them’. Artnet News, 13 March 2019, sec. Art and Law. https://news.artnet.com/art-world/pieter-brueghel-theft-1487668.

July 24, 2020

Friday, July 24, 2020 - ,,, No comments

Restitution in the time of COVID-19: A fertility statuette representing a mother goddess returns to Iraq


Modeled from clay and painted, this female figurine replete with voluptuous curves, and depicted naked and sitting with her arms folded under her breasts, in a pose suggestive of childbirth was discovered by officers working for the Comando Carabinieri Tutela Patrimonio Culturale, whose job it is to carry out surveillance of internet sales of suspect art.  

The tiny seated figurine, whose features clearly suggest fertility and the renewal of life, is typical of "mother goddess" figurines originating within the Neolithic culture of Halaf, named more than a century ago after one of the first sites where these types of figurines were found.  The people of the Halaf culture resided in the geographical regions later known as Northern or upper Mesopotamia.  Representations of these types of female figurines have been found as far west as Cilicia in Turkey, to the east along the border of Iran and Iraq, north as far as Lake Van in Turkey, and south as far as the Damascus basin in Syria. This one however made her way much farther.  She was found in fare away Udine, in northeastern Italy. 


Yesterday, in a formal handover ceremony in Rome at the Ministry for Cultural Heritage and Activities and Tourism, the Minister of Culture Dario Franceschini,  alongside General Roberto Riccardi, Commander of the Carabinieri for the Protection of Cultural Heritage, acknowledged the importance of this figurine as representative of the known narrative of sixth-millennium Halaf social practices.  In returning this artifact to the Iraqi people, Franceschini, in his role at Italy's Ministro per i Beni e le Attività Culturali e per il Turismo — MiBACT underscored the ministry's commitment in the field of cultural diplomacy, and the TPC Carabinieri Command's role tracking down and recovering illegally exported heritage from other vulnerable source countries found within Italy's jurisdiction.

These seated Halaf figurines in general range in size from small to tiny, and like this one, are usually less than 10 centimeters tall.  Picking it gently up, the Iraqi ambassador to Rome, Safia Taleb Al-Souhail demonstrated that it would fit comfortably in the palm of someone's hand.  It's tiny size, just 9 X 3 cm along with her suggestive imagery have made portable Mesopotamian antiquities like this one extremely popular among traffickers. So much so that an image of one, almost identical, is printed on the ICOM Emergency Red List of Syrian Cultural Objects at Risk, given that the original site where these types of figurines were discovered was at Tel Halaf in Syria.


In describing the circumstances of this artefact's discovery General Roberto Riccardi, Commander of the Carabinieri for the Protection of Cultural Heritage stated that the Carabinieri TPC squad in Udine first identified the suspect auction in an online sale, and working with historians affiliated with the Department of Humanities and Cultural Heritage at the Università degli Studi di Udine determined that the statuette was an authentic artefact of the Halaf culture.  The Italian authorities, in turn, worked with their Iraqi counterparts to coordinate details for this object's eventual restitution.  How the antiquity was determined to be Iraqi in origin was not discussed.


Ambassador Al-Souhail stated that she appreciated the efforts made by the Italian authorities and the Carabinieri forces in combating organized crime which involve the smuggling of Iraqi antiquities.  She also commended Italy's commitment to activate a Memorandum of Understanding which the parties signed, between both countries in that regard and to Italy's commitment to international agreements and relevant Security Council resolutions.
For those that would like to delve into the locations where seated Halaf sculptures can be found we highly recommend this paper by Dr. Ellen Belcher. In it Dr. Belcher reminds us that:

Many figurines identifiable as Halaf types regularly appear in museum collections, on Internet auction sites, and in antiquities dealers' catalogs in most cases illegally smuggled into Western countries, they can make no contribution to this contextualized study. However it is hoped that this study may prove useful for localizing the ongoing looting of Halaf sites.

Belcher also mentions (page 374) in the aforementioned paper that by the fall of 2013, there were no more ongoing scientific excavations of Halaf sites in Turkey, Syria or Iraq, highlighting that ongoing conflicts in Syria and Iraq had left these historic sites unprotected from looting. 

By Lynda Albertson

July 16, 2020

Thursday, July 16, 2020 - ,,,, No comments

In difesa della bellezza: quando la cooperazione ci restituisce un patrimonio prezioso

Martedì 24 giugno a Palazzo Pitti è stata inaugurata una nuova mostra dal titolo “Storie di pagine dipinte. Miniature recuperate dai Carabinieri” (che sarà aperta fino al 4 ottobre 2020), organizzata dalle Gallerie degli Uffizi, in collaborazione con l’Università degli Studi di Firenze e con il Comando Carabinieri per la Tutela del Patrimonio Culturale. Alla conferenza sono infatti intervenuti gli esponenti delle tre prestigiose istituzioni: il direttore degli Uffizi Eike Schmidt, il generale Roberto Riccardi, del Comando Carabinieri Tutela Patrimonio Culturale e la prof.ssa Sonia Chiodo, curatrice della mostra e una tra i massimi esperti in Storia della Miniatura. 

La mostra è stata l’esito di un laboratorio didattico della Scuola di Specializzazione in Beni Artistici, corso biennale di alta formazione dell’Università di Firenze. Un giovane team di ricerca, composto da tredici storici dell’arte, sotto la guida appunto della prof.ssa Chiodo, hanno studiato circa sessanta pagine miniate che sono state recuperate dai Carabinieri del Nucleo Tutela. Una sinergia di forze e di competenze che hanno cooperato non solo all’allestimento espositivo e ma soprattutto allo studio, al recupero e alla valorizzazione di queste preziose opere d’arte cartacee. Le pagine manoscritte e i cuttings facevano tutti parte di corali liturgici, grandi libri dedicati ai canti della Messa e delle preghiere quotidiane, riccamente decorati di miniature. 

I corali hanno subito furti e sono stati violati nella loro integrità. Molti fogli sono stati strappati o tagliati, rubati, venduti in gruppi, completamente privati del proprio contesto e infine dispersi. Come ha precisato la prof.ssa Chiodo: 

“Le pagine recuperate sono vittime di un naufragio, ma dobbiamo tenere presente che ciò che manca non è perduto ma soltanto disperso. Da qualche parte nel mondo è ancora conservato da qualcuno, che forse inconsapevolmente, ne detiene illecitamente la proprietà”. 

La mostra è divisa in sei sezioni, corrispondenti ai luoghi di provenienza delle pagine dei corali: i conventi francescani di Pistoia e di Poggibonsi; la pieve di Castelfiorentino; la chiesa di Santo Stefano al Ponte di Firenze; le abbazie benedettine di San Pietro e di Montemorcino a Perugia. Lo studio storico-artistico è stato il presupposto fondamentale per le indagini e si è occupato della ricostruzione dei frammenti. Oltre che dalla bibliografia e dalle fotografie occorre partire dal dettaglio superstite per creare nuovamente l’insieme perduto, che deve essere studiato cercando di capire e di riconoscere la morfologia del corale; così come lo specchio di scrittura, articolato dalla parte musicale e da quella testuale e di ricomporre la scansione liturgica dei graduali e degli antifonari. 

Uno studio interessante che non si limita alla parte teorica della Storia dell’Arte ma che richiede di scendere in campo e di conoscere dal vivo le pagine nei luoghi in cui sono conservate. Personalmente mi sono occupata della serie di 22 corali proveniente dall’abbazia olivetana di Montemorcino a Perugia, trasferiti nella casa madre dell’Ordine a Monte Oliveto Maggiore (Asciano) il 4 agosto del 1821. Il mio gruppo di ricerca era composto da altre tre colleghe, le dottoresse Beatrice Molinelli, Giulia Spina e Alice Stivali. Ricostruire l’intera serie ormai dispersa non è stato semplice anche per la spregiudicatezza del furto, avvenuto alle prime ore del 7 maggio del 1975, che ha compromesso irreversibilmente l’unità della serie fatta di immagini, parole e musica. 

I ladri rubarono sedici pesanti corali dalla biblioteca dell’abbazia lasciandone quattro durante la fuga. Alcuni mesi dopo sono stati ritrovati i resti di questi libri nel letame, privati della legatura originale quattrocentesca, della coperta e ovviamente di tutte le miniature. La nostra ricerca si è basata sulle fotografie precedenti al furto, sulla bibliografia e sullo spoglio dei cataloghi d’asta. Il lavoro è poi proseguito con lo studio del contenuto liturgico e con l’analisi stilistica delle piccole opere d’arte miniate, fortemente influenzate dalla maniera pittorica di Perugino e Pintoricchio. 

Siamo riuscite così a individuare e ricollegare altri nuovi frammenti di questa importante serie umbra e individuare un corale, contente l’Officio dei Morti, che era considerato disperso e ora ricongiunto alla serie per cui era stato realizzato. Queste miniature sono ancora più preziose in quanto evocative di una storia perduta. Sono infatti l’unica testimonianza rimasta dell’abbazia benedettina di Montemorcino, costruita su volere del cardinale Niccolò Capocci entro il 1371, della quale resta solamente un lato del chiostro a seguito della demolizione avvenuta nel 1739. 


La mostra si presenta dunque come un esempio concreto e riuscito di come la ricerca scientifica e quella criminologica possono e devono concorrere insieme al recupero e alla restituzione del patrimonio artistico e culturale. L’auspicio è che collaborazioni di questo tipo possano perpetuarsi nel tempo ed essere un monito e uno strumento educativo affinché l’arte non venga più lesa ma possa restare un bene per l’umanità. 

Maria Eletta Benedetti, Guest Blogger, ARCA

July 1, 2020

Wednesday, July 01, 2020 - ,,,,,, No comments

Auction House Seizure: A Roman marble portrait head of the Emperor Septimius Severus, circa 200 CE seized at Christie's

Image Left:  Christie's Catalogue where the stolen sculpture was identified.
Image Right:  Showroom image of the stolen head of Emperor Septimius Severus

An ancient Roman marble head was seized on the basis of a search warrant requested by the Manhattan District Attorney's Office on June 24th at Christie’s auction house based on evidence provided by the Italian Carabinieri for the Protection of Cultural Heritage, attesting that the portrait bust had been stolen from Italy in on 18 November 1985 before eventually landing in New York.  Taken at gunpoint from the Antiquarium of the Campanian Amphitheatre in Santa Maria Capua Vetere, in the Province of Caserta, situated 25 km north of Naples in southern Italy.  The sculpture depicts Septimius Severus who served as Roman emperor from 193 to 211 CE. 

The antiquity was published in Christie's 28 October 2019 catalogue Faces of the Past - Ancient Sculpture from the Collection of Dr. Anton Pestalozzi which included two pages describing the biography of the Roman Emporer and the object's comparable likeness to other portraits of Severus in the Serapis-type style, including one at the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek in Denmark.

For the object's provenance, Christie's stated:

◘ with Jean-Luc Chalmin, London

◘ with Galerie Arete, Zurich, acquired from the above, 1993

◘ Dr. Anton Pestalozzi (1915-2007), Zurich, acquired from the above, thence by descent to the current owner. 

According to Roman Historian Cato the Elder the site at Ancient Capua where the object originates was founded by the Etruscans around 800 BCE and is remembered most for being the site where slaves and gladiators led by the legendary Spartacus revolted 73 BCE. 

While details on this particular investigation have not yet been released to the public, one of the troubling aspects in this case - of which there are many - and the most disturbing perhaps, is the failure of anyone whose hands this object passed through to have properly investigated the provenance of this portrait head.  No one, from Jean-Luc Chalmin, to Hans Humbel at Galerie Arete to the Zurich-based lawyer-collector Dr. Anton Pestalozzi ever bothered to ascertain by reasonable inquiry that the person from whom they had obtained the artifact had the legal right to possess it.

Amphitheater Campano Santa Maria Capua Vetere

On the bright side, this third object seizure in a span of weeks should send an important message to the auction powerhouse, as well as to dealers who profit from the sales of illicit material, that the Antiquities Trafficking Unit at the Manhattan District Attorney's Office and the US and Italian authorities are committed to protecting cultural heritage around the world.

A second artefact, stolen during this same armed robbery, a head portrait depicting the beloved elder sister of Roman Emperor Trajan, Ulpia Marciana (August 48 – 112) was recovered, twenty-five years ago, ten years after the theft.

Update:

This artefact was restituted to Italy on December 30, 2021.



June 29, 2020

Monday, June 29, 2020 - ,,,,,,,, 4 comments

Object Alert: An Illicit antiquity breezes through the windy city

Hindman Auction Catalogue - 16 June 2020
Lot 157
Most of the time, when one thinks of illicit antiquities one imagines them transiting their way through lofty auction showrooms in London, New York, or more recently, as was in the news last week, Paris.  One doesn't usually suspect a homegrown auction house, from the windy city of Chicago, as a place to spot hot art that once passed through the hands of one of Italy's most notorious bad boys, art dealer Giacomo Medici.  But the market for looted or unprovenanced cultural property in America is still going strong and plundered artefacts have the tendency to scatter farther than you think.  Sometimes, when they do, they turn up in places that we don't expect, well, at least until we do.

An art dealer who post-sentence resides in an expansive seaside villa west of Rome, Giacomo Medici was convicted 13 December 2004 of participation in an organized criminal group as its principal promoter and organizer.  Men in his network plundered large swaths of Italy's territory, with the network's loot making its way into some of the world's most prestigious museums and lining the shelves of extravagant private collections.  But despite the sixteen years that have past since his conviction, Medici's ill-gotten wares continue to bubble to the surface, not unlike Italian gnocchi, one object at a time, in slow dribs and drabs and usually not even mentioning his name as was the case with this recent artefact.

This time, in late June, an investigation lead by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), in collaboration with the New York District Attorney's Office and the Carabinieri Command for the Protection of Cultural Heritage turned up another one of Giacomino's antiquities, this time at Chicago's very own, Hindman Auctioneers, a firm which merged in 2019 with Ohio-based Cowan's and shortened its name from Leslie Hindman to just plain Hindman. 

Photographed on pages 116 and 117 of Hindman's 16 June 2020 Antiquities and Islamic Art catalogue, Lot 15, A Roman Marble Torso of a Faun with a Goose lists the artefact's provenance succinctly: 

Private Collection. London, acquired in New York in the early 1990s 
Oliver Forge & Brendan Lynch. London, 2013

What was provided to back up this claim, or what import, export, or shipping documents were submitted to demonstrate that this Italian antiquity's passages into the United States previously, then back across the sea to the UK, then back into Chicago were legitimate, leaves me curious. 

With no difficulty, and without auction consignment profits to incentivise (or disincentivise) my due diligence, I was quickly, and without too much trouble, able to find and cross-reference the 2013 sale via the Forge & Lynch Antiquities - Including the Collection of Ernst Langlotz (1895-1978) catalogue.   This sales PDF documented the previous sale of the mythological half-human, half-goat, creature with a discreet tail in a two-page spread.

Oliver Forge and Brendan Lynch Ltd.,
Antiquities - Including the Collection of Ernst Langlotz (1895-1978) Catalogue - 2013

Joint proprietors of the art dealership Oliver Forge and Brendan Lynch Ltd., Forge and Lynch left Sotheby’s in London in 1997 when the auction house began winding down its London antiquities sales and continued working together for their own ancient art gallery formed in the UK in July 2000.  Both art dealers are familiar with the problem children antiquities dealers of yesteryear from their Sotheby's days, and both have continued to get their reputations scorched brokering suspect art via more recent problematic dealers like Subhash Kapoor. 

So even without Medici's name clearly printed on anything provenance-y provided by the Faun's consignor to Hindman, one has to question first where Forge & Lynch themselves got the piece, and secondly, their own provenance entry for the earlier sale of this artefact, which reads: 

Probably acquired in New York, early 1990s  
Private collection, London, early 1990s-2013

This entry leads me to ask why Hindman changed the "probably acquired in New York" to definitely acquired in New York.  It is also curious why Hindman left off the non-specific "Private collection" in London which at first shakes, might appear less problematic than Robin Symes, whose name appears elsewhere in the June catalogue for LOT 83 from this sale. 

Did someone at Hindman find paperwork that changed the Faun's purported New York acquisition from probable into definite?  And what about that private collection in London from the 1990s until 2013.  Wasn't that one line, even vaguely written, not naming names worth mentioning on the big empty space of the full-page advertisement for the sculpture?  So why did Hindman elect to omit this detail?  

My hunch is that Hindman, who voluntarily relinquished the sculpture of the Faun to the authorities once evidence was presented by law enforcement, operates under the assumption that the occasional confiscation of a found-to-be-looted antiquity identified in their sales catalogues is a reasonable cost of doing business in the murky world of ancient art.  

Risks Hindman has already proved willing to take in the past and that illicit antiquities researcher Christos Tsirogiannis, cooperating with HSI-ICE, pointed out in an earlier Hindman auction, published in the auction house's ‘Worldly Pursuits: An Adventurer’s Collection. The Estate of Steve and Peggy Fossett catalogue. In that sale, Tsirogiannis identified three antiquities which matched archival photos in the Medici and Symes archives which proved that the objects had once passed through, or been shared with the networks of Giacomo Medici, Robin Symes, and Christo Michaelides.

But let's go back to this month's Hindman, June 16th auction catalogue.  In this summer's sale, 127 objects out of 273 are listed without any provenance dates whatsoever.  Of the 146 remaining objects included in the catalogue which do list some date references:

15 show collection history dates which predate the UNESCO 1970s convention;
12 show collection history dates only to the 1970s;
85 show collection history dates only to the 1980s;
32 show collection history dates only to the 1990s;
and 2 only go back as far as the 2000s.

 Knowing that illicit trafficking eyes cannot monitor every single sale, or inquire about every single object consigned to every auction house around the world, leaving out provenance details creates an environment conducive for a game of risk, with dealers more than willing to play, chalking up any losses from the occasional identified object after it has been illegally exported, as inventory shrinkage.

By limiting the details of what is written in provenance descriptions for objects being sold, dealers and auction houses create intentional impediments to those who try to research an object's legitimacy, making it more difficult to discern when an antiquity has passed through the hands of suspect dealers and when a legitimate object has simply been badly documented by a previous owner careless with their receipts.  And that's just speaking to those interested enough, and with the time to dedicate to actually monitor the previous sales of ancient artefacts.

According to a new report published to the LiveAuctioneers website, this inaugural Hindman ancient art auction brought in nearly $1M in sales, proving once again, that despite all the academics screaming about the necessity for clean provenance, buyers of ancient art, for the most part, are not unduly curious about the collection histories of their potential ancient art purchases.  Likewise, more collectors continue to be oblivious or disengaged as to whether or not the antiquities market is problematic and whether or not their lack of curiosity, and lack of due diligence before buying, acts as a catalyst for the destruction of archaeological sites in the Mediterranean world.

Should Hindman have known better with this artefact and should they have been more forthcoming with all of the collection histories listed for this $1M sale's catalogue? Yes and yes.

Hindman Auctioneers was founded by Leslie Hindman in Chicago in 1982.  The firm was not born yesterday, therefore they should be aware of the problems of illicit material infiltrating the ancient art market.  Thomas Galbraith who took over from Leslie Hindman as CEO of the company she founded, (she remains on the board) previously worked as Artnet’s director of global strategy and as interim CEO for Google Venture's start-up Twyla, an online sales platform for art, meaning they both are experienced in art world sales. Given the people at Hindman's helm, and the company's sales presence on the Live Auctioneers sales portal, it also stands to reason that the Chicago auction house has employees with sufficient technical abilities and talent to Google the legitimacy of the objects they accept on consignment and the names of dealers which are problematic.  Given that neither Galbraith nor Hindman are new to the problems of the world, one can assume that their lack of transparency when it comes to collection publishing collection histories for the objects they auction is a conscious choice.

But despite all this, the windy city seems to be gaining ground in the art market. Phillips and Bonhams, both based in London, having opened there, alongside already existing Christie's, and Sotheby's, to keep Hindman company. And browsing through the names of important London and New York ancient art dealers like Charles Ede Ltd., and Royal Athena Galleries whose's pieces were selling in this June's Hindman catalogue, it seems apropos to remind collectors of ancient art (once again) of the need to open their eyes and ask for proof of legitimacy, before simply forking over cash for what might turn out to be tomorrow's new seizure. 

By:  Lynda Albertson

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