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Showing posts with label TEFAF. Show all posts
Showing posts with label TEFAF. Show all posts

October 27, 2026

Tuesday, October 27, 2026 - ,,,,,,, No comments

Welcome Home, Kannappa Nayanar: Now Explain How You Got to TEFAF


Last week, a stolen 11th century bronze statue of Kannappa Nayanar arrived back to its country of origin having been repatriated from the Netherlands to the Government of India.  The idol was delivered home along with a group of previously relinquished royal charter plates issued by the Chola-era Kings during the 11th century CE which had earlier been voluntarily relinquished by Leiden University Library.  


The newly-returned idol is a Chola-era bronze dating from the 11th century CE, which depicts a fierce and noble-hearted hunter named Thinnan, who is one of Shaivism’s most revered devotees.  Celebrated for his unwavering devotion to Lord Shiva, Thinnan is also known as Kannappa Nayanar, one of 63 revered Shiva saints who spearheaded the early medieval Bhakti movement in South India and who offered his own eyes (Kanna) in worship.

His historic journey from hunter to greatest devotee of Lord Shiva, giving virtually all that he had, is immortalised in the 12th century Hindu text Periya Puranam, which tells the story of the canonical poets of Tamil Shaivism, recounting the lives of the saints.

For more than a decade, this sacred statue of living worship, lay far from the land and community that revered it.  Its absence felt long before its whereabouts were determined.  

The idol’s silence was broken when two experts  from ARCA, Stefano Alessandrini and Ibrahim Bulut, attended The European Fine Art Fair (TEFAF) in March 2025.  There, they each photographed the Kannappa on a large display pedestal at the booth of Marcel Nies Oriental Art and forwarded the images to me. 

Recognising that the statue was not merely a unique lost-wax sculpture of beauty, but an idol whose sole purpose would have been for daily worship, I shared the concerning images with Vijay Kumar, the cofounder of India Pride Project, a civil society and provenance research organisation with access to archival material and tools to advocate for the return of stolen cultural property from India.  

IPP in turn sent ARCA's photo taken at the European fair to ADSP Shri. Balamurugan of the Idol Wing CID of the Tamil Nadu police.  Balamurugan in turn shared photos from the statue's discovery, and identified the original FIR denouncing the idol's theft from the Arulmigu Agneeswarar Temple in Tiruppugazhur, Nagapattinam district in Tamil Nadu state in southern India.

The stolen idol, created as a focus of ritual, prayer, and presence, was one of 27 bronzes rediscovered in a buried hoard unearthed when the temple premises were being dug during the construction of a Appar Mandapa (a temple hall) named in honour of the Shaivite saint Appar.  The bronze was made during the rule of a powerful dynasty of temple-builders and Shaivite patrons and belongs to a tradition in which sacred sculpture embodies a divine presence.  

The hoard may have been buried on the temple grounds for safekeeping during the upheavals surrounding Malik Kafur’s invasion of the Pandya kingdom in the early fourteenth century when Nagapattinam was the most important port of the Chola empire.  Its concealment would have offered protection against plunder and the destruction or melting down of sacred images, although the circumstances of its  particular burial remain to be explored.

Centuries later, and before it had been fully cleaned, the bronze was stolen and smuggled out of India.  This removal severed its bond with the local Hindu community and prompted a theft investigation that, until the idol resurfaced in the Netherlands, had yielded few leads.  

2002 Excavation photos

While the European fair was still under way, Kumar used IPP's sophisticated proprietary AI tool, named after India's historic archer Ekalavya, to digitally removed the encrustations from the idol's discovery photos.  He then matched strategic points between the India's hoard photos with the one taken by ARCA of the now-cleaned bronze being offered for sale, noting that the bronze at TEFAF retained the same physical proportions as the one photographed on Nies stand at the fair.

Having identified strong correspondences in the object's contour analysis, and histogram comparison, Kumar then forwarded his findings to Tamil Nadu’s Idol Wing, noting that both the documented discovery and the subsequent police First Information Report (FIR) postdated the entry into force of India’s Antiquities and Art Treasures Act, 1972.   Taken together, the photographic identification and documented chronological evidence supported the case that the idol had been illicitly removed from India.  The Act restricts the export of antiquities, including qualifying sculptures and metal objects at least 100 years old, to the Central Government or its agencies. 

The case was then taken up by Pravesh Kumar, Inspector General of Police, Idol Wing CID, and the Archaeological Survey of India in Delhi, who formally initiated proceedings with the Dutch authorities and their respective ministries.   On 23 March 2025, following up on the request by the Indian government, the Dutch authorities seized the bronze and placed it in the custody.  

Their ensuing investigation ultimately led the Belgian dealer to relinquish the statue voluntarily, which cleared the way for last week's voluntary return, done without fanfare or formal announcement by the Dutch authorities.  ARCA only learned of the object's return after its quietly arrival back in India. 

While the return of the Kannappa Nayanar is a welcome culmination of a year and a half of hopeful waiting, the silence surrounding its return does raise a broader concern about the diplomatic politics of discretionary restitutions: arrangements in which objects are voluntarily returned on the condition that the resolution remains outside official press statements, thus insulating a dealer or collector from deeper public scrutiny.  Such arrangements may offer an expedient route to repatriation, but they can also carry serious consequences for investigations and provenance due diligence.  

When legally binding restitution agreements restrict disclosure of how a stolen idol entered Europe, from whom it was acquired, and who facilitated its movement through the art market, researchers such as those working at ARCA and India Pride Project may lose access to evidence that could help reconstruct trafficking routes, establish timelines, and identify individuals connected to other cases.  The Netherlands' discreet and diplomatic silence in this case does not establish that such conditions applied to this particular return, or that information was withheld from investigators, but the concern is what provenance information can be lost to forensic researchers when National agencies are bound and beholding to confidentiality agreements negotiated as part of a voluntary relinquishment.

In such circumstances, a dealer who relinquishes an object assuredly suffers the financial loss of his/her investment through the voluntary return of the piece, but that is the full extent of their consequence.  Shielded by confidentiality, they are spared the more probing examination of how the stolen object was acquired, what inquiries were made to ascertain its legitimate origin at the time of the object's acquisition, and at what point if any, were warning signs missed, or perhaps intentionally overlooked. 

Confidentiality can deny collectors, institutions, and art market peers information that might prompt them to question their own acquisitions. The public receives a perfunctory account of resolution, while art crime researchers lose access to evidence that could connect objects, transactions, and the actors who repeatedly circulate suspect material. What disappears behind that silence is the opportunity to recognise a pattern, trace other displaced objects, and prevent the next acquisition from repeating the same failures.

As a result, accountability within the collector and dealer communities isn't triggered.  

At ARCA, we understand that when a Shaivite idol is stolen, its community experiences the abduction of a divine presence.  Its return last week will begin to heal a rupture, allowing worship to resume and restoring the sacred to its rightful place within the living rhythm of ritual life.  But restitution should also open the way to accountability.  

Given the concerns raised about other objects circulated by Marcel Nies’s Antwerp gallery over the past decade, forensic researchers focused on Asian art will continue to explore how many suspect pieces may have passed through his hands, from whom they were acquired, and where they are now.  One problematic acquisition might be explained as an oversight.  But repeated dealings in suspect material by an experienced and founding dealer presenting artefacts annually at TEFAF requires a fuller scrutiny which isn't diminished simply by discreetly offering to return an  object when the National authorities come knocking. 

The voluntary return of this idol is welcome, but it doesn't purchase silence about its acquisition nor close the door on further scrutiny.  Returning the object answers the question of where it belongs.  It does not answer for how it came to be offered for sale in the first place.

By:  Lynda Albertson

January 7, 2026

Wednesday, January 07, 2026 - ,,,,,,,,,, No comments

Boris Vervoordt’s TEFAF Appointment Sparks Debate on Leadership, Influence, and Problematic Art

Axel Vervoordt Co is a family-led business.
Boris (left) and Axel (right).Image Credit: TEFAF

In a surprising turn for the international art fair circuit, Dominique Savelkoul  stepped down as Managing Director of the European Fine Art Foundation, (TEFAF), at the end of December in what was described by the foundation this week as "differing views on the strategic direction."  This marks the second leadership change in just over one year at one of the world’s largest fair providers for fine art, antiques, and design, covering 7,000 years of art history.

TEFAF confirmed this week that, Boris Vervoordt, one of the sons of Belgian art and design dealer Axel Vervoordt, and a driving force behind his father's influential Axel Vervoordt Co, has been named chairman since 1 January 2026 and that the fair's executive committee members will each take turns leading the foundation for a period of six months. Vervoordt is the first non-Dutch chairman to steer Europe's prominent art foundation and on paper, brings visibility, experience, and an enviable network of ultra-high-net-worth clients to the foundation's annual New York and Maastricht fairs.  

Well known in the art world for cultivating an enviable black book of high-profile collectors and luxury tastemakers, Vervoordt arrives to TEFAF's management with deep familiarity of the fair’s culture and commercial ecosystem having been a participant from the fairs beginnings. Active in the international world of art, design, and antiques since the late 1960s, the family of Belgian art dealers have sold everything from Egyptian marble bowls, to contemporary Japanese paintings and Le Corbusier armchairs.

In it's current iteration, Axel Vervoordt Co, was founded in Belgium in 2011 (and in Hong Kong in 2014). Their  art gallery, arts and antiques trading organization, interior design and real estate development divisions are headquartered, since 2017, outside Antwerp, at an industrial complex known as Kanaal.  Part gallery, part exhibition space, Vervoordt's showcase institution is housed in a former malting distillery and malting complex built in 1857 on a shipping canal leading to the port of Antwerp, though many Vervoordt-held companies are registered elsewhere. 

Over several decades, Axel and Boris Vervoordts' clients have included Bill Gates, Calvin Klein, Mick Jagger, Givenchy, Calvin Klein, Ralph Lauren and Sting and his wife, Trudie Styler. But their brand extends beyond the art market into interior design, with widely publicised commissions for minimalist fusions of East and West, have been developed for petroleum heiress Betty Gertz in Texas, actor Robert De Niro’s TriBeCa penthouse in New York, and Kanye West and Kim Kardashian's home in the Hidden Hills neighbourhood of Calabasas in California to name a few. 

Vervoordt has also been connected to the interior redesign of a listed villa in Cap d’Ail on the French Riviera associated with shell companies tied to sanctioned 
Russian telecoms oligarch Sergei Nikolaevich Adonev, whose vast financial empire and holding companies have been identified as receiving investment and support from various figures linked to the Kremlin and Vladimir Putin.  These high-end affiliations underscore the breadth of the Vervoordt network, but also highlight the degree to which the family's businesses have profited in proximity to politically exposed or controversial figures.

Rostec boss Sergei Chemezov, Vladimir Putin and multi-millionaire Sergei Adonyev

A Pattern of Troubled Objects

While the Vervoordt name carries clout among the Who's Who in the art world, the family firm can also been linked, in several documented instances, to objects  identified as stolen, looted, or connected to problematic provenance histories, a few of which our outlined here.  Taken individually, these cases reflect the complexities of the art and antiquities market. Viewed together, they reveal a pattern that raises questions about whether Vervoordt's commercial considerations at times superseded rigorous vetting and the ethical stewardship expected in handling the world’s cultural patrimony.

In the 1980s Axel Vervoordt purchased the floor you see in this photo of his library at 's-Gravenwezel castle, the medieval fortress surrounded by 60-hectares of park land he calls home. After the parquet de Versailles floor was restored and published in the October 1986 issue of Architectural Digest, French authorities informed him that the flooring had been stolen from a French château.

Later, in March 1998, at a time when the art world's big players paid little attention to whether an artwork offered for sale could have been stolen during the Second World War, Axel Vervoordt brought the painting Sumptuous Still Life with Lobster, Oysters, Silvergilt Covered Beaker, Silver Mounted Kendi Wine Flask and Glassware by Pieter Gerritsz van Roestraten, (21 April 1630 – 10 July 1700), a Dutch Golden Age painter, apprenticed to Frans Hals to TEFAF's fair at the MECC Exhibition and Convention Center in Maastricht. 

Its provenance, stated:

"Doweswell, circa 1900; A. Schloss Collection, Paris; Private Collection, Belgium"

Remarkably, neither the Vervoordt gallery, nor their buyer raised any eyebrows. 

This despite the fact that the painting is recorded in publicly available wartime asset lists as having been taken during World War II from the renowned Schloss Collection, assembled by Adolphe Schloss—a German-Jewish collector whose family holdings, including more than 300 paintings were seized during the Nazi occupation. Documentation related to the Schloss seizure, including official French postwar recovery reports and international claims lists, identified the still life among the numerous works looted from the Schloss family collection. 

The French Ministry of Foreign Affairs even stated where the then holder of the Van Roestraten painting as: "Private collection, Belgium. Castle of 's-Gravenwezel,  the six-story castle home Axel Vervoordt shares with his wife May in Belgium. Deflecting from its non pristine past, Vervoordt sold the painting at the Maastricht fair along with the silver matching ewer which is depicted in the artist's work.  The painting sold for $800,000 to an unnamed European private collector.

Again, not shying away from World War II sensitivities, in 2011,  Le Monde, art critic and correspondent Philippe Dagen reflected on an exhibition curated by Axel Vervoordt at the Palazzo Fortuny in Venice. He noted that while the inaugural Artempo show had been widely admired, and its successor In-Finitum had leaned heavily into a lavish presentation of works associated with Vervoordt, the Belgian's third installment, TRA, included an absurd work by Cuban artist Tania Bruguera: a heavy iron sculpture emblazoned with the phrase: Arbeit macht frei, translated as "Work makes [one] free." 


Following the rise to power of the the National Socialist German Workers' Party in 1933, this phrase was posted above the entrances of several Nazi concentration camps, including Auschwitz.  According to Dagen, the piece appeared without contextual explanation, leaving visitors to encounter one of the Holocaust's most charged symbols of the twentieth century with no curatorial framing.  This absence of interpretation, he suggested, contributed significantly to the discomfort surrounding the exhibition’s presentation. 

Leaving aside the Second World War, the Vervoordt family has also handled antiquities which can be traced to problematic origins. By 2014 Dr. Morgan Belzic, a leading researcher in conflict antiquities originating from Libya had  identified Vervoordt's firm as having advertised a suspect Greek Hellenistic head (Belzic D.16) which was said to come from a "Private collection F.B., Barcelona, ca. 1970; Private collection, Europe, before 1970." 

Those familiar with Belzic's work on identifying stolen artefacts from Cyrenaica,  the region in North Africa located between Roman Egypt and Tripolitania; today it is part of Libya know that his identifications have lead to restitutions, some of which have been discussed on ARCA's blog.  Often, that same research, in favourable jurisdictions, has resulted in restitutions of cultural property to Libya. Note that the absence of a face, or aprosopy, remains without real parallel in any other location in the rest of the Mediterranean world. Likewise, this object's first appearance in circulation on the international art market coincides with the Second Libyan Civil War (2014–2020), which marked a large uptick in material appearing on the art market from illegal digging around Cyrene, near Shahhat, during the country's instability.

Also in 2014, Vervoordt's firm brought a first century BCE South Arabia (Yemen) alabaster Relief of a Male Figure with Elaborate Hairdo and Horns to TEFAF's Maastrich fair.  For that event, the gallerist listed the object's provenance as: "Ancient collection Belgium, acquired in 1940; Ancient collection M. Abdalla Babeker, Sudan, acquired between 1917 and 1930."

It should be noted that "M. Abdalla Babeker" has been identified as a false-collector name which has come up in provenance records linked to stolen artefacts from Sudan circulated and sold by Jaume Bagot, of J. Bagot Arqueología in Barcelona.  That problematic Catalan dealer, frequently discussed on ARCA's blog, is known for having handled stolen Egyptian shabtis of the Pharaoh Taharqa and Senkamanisken which were illegally exported out of North African country and sold onward in the European ancient art market with this same Babeker provenance.

In 2016 Kayne West visited Vervoordt’s stand at TEFAF in Maastricht ahead of the design firms work on the California mansion he shared with his then-wife Kim Kardashian.  According to U.S. Court documents filed in California, an 11 March 2016 invoice made out by Vervoordt's firm to Noel Roberts Trust, listed the sale of a well worn artefact referred to as "Fragment of Myron Samian Athena."   

This object was seized by US Customs and Border Protection at the Los Angeles/Long Beach Seaport on 15 June 2016 as part of a 40-item shipment weighing more than 5 tons collectively valued at over $745,000.  A form submitted by a customs broker lists the importer and consignee of the items as "Kim Kardashian dba (doing business as) Noel Roberts Trust," an entity linked to Kim Kardashian and Kanye West’s US real estate purchases.

That same Roman sculpture was photographed at Vervoordt's booth in TEFAF by the Italian Carabinieri on 21 March 2011 as well as next to a second suspect object from Cyrenaica photographed at Vervoordt's  Kanaal exhibition space the following year. 

Nowadays, Vervoordt's family brings fewer pieces of ancient art to their TEFAF fair booth, opts more often than not for contemporary paintings, minimalist furniture and Wabi Sabi artworks, a hat tip to the Japanese philosophy that finds beauty in imperfection.

Even so, the few that have been displayed still come from questionable backgrounds, just far enough removed from their illicit circulation as to make them untouchable by Dutch law.  Take for example this 11th century CE sandstone Khmer Figure of a Male Deity on sale at Vervoordt's Maastrich stand in 2023 or the 13th - 14th century sandstone head of Buddha in Lopburi style the family brought in 2025.  


Both ultimately trace back to decades-old transactions involving a corrupt Chinese-Thai antiquities dealer named Peng Seng, also known as Arthorn Sirikantraporn.  Based in Bangkok, Seng was a well-known supplier of artefacts of murky origins, many transiting through France and the UK.  He was known to have worked closely with indicted dealer Douglas Latchford, (1931–2020), as well as Robert Rousset, (1901-1981), of Compagnie de la Chine et des Indes, the dealer in France both of these pieces were shipped to once purchased for the European market.


A letter, mentioned in the 2019 US Federal indictment against art dealer Douglas Latchford and later reported in an article published by the the Australian Broadcasting Company, describes perfectly, how Seng and Latchford agreed to work together to fabricate provenance so plundered material from southeast Asia could be whitewashed into the licit market in London, clearly circumventing source country  cultural property laws. 

That letter, written by a representative from the auction house Spink & Son, casts doubt on the legitimacy of hundreds of items sourced by Seng in the 60s and 70s and later sold  to private collectors, galleries, and museums around the world. 

It read, in part:

"I would consider my visit there most successful. The financial situation being what it is, I was anxious to spend as little money as possible in purchases and get as many pieces on consignment as possible. I am glad to say it worked out better than I expected."

"I bought a beautiful Baphuon female torso from Peng Seng for $ 13'000, a small, but exquisite Baphuon head from Chai Ma for $ 2'000 and four pieces from Douglas Latchford for $ 20'000. These Bangkok purchases, together with a vase from Mayuyama, $ 8'500, bring the grand total of my purchases on this trip to $ 43'500."

"The greater part of my time in Bangkok was spent in numberous [sic] meetings with our friend Douglas, I am getting the following two important pieces on consignment:(they are supposedly already on their way)."

"Pre Angkor Hari Hara, about 35", supposedly recently excavated in Cambodia near the South Vietnamese border, It is a great piece. The selling price will be $ 300'000 or over, still to be decided upon with Latchford."

"Large Koh Ker female torso; another very beautiful and important piece, selling price $ 100 000 or more, to be determined still."

"Douglas has the following 3 bronzes which at this time he is not ready to give me yet, but which I am sure will come in the very near future."

"I have explored extensively with Peng Seng and Latchford how to get legitimate papers for the large Koh Ker guardian and for all subsequent shipments. The following is the best procedure that I can think of at this time:  For the Koh Ker guardian Peng Seng will send us a letter written and signed somebody in Bangkok. He will say that he has seen this piece in Peng Seng's shop three years ago. Peng Seng would like us to give him the exact text we want in this letter. You and I will discuss this when I am in London."

"On all future shipments of important pieces only, both Peng Seng and Latchford, they will ship the pieces the way they have always done, but at more or less the same time will send a modern piece of about the same size and same subject, described on the airway bill in such a way that nobody will know to which this airway bill applies. From my discussions with Sherman Lee I can say that an airway bill which describes the shipment as a sculpture, rather than "personal belongings", would be satisfactory. It also occurred to me that: we are mostly talking about Khmer art from Cambodia, being shipped out of Thailand, which is not the country of origin, this should lessen our problem."

Peng also communicated in detail with Robert Haines, the David Jones Art Gallery director, explaining to him that he would still send the gallerist plundered Ban Chiang pottery, despite the ban put in place by the Prime Minister of Thailand prohibiting their export in 1972.

Although TEFAF’s vetting committees have, over the years, approved the display of long-looted pieces, links like these, to networks identified in criminal investigations into antiquities trafficking, raise serious questions about the consistency and rigour of the fair’s vetting standards. The fact that an object may now fall outside a statute of limitations does not resolve the ethical concerns surrounding its removal, circulation, or sale. For many observers, TEFAF’s willingness to showcase such works suggests that its vaunted vetting procedures risks becoming a matter of form rather than substance, an institutional gesture that satisfies procedural requirements, making objects "legal now", while sidestepping the deeper moral obligations inherent in stewarding cultural heritage.

Can TEFAF uphold its ethical commitments while being led by someone whose professional history intersects with so many provenance disputes?

The answer to this question matters.  Not only for collectors and curators, but for the broader conversation about accountability in what is circulating on the art market.  TEFAF’s next chapter will be judged not just by the quality of works it presents to its wealthier clientele, but by whether it can maintain integrity and transparency at a time when the global art market should be looking at prior ownership and circulation with more scrutiny. 

One thing is clear. TEFAF’s next Management chapter will be closely watched, not just for what exhibitions and sales it delivers under its new management and oversight, but to observe how its new leadership navigates ethical credibility alongside profit. 

November 19, 2020

Thursday, November 19, 2020 - ,,,,,,,,, No comments

Unpacking what has been made public in the investigation into the recently restituted Egyptian stela in the name of the Head of the Elders of the Portal of Hathor-Lady-of-Mefket, Pa-di-séna

Image Credit:  Facebook user "Art of Ancient"

This week a 2600-year-old looted stela in the name of the Head of the Elders of the Portal of Hathor-Lady-of-Mefket, Pa-di-Séna (French spelling) was formally restituted to the Arab Republic of Egypt.  The plundered Late Period antiquity had been seized in New York in route to the December 5 – 8, 2019 TEFAF art fair, which proudly holds up its vetting process as one of the main pillars of its success. Their process allows its buyers to acquire art with confidence, though this apparently wasn't the case in this instance, as this $180,000 dodgy Egyptian limestone carving somehow slipped through the nuanced hands of the vetting experts, not just in the United States but also in Europe in Maastricht.  

But let's start at the beginning. 

Somewhere around 600 BCE the Stela of Pa-di-Séna was crafted in Egypt during the Late Period, which began with the rule of Psamtek I of the 26th Dynasty. Psamtek I is credited with shaking off foreign control by the Assyrians in the north and the Kushites in the south, reuniting Upper and Lower Egypt following a long period of political fragmentation.


The artisan who carefully sculpted the 110 cm honorary stela so many centuries ago did so in painstaking sunk relief.  With careful strokes his design depicts the owner, Pa-Di-Séna, wearing only a kilt and standing expectantly on one side of a full table he has filled with offerings to three deities  On the opposite side, the most prominent god is Osiris, accompanied by the falcon-headed Horus, and the goddess Hathor, who wears her traditional headdress of cow horns and a sun disk. 

The Stela of Pa-di-Sena would remain where it belonged, at Padisena’s tomb, back in Egypt, as a monument to the tomb's deceased, until after Egypt's Arab Spring, when a series of anti-government protests, uprisings, and armed rebellions spread across the country, and later to other parts of the Arab world.  During this period Egyptian authorities reported a significant uptick in heritage looting.

In 2012, the Manhattan D.A.’s Antiquities Trafficking Unit first got a whiff that the illicitly excavated Stela of Pa-di-Séna was being shopped by the same international smuggling network that had also trafficked the ancient gold mummiform coffin, inscribed in the name of Nedjemankh.  That spectacular trafficked antiquity was sold with fraudulent provenance documentation and export licenses to the Metropolitan Museum of Art and was restituted to Egypt thanks to the work at the DA's office in October 2019.   

Shaaban Abdel-Gawad - Head of the Egyptian Department of Repatriation
Image Credit: Egyptian Department of Repatriation,
Ministry of Antiquities-Arab Republic of Egypt

Conversations between the smugglers involved in the trafficking network discussed the potential sale of a stela, but it was not until 2015 that the traffickers began exchanging photos.  In these, the artefact appears freshly looted, cracked and unrestored, with chip marks along the edge of the break, which strongly suggest that the looting was not only AFTER Egypt's antiquities laws, but that the break was intentional, perhaps to ease the transport from the looting site or when smuggling the piece abroad, dividing it into smaller sections that might be harder to detect. 

But in 2015, the Stela of Pa-di-Séna's location was outside the Manhattan office's jurisdiction. 

By 2016, far from its Egyptian tomb, the Stela of Pa-di-Séna surfaced on the antiquities market for the first time in the hands of Christophe Kunicki who published the stela on his website.  The stela then made its first appearance on the public stage in Paris, with La Gazette de l'Hôtel Drouot announcing the offering on May 25th with Pierre Bergé & Associés and Christophe Kunicki listing the estimated sale price at €50,000-60,000.  

Along with this relatively low figure for an ancient and rare Egyptian object, the provenance presented by the sellers was the same as that used for the looted Golden Coffin in the name of Nedjemankh:

"Old Habib Tawadros collection. German collection, acquired in 1970."  

Not to worry, despite the vague provenance, the Stela of Pa-di-Séna was snapped up anyway.  More importantly, it brought its middlemen almost three times the auctioneer's presale estimate.  This despite the fact that the object came with fabricated ownership records and falsified export documents attributed to the Egyptian authorities dating back to the 1970s.  Documents, it should be said, the seasoned purchaser who purchased the stela also readily accepted, despite marked incongruencies and factual errors which, as a purported expert, he should have easily recognized.

Screetshot: Sales results 25 May 2016
Pierre Bergé & Associés 

The 1970 provenance date on the falsified records is important as Egypt only enacted Law No. 117 "on the Protection of Antiquities" on 06 August 1983.  Article 1 defines an antiquity as "any movable or immovable property that is a product of any of the various civilizations...to a point one hundred years before the present and that has archaeological or historical value or significance as a relic of one of the various civilizations that have been established in the land of Egypt." Article 6 vests ownership of such property in the Egyptian state: "All antiquities...shall be deemed public property, and the ownership, possession and disposition of them shall be subject to the terms and conditions set forth in this law and regulations made thereunder." Article 7 states that "[a]ll trade in antiquities shall be prohibited as from the date of coming into force of this law." Finally, Article 9 prohibits the export of any antiquities: "no antiquity is to be taken outside the country."

So by 1970, had the paperwork been authentic, the new owner would have been in the clear.  

After its first purchase and by 2017, the Stela of Pa-di-Sena was being offered by C.E.C.O.A., I.A.D.A.A., and S.N.A member Galerie Cybèle in Paris, who apparently took the antiquity's made-up provenance, as supplied to Pierre Bergé by Christophe Kunicki, as the gospel truth.  All it would have taken for this gallery owner to have himself unmasked the deception, is to have done his due diligence. Had he inspected the export documents provided with any reasonable level of inquiry, he would have immediately understood the documentation accompanying the artifact was clearly and demonstrably fraudulent.  

But buyers looking to purchase the stela at TEFAF from Galerie Cybèle could rely on the calming statement provided by the president of one of the gallery's dealer associations, who says: the members of IADAA trade in ancient objects from private collections that have been on the market for decades, or even centuries.  Mr. Geerling also reassures potential collectors, saying: 

Our organisation, established in 1993, represents the top international dealers in Classical, Egyptian and Near Eastern ancient art. Our prime function is to facilitate good relations between the trade and museums, collectors, archaeologists and government agencies. We work with law enforcement and others to prevent crime and campaign vigorously for an open, legitimate trade operating under fair regulations. We firmly believe that the preservation of the relics of man’s ancient past is the responsibility of all.

Our members adhere to the highest professional standards as set out in our stringent code of ethics. They have therefore been well placed to understand and tackle issues of provenance that have become prevalent in recent years. Our members undertake due diligence as a matter of course and are obliged to check every object with a sales value over €5,000 with INTERPOL Database of Stolen Art or the the Art Loss Register. Your dealings with any member of the association can be made with the utmost confidence.

By utmost confidence, I assume President Geerling meant plausible deniability. One really doesn't have to dig very deeply to determine the stela's documentation was fraudulent, something the Manhattan D.A.'s office, with the help of the Egyptian Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities easily substantiated.

Despite all this, the owner of Galerie Cybèle took the stela to New York twice.  The first time in 2018 when it was highlighted by TEFAF in their "meet the expert" video complete, it seems, with small amounts of dirt incrustations left from recent excavation still visible in this close-up video of the artefact. 

It also was exhibited at TEFAF Maastricht in 2019 when forensic antiquities researchers noted again that the he suspect provenance, mentioned the same suspicious Luxor dealer, Tawadros (sometimes spelled Todrous and Tadross), associated with the Manhattan D.A.'s office's earlier seizure of the golden coffin. 

Despite this, the antiquity still didn't seem to arouse the suspicions of either its vendor or the vetters at Europe's premier art fair, both of whom are supposed to have their client's interests at heart, and both of whom appeared to be more focused on the object's authenticity, than the fact that it was ripped out of the ground at some point following the civil unrest in Egypt.  

Image Credit:
MasterArt Directory
2017

Flash forward to Autumn 2019, when the stela was scheduled to come back to Manhattan for the last time. On 19 October 2019 the Manhattan District Attorney's Office formally initiated a grand-jury investigation into this specific artefact and asked the Honorable Althea Drysdale to issue a seizure order providing her with evidence based upon their exhaustive multi-year investigation.  It was once this seizure order was signed that the process of returning the ancient object to its lawful owner, the Arab Republic of Egypt could truly begin.  

As a result of the identification of the Stela of Pa-di-Séna, as well as the identification of the ancient gold mummiform coffin, inscribed in the name of Nedjemankh, two important artefacts, both handled by the same chain of coinvolved, go home to Egypt. 

But who, if anyone has been charged? 

In relation to this case, law enforcement authorities in France detained five individuals in June 2020, based on investigative evidence related to both the Stela of Pa-di-Séna and the golden coffin of Nedjemankh.  All were brought in for questioning in relation to the network law enforcement in France and New York had identified as having trafficked in antiquities from conflict, and post-conflict, countries which were then laundered through the French ancient art market.  In August, a sixth individual, Roben Dib, who is connected to both sales, was also arrested in Hamburg, Germany.

Back in France, Galerie Cybèle, who has cooperated with the Manhattan D.A.'s office, has filed a lawsuit in the Paris courts to recoup the losses incurred in the purchase of the Stela of Pa-di-Sena. In it, they name the consignor, Nassifa el-Khoury, the mother of Roben Dib.  Dib is a manager of Dyonisos Gallery in Hamburg, Germany, an ancient art gallery owned by Serop Simonian. Both Dib and Serop Simonian have previously been the subject of criminal investigations in multiple countries, resulting in the seizure of hundreds of pieces of stolen cultural property. 

In light of all that, on 18 November the Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance, Jr. and his team lead by Matthew Bogdanos, formally handed over Stela of Pa-di-Séna to the people of Egypt during a repatriation ceremony attended by Ambassador Dr. Hesham Al-Naqib, Egyptian Consul General in New York and U.S. Homeland Security Investigations (“HSI”) Deputy Special Agent-in-Charge Erik Rosenblatt.  Shaaban Abdel-Gawad, Director General of the Department of Repatriated Antiquities at the Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities, said that the stela is scheduled to return to Egypt soon.

Unfortunately, we may never know where the plundered tomb of Pa-di-Séna was.  But at least the Egyptians and its Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities can take comfort that investigations into the objects moved by this trafficking ring continue, in Manhattan, in Egypt, and elsewhere.

By:  Lynda Albertson

March 5, 2020

Thursday, March 05, 2020 - ,,,, No comments

🏺 How a 21st century art market resembles its 18th century counterpart: Lessons for collectors attending TEFAF Maastricht 2020

"La vista dell'antiquario" 1788 by Jacques Sabet
In Rome, in the late 1700s, the value of ancient art was far different from what it is today.  The city's ancient grandeur, the Mirabilia urbis Romae (The Marvels of Rome) had faded considerably.  Gone were many of the cities grand Roman temples, its proud colonnades and heat-saving porticoes, which once heralded the glory, and some thought eternity, of Rome.   

Johann Wilhelm von Archenholz writing in 1791 at the peak of the Grand Tour wrote sadly:

In spite of the great care taken not to touch the ruins of the great Coliseum, which has been done formerly, it falls by degrees under the power of time; huge masses of stone detach themselves from it and roll upon each other; as there are everywhere wide breaches between, and there is no cement to keep them together, it may naturally be supposed, that in a few centuries more [than] nothing of the upper part will be left: but the lower, with its enormous vaults, is made for eternity, and will surely outlast all the ruins of Rome. . . . Of the broken stones of this gigantic work, the palace of Farnese, St. Mark’s, and the chancery have been erected. Its amphitheatrical ruins are now held sacred, as so many Christians suffered martyrdom in them. Altars have been erected within, before which some devout souls are always praying, in order to obtain the indulgences annexed to those acts of devotion. 

People of the day roasted fish in front of the Pantheon and in the Roman Forum, where the temples of Vesta and Caster and Pollux once stood,  the grassy spaces were used as a cattle market.  Within this decay, an enormous gap developed in culture and art between what Rome was at the height of the empire and what it was to become.  

Think that with Pope Pius VI’s commitment to sanitize and remake Rome in the late 1700s, he paid important artisans like Francesco Antonio Franzoni, one of the most renowned sculptors and restorers of antique sculpture in Rome of that period, a mere 20 scudi a month.  Pontifical big wigs, by comparison would earn between 20-30 scudi per month and a captain in the Pope's army received a paltry 200 scudi a year.  All in a time when a mid-day meal in Caput Mundi would cost you half a scudi. 

The Barberini Juno
Museo Pio-Clementino, Vatican Museums
By artistic comparison, in Rome during that same period, a museum-worthy sculpture, such as the colossal Roman statue of Juno, discovered in my old Rome neighborhood (Monti) in the late 17th century, sold for 2600 scudi to the Pius and Clementine’s Museum within the Vatican. Private individuals, growing their collections, bought ancient marble works in a frenzy, for anywhere from 100-300 scudi a pop. 

Like in today's market, famous contemporary artists of the late 1700s likewise received eye-popping (for their time) commissions for their creations.  Take for example the fee charged by Antonio Canova to sculpt the funeral monument of Clement XIII in St. Peter's Basilica.  His asking price? 11 thousand scudi. 

Yet, while Italy's attention was turned to reshaping their past, Anglo-Saxon nobility, who considered ancient Greek and Roman statuary as a tie to their heredity and an important status symbol, gladly profited by taking ancient Roman and Greek art off their hands.  Their buying sprees allowed the English to fill their manor houses back home without thought to the future generations of Italians who now make great efforts to preserve the past.  

Likewise, the 18th century art market also had its plundered components.  To feed the appetites of its wealthy foreign collectors, merchants bought up entire collections and resold them at staggeringly wide margins.  In doing so they carted off Italy's neglected cultural patrimony by the boatload.   

An example of this can be seen in the maritime cargo carried by the English ship Westmorland, one of a dozen armed vessels used by art merchants plying their lucrative trade in Italy, used to transport artworks back to Britain.   Records tell us that the vessel, armed with 22 carriage guns and 12-16 swivel guns, was seized by two French warships off the coast of Malaga, Spain on January 7, 1779.  

Having set sail from the Tuscan port city Livorno, the Westmorland's bounty was bound for important collectors such as the brother of George III, Prince William, 10th duke of Norfolk, and the Duke of Gloucester and Edinburgh. The ship's cargo was known to have included some 60 paintings, including works by Pompeo Batoni, Guercino, Carlo Maratti, Anton Raphael Mengs, Guido Reni and Guercino.  Alongside these cavasses were engravings by Piranesi, forty sculptures, 23 Roman marble vases, and various gouaches, watercolors, books and musical instruments.  This artistic treasure was also topped off with a sampling of Italy's food treasure: 32 rounds of parmesan.  

With France having joined the colonists in America's War of Independence, a January 9, 1799 naval trail established that the French were the legal "owners" of all cargo seized on the Westmorland and the merchandise was declared war booty.  The King of Spain, Charles III, in turn ultimately purchased the bulk of the valuable artworks, taking his pick of the pieces, some of which are now part of the collection at the Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando in Madrid.

Flash forward to tomorrow, where the the European Fine Art Fair (TEFAF) opens in the Netherlands for its 33rd edition.  Like their 18th century counterparts, many collectors at the Dutch fair, give little thought to the country of origin of the ancient objects they purchase or the sourcing practices of the dealers they buy from.  Their purchases focus on authenticity, beauty, and price,  just as their counterparts focused on centuries ago.

The same group of 21st century purchasers who might adamantly demand ethical sourcing practices in the consumable products they purchase, to ensure that the smartphones and designer bags they buy are manufactured by legal workers who work in safe working environments, fail, more often than not, to pay close attention to their art dealer's supply chain. While demanding transparency, human rights, and exploitation-free production in their ethical jeans, shoes, and watches, today's art collectors give only passing thought to an object's legitimacy and often assume (wrongly) that the dealers they buy from have taken the trouble to ensure that the artwork they are considering for purchase comes with a well researched and legitimately licit pedigree. 

Few collectors ask the truly hard questions of where the art work came from, or demand proof that it was sourced legally.  Some proudly defend questionable purchases added to collections as being done for the purpose of preservation, because source countries have failed to safeguard their rare material culture from destruction, either by environmental harm or by conflict. 

"The Gallery of Cornelis van der Geest" by Willem van Haecht

If you are purchasing at TEFAF in Maastricht (or any other art fair) ARCA recommends the following:

Do Your Research 
Make sure you research who you buy your art from…and their suppliers. With a myriad of complex export regulations from one country of origin to the market country where the object is being sold, it is important to inform yourself of the export rules in the country of origin at the time your object left its home country.  

Stay Away from the Black Hats 
Assess whether the names listed in the provenance of your artwork are already suspect actors, known to have purchased, fenced, or participated in the looting of art in the past.   For this Google is your friend. 

Ask the Dealer Tough Questions 
Make your dealer show you all the documents they have in their possession on an artwork so that you can ensure that the purchase you are considering is an ethical one.  Do this BEFORE you agree to open your wallet.  As a buyer, it is your right to ensure that the art you are purchasing has been sourced ethically.  Don't let dealers intimidate you into thinking these questions are nieve, rude or inappropriate.  They service you.  You are the buyer.  If they treat you badly, walk away.  If all customers follow this rule, art dealers will quickly learn that their livelihood depends upon their suppliers being ethical actors.  This will in turn help hold the market to a higher standard with the knowledge that they are being monitored by their clients, and not just research groups like ARCA.

Spread the Love 
Encourage fellow collectors to also keep a close eye on their own art dealers and purchases. Work with them to create an aligned ethical collecting base.  

Practice What You Preach 
Ensure that you as well as your dealers uphold ethical sales practices.  Take a microscope to your own collection and if object's/artwork's purchased in the past  does not pass a critical ethical eye, consider voluntarily restituting the piece back to the heir or country of origin rather than turning a blind eye and selling an tainted object onward to another unsuspecting individual who hasn't done their homework. 

Take Advantage of ARCA 
In this world that we live in, ARCA publishes frequently on problems of bad actors plying their trade within the art market. Follow this blog or even write to us if you have questions about a problematic artwork in your collection.  We will try to help. 

Create a Community 
Encourage the art buying community to think like the conscientious consumer electronics community. Create networks that share knowledge and demand an ethical supply chain. 


Making sure your collection is ethically sourced is not a simple task, but it is good for you and good for humanity.  It is also essential to ensure that your 21st century collection habits do not mirror those of your 18th century ancestors. This benefits not only you (and your conscience), but also the citizen's of the source country where objects are stolen from. 

By:  Lynda Albertson

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