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September 26, 2011

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The Journal of Art Crime, Spring 2011: Noah Charney's Q&A with Peter Watson

Peter Watson, the critically-acclaimed author, answered questions posed by Noah Charney for the Q&A column for the fifth issue of The Journal of Art Crime.

Mr. Watson has been a senior editor at the London Sunday Times, the New York correspondent of the daily Times, and a columnist for the Observer. He has also written regularly for the New York Times and the Spectator. He is the author of several books of cultural and intellectual history, including Ideas: A History of Thought and Invention and, most recently The German Genius. His work on the art world and art crime includes The Caravaggio Conspiracy; Sotheby's: the Inside Story; and The Medici Conspiracy. From 1997 to 2007 he was a research associate at the McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research at the University of Cambridge.

Charney asks Watson about writing, his first interest in the dark side of the art world, and his theory about the fate of the Caravaggio Nativity, and his opinion as to the best way to curb art crime in the future.

You may subscribe to The Journal of Art Crime through the ARCA website or purchase individual issues through Amazon.com.


September 23, 2011

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The Journal of Art Crime, Spring 2011: Douglas L. Yearwood Reviews books on Henry Walters, Bernard Berenson and Giuseppe Panza

Doug Yearwood, Director of the North Carolina Criminal Justice Analysis Center, has reviewed two books on collecting for the fifth issue of The Journal of Art Crime.

Henry Walters and Bernard Berenson: Collector and Connoisseur
by Stanley Mazaroff
John Hopkins University Press, 2010
Stanley Mazaroff, a retired barrister who returned to Johns Hopkins to pursue the study of art history, documents the tumultuous, dynamic and topsy-turvy love-hate relationship between the railroad tycoon and art collector, Henry Walters, and Bernard Berenson, a world renowned Italian Renaissance art expert and dealer, between 1902 and 1927.  Drawing on extensive museum records and related archival documents, including the personal correspondence, papers and letters of the two men, the author cogently depicts the highs and lows of Walters collecting career, reveals the inherent difficulties of identifying works attributed, and misattributed, to the Italian masters all within the context of America's gilded age and the lust for anything remotely related to the Renaissance among the nation's most wealthy industrialists and their families.

Giuseppe Panza: Memories of a Collector
by Giuseppe Panza
Abbeville Press, 2008

Memories of a collector is Giuseppe Panza's autobiographical explication of his love, devotion and nearly obsessive desire to put together the best collection of modern or contemporary American art.  Unlike Walters who often left purchases uncrated for months at a time, Panza was a true connoisseur, scholar and an extremely astute buyer who had an uncanny innate ability to know which artists and their works would become famous or desirable well before others in the market.

You may read the complete reviews in the Spring 2011 issue of The Journal of Art Crime by subscribing through the ARCA website or by purchasing individual copies through Amazon.com.

Friday, September 23, 2011 - ,,, No comments

Getty to Return More Items to Greece - The Aftermath of "Chasing Aphrodite"

Los Angeles - The Associate Press is reporting today that the J. Paul Getty Museum will return three Greek marbles to Greece. The "5th century B.C. works [are] two pieces of a relief sculpture from a grave marker — a third fragment of which is in a Greek museum — and a slab with an inscription related to a religious festival". It's part of the continued story of Chasing Aphrodite as reported by journalists Jason Felch and Ralph Frammolino about the collection of antiquities at the "world's richest museum." The book is not just an indictment against the Getty but also the narrative of the types of pressures involved in the trade of antiquities and the changing perception of what is and isn't acceptable after the 1970 UNESCO Convention. Since writing their book, Felch and Frammolino also continue posting additional stories on their website, Chasing Aphrodite, such as the curator who was under surveillance by the FBI for alleged spying activities. Felch and Frammolino spent more than five years investigating the story then condensed the information in an easy to read and informative volume.

Here's a link to more on the story in The Los Angeles Times.

September 21, 2011

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The Journal of Art Crime, Spring 2011: Noah Charney reviews two exhibitions

The Journal of Art Crime's editor-in-chief Noah Charney reviews an exhibition, "Jan Gossaert at the National Gallery, London, 23 February - 30 May 2011" in the Spring 2011 issue of this peer-reviewed academic journal on the interdisciplinary study of art crime.

The exhibit featured Jan Gossaert, a Flemish Mannerist (1478-1532), who had spent time in Italy. This review was first published in ArtInfo in April 2011.

In a second review of an exhibition, Mr. Charney covered the "Mostra Palazzo Farnese" at the Palazzo Farnese in Rome that was held from 17 December 2010 through 27 April 2011 in the building which is has been the French Embassy of Rome.

September 20, 2011

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The Art Loss Register Recovers Two Seventeenth Century Colonial Paintings Stolen from a Church in Bolivia

St. Rose Viterbo
ART LOSS REGISTER PRESS RELEASE - On Christmas Eve in 1997, more than a hundred religious artefacts were stolen from the Church (Templo) of San Andres de Machaca in La Paz, Bolivia. The church, declared a Bolivian National Monument in 1962, had been the target of thieves several years earlier before being stripped of its colonial masterpieces in 1997. The theft was reported to the Bolivian Ministry of Culture and Interpol and subsequently recorded on the Art Loss Register’s international database of stolen, missing and looted artwork.

Saint Augustin
In May 2011, over thirteen years after the theft, the Art Loss Register received a request to search its database of stolen art for two of the Bolivian colonial works. The request was submitted by a U.S. art dealer who claimed to have received the paintings on consignment from an elderly American collector. The art historians employed by the Art Loss Register were able to conclusively identify the portraits of ‘Saint Rose of Viterbo’ and ‘Saint Augustin’from several unique areas of damage thanks to the good quality archival photographs taken by the church prior to the theft.

Bolivian Ambassador Maria Beatriz Souviron Crespo
 and Christopher Marinello of the Art Loss Register 
Christopher A. Marinello, a lawyer who specializes in recovering stolen art for the Art Loss Register in London, handled the complicated negotiations that brought these iconic pictures back to Bolivia. “We could not have located these paintings without the important and groundbreaking work of Interpol and the Interpol Database of Stolen Art. This case is emblematic of the cooperation between the public and the private sector, a relationship that, in my view, is crucial to the protection of cultural heritage worldwide.”

In a brief ceremony at the Bolivian Embassy in London on 12 September 2011, the paintings were returned to Ambassador Maria Beatriz Souviron Crespo on behalf of the Bolivian Ministry of Culture.

September 19, 2011

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The Journal of Art Crime, Spring 2011: An excerpt from Elena Franchi's book "I viaggi dell'Assunta. La protezione del patrimonio artistico veneziano durante i conflitti mondiali"

The Spring 2011 issue of The Journal of Art Crime presents excerpts and images from a book by Elena Franchi, published in Italian, entitled "The Travels of the Assumption: the Protection of Venetian Cultural Heritage during the Two World Wars" (Pisa University Press 2010).
As ARCA is based in both the United States and Italy we wish to encourage the international cooperation of scholars in the joint pursuit of the protection of art and the advancement of art crime studies. The Introduction is published here [in the JAC] in Italian with the permission of the author, and the images have been provided with captions in English by the author.
Elena Franchi was nominated for a 2009 Emmy Award for "Research" for the American documentary The Rape of Europa, made in 2006 with filmmakers Richard Berge, Bonnie Cohen and Nicole Newnham. She participated in an international project on the study of Kuntschutz, a German unit created for the protection of cultural heritage of the countries involved in the war. She is also the author of Arte in assetto di guerra. Protezione e distruzione del patrimonio artistico a Pisa durante la seconda guerra mondiale (Pisa: Edizioni ETS, 2006).

You may obtain a copy of this issue by subscribing through ARCA's website or by individual copy through Amazon.com.

September 18, 2011

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Vernon Silver Presented "Crime Scenes as Archaeological Sites" at ARCA's International Art Crime Conference

Silver discusses Euphronio's Krater
 (Photo by Urska Charney)
"Crime Scenes as Archaeological Sites"
Vernon Silver
School of Archaeology, University of Oxford

Vernon Silver, senior writer at Bloomberg News in Rome and author of "The Lost Chalice" (Harper Paperbacks, 2010), presented his paper, "Crimes Scenes as Archaeological Sites" at ARCA's third annual International Art Crime Conference in Amelia in July 2011.

"The Lost Chalice" is a nonfiction thriller about the oldest known work by ancient Greek artist Eurphronio's $1 million pot that formerly resided at The Met and its lost twin that traveled through the hands of Bruce McNall and the Hunt Brothers then was sold at auction through Sotheby's in 1990.

Here Silver describes his work:
Italy's criminal investigations of the illicit antiquities trade have largely ignored the archaeological sites from which artifacts have been removed. Greater attention to these crime scenes -- which double as archaeological sites -- can help restore some of the archaeological context lost in the process of looting objects. 
This paper uses the example of the 1971 illicit dig at Greppe Sant'Angelo in Cerveteri, Italy, in which tomb robbers uncovered a previously unknown complex of Etruscan tombs, removing sellable artifacts that included a red-figure Attic vase that became known as the Euphronios krater. The recent trials in Rome that led the Metropolitan Museum of Art to return the vase to Italy did not address the archaeological origins of the object. Although Italy's requests for its return drew on the moral argument that the nation's archaeological heritage had been harmed, the lack of crime-scene analysis was a lost opportunity to rebuild a record of the vase's history, including the other objects with which it was buried, and details of the necropolis where it was found. 
Drawing on research for the author's doctoral thesis ("The Antiquities Trade: Object Biographies of Euphronios vases looted from Etruria") and his related book, "The Lost Chalice" (2009, 2010) this paper presents examples of the rich selection of untapped data about the site: photos from the early 1970s in the archive of the Villa Giulia museum; interviews with a surviving tomb robber; contemporary visits to the site itself and objects in the Cerveteri archaeology museum that were also found at the site but never labeled as such. All can help rebuild the lost context. 
From a policing view, an eye for archaeology would enhance the collection of such records. (Fans of one crime-scene television show might think of this approach as "CSI: Ancient Victims Unit.") For the sake of archaeology, there is more to investigate than just the buyers and sellers. 
In the future, greater police and prosecutor attention to developing and publishing crime-scene data on illicit excavations, and involving archaeologists in the process, would be a step to restoring damage to the archaeological record. Outside Italy and other source countries such as Greece and Egypt, scholarly attention to police evidence should also help meet those ends.

September 17, 2011

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Judge Arthur Tompkins Lectures on 'Stealing Beauty' at the University of Auckland Law School on October 6

Judge Arthur Tompkins, an instructor in ARCA's academic program, will be discussing 'Stealing Beauty' at the University of Auckland Law School on Friday October 6.

The lecture will be held at 1 p.m. at Northey Lecture Theatre (further information may be found at www.law.auckland.ac.nz).

Judge Arthur Tompkins is a Disrict Court Judge in New Zealand. He has presented at numerous international conferences and workshops, in New Zealand and elsewhere, on a variety of topics, including international art crime. Each year he teaches Art in War at the Summer Postgraduate Program in International Art Crime and Heritage Protection Studies, presented annually by the Association for Research into Crimes against Art (www.artcrime.info/education) in Umbria, Italy.
"Art always suffers during wartime. From the sack of the Temple of Solomon, through the many crimes committed against the Ghent Altarpiece, and the depredations of Napoleon and Hitler across Europe, this has always been so. This lecture will survey fascinating examples of these sorts of crimes, the people involved, and some of the stories and myths surrounding them. 
As well as the Ghent Altarpiece, the lecture will include the long history of the Four Horses of San Marco's Basilica in Venice, the theft of Veronese's Wedding at Cana, the sack of Constantinople by the Fourth Crusade, the miracle of the Alt Aussee salt mine, the survival of the Sarajevo Haggadah, and the bizarre story connecting Goya, the Duke of Wellington, James Bond, and television licensing fees."

September 16, 2011

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Art Loss Register Theft Alert: Renoir Stolen from Private Collection in Houston

Pierre-August Renoir's
 Madeleine Leaning on Her Elbow
 with Flowers in Her Hair
 (1918, 50.17 x 41.28 cm)
September 16 - The Art Loss Register has issued a theft alert for a painting by Renoir stolen from a private collection in Houston on September 8. The alert can be found here and reads as follows:
Pierre-August Renoir's Madeleine Leaning on Her Elbow with Flowers in Her Hair (1918, 50.17 x 41.28 cm) was stolen from a private collection during the evening of the 8th of September 2011 as reported to the Houston Police Department and the Federal Bureau of Investigation. 
A reward of up to $25,000 is being offered for information leading to the return of the painting. Anyone with information regarding this item please contact: 
Christopher A. Marinello, Executive & General Counsel, The Art Loss Register, 1st Floor, 63-66 Hatton Garden, London, EC1N 8LE, United Kingdom, Tel: +44 (0) 207 841 5780, email: chris.marinello@artloss.com 
or 
Robert Wittman, Robert Whittman, Inc., PO Box 653, Chester Heights, PA 19017, USA Tel: 610-361-8929, email: info@robertwittmaninc.com.

ARCA blog contacted Mr. Marinello and asked for more information. "Unfortunately, we cannot comment on the theft due to the fact that it is a pending investigation by the Houston PD and Federal Bureau of Investigation," Mr. Marinello responded in an email. "The Art Loss Register has 259 stolen Renoirs in its database of stolen, missing, and looted artwork. We are hopeful that the publicity given to this horrific crime will produce some leads that will assist with the recovery of this painting."

Friday, September 16, 2011 - ,, No comments

FLORIDA MAN ARRESTED ON CHARGES OF SELLING STOLEN ART AND SELLING FORGED PAINTINGS FOR MILLIONS OF DOLLARS

Mathew Taylor (LAPD Art Theft Detail)
Press Release from the US Attorney's Office for Central District of California

by Thom Mrozek, Public Affairs Officer

LOS ANGELES – A Florida man was arrested this morning pursuant to a federal indictment that alleges he sold paintings stolen from a Los Angeles art gallery, and that he had sold forged artworks to a collector with false claims that they had been painted by esteemed artists.

Matthew Taylor, 43, of Vero Beach, Florida, was arrested without incident this morning by special agents with the FBI. Taylor, who formerly worked as an art dealer, is expected to make his initial court appearance this afternoon in United States District Court in Fort Pierce, Florida.

A federal grand jury in Los Angeles indicted Taylor last week on seven felony charges related to art theft and a long-running fraud that targeted a Los Angeles art collector.

The indictment charges Taylor with defrauding the art collector victim out of millions of dollars by selling him forged art works. Taylor allegedly sold the collector more than 100 paintings – including paintings that he falsely claimed were by artists such as Claude Monet, Vincent van Gogh, Jackson Pollock, and Mark Rothko – for a total of more than $2 million. The indictment alleges that Taylor altered paintings from unknown artists to make them appear to be the products of famous artists, and then sold the bogus artwork to the victim at prices exponentially higher than their actual worth.

To conceal the true nature of the paintings, Taylor allegedly put forged on the paintings and painted over or otherwise concealed signatures from the actual artists. The indictment also alleges that Taylor created and put onto the paintings fake labels which falsely represented that the artworks were once part of prestigious art collections at famous museums, including those of the Museum of Modern Art in the New York and the Guggenheim Museum.

Stolen: "Park Scene, Paris"
$20,000 Lucien Frank painting 
Regarding the alleged art heists, the indictment accuses Taylor of stealing a Granville Redmond painting called “Seascape at Twilight” from a gallery in Los Angeles. Taylor later sold that painting to a different gallery for $85,000, falsely claiming that his mother had owned it for several years. The indictment also alleges that Taylor stole a separate artwork – a painting by Lucien Frank titled “Park Scene, Paris” – from the same gallery in Los Angeles. Taylor was seen several years later in possession of the stolen Lucien Frank painting at a gallery in Vero Beach.

The indictment further alleges that Taylor laundered and transferred across state lines some of the proceeds from his fraud on the collector victim – specifically, $105,000 that Taylor had taken from the victim by selling him four forged paintings in September 2006.

An indictment contains allegations that a defendant has committed a crime. Every defendant is presumed to be innocent until proven guilty in court.

The indictment charges Taylor with three counts of wire fraud, two counts of money laundering, one count of interstate transportation of stolen property and one count of possession of stolen property. The mail fraud charges each carry a statutory maximum sentence of 20 years in federal prison, and the remaining counts each carry a statutory maximum sentence of 10 years. Therefore, if he is convicted of all seven counts in the indictment, Taylor faces a maximum possible sentence of 100 years in federal prison.

Based on evidence collected throughout this case, investigators believe there are additional victims of art fraud related to Taylor’s activities. Individuals who purchased art from Taylor and believe they may have been defrauded should contact the Federal Bureau of Investigation in Los Angeles at (310) 477-6565 or the Los Angeles Police Department’s Art Theft Detail at (213) 486-6940.

The ongoing investigation into Taylor is being conducted by the FBI’s Art Crime Team, the Los Angeles Police Department’s Art Theft Detail, and IRS - Criminal Investigation.

You may read more about this case on the LAPD Art Theft Detail website.

More information about the $20,000 Lucien Frank painting that is still outstanding may be found here.

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