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July 3, 2012

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The Journal of Art Crime, Spring/Summer 2012: John Daab on "Daubertizing the Art Expert"

Fraud expert John Daab writes about the delicate nature of art authentication in his article "Daubertizing the Art Expert" in the Spring/Summer 2012 issue of the Journal of Art Crime, which can now be electronically downloaded with a subscription.
Abstract: Most industries in the United States are regulated by law. The world of art, although regulated in a general framework, is not regulated when it comes to selling that which is authentic (Mccullough, 2012). Million dollar allegedly authentic works of fine and decorative art are vetted and sold by art “experts” with little or unrelated education, questionable training, non-mentored or no specific expert work experience, hyped commendations, bloated resumes and unreferenced mass media professional status. With the help of the mass media, such individuals achieve expert status without satisfying the standards of that which the law or scholarship requires (Briefel, 2006). In the recent Wolfgang Beltracchi forgery case, 47 million dollars of paintings from the “hand of various artists” were authenticated with the note made by the experts that “...using science was a waste of time” (Wright, 2012). Science entered with the result that the material make-up of the works precluded that they were created during the period of artist involvement. Out of 44 paintings, not one survived the scalpel of scientific analysis. This article addresses the conditions associated with the proliferation of wrong calls by so-called art experts and examines how scholarship, Daubert rulings, and Federal Rules of Evidence standards may assist in reducing the bad calls and consequentially art scamming, forgery and fraud.
John Daab was formerly a NYCTP Police Officer and NYU Professor. John is currently a Certified Fraud Examiner (CFE) with the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners and a Certified Forensics Consultant (CFC), Accredited Forensic Counselor (AFC) and a Certified Criminal Investigator, specializing in art forensics research with the American College of Forensic Examiners International (ABFEI). John holds Diplomate (DABFE) status and is a board member of the American Board of Forensic Examiners (ABFE), Criminal Investigator division. John is a Certified Homeland Security 1, (CHS1) and a Certified Intelligence Analyst (IAC) member of the American Board of Certification in Homeland Security (ABCHS). John has won awards for teaching management and service to NYU. John has published over 70 articles and recently authored, “The Art Fraud Protection Handbook.” John is currently completing studies in Art Appraisal at NYU, beginning a docent program at Princeton, and has completed a second book, "Forensic Applications in Detecting Fine, Decorative, and Collectible Art Fakes".

July 2, 2012

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The Journal of Art Crime, Spring/Summer 2012: Stephen Mihm on "Bordering on Alchemy: A Nation of Counterfeiters"

In the Spring/Summer 2012 issue of The Journal of Art Crime, Stephen Mihm writes on counterfeiting currency which has parallels to the story of art forgery.

Mr. Mihm is an associate professor of history at the University of Georgia. He is the author of A Nation of Counterfeiters: Capitalists, Con Men, and the Making of the United States (Harvard University Press, 2007). He is also the co-author (with Nouriel Roubini) of Crisis Economics: A Crash Course in the Future of Finance (Penguin, 2010).
Abstract:
Few of us question the slips of green paper that come and go in our purses, pockets, and wallets. Yet confidence in the money supply is a recent phenomenon: prior to the Civil War, the United States did not have a single, national currency. Instead, countless banks issued paper money in a bewildering variety of denominations and designs – more than ten thousand different kinds by 1860. Counterfeiters flourished amid this anarchy, putting vast quantities of bogus bills into circulation. This article, adapted from the 2009 book A Nation of Counterfeiters (Harvard University Press), discusses the origins of American counterfeiting of currency, a story that runs parallel to the story of art forgery.

July 1, 2012

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The Spring/Summer 2012 Issue of The Journal of Art Crime is now available to download by subscription

The PDF edition of the Spring/Summer 2012 issue of The Journal of Art Crime can now be downloaded by subscribers. This seventh issue is edited by Noah Charney and published by ARCA.
 
Academic articles: "Bordering on Alchemy: A Nation of Counterfeiters" by Stephen Mihm; "Daubertizing the Art Expert" by John Daab; "Looting History: An Analysis of the Illicit Antiquities Trade in Israel" by Aleksandra Sheftel; "The Beltracchi Affair: A Comment on the "Most Spectacular" German Art Forgery Case in Recent Times" by Duncan Chappell and Saskia Hufnagel; and "The Forger's Point of View" by Thierry Lenain.

Regular columns: Donn Zaretsky's Art Law and Policy on "When Photography Might be Illegal"; Ton Cremers on "Rise in Thefts from Museums: Due to Economic Crisis?"; David Gill's Context Matters on "Princeton and Recently Surfaced Antiquities"; and Noah Charney's Lessons from the History of Art Crime on "Mark Landis: the Forger Who Has Yet to Commit a Crime".

Editorial Essays: Joshua Knelman on "Headache Art"; Noah Charney on "Appendix on Forensics of Forgery Investigation"; and Noah Charney on "Art Crime in North America".

Reviews: Stuart George reviews "Stealing Rembrandts: The Untold Stories of Notorious Art Heists" by Anthony M. Amore and Tom Mashberg; David Gill reviews "Museums Matter: In Praise of the Encyclopedic Museum" by James Cuno; Catherine Schofield Sezgin reviews "Hot Art: Chasing Thieves and Detectives Through the Secret World of Stolen Art" by Joshua Knelman; Noah Charney reviews "The Deceivers: Art Forgery and Identity in the Nineteenth Century" by Aviva Briefel; and John Kleberg reviews "Leonardo's Lost Princess" by Peter Silverman with Catherine Whitney.

Extras: Noah Charney's interviews with George H. O. Abungu; Ernst Schöller; Joris Kila and Karl von Habsburg; Ralph Frammolino and Jason Felch; Thierry Lenain; and a Q&A on "Art Crime in Canada".  

There is also a list of the 2012 ARCA Awards.

June 30, 2012

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Anthony Amore Discussing "Stealing Rembrandts" on "It's a Crime" Saturday afternoon on the radio

Anthony Amore, Security Director of the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum and co-author of "Stealing Rembrandts: The Untold Stories of Notorious Art Heists", will be on "It's a Crime" on Saturday, June 30, at 1:00 p.m. The live radio show is hosted by Margaret McLean, an attorney and author of the legal thriller Under Fire (2011, Tor Forge McMillan). Here's a link to the program. "Stealing Rembrandts", written by Amore and journalist Tom Mashberg, will be released in paperback on July 3.

June 21, 2012

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UNESCO promotes public awareness of illicit trafficking of cultural property with 2011 Documentary "Stealing the Past"

by Catherine Schofield Sezgin, ARCA Blog Editor

Here’s a link to the website and video for “Stealing the Past”, co-produced by dev.tv; One Planet Pictures; and the Swiss Confederation.  This English language documentary is intended to create public awareness about the illicit trafficking of cultural property worldwide.  This program spotlights Italy, Colombia and the United Kingdom to see ‘what police, museums and auction houses are doing to tackle’ looting of heritage.

"Stealing the Past" has Gihane Zaki, Eyptian Ministry of Culture, talking about how people 'rallied' to protect the collection of the Museum of Antiquities in Cairo during the Arab Spring Uprising in early 2011.  "When they heard in the media that the museum was looted, they went directly there and it was really fantastic to see all of the young people gather around the museum to prevent more looting." The museum reported only 18 items stolen, according to the documentary.

From Iraq, up to 7,000 ancient objects were "still at large" from the archaeological museum.  An art dealer in California was found last year trying to sell 25 of them, according to the film's narrator.

Others included in this program: Karl-Heinz Kind, Interpol Criminal Organisations & Drugs Unit; Jane Levine, Director of Compliance for Sotheby's; Irena Bokova, Director General, UNESCO; Rita Cosentino, Director, Etruscan National Museum; Sir Mark Jones, Director, Victoria and Albert Museum; Colonel Raffaele Mancino of the Carabinieri Heritage Unit; Diego Herrera, Director General, Colombian Institute of Anthropology; Captain Erica Correa Bustos, Colombian National Police; Carlos Emilio Piazzini, Deputy Director, Colombian Institute of Anthropology; Dr. Andrew Richardson, Canterbury Archaeological Trust; Mark Harrison, Chief Superintendent, Kent Police; Maurice Worsley, Kent Amateur Metal Detecting Support Unit;

“Stealing the Past” includes a statement from the March 2011 commemoration of the 40th anniversary of the 1970 Convention.

"One-hundred twenty countries have signed a convention which has no teeth,” Irena Bokova, Director General, UNESCO told the participants at the Paris meeting.  “This is one of the specific conventions which doesn't have a specific enforcing mechanism."
Other highlights:

UNESCO works closely with INTERPOL, the international policing agency that maintains a database of stolen items totaling around 40,000 as of last year. According to UNESCO, Italy is 'home' to 60% of the world's art treasures. The Carabinieri Heritage Unit has a stolen art database of more than 1.5 million objects. "Cerveteri is known throughout the world for the activity of illegal excavation," said Rita Cosentino, Director of the Etruscan National Museum. "These activities have been devastating for a site like Cerveteri." The Carabinieri conduct frequent investigations into the area of Cerveteri aimed at finding illegal excavations, finding the thieves, and seizing any stolen objects, according to the documentary's narrator. The crew was 'given permission to follow one such operation' of 'ten officers, four cars, and four horses' with a helicopter surveying the targeted area from above for 'illegal excavations taking place'. When the road runs out, the horses are at an advantage over 'rough terrain' in the event of a chase. A Carabinieri officer climbs into a looted tomb and finds a 3rd century BC cup. "There are sporadic incidents," Cosentino says. "But the majority these days are done by amateurs. On the whole, the phenomenon of looting, thanks to the Carabinieri, has practically been defeated."

“The threats we need to combat are those criminal offences that pose a danger to Italian cultural heritage,” says Colonel Raffaele Mancino of the Carabinieri Heritage Unit. “From theft, to robbery, to vandalism. To support our work we have a number of legislative tools for the safeguarding of cultural goods and above all to combat the illicit trafficking of cultural goods. In recent years criminal organizations at the international level have become interested in this traffic as a way of laundering money from other criminal activities. We have found Italian artworks all over the world. But I have to say that with high-level government collaboration we have been able to bring back to Italy thousands and thousands of works of art.”

From inside the Carabinieri Heritage Units warehouse, Colonel Mancino points out a headless statue of Zeus stolen some years ago from the Norwegian Institute of Culture in Rome and a Greek-style vase intercepted by custom officials at an airport.

The Colombian Ministry of Culture estimates that 10,000 archaeological treasures are smuggled out of the country every year and less than 1% of these artworks are recovered. In 2007, the Colombian police created a special unit to deal with the illegal trafficking of the country’s heritage. The unit works in collaboration with the Institute of Anthropology. It has three offices.

Metal detecting in the UK has turned into a ‘thriving’ hobby (as has ‘night hawking’ the term for illegally using metal detectors at night on archaeological sites). The British government is willing to purchase ancient items found in the ground. “There is more political will on the part of the governments to stop this illicit trade,” Irena Bokova said in the television show.

June 20, 2012

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UNESCO'S Headquarters in Paris Hosts Second Meeting of States Parties to the 1970 Convention (June 20 & 21)

UNESCO'S Picasso Mural "The Fall of Icarus" 1958
by Catherine Sezgin, ARCA Blog Editor

UNESCO Headquarters in Paris is hosting the Second Meeting of States Parties to the 1970 Convention today and tomorrow to optimize the international agreement's "implementation, appraise its effectiveness with particular regard to new trends in trafficking in cultural property, and formulate strategies geared primarily to improve its application".

This meeting is a follow-up to the March 2011 meeting in Paris which commemorated the 40th anniversary of the legal instrument designed to promote international cooperation to stopping the illicit looting of archaeological sites by limited the flow of ancient objects across borders.  The ARCA blog covered the 2011 event here; Mexicans and Canadians attend; Mexico's plea; Turkey's statement; and the speakers including Jane Levine of Sotheby's.

"The meeting will examine in depth the status of this indispensable legal instrument in the fight against the illicit traffic of cultural property and its relevance to the needs of the international community," writes UNESCO.

The proposed agenda includes a 2007-2011 analysis of the implementation of the 1970 Convention by States Parties; regional reports on the implementation and the evolution of the art market at the regional level; and proposals concerning follow-up on the implementation of the 1970 Convention.

From 2007 to 2012, 12 countries signed  the 1970 UNESCO Convention bringing the total number to 122 states which have ratified the treaty on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property.  UNESCO and its partners created "legal, practical and awareness-raising tools" (Report of the Secretariat on its Activities) to facilitate and implementation of the 1970 Convention: 1) UNESCO's Database of National Cultural Heritage Laws; 2) basic measures concerning cultural items offered for sale on the Internet (proposed by INTERPOL and ICOM; 3) model export certificate for cultural objects developed jointly by the UNESCO and World Customs Organizations; 4) the publication of "Witnesses to History - Documents and writings on the return of cultural objects; 5) public awareness video materials and co-production of a documentary "Stealing the Past"; 6) continuing distance education (e-patrimoines.org) for French-speaking countries; 7) model provisions on state ownership of undiscovered cultural objects; and 8) cultural heritage protection handbook No. 6 securing religious heritage.  Training workshops have been held regionally.

Five members of the European region who have not yet signed the 1970 convention (Austria, Ireland, Latvia, Luxembourg, Malta and Monaco) will be targeted by UNESCO for 'awareness-raising, information and training actions in conjunction with the authorities of these countries and art market stakeholders where relevant (UNESCO).

June 19, 2012

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Opening a new classical art museum in the post-1970 Convention Era

by Catherine Schofield Sezgin,  ARCA Blog Editor-in-Chief

Last April British business Christian Levett opened a museum to display the more than 700 pieces of art and antiquties he has purchased over the past seven years, reports Dayla Alberge for The Guardian.  The article does not refer to the collecting history of these ancient Roman, Greek and Egyptian objects. Compare this to tomorrow's opening of the Second Meeting of States Parties to the 1970 Convention, which more than 40 years ago was designed to fight against the illicit traffic of cultural property.  How are ancient artefacts marketed, sold and displayed in this post-1970 Convention era?

The Mougins Museum of Classic Art ("Musee d'art classique de Mougins") is located northeast of Cannes in the South of France.  Its website contains images of the objects but no reference to the collecting history.

Levett is the owner of the archaeology magazine Minerva.  Last November he received the Ashmolean Museum Fellowship Award in Oxford.  One of the rooms in the Ashmoleans new Egyptian galleries is named after Mr. Levett and his family.

Alberge describes Levett's Mougin collection as 'ranging from Egyptian reliefs to masterpieces by Rubens and Picasso" of 'approximately 700 works spanning 5,000 years' with such 'jewels' as 'exquisite 1st-century Roman statues of Hadrian and the empress Domitia'.

Dr. David Gill, author of the blog Looting Matters, wrote more than a year ago about the history of a Greek Apulian hydria. Dr. Gill reports that Levett/Mougins Museum of Classical Art purchased some objects from the Royal-Athena Galleries and that some of the objects were from the collection of Patricia Kluge (see Dr. Gill's comments on an article by Italian journalist Fabio Isman).

Also a year ago, PHDIVA blogger Dorothy King wrote that she understands that "the Museum has a strict policy of 20 to 25 years' provenance for lesser items and 40+ years' provenance for more important antiquities."

If any of our readers are in the South of France this summer, maybe they would report back on the ARCA blog as to whether or not the museum provides additional information to visitors about the history of the objects on display.

Tuesday, June 19, 2012 - ,,,,, No comments

Book Review (Part III): Anne-Marie O'Connor's "Lady in Gold: The Extraordinary Tale of Gustav Klimt's Masterpiece, Portrait of Adele Bloch-Baur

by Catherine Schofield Sezgin, ARCA Blog Editor-in-Chief


In June, 1908, Klimt unveiled his gold portrait of the 26-year-old Adele, making her an ‘instant celebrity’ (O’Connor):

‘Klimt embedded Adele in a luminous field of real gold leaf, giving her the appearance of a religious icon, which art historians would compare to the mosaic portrait of Empress Theodora in Ravenna.’

Three years later, a syphilis-ridden Klimt visits the Bloch-Bauer castle in Czechloslovakia to work on a second portrait of Adele that he shows in 1912:

 ‘It was a very different work.  Her expression was mature, direct, and anything but seductive.  This was an older Adele, with world-weary eyes and cigarette-stained teeth, a painting some would call evidence of the end of the affair.’ (O’Connor)

Adele and her husband would also own four Klimt landscapes, including the 1912 “Apple Tree”.

In 1913, Hitler left Vienna.  The following year, an anarchist shot the Archduke Franz Ferdinand outside of his residence at the Belvedere Palace, a random act that would lead to The Great War, and the death of millions of young men.

Klimt dies of Spanish influenza in 1918 at the age of fifty-five, a few months before Armistice Day which reduces the Habsburg’s empire from 60 million to a tenth of that population and squeezed into a debt-ridden new state.

Until Adele’s death of meningitis in her early 40s, she lives a prominent cultural life filled with intellectuals, Viennese composers and artists.  In 1923, Adele wrote in a short will: “I ask my husband after his death, to leave my two portraits and the four landscapes by Gustav Klimt to the Austrian Gallery in Vienna.” (O’Connor) In another strange parallel, it is the same year Hitler writes “Mein Kampf (My Struggle)”, ‘the bestseller he wrote from prison after his failed uprising in 1923’ (O’Connor).

Within 15 years, when Ferdinand Bloch-Bauer flees Austria to his summer home in Czechloslovakia prior to the unification of Germany and Austria, the Vienna Adele knew is unrecognizable.  Members of the extended family are arrested, jailed and tortured until valuable assets are signed over to the Nazi government.  Relatives pay a “flight tax” to escape to Canada ahead of deportation to concentration camps.  Ferdinand Bloch-Bauer is accused of financial crimes, his assets are ‘illegally taxed in Vienna and his entire estate was confiscated’ as he will write in his will in 1942.  Ferdinand dies in November of 1945 in Zurich.  He was unable to recovery any of his property.  His estate is left to three of his nieces and nephews, including 25% to Maria Altmann who will lead the family’s fight for the legal return of the stolen Klimt paintings.

After the war, as some say, many Nazis exchanged their uniforms for suits and went to work to rebuilding Austria.  New legislation discouraged Jews from returning to reclaim stolen property.  Export licenses for ‘masterpieces’ were withheld, Jewish owners had to pay to get what was left of their businesses.  O’Connor describes how Nazis in plainclothes entered Maria Altmann’s home, took her valuables, and imprisoned her husband at the infamous concentration camp, Dachau, until the family completed the paperwork required to Aryanize their property and businesses.

Maria, her husband Fritz, and other family members escape the Nazis and rebuild their lives, frustrated that the Bloch-Bauer Klimt paintings hang at Belvedere Palace with no mention of their Jewish patronage.  Then the District Attorney of New York City impounds a painting borrowed for an exhibit at The Metropolitan Museum of Art from an Austrian Art Institution (see review of the film “Portrait of Wally”).  Maria Altmann, now a widow in her 80s and living in Los Angeles, contacts “Randy” the lawyer son of a family friend.  Randal Schoenberg spends years beating the odds with legal arguments, working his way into arbitration with the Austrian government who eventually agrees to return to the paintings to the family.  O’Connor explains why Schoenberg was successful, how Maria Altmann helped the case, and why the family ended up selling the paintings.  It’s a story that will hopefully encourage more Jewish families to pursue their own claims for looted art.

June 18, 2012

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Book Review (Part II): Anne-Marie O'Connor's "Lady in Gold: The Extraordinary Tale of Gustav Klimt's Masterpiece, Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer

by Catherine Schofield Sezgin, ARCA Blog Editor-in-Chief


In 1898, 17-year-old Adele, the daughter of Viennese banker Moritz Bauer, meets her future husband Ferdinand Bloch when her older sister Therese marries Ferdinand’s younger brother.  A few months later, an anarchist murders the free-spirited Empress Elisabeth, much admired by most of the Hapsburgs’ Austro-Hungarian Empire for her love of horses and her reluctance to participate in royal court politics.  An era of stability is ending.  A middle-aged Gustav Klimt, who is about to alienate his government sponsors, opens a ‘palace dedicated to Art Nouveau on the Ringstrasse’ for a group dubbed the Secessionists who wrote above the entrance “to every age its art; to art its freedom”.

A year later, Adele marries Ferdinand, a man twice her age but not the ladies’ man Klimt is reputed to be, at the same time Sigmund Freud publishes “The Interpretation of Dreams”, ‘his anatomy of the unconscious impulses driving individuals and society’ (O’Connor).

The next year Klimt, a favored court painter, shows the first of three ceiling murals for the University of Vienna, failing to please the authorities in the next few years with his decade portrayals on the themes of Philosophy, Medicine, and Jurisprudence.  ‘Jewish families were assimilating in Vienna through art and culture’, as characterized by writer Karl Kraus.  It was these Jewish patrons who financially support Klimt when the Ministry of Culture rejects Klimt for a professorship at the Academy of Fine Arts.

Although Klimt is not commissioned to paint Adele’s portrait until 1903, his 1901 portrait of Judith ‘bears an almost photographic resemblance to Adele’ (O’Connor), leading to support that Klimt may have known Adele earlier and may have had an intimate relationship with her.  Klimt’s Judith is one of the masterpieces highlighted at Austria’s national art collection at the Belvedere Palace.  ‘A Klimt commission at the time cost 4,000 crowns, a quarter of the price of a well-appointed country villa’ (O’Connor):

‘Klimt portrayed women as individuals, without the presence of a husband, father, or children to suggest their domestic role…. They soon gained the reputation of having an affair with the master who was so infamous with his amours.”

A few months after agreeing to the Bloch-Bauer portrait, Klimt traveled to Ravenna to study the sixth-century mosaics ‘the greatest legacies of the Byzantine art outside Constantinople’ (O’Connor), which include portraits of the childless and powerful Empress Theodora, courtesan and wife of Justinian.  The mosaics include the use of gold tiles, the material Klimt grew up studying at the workshop of his father, an engraver who worked on the city’s monuments.  Upon Klimt’s return to his studio in Vienna, he began sketching another childless woman, the restless, ambitious and intelligent Adele Bloch-Bauer.  Klimt’s reputation for seducing many women and Adele’s unromantic marriage had led to rumors of a sexual relationship between artist and subject, according to O’Connor’s interviews half a century later with Adele’s niece, Maria Altmann:

“So when Adele went to Klimt’s studio that winter, she faced the possibility of failure as a woman.  No one ever believed Adele was in love with Ferdinand.  But she was expected to feel lucky, or at least content.  Instead, she struggled with sobering disappointment.’ ‘Klimt made endless sketches of Adele.’ ‘He would make more than a hundred studies of Adele.’

Klimt painted Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I from 1904 to 1907.  He also painted Danae and The Kiss (both now at the Belvedere) in 1907, the same year struggling artist Adolf Hitler moves to Vienna and lives in a ‘hostel financed with large donations from Baron Nathaniel Rothschild and the Gutmanns’ (O’Connor).  While only a Jewish owner of a frame and window store, Samuel Morgenstern, purchased Hitler’s drawings and watercolors, the artist became ‘fascinated’ by ‘the anti-Semitic rhetoric of Karl Lueger [Vienna’s elected mayor] … who was able to focus popular discontent on the liberal Jewish intelligentsia’ (O’Connor).

Part Three continues tomorrow.

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