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January 28, 2014

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Norway: Fire Damaged the village of Lærdalsøyri, part of UNESCO's World Heritage listed West Norwegian Fjord landscape

Borgund Stavkirke, an old church
by A.M.C Knutsson

At 11 pm on Saturday the 18th of January a fire erupted in the village of Lærdalsøyri, in the municipality of Lærdal, Norway. The fire, which is believed to have started in a house on Kyrkjegatan, spread rapidly towards the centre of the village due to strong easterly winds. These winds also hindered the extinguishing work and not until 5 pm the following day the fire was finally under control. [1]

Despite the ferocity of the fire, described by observers as an ‘inferno’, no one is reported to have died or gone missing. However, many people suffered from smoke inhalation and 400 people were forced to seek medical attention.

Whilst Lærdal might be small, it has a grand history. The region is part of the UNESCO World Heritage listed West Norwegian Fjord landscape and boasts sites such as the old Lærdalsøyri village and the Borgund Stave Church, the best-preserved stave church in Norway.[2]

Synneva Eris House (Photo Arlen Bidne)
The history of the old village of Lærdalsøyri reaches back about a thousand years. Since the Middle Ages it has been an important trading centre for the surrounding villages. The buildings that make up present day Lærdalsøyri reach back to the 18th and 19th centuries and are an important part of the Norwegian wooden heritage.[3] Among the buildings in Lærdalsøyri there are 161 protected wooden buildings. In a statement from the National Heritage Board about the fire, the site is described thus:
The wooden houses in Lærdalsøyri are among the most important wood-house milieu in Norway, in line with towns like Røros, Bergen and Old Stavanger.[4]
Unfortunately, despite early reports of little damage to the built heritage, several buildings have been severely damaged with some being permanently destroyed. Thirty-five houses are reported to have burnt down of which six or seven have great historical value.[5] Whilst the fire does not appear to have reached the oldest parts of Lærdalsøyri, the true extent of the fire is yet to be established. 

The Local "Norway's News in English" reports "Listed villa destroyed in Lærdal blaze" that the Synneva Eris House was burned to the ground.

Further Reading
 Nina Selbo Torset , Mats Bleikelia , Solveig Ruud , http://www.aftenposten.no/nyheter/iriks/--Et-unikt-trehusomrade-med-svart-hoy-verneverdi-7439216.html#.UuFeRuvLeYU (NO)
http://www.riksantikvaren.no/?module=Articles;action=Article.publicShow;ID=135245 (NO)
http://www.svd.se/nyheter/utrikes/branden-i-laerdal-ater-under-kontroll_8907804.svd  (SWE)
http://www.svd.se/nyheter/utrikes/norsk-kulturhistoria-odelagd-i-brand_8908212.svd (SWE)
http://www.vg.no/nyheter/innenriks/spesial.php?id=9517 (NO)
http://www.visitnorway.com/us/Where-to-go-us/Fjord-Norway/Sognefjord/What-to-do-in-the-Sognefjord-area/Attractions-in-the-Sognefjord-area/Lardal-by-the-Sognefjord/ (EN)

List of recognised heritage sites in Lærdal
http://no.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liste_over_kulturminner_i_L%C3%A6rdal (NO)

January 27, 2014

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Postcard from Skara, Sweden: An unexpected collection of Swedish art at the Jula Hotell and Konference

Skrämda, Anders Zorn 1912
by A.M.C. Knutsson

Having travelled quite extensively in the last year, I have had the privilege to come across some very interesting places, both planned and unplanned. Some of the least expected being the gallery-hotel, a hotel that houses a large collection of original art. Arriving late one night in one of Sweden’s oldest towns, Skara, I completely missed the large sign hanging by the side of the road announcing that the hotel I was approaching housed one of the largest private collections of paintings by Anders Zorn (1860-1920) in Sweden.

I was therefore completely unprepared for what awaited me upon entering the modern-looking hotel. The walls were tastefully dressed with masterly portraits and enticing nudes. The works accounted for most of the great names in Swedish art from Anders Zorn to Carl Larsson (1853-1919, the figurehead of the Swedish Arts and Crafts Movement).

Steeped, as I irrevocably am, in the world of art crime one of my first thoughts went to the security arrangements of this magnificent collection. My interest was met with great hospitality and the following morning I was met by the hotel manager, Catarine Larsson, for a talk about the collection.

The collection as well as the hotel are the creations of Lars-Göran Blank, founder of the Swedish company Jula, founded in 1979 to sell woodcutters now has shops across Sweden, Norway and Poland, supplying everything related to house and garden maintenance.

Watercolour by Carl Larsson
Lars-Göran Blank inherited his interest in art from his father and spent most of his childhood frequenting museums. Due to his entrepreneurial success, he suddenly found himself in a position to be able to act on his interests. In 2007 Jula Hotell and Konference was built and before long exquisite art started appearing on its walls. The employees, which included Catarine Larsson, were at first unsure how to react to the art that appeared around them. They had never been involved in protecting valuable art before. ‘We were worried,’ Ms. Larsson explained, ‘we didn’t know if we could tell anyone about the paintings. But then the owner put up a huge sign by the road, so then we understood that it was fine.’ 

Mr. Blank is proud of his collection, and rightly so. In addition to probably the largest private collection of Zorn paintings in Sweden, paintings by Carl Larsson, Bruno Liljefors (1860-1939, Wildlife painter), and some paintings by Blank’s own hand can be found in the hotel.

Through the help and assistance of the Jula Security department and an insurance company, an all-encompassing security policy has been developed for the collection. When the hotel was renovated in 2012, it was designed with the safety of the collection in mind; subsequently, a large portion of the paintings were moved from the dining room to a specially constructed art gallery. The hotel consulted a local museum about how to properly hang and display the collection which resulted in a tasteful and safe new home for the paintings. Great care was taken to secure both the paintings and the rooms themselves. Each painting is alarmed directly to the police and covered with protective glass to protect against all kinds of sticky fingers. When Ms. Larsson notes that ‘the paintings are as safe here as anywhere else’: with around the clock surveillance and reinforced night guards, the art as well as the guests can rest safely.

New art gallery completed in 2012
The hotel maintains good relations with the national police force and would be contacted directly if there were any rumours about an art-coup taking place in the area, allowing Ms Larsson to reinforce her security measures. The hotel works with its collections in various ways, including holding conferences in the art gallery and hosting art talks with speakers from the Zorn Museum. They are mentioned in local guidebooks -- even pre-school classes come to draw in the gallery.

This magnificent collection manages to straddle both the definition of public and private collection. Despite being a privately owned assembly of works, it remains accessible to the public. Over a glass of wine in the evening or a cup of coffee at breakfast, the visitors to Jula Hotel can enjoy art in the same way as a private collector but for the price of the beverage in hand.

The phenomenon of art in hotels takes on various forms, from being a tool of barter in Les Templiers in Collioure, France, to a cheap Van Gogh print in a forgettable place in New York. Most interestingly the practice of housing private collections in hotels could possibly negate the criticism of the private collection as elitist, as the paintings might even prove more accessible than in a museum, and might in actual fact convey art to a new kind of audience, that normally would not put their foot in a museum.

Even as I struggle to stay awake, solving my last Sudoku for the evening, my eye is caught by the nudes walking down towards the lakeside in Zorn’s 1912 masterpiece Skrämda. The very painting that Ms Larsson confessed to be her favourite, and which she would take if she would have her pick in the collection.

A.M.C. Knutsson earned a Master of Arts in General History from the University of St. Andrews and completed ARCA's Postgraduate Certificate Program in Art Crime and Cultural Heritage in 2013.

January 25, 2014

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Damage to Cairo's Museum of Islamic Art: Why Does Art Always Take in on the Chin?


By Lynda Albertson, ARCA's CEO

As news of the explosion affecting Cairo’s Museum of Islamic Art has spread and images of the destruction were replicated across social media sites few people or news agencies paused to mention what objects were actually inside one of Egypt’s spectacular museums or talk about the heart of Islam the collection represents. 

Started in 1881, the Museum of Islamic Art initially was housed within the arcades of the mosque of the Fatimid caliph Al-HakimBi-Amr Allah. Commencing with 111 objects, gathered from mausoleums and mosques throughout Egypt, the original collection has grown substantially over the last 130 years. 

Today the objects in the Cairo museum represent one of the most comprehensive collections of Islamic art in the world. With more than 103,000 artifacts housed in 24 halls, its collection celebrates every Islamic period in Egypt covering the Fatimids, the Mamluks, the Abbasids, the Ummayads, the Tulunids, the Ottomans, and the Ayyubids dynasties.

Photo Credit: http://www.discoverislamicart.org
The museum’s glass collection alone counts 5,715 pieces in its inventory.  Some are very rare, others, like this glass vessel fragment, are more commonplace. Notwithstanding, each piece helps visitors and scholars embrace and understand the history of the region and its people.

Some of the glass enameled lamps in the museum come from the mosque of Sultan Hassan who ruled Egypt twice, the first time in 1347 when he was only 13 years old.  One of the most outstanding of these glass pieces is an eight-sided chandelier made up of three layers with a dome-shaped cap and detailed Islamic decorations imprinted on its glass.

Some of the museum’s glass comes from excavations undertaken at Al-Fusṭāṭ, on the east bank of the Nile River, south of modern Cairo.  As the first Muslim capital of Egypt, Al-Fusṭāṭ, was established by general ʿAmr ibn al-ʿĀṣ in AD 641 and was the location of the province’s first mosque, Jāmiʿ ʿAmr.

Glass vessels, phials and fragments excavated from the former capital and on display at the museum give the world an understanding of the chronology and origin of the Islamic glass industry as well as the history of Islam during the Umayyad and ʿAbbāsid caliphates and under succeeding dynasties.

Until the 9th century Islamic glass artisans used the Roman technique of making glass mixing calcium-rich sand and Natron, a salt substance used in Egypt to preserve mummies.  At the turn of the millennium, they opted to use plant ash for the soda component in their formula for glass making and experimented with colors, shapes, techniques, and surface decoration. 

From the piles of shattered glass, pieces of bricks and smashed cases seen in the first images released by Monica Hanna after the bombing it seems that the damage to the museum’s collection may be significant, though for now how significant has yet to be established with detailed clarity.  Talking heads on news sites triage the damage from horrifying to optimistic though without any formal inventory of which rooms were damaged and the objects purportedly on display in that room, it’s hard to know if the pulverized glass we see in initial photos comes from broken windows and collection storage cases or damaged artifacts. 

To rectify that gap in knowledge, museum staff and volunteers worked under difficult conditions and despite safety hazards from a partially collapsed roof before sealing the museum as per security directives.  Their goal: provide an initial assessment and to secure the collection to prevent further damage or possible theft.  Until a formal reporting is given, all we can do is hope that things remain calmer so that the Ministry of Antiquities can salvage as many of the museum's artifacts as possible.

January 24, 2014

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Rembrandt Authentications: National Gallery of Scotland reattributes 2012 donation from Rembrandt to Captain William Baillie

by Catherine Sezgin, ARCA Blog Editor

In early 2012, Glasgow's Evening Times reported that a wealthy 101-year-old woman, Jessie Steen, had bequeathed a valuable Rembrandt etching to the National Gallery of Scotland. However, the attribution has been changed. In a response to an emailing inquiring about the donation, Dr. Tico Seifert, Senior Curator of Northern European Art, wrote from Edinburgh:
The print bequeathed by Miss Steen in 2012 is a copy after an etching by Rembrandt. It was made by Captain William Baillie (1723-1810), an art dealer and printmaker who made several copies after Rembrandt etchings and owned some of the original plates. The latter he reworked and printed new impressions from, most famously of the ‘Hundred Guilder Print’. As far as we know, Rembrandt’s ‘Landscape with a Hay Barn and a Flock of Sheep’ was copied four times, by different artists, Baillie’s being the second in sequence.

Rembrandt’s etchings were copied a lot, particularly in the eighteenth century, when collectors grew insatiable. Copies partly went for the ‘real things’ but more often they were (cheaper) substitutes for the increasingly rare and expensive originals by Rembrandt.

Unfortunately, we did not receive any information at the time on where or when Miss Steen had acquired this print.

Regarding the value, as an employee of the National Galleries of Scotland, I am not supposed to give valuations and I would kindly ask you to refer to an auction house or dealer in this field.
The work had not yet been photographed.

Thank you to Dr. Seifert and to the registrar at the gallery who promptly responded to this inquiry.

January 23, 2014

Thursday, January 23, 2014 - , 4 comments

Rembrandt Authentications: Curator at Scottish National Gallery discovered red-ink drawing in its collection -- a rare find in a murky world of authenticating Rembrandt's prints

Scottish National Gallery, Rembrandt 98A:
Jan Cornelius Sylvius
by Catherine Sezgin, ARCA Blog Editor-in-Chief

Dr. Tico Seifert, a senior art curator for northern European art at the Scottish National Gallery, identified a Rembrandt etching in the collection: the "rare red-ink picture" authenticated by specialists in Amsterdam, reports Edinburgh Evening News, is a portrait of Jan Cornelis Sylvius, a relative of Rembrandt's wife Saskia and godfather to their daughter Cornelia.
He said: “I was going through the boxes of copies of Rembrandt when the first thing that caught my eye is that it is an impression in red ink. “Normally prints, engravings or etchings are produced in black ink. This particular impression is in a brownish red ink which is pretty rare. That was what first made me hesitate going through to the next one.
“I checked the handbooks for what kind of copy this might be and they said the copies are always in reverse. 
“When I saw it wasn’t, I thought this is most likely not a copy.”
The Scottish National Gallery reports that the etching's provenance is unknown. In the collection posted online, the gallery shows 12 other works by Rembrandt, including an oil on panel of Hannah and Samuel; and two oils on canvases, A Woman in Bed; and Self-Portrait, aged 51.

"The National Galleries of Scotland hold about 100 etchings by Rembrandt, several of which are of superb quality," Dr. Seifert wrote in an email to the ARCAblog.

In 2010, Jenna Johnson for the Washington Post reported in "Etching found at Catholic University may be a Rembrandt" the story of the college's president discovering a framed etching and the process and valuation of a possible Rembrandt work. In July 2012, Dalya Alberge reported for the guardian in "Rembrandt drawing found in Scottish attic" that Christie's would sell the newly discovered artwork.

Here's a link to the Rembrandt Research Project, chaired by Ernst van de Wetering, 'widely accepted as the Rembrandt expert. Mr. van de Wetering authenticated a Rembrandt painting from Buckland Abbey in Devon in 2013. The DVD, Out of the Shadows: Hidden Masterpieces, is produced with the Rembrandt Research Project and the University of Delft. And this video here explains how Rembrandt sold his plates and later drawings were made in the 18th century.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art has published on the questions of authenticity in regards to Rembrandt's work. 

At the 2011 Art Crime Conference in Amelia, photographer and researcher Sarah Zimmer spoke about the event of a missing or lost Rembrandt etching in "The Investigation of Object TH 1988.18: Rembrandt's 100 Guilder Print."

The Cleveland Art Museum exhibited "Rembrandt in America" in 2012, discussing what is and what isn't a Rembrandt. The exhibit also visited North Carolina and Minnesota as the 'largest collection of authentic Rembrandt paintings'. The Morgan Library and Museum also showed an exhibit, Rembrandt's World, of the artist's drawings from the Clement C. Moore collection.

In August 2012, a Norwegian art gallery lost an Rembrandt etching in the mail (Reuters, "Norwegian gallery loses a Rembrandt in the mail," August 23, 2012).

In this article, "The 'kissing couple' bride: A remarkable war story remembered", by Debora van Brenk in the London Free Press, a story is told that an 'enterprising wife arranged for delivery of some Rembrandt etchings to high-placed German officers' to free her husband during the Nazi occupation of The Netherlands.

January 19, 2014

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Mark Durney's "Reevaluating Art Crime's Famous Figures" published in the International Journal of Cultural Property

The International Journal of Cultural Property published "Reevaluating Art Crime's Famous Figures" by Mark Durney in its May 2013 issue.

Mark Durney, the creator of the ARCA Blog and of Art Theft Central, studied history (undergraduate) at Trinity College in Hartford, CT, and archaeology (masters) at the University College of London. Noah Charney interviewed him in 2011. Mark spoke about the importance of "Collection Inventories" at ARCA's International Art Crime Conference that same year. Mark previously served as ARCA's Business and Admission's Director.

Here's the abstract:
This article seeks to demonstrate that the figures used to describe the size and scope of cultural property crimes—that it is a $6 billion illicit industry and that it ranks among the third or fourth largest criminal enterprise annually—are without statistical merit. It underscores the ambiguities inherent in the figures and uses the 2003 theft of the Duke of Buccleuch’s painting by Leonardo da Vinci, Madonna of the Yarnwinder, to illustrate the difficulties related to establishing monetary estimates for cultural property crimes. It calls for a more empirical approach to measuring the magnitude of the problem on the part of cultural property crime experts. Finally, it examines the reporting methods of the world’s largest cultural property crimes law enforcement agency, the Comando Carabinieri per la Tutela del Patrimonio Culturale, in order to provide a model for others to follow in the effort to communicate the severity of the problem and to increase its financial, social, and political support.
The article discusses cultural property crime data, the "multibillion dollar industry", and the value of Leonardo da Vinci's Madonna of the Yarnwinder stolen in Scotland in 2003 and recovered four years later:
The example of Leonardo da Vinci’s Madonna of the Yarnwinder, which was stolen in a daytime raid from Drumlanrig Castle, Scotland, in 2003 and recovered in 2007 underscores the difficulty with estimating an object’s value in order to account for its contribution to the annual illicit cultural property trade figure. For tax reasons, the Duke of Buccleuch insured the painting for only a quarter of its 1996 valuation—£15 million.27 Other estimates for the painting’s value published by the media ranged from £20 to £50 million.28 Immediately after the theft, the Buccleuch’s insurer offered a £200,000 reward, which was later increased to £1 million. In 2007, Robert Graham and John Doyle, private investigators who operated a stolen property recovery website called Stolen Stuff Reunited, were contacted by mysterious intermediaries known only as J and K, who had access to the stolen da Vinci. According to court records, the painting had been used as collateral for a £700,000 property deal and the individuals, who accepted the painting as security sought to recoup their money. Graham and Doyle contacted their solicitor Mar- shall Ronald. Ronald involved Glasgow solicitors Calum Jones and David Boyce in order to ensure the recovery dealings were legal under Scottish law. Ronald, on behalf of his clients, negotiated with the intermediaries to return the painting for £350,000. During the recovery process he notified the Buccleuch’s insurance loss adjustor, Mark Dalrymple, in order to return the painting through an informal mediation process.29 In negotiations between Dalrymple and John Craig, who was an undercover police officer posing as the Buccleuch’s representative, Ronald requested a total of £4.25 million as a reward and to cover his and his clients’ expenses.30 However, before negotiations evolved any further, police arrested Ronald, Graham, Doyle, Jones, and Boyce and charged the group with conspiring to extort £4.25 million from the Buccleuch family for the painting’s return.31 After an eight- week trial at the High Court in Edinburgh, a not-proven verdict was returned on Ronald, Graham, and Doyle. Both Jones and Boyce were found not guilty of the same charge. It was later revealed by the Scottish Legal Aid Board that £984,636 was paid to cover legal expenses of all the accused, which was a loss incurred by the Scottish taxpayer.32 

As illustrated by the case of the Madonna of the Yarnwinder, illicit art’s monetary value can be based on its insurance claim, its value as collateral in illicit transactions, or the cost of its recovery. Also, its value can be based on its estimated value. In this example, the painting’s estimated value would be difficult to determine due to the fact that it is a rare work by one of history’s most famous artists and has not been on the market since the eighteenth century when it was first acquired by the Buccleuch family. 
In the section, "New Methods of Measuring the Problem", Mr. Durney discusses Italy's Comando Carabinieri per la Tutela del Patrimonio Culturale:
Italy’s Comando Carabinieri per la Tutela del Patrimonio Culturale, which is the largest cultural property law enforcement unit in the world and has been very successful at policing such crimes since 1969, maintains a vast stolen cultural property database called Leonardo.45 The Carabinieri publish an annual report titled Attivita’ Operativa, which provides theft and recovery data as well as con- tributes insights into its cultural property protection efforts over the past year.46 The Carabinieri’s success at recording, publishing, and analyzing crime data is likely due to the fact that it has a uniform reporting system in place across its 14 regional units. In order to measure the unit’s performance, it compares the latest data with that from the previous year. While the annual report includes a mon- etary estimate of the total value of cultural objects recovered or seized, it supplements the data with more significant figures including those related to cultural objects recovered or seized by the Carabinieri.47 Also, the Carabinieri’s annual report incorporates the number of individuals referred to the judicial system from its actions; a detailed account of its preventive activities carried out, such as the review of businesses, markets, and fairs, as well as the inspection of the safety and security measures at museums, libraries, state archives, and archaeological sites; and a summary of its training activities with domestic and foreign law enforcement organizations.48

In addition to providing in-depth recovery data that is even segmented by re- gion, the Carabinieri’s report includes annual theft data. For example, there were 817 cultural property thefts reported in 2010 to the Carabinieri.49 The juxtaposition of the reported thefts against the number of objects recovered or seized pro- vides statistical evidence that leads one to conclude that a substantial number of thefts are underreported or unnoticed. This method of reporting better conveys the severity and scope of the illicit cultural property trade than any dollar amount could achieve.

January 18, 2014

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Unsolved Museum Thefts: The Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris and the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts

PARIS - My visit to the Musée d'Art Moderne de la ville de Paris yesterday reminded me of another museum with not one but two unsolved thefts.

The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts was robbed in 1972 and had 18 paintings stolen by three thieves who have never been convicted and the paintings have not been seen since the thieves failed to show up to collect a ransom for the kidnapped paintings (you can read about Canada's largest theft here).

In October 2011, a man walked out of the museum in Montreal with two objects from antiquity.

Can you think of other unsolved museum thefts?

How about the 1990 theft of Boston's Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum?

Those are the mysteries that bother me the most -- what are your most problematic museum thefts?

January 17, 2014

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Postcard from Paris: Musée d'Art Moderne de la ville de Paris -- galleries restructured and permanent collection displayed away from open windows

Museum view of Eiffel Tower & Siene
by Catherine Schofield Sezgin,
ARCAblog Editor-in-Chief

PARIS - Musée d'Art Moderne de la ville de Paris has undergone a restructuring of its galleries since a thief stole five paintings -- never recovered -- in May 2010. The biggest visible change to visitors today is that the long downstairs gallery facing windows overlooking the Seine and the Eiffel Tower is now a big open space with large, immobile paintings too big to be carried away by one person.
Open gallery with large paintings

Four years ago, portable works by modern paintings hung in the lower level that had access to an outdoor terrace and down steps to the street that runs south along the Seine. Admission to the museum, then and now is free, so it would not have cost a prospecting thief any money to scope out the small works that were be easily removed in the early morning hours while security personnel waited weeks for a part required to fix the security
Shiny lock, sharp shutters
alarm.
Entrance to the permanent collection

Today the museum appeared to have installed large outworks in the area that had been violated, tore down the wall dividers, and opened up the space. The inside metal shutters vulnerable in the break-in appeared well-maintained and locks nickel sharp.

The permanent collection is now displayed away from the large floor to ceiling windows into small rooms carved out of the middle of the building. More paintings, including some by the artists Picasso and Matisse who's works were stolen, appeared to be on display than even two years ago. This afternoon, with the bookstore full of customers and visitors eating and drinking at the cafe, this museum appeared to have no visible scars of the theft. However, I still can't bear to believe that those paintings, including the one by Braque that I so admired, were really thrown in the trash. 


Friday, January 17, 2014 - ,, No comments

The Art Newspaper reports rumours that Britain is trying to sell antiquities of 'disgraced dealer Robyn Symes'


In today's article in The Art Newspaper online, "Italy threatens to sue UK firm over ancient 'loot'", Cristina Ruiz and Javier Pes write about the 'Government's liquidator rumoured to be selling disgraced dealer Robin Symes's antiquities'.
Italy is demanding the immediate return of a cache of antiquities stored in London and warning that if it does not receive information about the status of the collection within 30 days, it may sue the firm responsible for the objects. 

Italy’s state legal counsel was planning to send, this month, a final warning to the liquidator responsible for the assets of the disgraced antiquities dealer Robin Symes, who was declared bankrupt in 2003. Italy’s letter includes a detailed list of around 700 ancient objects, including sculptures and jewellery, that Italy is claiming because it believes they were taken from its territory illegally. The action is taking place amid rumours that the liquidator, the British firm BDO, is selling the material in the Middle East on behalf of Her Majesty’s Revenue & Customs (HMRC), which is attempting to recoup tax owed by Symes’s firm, Robin Symes Ltd, which is now in liquidation. If BDO fails to respond to Italy’s warning by the end of the month with detailed information on the status of each item on the list, Maurizio Fiorilli, Italy’s state legal counsel on the Symes case, will notify the public prosecutor at the Criminal Tribunal in Rome.
According to University of Cambridge's Dr. Christos Tsirogiannis (in an email to the ARCAblog) that corrected a quote in the article:
It is a scandal for the British government, IF antiquities from the Symes warehouses are being offered for sale. At the moment I do not have any information that the British government is already selling antiquities from these warehouses. But, the delay to send to Italy the antiquities that have certainly been identified as illicit is already scandalous.
Dr. Tsirogiannis' work in helping the Greek police in cultural ministry in investigating the source of antiquities that passed through the dealership of Symes is documented in the book by Peter Watson and Cecilia Todeschini, The Medici Conspiracy: The Illicit Journey of Looted Antiquities from Italy's Tomb Raiders in the World's Greatest Museums.
  
Here's a 2008 article in Britain's Telegraph by Alastair Smart introducing readers to Maurizio Fiorilli. And here's an earlier post this year about the antiquities lack a legal collecting history that have been subscribed to Symes.

January 16, 2014

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Document Theft at the Maryland Historical Society: The Thief that Gives Back?

by Kirsten Hower

Normally when something is stolen from a cultural institution, the odds of the objects being returned is minimal, and often nothing is returned.  It is nearly unheard of for the objects to be returned…let alone for additional objects to be brought along in the return.  Oddly enough this is the case with museums in Maryland and New York, and document thieves Barry H. Landau and Jason James Savedoff.

Over the course of eight months, Landau and Savedoff stole ten thousand historical documents from cultural institutions such as the New York Historical Society and the Maryland Historical Society.  One of the documents stolen is a letter from Benjamin Franklin to John Paul Jones, a naval fighter in the American Revolution, dated April 1, 1780 which was stolen from the New York Historical Society.  The thousands of other historical documents included letters and other written pieces by Abraham Lincoln and Franklin Roosevelt. 

It was not until July 2011 that both Landau and Savedoff were caught sneaking documents into specially tailored coats at the Maryland Historical Society in Baltimore, Maryland.  Had it not been for the vigilant observations of one of the Society’s employees, the two men may never have been caught and the extent of their thefts never uncovered.  However, they were caught and subsequently charged for the thefts resulting in a seven year prison sentence for Landau and a one year prison sentence for Savedoff, who was released this past November.


What is particularly interesting about this case was that once the documents were returned, additional documents were discovered.  The “Baltimore Sun” reported that ten percent of the returned documents do not have traceable origins and are therefore homeless for the time being.  After temporarily staying at the National Archives in College Park, the documents were taken to the Maryland Historical Society in August where they will remain until they are claimed by their rightful owners.

News source:
Jessica Anderson, The Baltimore Sun, "Theft case leaves additional documents at Maryland Historical Society," December 31, 2013

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