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August 21, 2015

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Two Syrians Detained in Istanbul’s Esenyurt District for Smuggling Ottoman-era “Sikke” Coins

By Lynda Albertson

Antiquities trafficking from source countries to collector markets requires a global network of routes and facilitation by domestic and international criminal groups and, or middle men. Although the various trajectories are always evolving, there are certain well-established trafficking routes regularly used for the purpose of transporting illicit goods, be they drugs, precursor chemicals, illicit arms, humans or portable antiquities.

Some trafficking routes are chosen out of geographic necessity, while others are selected when smugglers associate an alternate route with a lower risk of discovery, higher profit margin or simply because logistics, such as fuel supplies, transport or available couriers, make one transport route or trafficker more appealing than another. 

Turkey has long been a viable trade corridor for heroin as well as other illegal merchandise.  As a stop along what is known as the Balkan Route the country's strategic geographical location has helped to develop it into a major staging area and transportation conduit used by drug traffickers smuggling heroin destined for European markets, with the largest percentage flowing into Germany and the Netherlands. 
April 27, 2015 Heroin Seizure 


But does Turkey serve as a trade route for illicit antiquities?

This week Turkish authorities announced that police had detained two Syrian antiquities smugglers also in Istanbul’s Esenyurt district and confiscated 500 historic "sikke" dating back to the Tanzimat period (1839–1876) of the Ottoman Empire.  Along with the coins police seized ammunition, a firearm, and a substantial amount of cash in three separate currencies:
August 2015 Coin Hoard Seizure

€119,000 (Euros)
₺134,500 (Turkish lira)
$4,250 (US Dollars)

Is the antiquities trade always tied to the illicit drug trade? 

Certainly not.  However one could conclude that underworld figures willing to ply their trade with one black market item (heroin) might be convinced to transport/fence other lucrative goods (coins) available on the illicit market if and when opportunity knocks and they are presented with objects for which there are likely to be buyers.  

Is the antiquities trade tied to one specific district? 

Again certainly not.  Nor should any parallel be drawn by any of our readers connecting these two isolated events in one distinct of Istanbul.

The lack of solid statistical reporting in the field of heritage-related crimes and the clandestine nature of illicit trafficking in general make drawing conclusions as to how often one type of illicit trafficking overlaps with another impossible to ascertain.  What is important however is that we actively recognize that fluid network structures, rather than more formal hierarchies, coupled with porous borders and geographical proximity to destabilized source countries located in the vicinity of established trafficking corridors where transnational criminal networks are already active could be leveraged as a means to traffic movable heritage.   It should also be understood that the average participant may not be a career criminal, but a regular citizen attempting to exploit an opportunity to supplement their income as a single link in a complex chain. 




August 20, 2015

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Rodin Bust Stolen from the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek Museum in Copenhagen

By Lynda Albertson

On July 16, 2015 two men posing as tourists brazenly walked in to the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek Museum in Copenhagen and stole a bronze bust  from the Dahlerup Wing during broad daylight. Law enforcement authorities, announcing the theft today, have only today released details on the theft to the public, which at first blush, seems to indicate that the two suspects worked in a coordinated fashion.

Police surveillance footage recorded two men, approximately 30 to 40 years of age and of average build, between 170-175cm tall, entering and exiting the gallery where the artwork was on display, leaving the premises with the bust concealed first in a plastic bag and then inside a second bag, before calmly strolling out of the museum. The theft took just twelve minutes to execute and went undetected by not only patrons but also the museum’s security personnel.

Copenhagen daily Politiken spoke with inspector Ove Randrup of Copenhagen police's robbery and theft unit who advised them that surveillance camera footage shows that the men had visited the museum one week earlier, disconnecting the bust's alarm and unfastening the sculpture from its base.

The stolen artwork, ‘The Man with the Broken Nose’ was created by François Auguste René Rodin and is one of several artworks created by the artist depicting this subject. Estimates of the value of the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek Museum bust have been quoted at two million krone ($300,000) by Danish news agencies. 

It is believed that Rodin's subject for the original bust was an elderly workman named “Bibi” from the Saint-Marcel district of Paris. In creating the original clay sculpture, from which the Danish copy was modelled, Rodin chose to emphasize certain features – the broken nose, the style of the beard, and the subject's deep facial lines.  Some believe his attempt was created as a parallel between this workman’s chiseled and work-weary face and Michelangelo’s during his later years.

The prototype for the stolen bust was created in clay early in Rodin’s career, between 1862 and 1863, while the sculptor worked as an apprentice to more conventional sculptors. Working on the original piece for more than a year he referred to the work as "the first good piece of modelling I ever did."

A marble example of the clay original can be found at the Musée Rodin in Paris.

Due to its popularity, Rodin made many casts of “The Man with the Broken Nose. The version  at the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek Museum has been in the Danish collection for 95 years.

As many as 15 versions of this sculpture were on display together at a previous exhibition at the Fogg Museum at Harvard, many of which are currently held in private collections.  A video, showing a close-up of the stolen bronze in situ in the Rodin Gallery of the the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek Museum is attached below and can be seen in high resolution at the 3.24 minute mark.   


Over the years works by Auguste Rodin have been popular with all manner of art thieves. The bronze sculpture The Burghers of Calais was found abandoned on a mountainside by its Nazi caretakers en route to Baden.  In  1991 ’Young Girl With Serpent' was stolen from a Beverly Hills couple and was recovered earlier this year.  In 2003 the work "The Hand of God" disappeared from the exhibition hall at the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes and in 2011 'Naked Balzac with Folded Arms' was stolen from the Israel Museum in Jerusalem during extensive renovations.

The Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek was founded by the brewer Carl Jacobsen (1842-1914) and is one of Copenhagen’s most prominent art museums. It was named after Jacobson’s brewery with the addition of "Glyptotek", meaning collection of sculpture. The museum has a comprehensive collection of antique sculpture from the ancient cultures around the Mediterranean, as well as works by Rodin, Degas and other French 19th Century artists. The museum has 35 works by Rodin, in bronze, marble and plaster.

The Danish Museum also holds the largest Etruscan collection outside Italy including antiquities clearly looted in origin including an Etruscan calesse, or two-wheeled horse-drawn carriage, excavated near Fara in Sabina, just north of Rome. At the core of the dispute between Italy and the Denmark museum are Etruscan and Greco-Roman objects Italian authorities say were purchased from Bob Hecht and Giacomo Medici.

August 7, 2015

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Ames Stradivarius owned by Roman Totenberg Recovered 35 years after theft


by Judge Arthur Tompkins

The New York Times reported August 6 (http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/07/arts/music/roman-totenbergs-stolen-stradivarius-is-found-after-35-years.html) that a Stradivarius violin stolen back in 1980 was recovered in June this year, and has been returned to the family of the original owner.

The Ames Stradivarius recovered by the F.B.I. in June.
(Credit Federal Bureau of Investigation, via Associated Press)


The ‘Ames Stradivarius’ was created by the legendary Italian violin-maker Antonio  Stradivarius in 1734. By 1980 it had been owned and played by Roman Totenberg, a well-known violin player and teacher, and director of the Longy School of Music in Cambridge, Mass., for nearly 40 years.  At the time of the theft, which happened during a reception following a concert, the violin was said to be valued at $250,000.

Saratoga Herald-Tribune, Friday May 16, 1980, page 5-A.
Michael Cooper reported in The NYT that the violin re-appeared earlier this year after an unnamed woman, who recounted that she had inherited the violin from her late ex-husband, sought advice from an appraiser. The appraiser immediately recognised both that it was a genuine Stradivarius, and that it was the stolen Ames Stradivarius.  The appraiser contacted the FBI’s Art Theft team, who immediately verified the identity of the instrument and took possession of it.

As noted in The NYT, it seems that the now deceased ex-husband was suspected of the theft by Mr Totenberg (who died in 2012) right from the start:
Ms. Totenberg [Roman Totenberg’s daughter] said that the woman had inherited the violin from the man Ms. Totenberg’s father had suspected all along of stealing the instrument. The man had been seen in the vicinity of his office at Longy near the time of the theft, and a woman once visited Mr. Totenberg and told him that she believed that the man had stolen his violin. But to the family’s frustration, investigators at the time apparently did not believe that the tip was sufficient for them to obtain a search warrant.
The family had received an insurance pay-out at the time of the theft. That has now been repaid, and the instrument will be restored and sold:
“[The family are] going to make sure that it’s in the hands of another great artist who will play it in concert halls all over the world,” she said. “All of us feel very strongly that the voice has been stilled for too long.”

July 29, 2015

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A Carabinieri officer, Amelia residents, and Uganda: ICAD works to provide maternity services to a mission in northern Uganda; Volunteers can attend a course on security

by Catherine Schofield Sezgin, 
  ARCA Blog Editor


Luca Del Moro, an officer with the carabinieri office in Amelia, was stationed in Uganda from 2004 to 2008 — however, the hard work of Italian Catholic missionaries in this land-locked African country left an impression on him. Del More is CEO and Founder of ICAD Onlus - International Cooperation and Development Association.

This September, Del Moro will be leading the third course on security and volunteering. The course on security in countries plagued by terrorism will be held for teachers from the United Nations, universities, armies, police, and missionaries. The subjects include radio communication; personal security (working with interpreters; negotiation and communication; security risk assessment; survival skills; weapons awareness; basic first aid; basic self defence; four-wheel drive vehicles (driving, maintenance and map reading); travel, convoy and vehicle security; and Italian Embassy and crisis unit; background, history and cultural awareness; stress management; and making photo reports and interviews.

In July, Ambassador Grace Akello, Head of the Diplomatic Mission of Uganda to Rome, wrote a letter to ICAD expressing her gratitude for the organization’s participation in a promotional event for Uganda’s role at Milan EXPO held on April 27 in Rome.
My colleague Ambassadors who came to the promotional events, appreciated how your organization is helping to building practical capacities in all the areas that you are working in. This means that if ever you were to decide to move out, the people left behind would continue as normal and would not be left bereft of knowledge. Secondly, my colleagues appreciated your statement that you did not go there to change people. They saw this as expressing the right to people to manage their own lives, with your technical input, that also passes on the soft and hard technology. This way people learn from you and make their own choices on how they want to utilize this knowledge in their own communities. This is what partnership is made of. Allow me to take this opportunity to assure you of my highest esteem.
You can find out more information about ICAD through Facebook, searching under Luca Del Moro (http://www.facebook.com/luca.delmoro.33/), or ICAD Onlus (http://www.facebook.com/ICAD.org/). 

Giulia Spernanzoni
Another Amelia resident, Giulia Spernanzoni, a university student studying security, traveled with ICAD Onlus to the northern part of Uganda (Karamoja) in February to follow different project and inspect the clinic which will be supplied by “tools and medicines for the benefit of the IK tribe gatherers and hunters” (ICAD).

Ms. Spernanzoni is also a member of the ICAD board. She attended the 2nd Course for Humanitarian Operators, completing both phases in Italy and in Uganda.

ICAD has focused is efforts to help new mothers and their children at a maternity center in northern Uganda. A more modern facility opened in April 2014, but ICAD is working to raise funds for other structures such as the kitchen, the toilettes, and sleeping areas. 

One of the founding members and board members in charge of ICAD, Msgr. Sandro Bigi, passed away in the middle of June, his funeral at the Duomo in Amelia closed down the town as everyone turned out to remember “his big heart and his dedication in helping his neighbors” (ICAD).

In June at the Parish of Saint Maria Maddalena of Torre Angela in Rome, ICAD held a charity dinner to raise funds needed to building a small house for the pregnant women living near the Morulem Maternity Centre (Uganda).

Next September, during the last two weekends (19-20 and 26-27) there will be the 3rd Intensive Course for Humanitarian Operators - Safe & Secure approaches in Field Environments. The cost is 250 euros, included the application and accommodation. The location is the gorgeous “La Tenuta dei Ciclamini” (www.iciclamini.it/) in Avigliano Umbro, owned by the famous Mogol. For more information write at info@icad-italy.org.

July 23, 2015

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Book Review: Catherine Schofield Sezgin on "The Napoleon of Crime: The Life and Times of Adam Worth" by Ben Macintyre

Catherine Schofield Sezgin reviews "The Napoleon of Crime: The Life and Times of Adam Worth" by Ben Macintyre in the Spring 2015 issue of The Journal of Art Crime, edited by Noah Charney (with Marc Balcells and Christos Tsirogiannis) and published by ARCA:

Ben Macintyre’s 1997 book, The Napoleon of Crime: The Life and Times of Adam Worth is written by the journalist who pro- duced Agent Zigzag: A True Story of Nazi Espionage, Love, and Betrayal, an empathetic view of a triple agent during World War II. In the preface, Macintyre explains that he found the story of Worth in the archives of the Pinkerton Detective Agency in Los Angeles by chance when he saw a 1902 “fragment of a newsprint” from the Sunday Oregonian in Portland that claimed “Adam Worth, Greatest Thief of Modern Times; Stole $3,000,000.”

Macintyre explains: 
The detectives, I soon learned, had hunted Worth across the world for decades with dogged perseverance, and the result was a wealth of documentation: six complete chronological folders, tied together with string and bulging with photographs, letters, newspaper articles, and hundreds of memos by the Pinkerton detectives, each one written in meticulous copperplate and relating a tale even more intriguing and peculiar than the nameless Sunday Oregonian writer had implied.
For Adam Worth, it transpired, was for more than simply a talented crook. A professional charlatan, he was that most feared of Victorian bogeymen: the double man, the charming rascal, the respectable and civilized Dr. Jekyll by day whose villainy emerged only under cover of night. Worth made a myth of his own life, building a thick smokescreen of wealth and possessions to cover a multitude of crimes that had started with picking pockets and desertion and later expanded to include safecracking on an industrial scale, international forgery, jewel theft, and highway robbery. The Worth dossiers revealed a vivid rogues’ gallery of crooks, aristocrats, con men, molls, mobsters, and policeman, all revolving around this singular man. In minute detail the detectives described his criminal network, radi- ating out of Paris and London and stretching from Jamaica to South Africa, from America to Turkey. 
Catherine Schofield Sezgin is editor of the blog for the Association of Research into Crimes against Art (ARCA) and a 2009 graduate of its certificate program in International Art Crime. 

Here's a link to ARCA's website about access to The Journal of Art Crime.

July 22, 2015

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Book Review: Kirsten Hower on "America and the Return of Nazi Contraband: The Recovery of Europe’s Cultural Treasures" by Michael J Kurtz

Kirsten Hower reviews Michael J. Kurtz's "America and the Return of Nazi Contraband: The Recovery of Europe’s Cultural Treasures" in the Spring 2015 issue of The Journal of Art Crime, edited by Noah Charney (with Marc Balcells and Christos Tsirogiannis) and published by ARCA:

Michael J Kurtz’s book, America and the Return of Nazi Contraband, is a breath of fresh air in an often overwhelming branch of cultural heritage history. Focusing on the role that America played in the processes of protecting, recovering, and repatriating the art looted by the Nazis, Kurtz examines the struggles of the bloody quagmire that was World War II. Despite emphasizing the American role in the conflict, Kurtz is resolute in maintaining as much objectivity as possible. He tells history through the groundbreaking achievements, the mundane struggle, and the mistakes of the American restitution effort that had long-standing consequences.

Thorough in nature, Kurtz addresses the origins of wartime looting and the countermeasures from antiquity through World War I, journeying through the troubled times that would prompt the treacherous years of Nazi Germany. The main focus being World War II, Kurtz, Assistant Archivist for Record Services in Washington, D.C., delves into the topic with great detail and fervor, using in-depth archival research to tell the story of the deeply flawed paradigm that was the protection and later restitution of ..cultural objects during this period.

Of particular interest, Kurtz details the tense relationship in the quadripartite powers of the Allied countries in the process of collecting and restituting of artworks stolen by the Nazis during the war. The complications created by countries vying for the immediate return of their cultural property helped create this tense environment that was exacerbated by the secretive and uncooperative attitude of the Soviet Union. While countries such as France and Belgium clamored bitterly to get their cultural property back from the collecting points established throughout Germany, the Soviets demanded harsh reparations for the atrocities committed against their people by the Nazis. Despite the troves of cultural objects that the Soviet Trophy Brigades plundered during the collapse of the Nazi regime, they wanted more. ...
Kirsten Hower is an ARCA Postgraduate Program alum and has served as ARCA’s Social Networking Correspondent and List-Serve Manager. 

Here's a link to ARCA's website about access to The Journal of Art Crime.

July 21, 2015

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Book Review: Marc Balcells on "Cultural Heritage Ethics: Between Theory and Practice", Edited by Constantine Sandis

Marc Balcells reviews "Cultural Heritage Ethics: Between Theory and Practice, Edited by Constantine Sandis" in the Spring 2015 issue of The Journal of Art Crime, edited by Noah Charney (with Marc Balcells and Christos Tsirogiannis) and published by ARCA:

Sadly, a book of cultural heritage ethics is always necessary, it seems. But with the recent events going on in several zones of the globe, an edited collection of essays like this becomes more and more essential and a remainder of both the fragility of cultural heritage and the bestiality that can be inflicted upon it. Thus, departing from a methodology based mostly on case studies, the book has been written by experts coming from different sectors in the field, ranging from academia to lawyers, or from activists to journalists. A complete, detailed list of contributors includes Constantine Sandis, James Fox, Benjamin Ramn, Nira Wickramasinghe, William St Clair, Sudeshna Guha, Geoffrey Scarre, Sir John Boardman, ARCA’s professor Tom Flynn, Sir Mark Jones, Michael F. Brown, Geoffrey Belcher and Marie Cornu.

The book is structured in very marked and clearly distinct blocks. The first one deals with meaning and memory. Sandis’ chapter mostly delineates the field of cultural heritage ethics and raises the very interesting question of whether we can talk about a unified account of what we consider cultural heritage and cultural heritage ethics or not. James Fox, in Chapter Two, and using as a case study the prohibition by FIFA of wearing poppies on English football uniforms in a match against Spain, writes about potent political symbols. Chapter Three, written by Benjamin Ramm, deals with the attacks to- wards the values of shared culture, and how, in this context, the concept of heritage acquires a new meaning. This is, by far, the most theoretical chapter of the whole book.
Marc Balcells is the Associate Editor of The Journal of Art Crime. A Spanish criminologist, he holds degrees in Law, Criminology and Human Sciences, and masters both in Criminal Law, and the ARCA Postgraduate Certificate Program in Art Crime and Cultural Heritage Protection. A Fulbright scholar, he is currently completing his PhD in Criminal Justice at The Graduate Center, CUNY. His research revolves around criminological aspects of archaeological looting, though he has also written about other forms of art crime. He has taught both Criminal Law and Criminology courses as an associate at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona and the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya (Spain) and is a Graduate Teaching Fellow in the Political Science department at John Jay College. He is also a criminal defense attorney whose practice is located in Barcelona.

Here's a link to ARCA's website about access to The Journal of Art Crime.

July 20, 2015

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Editorial Essay: Francesca Coccolo on "New Archaeological Discoveries and Cultural Ventures beyond War Threats: A Model of Excellence Stemming from Iraqi-Italian Cooperation" in the Spring 2015 issue of The Journal of Art Crime

In an editorial essay, Francesca Coccolo writes on "New Archaeological Discoveries and Cultural Ventures beyond War Threats: A Model of Excellence Stemming from Iraqi-Italian Cooperation" in the Spring 2015 issue of The Journal of Art Crime, edited by Noah Charney (with Marc Balcells and Christos Tsirogiannis) and published by ARCA:
The Italian Archaeological Mission to Assyria – Land of Nineveh Regional Project, one among four Italian projects concerning Iraqi cultural heritage, operates in the Northern Region of Iraqi Kurdistan – Governorate of Dohuk, few kilometres north from the Mosul dam and the ISIS occupied territories.1 The first significant achievements by the above mission, directed by the Associate Professor of Near Eastern Archaeology and Art History from the University of Udine Daniele Morandi Bonacossi, were presented last October at the University of Udine and last December during two international conferences held respectively in Turin and Florence, in the presence of both Iraqi and Kurdish governmental representatives.2 
Following a proposal from UNESCO, The Land of Nineveh Project has been carried out since 2012 by the University of Udine in cooperation with the General Directorate of Antiquities of Dohuk and Erbil (KRG – Ministry of Municipalities and Tourism), the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation (MAECI) and the Institute for Technology Applied to Cultural Heritage of the Italian National Research Council (CNR). The ambitious Mission of the Project is made up of three closely intertwined approaches integrating scientific research, protection and enhancement of the cultural heritage of Iraqi Kurdistan and professional training for local archaeologists. 
Consistently with the framework of a high-level cooperation established between the Iraqi and the Italian governments, the Rector of the University of Udine, Alberto Felice de Toni, underlined that the archaeological permit granted by the Central Authorities of Baghdad to the Archaeological Mission from Udine is one of the broadest ever to be obtained by a foreign mission operating on Iraqi territory. ...
Francesca Coccolo is a Ca’ Foscari University of Venice graduate student. Her research interests space from national and international law on cultural property to protection of artworks and antiquities during armed conflicts as well as illicit traffic in the art market. While attending her MA program she was granted an internship experience at Soprintendenza Speciale per il Patrimonio Storico, Artistico ed Etnoantropologico e per il Polo Museale della Città di Venezia (2012). She contributed also to the setting-up project of the 55. International Art Exhibition in the role of assistant registrar at Fondazione la Biennale di Venezia (2013). In her upcoming thesis project she examines the evolution over centuries of international law regulating cultural restitution after armed conflicts with a special focus on the international regulations and practices which affected the restitution to Italy of the artworks displaced immediately before and during WWII. In June and December 2014 she attended the Fourth and Fifth Provenance Research Training Program (PRTP) workshops held respectively in Athens and Rome by the European Shoah Legacy Istitute (ESLI). In December 2014 she also had the opportunity to attend an international conference in Florence on the Italian contribution for the preservation and enhancement of the Iraqi cultural heritage and to focus her enquiry on the activity of Italian archaeological teams operating in the autonomous Kurdish region.
  
Here's a link to ARCA's website about access to The Journal of Art Crime.

July 19, 2015

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Editorial Essay: Toby Bull's perspective in "The Grape War of China: Wine Fraud and How Science is Fighting Back" in the Spring 2015 issue of The Journal of Art Crime

In the editorial essay "The Grape War of China: Wine Fraud and How Science is Fighting Back" Hong Kong police officer Toby Bull presents his perspective in the Spring 2015 issue of The Journal of Art Crime, edited by Noah Charney (with Marc Balcells and Christos Tsirogiannis) and published by ARCA:

There has been wine made from grapes – as opposed to grain - in China for thousands of years (Kjellgren, 2004). Indeed, Wang Renxiang (1993) considers it to be at the very heart of China’s culture and identity. Vine cultivation goes as far back as the Zhou dynasty (ca. 1100-256 BC), where indigenous vines within the royal gardens were said to have existed. The first documented account of Western viticulture coming into contact with the Middle Kingdom is found in a First Century BC history book, Shiji, where an emperor’s envoy sent to the lands west of what is now the Sino-Uzbekistan border area, saw “grapes that were used to make wine...the oldest was kept several decades without getting spoilt” (cited in Kjellgren, 2004). The envoy, duly impressed, returned with some cuttings and, not long afterwards, Chinese vineyards from a Eurasian grape varietal were established, eventually producing wine fit for the imperial palate (Kjellgren, 2004). And so wine became associated with the rich and high-born: a luxurious and desirous product, and with it, perhaps, the earliest recorded case of a “wine crime” occurring in ancient China.


Li Hua (2002) mentions an official bestowing a gift of (grape) wine - the equivalent of 20 liters – in order to achieve a high position and win favor at court. Hua refers to this as “the first time an office was bought with wine” – a neat symmetry to the modern-day practice referred to in China as “Elegant Bribery:” the art of bribing officials with gifts, normally of art or expensive Grand-Crus. China’s recent anti-graft measures, a decree by the current president, are seeing some changes to this method, although the Chinese still buy wine, lots of it, both for gift-giving and personal consumption, but are now spending less (Luo, 2014). Thus, whilst the West can look to the writings of Pliny the Elder from 1st century Rome for early references to the relationship between the wine trade and the shenanigans sometimes associated with it, so too can China look to its past, for the concept is not a new one.
Toby J. A. Bull was born in England and educated at the famous Rugby School. He holds three academic degrees, including a BA (Hons) in ‘Fine Arts Valuation’ and a MSc in ‘Risk, Crisis & Disaster Management’. He continued his studies in the arts by becoming a qualified art authenticator, studying at the Centre for Cultural Material Conservation and graduating from the University of Melbourne, Australia. He has extensive knowledge in forensic art authentication methods, as well as in the more theoretical and academic studies surrounding art fraud. His main interests include the topic of fakes and forgeries of Chinese ceramics and the problems of smuggled illicit antiquities emanating out of China. He has subsequently seen his work on this subject published in “Art & Crime: Exploring the Dark Side of the Art Market” (Praeger, 2009), as well as in “Cultural Property Crime” (Brill, 2014). Since 1993, he has worked for the Hong Kong Police Force. His expertise in the field of art crime have allowed him to be an advisor, as well as an Honorary Professor to the “Association for the Research into Crimes Against Art” (ARCA) for their postgraduate certificate program on “Art Crime and Cultural Heritage Protection.” He has lectured extensively to the art trade and beyond on topics surrounding ‘Art Crime’ to the likes of Sotheby’s Institute of Art, Christie’s Education, The World Congress of Forensics and at Asia Art in London, as well as to ARCA's ‘Art Crime & Cultural Heritage Protection Conference’ held annually in Italy. He recently Chaired the Forensic DNA panel at the 2014 World Gene Convention where he presented a paper on synthetic DNA security coding and its application to the art and fine wine markets in helping to combat fakes. Seeing the disparity between public and private involvement in the field of art crime and its associated spin-offs, Toby founded TrackArt in 2011– Hong Kong’s first Art Risk Consultancy. Toby is a Member of The Worshipful Company of Art Scholars.

Here's a link to ARCA's website about access to The Journal of Art Crime.

July 18, 2015

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Columnist Christos Tsirogiannis looks at “Duplicates and the Antiquities Market” in the Spring 2015 issue of The Journal of Art Crime

In Christos Tsirogiannis' regular column "Nekyia", the Greek forensic archaeologist addresses “Duplicates and the Antiquities Market” in the Spring 2015 issue of The Journal of Art Crime, edited by Noah Charney (with Marc Balcells and Tsirogiannis) and published by ARCA:
For more than 60 years, academics, field archaeologists, journalists and state authorities have discussed the idea that countries of origin should offer "duplicate" antiquities or multiple copies to the market, for a variety of reasons. Some of the participants in the debate are echoing the desire of the market which general promotes the idea that antiquities certified by countries of origin should be made available for sale. 
Journalist Karl E. Meyer, in his 1973 book The Plundered Past, refers to the possible legal sale of antiquities which are the findings of state archaeological excavations and are classified as duplicates. Meyer suggests that the sale of these duplicates could take place in order to satisfy "at least the collecting appetites of those with a moderate income, with the money used to support excavations". Although Meyer implies that such proposals have been made several times before 1973 (without ever having been applied in practice) and refers (Meyer 1973: 186) to a relevant attempt in Mexico "a few years ago", the author does not support this information with specifics. As we will see, Kersel and Kletter (2006) uncover evidence that the Israeli state in principle enabled the sale of duplicates in the 1950s. I find it a strong possibility that this is what Meyer had in mind.
Christos Tsirogiannis is a Greek forensic archaeologist. He studied archaeology and history of art in the University of Athens, then worked for the Greek Ministry of Culture from 1994 to 2008, excavating throughout Greece and recording antiquities in private hands. He voluntarily cooperated with the Greek police Art Squad on a daily basis (August 2004 – December 2008) and was a member of the Greek Task Force Team that repatriated looted, smuggled and stolen antiquities from the Getty Museum, the Shelby White/Leon Levy collection, the Jean-David Cahn AG galleries, and others. Since 2007, Tsirogiannis has been identifying antiquities in museums, galleries, auction houses, private collections and museums, depicted in the confiscated Medici, Becchina and Symes-Michaelides archives, notifying public prosecutor Dr. Paolo Giorgio Ferri and the Greek authorities. He received his Ph.D. at the University of Cambridge, on the international illicit antiquities network viewed through the Robin Symes–Christos Michaelides archive. 

Here's a link to ARCA's website about access to The Journal of Art Crime.

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