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April 4, 2022

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The sometimes slow and sometimes fast return of historical artefacts pillaged from Libya


Cyrene, Northern Necropolis.
The Sculptured Tomb/Cassels from Pacho 1827

Parallel with the start of the First Libyan Civil War, the Security Directorate of Shahat, in the eastern coastal region of Libya, implemented a series of works in an attempt to address the looting and destruction of moveable and immovable heritage from the tangle of ruins known as the seventh century BCE  city of Cyrene.  Faced with rising civil unrest, the outbreak of wars, and unchecked and destructive urban encroachment, Ismail Dakhil, an official at the museums department of eastern Libya, estimated that as much as 30 percent of the ancient city may have been encroached upon due to urban expansion.

Despite Libyan archaeologists, officials, and academics doing all they can to protect and maintain their country’s heritage, often with only very limited resources, and sometimes at great personal risk, the extent of recent destruction of the rock-cut tombs and ancient structures at Cyrene is vividly illustrated in this July 2013 photograph.  The heartbreaking image clearly shows an operator's Hyundai Robex 250 LC-7 crawler excavator clearing land for development inside a stretch of the city's ancient necropolis. 


There, in abject disregard for the ancient burial vaults and sarcophagi below the treads of the construction vehicle, makeshift developers rashly transformed a swath of the archaeological site into a modern construction zone.  Before they could be stopped, these individuals crushed, destroyed, or dumped into waterways what Greek, Hellenistic, Roman and Byzantine Cyrenaica remains they came across, some of which dated as far back as 600 BCE.

Along with urban encroachment, insufficient security and a complicated political terrain has made Libya's rich archaeological heritage a vulnerable target for looting.  During the last two decades, according to the research of prominent forensic archaeologists, many of the territory's majestic Hellenistic sculptures have been plundered, only to turn up for sale on the ancient art market with little or fabricated provenance.  Many of the most beautiful of these pieces have turned up with, or have been sold through well known gallerists in London, Paris, Switzerland, Barcelona, and the United States. 

To illustrate the seriousness of the problem, the remainder of this article will be dedicated to four artefacts that have just gone home, identified in four separate US investigations of varying lengths and complexities.  Each of these artefacts made the long journey back home to Libya last week, and each were seized and relinquished as the price sometimes paid for trading in illicit material, and in one case, from wantonly collecting material with an absolute and total disregard for an object's legitimacy. 

Artefact #1

Cyrene Deity Head - Belzic Dt.54 *

The first, and oldest, is a fourth-to-third-century BCE Head of a Veiled Woman, (Cyrene Deity Head - Belzic Dt.54) which was recovered as part of an 11-year Federal investigation code named “Operation Lost Treasure,” led by HSI-ICE in New York, in conjunction with the U.S. Department of State and U.S. Customs and Border Protection. This 13 inch tall by 10 inches wide marble head was seized by US authorities while monitoring the shipments and way bills of a known problematic Sharjah-based antiquities dealer.  The artefact was being shipped to a sometimes collector, sometimes dealer operating in New York.  Unfortunately, this was not the only plundered artefact from Cyrene the UAE dealer knowingly handled, nor was America the only country where buyers for Libya's plundered material could easily be found.  

Freshly looted, this severed head of a divinity had been shipped out of Libya and made her way into the United States unwashed by her handlers.  As a specimen of the wonders of Cyrenaica's past, her expressive face still retains some of the underdrawing pigment used by her creator to outline and define her eyes.   

Officers involved in the U.S. investigation would go on to provide assistance to London investigators when this same dealer, continuing to ply his illegal trade in the lucrative London market, shipped yet another plundered funerary statue from Cyrene to the United Kingdom just three years after this New York seizure.  In the US case, Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) International Operations Division Chief Leo Lin formally handed over this sculpture to the safekeeping of the Libyan Embassy in Washington DC,  where it has remained until its journey home was finalised last week. 

Artefact #2

Cyrene Deity- Steinhardt-Albertson Dt.76*

The second artefact, the Veiled Head of a Female, as named in the Michael Steinhardt Agreement, was formally surrendered by the New York collector in early December 2021.  It is thought to be the head of a 2.5 meter tall 3rd - 2nd century BCE funerary monument representing a half-figure goddess.  One of just ten known to archaeologists from the Necropolis of Cyrene, before its plunder, this strikingly rare sculpture once adorned one of only six or seven monumental tombs located in the ancient city.   

The sculpture had been seized during the lengthy investigation into the highly questionable collecting practices of billionaire Michael Steinhardt, begun in New York in February 2017.  Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg's team, lead by Chief of the Antiquities Trafficking Unit and Senior Trial Counsel Matthew Bogdanos, along with Supervising Investigative Analyst Apsara Iyer and Investigative Analysts Alyssa Thiel and Daniel Healey gathered evidence which demonstrated that the Veiled Head of a Female first surfaced on the international art market on 20 November 2000 when Michael Steinhardt purchased Dt.76 from Michael L. Ward, a dealer in New York with three business entities: 
  • Michael Ward & Co.
  • Michael Ward Inc.,
  • Ward & Company Works of Art LLC.
On his invoice, Ward noted the Veiled Head of a Female was “possibly from North Africa” and “a light brown earthy deposit uniformly covering the head imparts to its surfaces an attractive, warm patina.” This “earthy deposit” is thought by some experts to have been applied after the object was looted as it serves to lessen the noticeability of small chips and breakage on the surface of the artefact, a likely sign of rough handling by its looters.  

The ancient sculpture was sold to Steinhardt with no prior provenance for $1,200,000. 

Discussing the seized sculpture with Morgan Belzic, a PhD researcher at the Ecole Pratique des Hautes Études specialising in Cyrenaican Funerary Sculptures, under the direction of François Queyrel, he concurred with my preliminary observation that this head of a deity, with its telltale coloration and diadem, had to originate from Cyrene.  Belzic has made a name for himself, having noted a correlation between the increasing destruction of funerary monuments in Libya and the uptick in the appearance of ancient pieces from Cyrene on the market statistically out of range with those appearing in the market prior to the country's destabilisation.

As an expert on the sculptural remains of Libya's Greek cities, Belzic cooperates with national and international law enforcement authorities, including the Manhattan DA's office and the Libyan Department of Antiquities and has identified plundered and suspect objects originating from the Libyan cities of Shahat (Cyrene), Susa (Apollonia), Tocra (Taucheira), Tulmaytha (Ptolemais), and Benghazi (Euesperides/Berenike).  

Working closely with a multinational coalition of archaeological missions in Libya under the coordination of the French Archaeological Mission, lead by Vincent Michel, this group of allied researchers has provided critical evidence in law enforcement investigations identifying sculptures of high concern originating from Cyrenaica. 

The Manhattan District Attorney's office concluded its multi-year, multi-national criminal investigation into Steinhardt's ancient art collection in 2021.  In total, their work resulted in the seizure and forfeiture of 180 plundered antiquities valuing an estimated total of $70 million and imposing the first-of-its-kind lifetime ban on acquiring antiquities ever handed down to a collector. But this investigation is important for the history books not only for that reason but also because the case underscores and exemplifies the successes prosecutors can have when a) focusing almost exclusively on art and antiquities cases, b) working collaboratively with other law enforcement agencies and c) exercising the willingness to work with a group of forensic researchers who specialise in looted and stolen antiquities from specific regions or cultures. 

Handover Ceremony in Manhattan

Through the collaborative work of the DA's team, with the coordinated help of Special Agents Robert Mancene, Robert Fromkin, and John Labatt of Homeland Security Investigations, in this one case alone, the DA's office successfully identified 169 of the 180 seized antiquities as having been trafficked by a total of 12 different criminal smuggling networks.  The remaining eleven forfeited antiquities, including this one, first appeared on the international art market in the hands of dealers more concerned with the artefact's sales value than with closely examining the provenance of objects that come from countries plagued by civil unrest, war, and/or rampant looting. 


Artefact #3
Cyrene Deity Head - Belzic Dt.22*

While the exact dates of when the 3rd to 2nd century BCE, Belzic Dt.22, was looted from Cyrene is unknown, it is believed that this sculpture may have been stolen in the 1980s and then smuggled into Egypt by antiquities traffickers.  Investigators in New York have proven that it was eventually shipped onward to the United States, where it appeared on the US ancient art market in 1997.  According to investigators, the artefact demonstrated the “telltale signs of looting such as earth on the surface and new chips at the base and in the veil.”

By 1998, and now referred to as the Veiled Head of a Lady, and head had been valued at nearly half a million dollars and was placed on loan to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York by an anonymous donor, where it was catalogued simply as a Greek Hellenistic funerary head and mislabelled as being from the 4th century BCE. 

The veiled head remained on display at the Met for more than twenty years.  After being identified as having come from Cyrene, the sculpture was seized during an investigation conducted by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg's team, lead by Chief of the Antiquities Trafficking Unit and Senior Trial Counsel Matthew Bogdanos, along with Supervising Investigative Analyst Apsara Iyer and Investigative Analysts Alyssa Thiel and Daniel Healey in February 2022.  Note that the Met and DANY have declined to identify the lender at this time, given the sensitivity of ongoing investigations.

Prior to its formal transfer back home to Libya, the Veiled Head of a Female was handed over to the Libyan authorities on 30 March 2022 along with Artefact 4 during a repatriation ceremony attended by the Charge d’Affaires of the Embassy of Libya in DC Khaled Daief, and U.S. Homeland Security Investigations (“HSI”) Acting Deputy Special Agent-in-Charge Mike Alfonso.

Artefact #4

Cyrene Portrait Head - Belzic P.97*

After being smuggled from Libya to Geneva, Switzerland, Morgan Belzic first identified this 2nd century CE marble Cyrenaican Funerary portrait of a bearded man on the ancient art market in November 2018.  When documented, it was being offered for an estimated sales price of $19,000.  

Originally placed in a tomb rich with small niches, there are more than 250 Cyrene portraits of this category recorded by scholars studying the ancient remains of Libya.  The iconographic styling of this type of portrait head is so unique to Cyrenaican funerary imagery that this category of sculpture is referred to in scientific literature as a ‘Romano-Libyan’ portrait. 

The marble head of a man was next offered for sale two years later, in June of 2020, this time in Manhattan and with an asking price of $25,000 - $35,000.  But it is the third sale which turns out to be the charm, resulting in the fastest seizure to restitution of an artefact in history.  

Belzic P-97 was spotted for the third time on 28 March 2022, this time by art historian Camille Blancher, just shy of its next intended sale date through another USA antiquities dealer.  Through the responsive and collaborative efforts of Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg's antiquities unit, working in close coordination with Special Agents Robert Mancene and Robert Fromkin of Homeland Security Investigations the bearded head of a man was seized on Tuesday, March 29th, back in the Manhattan DA's office where it was handed over to the Libyan authorities on Wednesday, March 30th, along with Artefact 3 during a repatriation ceremony attended by the Charge d’Affaires of the Embassy of Libya in DC Khaled Daief, and U.S. Homeland Security Investigations (“HSI”) Acting Deputy Special Agent-in-Charge Mike Alfonso.

Support for this case came from members of a coalition of archaeological missions working in Libya under the coordination of the French Archaeological Mission as well as from ARCA, all of whom are deeply committed in assisting Libyan institutions and authorities in enforcing the protection of cultural heritage in Libya and who voiced their collective concerns to the DANY regarding the artefact's potential sale. 

To put a nice bow on this story, all four marble funerary sculptures, along with a small grouping of terracotta urns and fragments, were flown via private jet, paid for by a philanthropist, to Mitiga International Airport in Libya.  Arriving to Tripoli on Thursday, April 1st, the repatriation of these antiquities is a “peace dividend” as described by Director-General of the United Nations Regional Institute for Crime and Justice Research (UNICRI) Antonia Marie de Meo, who led a delegation to Libya alongside James Shaw, Chief of that agency's Asset Recovery and Illicit Financial Flows programme.  Also on board was forensic archaeologist Morgan Belzic, who more than anyone, truly understood the efforts, coordination and cooperation, these four recoveries required. 

The handover ceremony took place at the Museum of Libya inside the former royal palace of Qasr al-Khild in Tripoli. Like other museums in Libya, it has remained closed to the public since the 2011 Libyan uprising.  Speeches at the event included statements made by Omar Kati, Deputy Minister for International Cooperation and Organizations Affairs, Libyan government antiquities chief Muhammad Faraj al-Falous, the envoy for Libya in the United States, representatives from the Libyan Ministry of the Interior and LARMO. Many of whom present for the celebration expressed gratitude for the efforts made by the US law enforcement and public prosecutors in bringing Libya's heritage home. 

U.S. Ambassador to Libya Richard Norland personally thanked the staff at the Manhattan DA's office and HSI- ICE.  

The spectacular ruins of the ancient Greek city of Cyrene have, for better or worse, survived Libya's 2011 revolution.  Looking at these beautiful artefacts and admiring the Met recovered piece in particular, I feel compelled to admire the learned skill that฀went into the creation of this veiled woman. For all our modern capabilities, I doubt we could turn such solid stone into the modesty of a semi transparent fold of material in quite the way that this unknown ancient Cyrene artisan did.  

Filled฀with admiration, but also a healthy does of cynicism, I understand that Libya's loses don't stop with the return of one woman behind one transparent veil to the place she was formed.  The rape of historic Cyrene for profit has and likely will continue, and there are other veiled faces of other victims still out there.  

Some of the forensic archaeologists involved in this fight were already back at work on Saturday, prepared to help law enforcement authorities in any way they can to bring Libya's sculptures back to a country that has already lost so much. 

By Lynda Albertson, ARCA CEO

-------

Addendum:

In July 2016 UNESCO placed all five of Libya's World Heritage sites on the UNESCO World Heritage in Danger list.  Equally concerned, and in response to a long history of threats, the United States and Libya signed its 17th cultural property agreement with Libya on 23 February 2018 to solidify the two countries' joint collaboration in combatting the looting and trafficking of cultural objects originating from the plagued North African country.  

Signed by Irwin Stephen Goldstein for the United States and by Lutfi Almughrabi, Libyan Under Secretary for Political Affairs, this agreement formalised a collaboration to protect Libya heritage for a period of five (5) years. And while this agreement was opposed by many in the antiquities trade, the restitutions discussed in this article demonstrate repeatedly that poverty, civil unrest and war create the perfect storm for the trafficking of illicit antiquities.

* Image Credit French Archaeological Mission to Libya

February 28, 2022

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Will an international rogatory finally bring Italy's treasures home from the Altes Museum?

Apulian vases Antikensammlung Berlin - Accession no. 1984.39-59

Anyone who admires the moveable heritage of Magna Graecia and Apulian red-figure artefacts in particular, and who has visited the Altes Museum located on Berlin's Museum Island will likely have come across "their" phenomenal set of grave artefacts dating back to the 4th century BCE.  Extremely carefully executed and very elegant, the grouping are housed together in one extremely large glass showcase.  The so-called Phrixos crater, a volute crater with mask handles and the Rhesos crater, a high volute crater with three-wheel handles has been attributed to the Darius painter.  The Persephone crater, a volute crater with spiral handles, the Gigantomachie crater, a volute crater with mask handles and the Priamiden-Krater are ascribed to the painter of the Underworld.  Two other volute craters with mask handles are attributed to the Loebbecke painter and the painter from Copenhagen,

What makes this group spectacularly surprising is not that these strikingly beautiful artefacts are believed to possibly represent a single burial grouping, used to furnish a rich chamber tomb north of Taranto, Italy, but rather, that at the time of their purchase, no one seemed even a smidge concerned about the improbability of their purported provenance. Or, that years later, they continue to be displayed in Germany, and not in Italy, despite longstanding proof, now two decades old, that demonstrate their likely illicit origins. 

In the late 1980s, taking Christoph Leon, an Austrian archaeologist-turned-dealer living in Basel at his word, the director of the Berlin archaeological museum (at the time located in West Germany), Wolf Dieter Heilmayer, purchased the grouping of artefacts while completely ignoring the red flags in Leon's implausible story.  Despite having no proof whatsoever, beyond the word of the restorer, Fiorella Cottier-Angeli, who relayed that she had put the vases back together and they had been found in fragments in very old chests belonging to a Swiss family named Cramer, and had reached Geneva "in the nineteenth century," Heilmayer quickly shelled out 3 million marks without demanding any substantiating proof that the artefacts he was purchasing had, in fact, left Italy and entered into Swiss territory before Italy's law n.364 of 1909, entered into force.

Likewise, neither Wolf Dieter Heilmayer, nor Luca Giuliani, curator of the German archaeological museum at the time, seemed interested in questioning the flimsy backstory of how such a large grouping of funerary artefacts could have ended up smashed into bits and stashed into said trunks.  

Did the purported Cramer family have all their ancient treasures lined up on one overloaded shelf that at some point in history came crashing down?  And did said nineteenth century family conveniently have the foresight to stow each and every swept up fragment into trunks in the hopes that years later,  someone like Ms. Cottier-Angeli might put them all back together again like some precious group of Apulian Humpty Dumpties? 

Flash forward to September 13, 1995 when alarm bells really sounded.  

On that date, Swiss authorities notified Giacomo Medici that they would execute a search warrant at his storage facilities/office of Editions Services located on the fourth floor of the Ports Francs & Entrepôts de Genève, specifically Corridor 17, Room 23.  There, a search party consisting of a Swiss magistrate, three Swiss police, headed by an inspector, three Carabinieri TPC officers, an official photographer, and the deputy director of the Ports Francs & Entrepôts de Genève seized and documented contradictory evidence to the provenance story provided for the Berlin tomb-group artefacts.  

Carefully recorded by Medici were three sets of Polaroid images, depicting four of the artefacts purchased earlier by Heilmayer for the German museum's collection:

one grouping of fifteen photographs,

one grouping of six photographs,

and one grouping of two photographs.


The preponderance of this evidence seems to contradict the fabricated provenance given to the museum, which made no mention of the antiquities dealer who at that point found himself embroiled in a complex investigation by the Swiss and Italian authorities. 


Jumping forward to the last two years.  


On 11 October 2021, Alessandro Arturi, the judge of the preliminary investigations at the Court of Rome, ordered the confiscation of all 21 of the Berlin museum's tomb-group artefacts sold by Leon.  In his ruling Arturi, cited Jacques Chamay, at the time director of the archaeological museum in Geneva (who displayed the vases at the time of they were offered for purchase), and Fiorella Cottier Angeli's well known and fully established complicity with the by now-convicted antiquities dealer Giacomo Medici.  And in describing the photographic evidence in the seized Medici archive, the judge spelt out clearly that the Polaroids in the archive depict four of the craters in the Berlin museum "first in the condition of mere fragments soaked in earth, then in the subsequent phases of restoration, up to their current integral recomposition." 

Which leads me to the next question...

Dr. David Gill has been writing about his concerns regarding these vases for years, see articles here and here. The Italian authorities have thoroughly researched their problematic provenance and have documented evidence suggesting they were extracted illegally from Italian soil and exported without the benefit of an export license to Switzerland. All of which begs the question of why, a quarter of a century later, Italy has needed to resort to a court ruling, to put pressure on Germany to get on board and consider relinquishing the Apulian funeral pieces. 

What is known is that the Italian Ministry of Justice, perhaps having lost patience, has launched an international rogatory, to which Germany has yet to formally reply. 


December 7, 2021

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Remembering the 30th Anniversary of the shelling of Dubrovnik

 SENSE Center for Transitional Justice marks one of the most notorious episodes of the intentional destruction of historic monuments of the post-WW2 era

By Helen Walasek

(c) estate of Pavo Urban

December 6 marks the 30th anniversary of the shelling of the Old City of Dubrovnik, a UNESCO World Heritage site, in 1991 during the Wars of Yugoslav Succession – one of the most notorious episodes of the intentional destruction of historic monuments in Europe since World War Two. SENSE Center for Transitional Justice in Pula has been running a five-day online campaign to mark the anniversary as part of its continuing programme to remember both the victims and the destruction of the wars. All the films and exhibitions in the campaign can be seen via the SENSE website, as can its seminal website Targeting History and Memory on the destruction of cultural property during the Yugoslav wars and how they featured in the prosecutions of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY).


During the campaign, running between 4–8 December (but all available online after that), SENSE will broadcast five short films on its YouTube channel, presenting the most important and relevant points from the ICTY trials of Slobodan Milošević, Pavle Strugar and Miodrag Jokić, all indicted for the destruction of cultural and historical heritage in Dubrovnik in 1991. The first explores the reasoning behind the ICTY's prosecutions (or lack of prosecutions) relating to the destruction of the Old Bridge (Stari Most) in Mostar and the National Library in Sarajevo in Bosnia-Herzegovina. 

The campaign includes two online exhibitions. The first shows the last photographs made by the young Dubrovnik photographer Pavo Urban, who was killed during the shelling of 6 December 1991 while documenting the heaviest artillery attack on the Old City. The other, Dubrovnik, the Day After, shows the damage caused by the shelling which were introduced as prosecution evidence at the ICTY trials dealing with the crimes against the unmilitarised UNESCO World Heritage site.

Around twenty civil society organizations from Serbia, Montenegro, Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina are participating in the campaign and will be transmitting the content prepared by SENSE on their websites and social media networks.

October 28, 2021

Thursday, October 28, 2021 - ,,, 1 comment

After 130 years, what (limited) cultural property is finally going home to Benin


Sometimes when a country fights for their cultural property it is not about the monetary value, but about its cultural significance. 

Below is a list of the twenty-six objects, referred to as the Béhanzin Treasury, once considered colonial spoils of war, which were taken during the second Franco-Dahomean war, and which are now after legislative action in France, finally going home to Benin.  

These objects will be transferred to the Ouidah Museum of History in Ouidah, Benin, before eventually going to their permanent home at the former location of the royal palaces of Abomey, a UNESCO world heritage site where Benin is building a museum. 

These objects illustrate that not everything worth fighting for has million-dollar pricetags at art auctions and galleries, and that what is of key importance is the very important historical, symbolic and protective value this material culture represents to the Beninese population. 

1. Inventory number of the Quai Branly-Jacques Chirac museum: 71.1893.45.1 - An anthropomorphic statue of King Ghézo;

2. Inventory number of the Quai Branly-Jacques Chirac museum: 71.1893.45.2 - An anthropomorphic statue of King Glèlè;

3. Inventory number of the Quai Branly-Jacques Chirac museum: 71.1893.45.3 - An anthropomorphic statue of King Béhanzin;

4. Inventory number of the Quai Branly-Jacques Chirac museum: 71.1893.45.4 - A door from the royal palace of Abomey;

5. Inventory number of the Quai Branly-Jacques Chirac museum: 71.1893.45.5 - A door of the royal palace of Abomey;

6. Inventory number of the Quai Branly-Jacques Chirac museum: 71.1893.45.6 - A door of the royal palace of Abomey;

7. Inventory number of the Quai Branly-Jacques Chirac museum: 71.1893.45.7 - A door of the royal palace of Abomey;

8. Inventory number of the Quai Branly-Jacques Chirac museum: 71.1893.45.8 - A royal seat;

9. Inventory number of the Quai Branly-Jacques Chirac museum: 71.1895.16.1 - A recade (badge of authority) reserved for male soldiers of the blu battalion, composed only of foreigners;

10. Inventory number of the Quai Branly-Jacques Chirac museum: 71.1895.16.2 - Royal calabashes scraped and engraved from Abomey, taken at war in the royal palaces;

11. Inventory number of the Quai Branly-Jacques Chirac museum: 71.1895.16.3 - A portable altar aseñ hotagati;

12. Inventory number of the Quai Branly-Jacques Chirac museum: 71.1895.16.4 - An Aseñ royal ante mortem portable altar of King Béhanzin;

13. Inventory number of the Quai Branly-Jacques Chirac museum: 71.1895.16.5 - An Aseñ portable altar of the incomplete royal palace;

14. Inventory number of the Quai Branly-Jacques Chirac museum: 71.1895.16.6 - An Aseñ portable altar of the incomplete royal palace;

15. Inventory number of the Quai Branly-Jacques Chirac museum: 71.1895.16.7 - The throne of King Glèlè;

16. Inventory number of the Quai Branly-Jacques Chirac museum: 71.1895.16.8 - The throne of King Ghézo (long called “Throne of King Béhanzin”);

17. Inventory number of the Quai Branly-Jacques Chirac museum: 71.1895.16.9 - An Aseñ hotagati portable altar to the panther, ancestor of the royal families of Porto-Novo, Allada and Abomey;

18. Inventory number of the Quai Branly-Jacques Chirac museum: 71.1895.16.10 - Fuseau;

19. Inventory number of the Quai Branly-Jacques Chirac museum: 71.1895.16.11 - A loom;

20. Inventory number of the Quai Branly-Jacques Chirac museum: 71.1895.16.12 - A pair of soldier's pants;

21. Inventory number of the Quai Branly-Jacques Chirac museum: 71.1895.16.13 - A Katakle tripod seat on which the king rested his feet;

22. Inventory number of the Quai Branly-Jacques Chirac museum: 71.1895.16.14 - A man's tunic;

23. Inventory number of the musée du quai Branly-Jacques Chirac: 71.1895.16.15 - A Recade (badge of authority) reserved for male soldiers of the blu battalion, composed only of foreigners;

24. Inventory number of the Quai Branly-Jacques Chirac museum: 71.1895.16.16 - A Recade reserved for male soldiers of the blu battalion, composed only of foreigners;

25. Inventory number of the Quai Branly-Jacques Chirac museum: 71.1895.16.17 - An Aseñ portable altar of the incomplete royal palace;

26. Inventory number of the Quai Branly-Jacques Chirac museum: 71.1895.16.18 - A leather bag.

130 years for a pair of pants and a tunic, or a wooden thrown.  Let that sink in for a moment when you try to "value" an object in the future. 

October 14, 2021

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Caveat Venditor takeaways during the guilty pleas of New York ancient art dealers


New York-based ancient art dealer Mehrdad Sadigh, AKA Michael Sadigh, who had operated Sadigh Gallery out of the Jewelry Building (Buchman and Fox: 1910) on 5th avenue for decades before his August 2021 arrest, has appeared in the New York State Supreme Court in Manhattan this week and entered his guilty plea.

At the time of his arrest, on August 6th,  Sadigh's warrant listed a host of alleged crimes including:

  • Scheme to Defraud in the First Degree, Penal Law §190.65 (1)(b),
  • Two counts of Grand Larceny in the Third Degree, Penal Law §155.35(1)
  • Two counts of Criminal Possession of a Forged Instrument in the Second Degree, Penal Law §170.25
  • Two counts of Forgery in the Second Degree, Penal Law §170.10(1)
  • Two counts of Criminal Simulation, Penal Law §170.45(2) and Conspiracy to commit the same crimes as defined under Penal Law 105.05(1)
Details regarding why these charges were brought can be viewed in our earlier article here.

Just over two months later, on 12 October 2021, the controversial dealer admitted defeat, making no further protestations about the legitimacy of his business transactions.  In what may have been the fasted cultural property crime judicial cycle in New York history,  Sadigh plead guilty Tuesday to seven felony counts including Grand Larceny in the Third Degree and Forgery in the Second Degree. 

Interestingly, the dealer also gave damning statements showing just how easily he manipulated the underinformed buying public, duping them into purchase modern reproductions he stoically insisted were ancient.  “Driven by financial greed” Sadigh admitted, “over the course of three decades I have sold thousands of fraudulent antiquities to countless unsuspecting collectors.” 

Sadigh also admitted to manipulating his gallery's satisfaction ratings on ratings platforms, by having contacts post false positive reviews as well as hiring a specialised reputational defence firm to manipulate Google's ratings so that negative comments from bilked clients complaining about their purchases or that Sadigh Gallery was a font of fakery were harder for the average Joe to find. 

In our previous article, we posited the assembly-line nature of Sadigh's fakes, which he admitted to in his court hearing.  The dealer openly admitted that he aged modern reproductions to make them appear plausibly authentic, by adding layers of paint, grime, and chemicals to their surfaces. 

Having been caught red-handed and having admitted to crimes that stretched for decades, the Manhattan District Attorney's office, through their Antiquities Trafficking Unit, filed what some might see as a relatively lenient sentencing memorandum.  Citing Sadigh as a first offender, the District Attorney's Office recommended five years probation and a ban on businesses related to the antiquities or reproductions trade.  

While some of the general public are angry that the prosecutor didn't recommend jail time, given that he has likely ripped off hundreds or thousands of people, others have commented that they were happy that the dealer was selling fakes rather than plundering actual archaeological sites to fill his client's burgeoning demands. 

Here at ARCA were are more sanguine. 

In less than one month we have had two members of the antiquities trade finally, and publically, take the opaque wrappings off of the business practices which go on within the antiquities trade, showing that they are not as pristine or above board, as years of paid art market lobbying has attempted to whitewash.  This was also made clear in statements of wrongdoing made at the end of September by ancient art dealer Nancy Weiner,  at her own sentencing hearing, who on openly admitted to buying antiquities from Douglas Latchford knowing they had been looted and who told the court “these false provenances were meant to facilitate the sale of these objects by obscuring the fact of their illegal export.”

For now, these folks both look forward to life sentences of looking over their shoulders, considering just how many people they have swindled.  Caveat venditor, Mr. Sadigh and Ms. Weiner, caveat venditor. 


September 27, 2021

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Three convictions and one acquittal, the number of museum thefts Nils Menara, AKA Nils M., has been charged with.


Nils Menara, AKA Nils M., has been sentenced to 8 years in prison by the Lelystad court in the Netherlands for the theft of two artworks:

Vincent Van Gogh's 1882  painting Parish garden in Nuenen stolen from the Singer Laren Museum on 30 March 2020

Dutch Golden Age master Frans Hals' 1626 painting  Two Laughing Boys taken from the Hofje van Mevrouw van Aerden Museum in Leerdam on 26 August 2020.

Neither painting has been recovered.  

Menara was also convicted for possession of a firearm and a large amount of hard drugs and was described by the court as an "incorrigible, calculating criminal".  In making their case, prosecutors had noted Menara's DNA presence at both crime scenes, and one the basis that the modus operandi from both thefts, as well as others in the past. 

The fact that Menara was tripped up by his own DNA is either ironic or just plain stupid, given that in 2009 Dutch police tracked the thief and an accomplice through DNA traces left on a crowbar and bolt cutters, at the scene of a 2009 museum burglary at the Stadsmuseum IJsselstein in the Netherlands.  There, burglars stole six landscape paintings from the 17th and 19th centuries, including works by Jan van Goyen and Willem Roelofs.  In that case Menara was acquitted.  Despite the DNA traces, the judge cited that this evidence alone was insufficient because the tools could also have been touched elsewhere.

Perhaps emboldened by shaking the charges relating to the Stadsmuseum IJsselstein, three years later in 2012 Menara violently entered the Gouda museum using semtex explosives blasting through the museum's front door.   In less than five minutes, he made off with a gilded silver monstrance created in 1662 by Johannes Boogeart which had been on loan to the museum from the parish of St. Anthony of Padua, fleeing the scene on a motorbike.  Adding insult to injury, debris from the explosion pierced a painting by Ferdinand Bol and another work of art.

This time though, Menara's luck didn't hold.  A short while after, Dutch Police tied him to the blowing up an ATM with explosives, which helped them in obtaining a warrant to tap his phone, which gave the police the much-needed evidence which tied him directly to the Gouda Museum burglary.   

In June 2013 the investigation department of the Central Netherlands police, working on the Eiffel investigation into a series of explosions and ram raids at jewellers caught suspects Nils Menara and Erik P., on tape relating to two criminal events, one of which was a conversation about explosives and the other the 2012 Gouda museum theft.  The pair also talked about the Schiphol Airport diamond robbery in 2005, to the great frustration of the police and judicial authorities as the suspects had been previously arrested for this, but then released due to lack of evidence.

Upon his arrest for the Gouda Museum burglary, Menara was found to have heavy weapons, ammunition, money and drugs in his house. 

Thankfully, this time, his charges stick and on 5 February 2016 Menara was sentenced by the court in Utrecht to six years in prison for the robbery at the Gouda museum, two years less than the sentence requested by the Public Prosecution Service. 

In January 2017 seven more suspects were arrested in Amsterdam and Valencia, Spain with the help of a lucky break involving the Nils Menara wiretap.

Despite all this, it appears that Menara's stint in prison hasn't deterred him from a life of crime and remains mum as to who he handed the artworks over to. 

September 22, 2021

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How many bags of cocaine could a Monet buy?


Back this summer shots were fired by one of two suspects fleeing the scene of an attempted theft of Claude Monet's painting De Voorzaan en de Westerhem at the Zaans Museum in the Netherlands.   Yesterday, in an unexpected turn of events, one of the two suspects turned himself over to the Noord-Holland police.

More surprising still, this suspect, listed as Henk B in Dutch news services, appears to be Henk Bieslijn, the Dutch national who was previously sentenced on 26 July 2004 to four years in jail, along with his coconspirator Octave Durham, for their roles in an earlier museum burglary which nabbed Vincent Van Gogh's Congregation Leaving the Reformed Church in Nuenen and View of the Sea at Scheveningen. 

While both culprits were convicted and served out their prison sentences, the two Van Gogh's, stolen from the Van Gogh Museum on 7 December  2002 remained in the hands of the Italian underworld.  Both paintings were eventually recovered in 2016 in Castellammare di Stabia, in the Bay of Naples, where they had been stored by their purchaser, Raffaele Imperiale.  Imperiale is the Camorra affiliated crime boss of the international drug trafficking Amato-Pagano clan who was arrested in August in Dubai and is awaiting extradition.

Imperiale is alleged to have given up the Van Gogh paintings to the Italian authorities in exchange for a lower prison sentence.  Given Henk B's connections to organised crime, it seems reasonable to speculate that had this attempted theft of the Monet been successful, the French artist's painting too would likely have been brokered to members of the underworld. 

For now, it remains to be seen what Henk Bieslijn knows, what his motives were and if he will cooperate with the Dutch police.


September 3, 2021

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Norwegian police seize artefacts from the Martin Schøyen collection


Weekly Norwegian newspaper Morgenbladet has reported that members of the Norwegian Economic Crimes Unit, working in coordination with the Økokrim police, confiscated approximately 100 antiquities from the extensive collection of Martin Schøyen which Iraqi authorities believe were illicitly removed from their country.  

This seizure comes following a request for assistance by the Republic of Iraq in October 2019 asking both the Ministry of Culture and the Økokrim authorities for assistance regarding 762 artefacts, including 654 incantation bowls with inscriptions written in Jewish Aramaic, the language of late antique Mesopotamia’s Jews, known to be part of the Martin Schøyen collection and which were purportedly exported from Jordan in 1988.

Among other artefacts, Schøyen's manuscripts collection in Oslo, which also warrants attention, has been reported to consist of "7597 items, of which 1052 papyri and ostraka from Ptolemaic to Arabic age"  as well as hundreds of controversial cuneiform tablets from Iraq which were in circulation in London during the 1990s. 

Many of the objects in the Schøyen collection were purchased through the now-deceased Jordanian dealer Ghassan Tamim Al-Rihani.  Commenting on why not all of the 762 contested artefacts objects were confiscated,  Maria Bache Dahl, acting public prosecutor at Økokrim stated:

"We have information that indicates that a number of the wanted objects are outside Norway."


In the past, suspect Iraqi objects in circulation in the ancient art market attributed to sales conducted by the Al Rihani family frequently made their way into the Martin Schøyen collection.  These objects were purportedly all exported from Jordan to the United Kingdom on the basis of a single Jordanian export license, dated 19 September 1988.  Research conducted by some provenance researchers believe this document to possibly be inauthentic.  

Even if the export document is legitimate, as has been attested, even by some Jordanian authorities, it only serves to authorize the export of material from Jordan.  The 1988 document does not serve as the original legal authority for the licit export of material originating in other countries, including Iraq.  It should be noted that other artefacts, purportedly as vaguely attributed to this invoice, also ended up with the Green Collection and the family's sponsored Museum of the Bible in Washington DC.  These were also subject of restitution claims by the Republic of Iraq in the United States. 


A certified translation of the Jordanian export document, made by an obscure copy shop and dated 12 October 1992, four years after the Arabic document was issued states as follows:

The Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan
Ministry of Culture & Natural Heritage
Department of Antiquities
Amman- Jordan

No. 12/1/2034
Date: 19/9/1988

Mr. Ghassan Tameem Al Rihani
An ex-authorized Antiquity Merchant
P.O. Box 9763
Amman/Jordan

I would like to inform you about the approval of the Public Department of Antiquities to transfer the ownership of 2000 (Two thousand) various pottery utensils and 50 (fifty) various stone pieces as shown in the attached pictures, to your daughter May Ghassan Rihani currently residing in London and hereby giving you an exit permit to take them out of the country. 
Truly Yours

Director General
Public Department of Antiquities.

In a previous UK inquiry, when questioned about the legitimacy of a grouping of his incantation bowls loaned to UCL in London, Schøyen noted that he had not kept any of the importation papers or a series of poor quality photos associated with his sales purchase.  This “plausible denial” is a technique ARCA frequently records with regularity among dealers and or collectors of ancient art without substantiative legitimate provenance.  The individual in question affirms that they had the documentation or they saw the documentation at one time in the past, but in the subsequent years, said documents, were they to be export licenses, bills of sale, ownership letters or shipping documents failed to be retained with the object in question. 

In the transcript of an Al Jazeera documentary,  Iraqi authorities, via a confidential informant, believe Al Rihani received Iraqi artefacts smuggled out of North Iraq sometime around 1991, shipped through intermediaries from Amman Airport to Al Rihani in London.

Exhibit MS 2340 - The Schoyen collection. This cuneiform tablet is the oldest Sumerian record of musical writing and dates to 2600 BCE. 
The tablet is the description of 23 types of harps

Due to the broad wording of the original 1988 invoice, Ghassan Al Rihani may have simply reused the export document repeatedly, to substantiate additional illicit material in circulation in London and elsewhere.  Hundreds of artefacts that passed through this family's hands were then purchased by Martin Schøyen directly, some of which have been sold onward and were not retained by Schøyen in the long term. 

For those that want to learn more about the controversies of this collection, I suggest reading scholars Christopher Prescott and Josephine Munch Rasmussen 2020 article ‘Exploring the “Cozy Cabal of Academics, Dealers and Collectors.”  Another excellent reference is the Biography of P.Oxy. 15.1780 by Roberta Mazza of the University of Manchester from Volume 52 of the Bulletin of the American Society of Papyrologists. 

In the meanwhile, one might want to look more cautiously at the provenance of eighty pieces Schøyen consigned to Bloomsbury Auctions for their July 2020 auction "The History of Western Script: A Selection from The Schøyen Collection" and to two earlier sales including the 60 manuscripts, among them papyri sold via Sotheby's Western Manuscripts S/O auction on 10 July 2012, & Christie's, The History of Western Script: Important Antiquities and Manuscripts from the Schøyen Collection, auction on 10 July 2019.

By:  Lynda Albertson

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Al-Dustour, Mahmoud Krishan. 2017. ‘تجار التحف الشرقية يلوحون بإغلاق متاجرهم’., 23 October 2017. https://www.addustour.com/articles/980442?s=0df1c0136afbefb74a385ea7f4d4f464.

Balter, Michael. 2007a. ‘University Suppresses Report on Provenance of Iraqi Antiquities’. Science 318 (5850): 554–55. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.318.5850.554.

———. 2007b. ‘University Suppresses Report on Provenance of Iraqi Antiquities’. SAFE/Saving Antiquities for Everyone (blog). 4 November 2007. http://savingantiquities.org/university-suppresses-report-on-provenance-of-iraqi-antiquities/.

George, Andrew R. 2007. ‘The civilizing of Ea-Enkidu : an unusual tablet of the Babylonian Gilgameš epic’. Revue d’assyriologie et d’archeologie orientale Vol. 101 (1): 59–80.

George, Andrew R., and Miguel Civil. 2011. Cuneiform Royal Inscriptions and Related Texts in the Schøyen Collection. Cornell University Studies in Assyriology and Sumerology, v. 17. Bethesda, Md: CDL Press.

Hall, Richard. 2019. ‘Inside the Hunt for Iraq’s Looted Treasures’. The Independent. 10 July 2019. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/iraq-archaeology-museum-antiquities-looting-a8996676.html.

Helle, Birk Tjeldflaat. ‘Norsk Mangemillionær Nekter å Gi Oldtidsskatter Til Irak’. www.dn.no, 28 October 2019. https://www.dn.no/kultur/martin-schoyen/irak/kunst/norsk-mangemillionar-nekter-a-gi-oldtidsskatter-til-irak/2-1-693930.

Henze, Matthias, ed. 2011. Hazon Gabriel: New Readings of the Gabriel Revelation. Society of Biblical Literature. Early Judaism and Its Literature, no. 29. Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature.

Klawans, Jonathan. 2019. Heresy, Forgery, Novelty: Condemning, Denying, and Asserting Innovation in Ancient Judaism. New York: Oxford University Press.

Mazza, Roberta. ‘Papyri, Ethics, and Economics: A Biography of P.Oxy. 15.1780 (P 39)’. The Bulletin of the American Society of Papyrologists 52 (2015): 113–42.

Mellgren, Doug. 2002. ‘Manuscript Collector Thrills to Discoveries’. Los Angeles Times, 22 September 2002. https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2002-sep-22-adfg-collect-story.html.

‘Newman Numismatic Portal at Washington University in St. Louis | Comprehensive Research & Reference for U.S. Coinage’. n.d. Accessed 23 May 2020a. https://nnp.wustl.edu/library/advancedsearch?page=2&fullsearchterm=Kovacs.

‘Newman Numismatic Portal at Washington University in St. Louis | Comprehensive Research & Reference for U.S. Coinage’. ———. n.d. Accessed 23 May 2020b. https://nnp.wustl.edu/library/advancedsearch?page=2&fullsearchterm=Kovacs.

Morgenbladet. ‘Økokrim med stor aksjon mot norsk samler’. Accessed 3 September 2021. https://www.morgenbladet.no/kultur/2021/09/03/okokrim-med-stor-aksjon-mot-norsk-samler/.

Prescott, Christopher, and Josephine Munch Rasmussen. 2020. ‘Exploring the “Cozy Cabal of Academics, Dealers and Collectors” through the Schøyen Collection’. Heritage, Special Issue: Art and Antiquities Crime, 2020 (February): 68–97.

Rutz, Matthew, and Morag M. Kersel, eds. 2014. Archaeologies of Text: Archaeology, Technology and Ethics. Joukowsky Institute Publication 6. Oxford: Oxbow Books.

‘The Schoyen Collection’. n.d. The Schoyen Collection. Accessed 25 May 2020. https://www.schoyencollection.com.

Thrope, Samuel. ‘What Should Be Done with the Magic Bowls of Jewish Babylonia?’ Aeon Essays, 24 May 2016. https://aeon.co/essays/what-should-be-done-with-the-magic-bowls-of-jewish-babylonia.

jouserjo. n.d. ‘خبير الآثار الأردني تميم الريحاني ل”جلنار”: والدي كان أهم خبير آثار في العالم وشهاداته معتمدة في أمريكا وبريطانيا وسويسرا | | جلنار الإخباري’. Accessed 26 May 2020. http://www.jlnarj.com/?p=14272.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_v2a6ec-eM0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bInrjYazaLo

Friday, September 03, 2021 - ,,,,, No comments

Six members of the Remmo family are formally indicted in Dresden for connection to the 2019 Grünes Gewölbe burglary


Yesterday an indictment was filed at the state court in Dresden, Germany formally charging six individuals, aged 22-27 with serious gang theft and arson for their alleged involvement in the 25 November 2019 burglary of the Green Vault (Grünes Gewölbe in German) museum within Dresden Castle in Saxony. In that dramatic incident, a precision coordinated team of thieves pried open iron bars to access the museum through a window and smashed open exhibition cases using an axe to make off with an outstanding cache of historic jewellery.  Objects taken during the theft  include the 49-carat Dresden White Diamond, the diamond-laden breast star of the Polish Order of the White Eagle, a 16-carat diamond hat clasp, a diamond epaulette, and a diamond-studded hilt containing nine large and 770 smaller diamonds, as well as its jewel-encrusted scabbard.  The historic pieces have been valued at almost 113.8 million euros.

Three suspects, from the Remmo Arabische Großfamilie clan, Wissam Remmo, Rabih Remmo, and Bashir Remmo, were arrested during a raid last Autumn which proved almost as sensational as the theft itself.   Carried out on 17 November 2020, special forces from the federal government and the states of Baden-Württemberg, Berlin, Brandenburg, Lower Saxony, North Rhine-Westphalia, Saxony-Anhalt and Thuringia spread out to search some 18 properties in several districts, arresting the three suspects and hoping to recover all or part of the stolen jewels.  Wassim was arrested in his car in Berlin while Rabih and Bashir were picked up when police stormed apartments in the densely populated suburbs of Neukölln and Berlin-Kreuzberg. While cell phones, computers, clothing and some drugs were seized during the massive manhunt, none of the stolen museum's stolen jewellery was recovered.

On 14 December 2020 and 18 May 2021 twin cousins Mohamed Remmo and Abdul Majed Remmo were also placed in handcuffs.  By summer, law enforcement officers in Saxony also arrested a sixth suspect, Ahmed Remmo on 19 August 2021 at an apartment in Berlin-Treptow.  

Two of the six men accused in the break-in into the Green Vault, Wissam Remmo and Ahmed Remmo, are the same perpetrators who had already been convicted for their roles in the 27 March 2017 Bode Museum theft.  In that incident, members of the same crime family and an unrelated accomplice orchestrated and carried out the theft of a 100-kilogram gold coin called the "Big Maple Leaf" valued at 3.75 million euros.  Despite having been sentenced to 54 months and fined €3.3 million for that theft, Wissam Remmo and Ahmed Remmo had remained at liberty in the German capital while they appealed their sentences.

Ironically, two days following the breaking at the Green Vault, Wassim Remmo had been stopped while driving to the Erlangen district court.  Inside the vehicle, inspection officers noted balaclavas, gloves, a crowbar and a hammer drill.  For now, four other suspects are still wanted for questioning related to aiding and abetting, as CCTV footage seems to indicate that the individuals may have been spying on the museum in the lead-up to the November 2019 break-in.

If convicted in the Dresden Regional Court, the six suspects face prison sentences ranging from 10 or 15 years, given that two of the suspects were 22 years old at the time of their alleged involvement in the museum burglary. 

Meanwhile, another court case also got underway for another member of the Remmo clan. Muhamed Remo (31), father of three and nephew of clan boss Issa Remmo (55) was in court yesterday answering to charges related to the February 2021 armed robbery and assault on a money transport vehicle.  In that case, four men posing as garbage workers made off with 648,500 euros.  Muhamed was arrested when his DNA was matched to evidence left on a witness's sweater.  Since his arrest, he has confessed to his role in the heist admitting that his cut for the robbery was 70,000 euros and that his drippy nose, which proved his undoing, stemmed from his cocaine consumption. 

September 1, 2021

Wednesday, September 01, 2021 - ,,,,, 1 comment

New York Exhibition Review - Afterlives: Recovering the Lost Stories of Looted Art


by Aubrey Catrone, Proper Provenance, LLC

The Jewish Museum’s current exhibition Afterlives: Recovering the Lost Stories of Looted Art is dedicated to the art objects coveted by some of history’s greatest villains: the Nazi regime. Walking into the museum lobby on a cloudy Saturday afternoon (admission is free on the Jewish Sabbath), I found myself at the end of a long line awaiting entry into the exhibition space.  Surrounded by groups of all ages and backgrounds, we waited in an orderly fashion, taunted by the glimpse of a large Franz Marc canvas hanging just beyond the glass doors.

As a provenance researcher by trade, my intrigue was piqued long before I walked through the museum doors: in their review for The Guardian, Jordan Hoffman wrote, “rarely does one walk away from a gallery with a spinning head, thinking of the life led by the paintings, drawings and objects themselves.” And, Ariella Burdick’s Financial Times review argued, “this is not a show about how art is made but about how it’s kept and passed from hand to hand. Material things are haunted by their accumulated history, acquiring emotional freight along the way.”

Image Credit: Jewish Museum

Once granted entry into the exhibition space, the dramatically lit gallery introduces viewers to the idea of an artwork’s biography, not just its creator, but the journey the physical item takes throughout its existence from creation to owners, to looters, to restitution. Following the trajectory of curation, visitors are given a preliminary introduction to the destruction and sacrifice that arose from the Nazi’s systematic plunder of cultural objects. The wall texts and audio guide address topics ranging from the experiences of “degenerate” artist’s to Rose Valland’s valiant efforts working for the Nazis at the Jeu de Paume to the Jewish Museum’s own role in safeguarding the orphaned Judaica of the Danzig Collection. 

In support of this narrative, many of the artworks on display are presented with wall texts that offer a paragraph of art historical analysis followed by a brief description of how the artwork was looted and restituted. Other items on display, such as August Sander’s photographic portraits of his Jewish neighbors seeking to escape persecution, and a concentration camp ledger recording the names of thousands who perished at the hands of the Nazis.  This sobering reminder of the context of this exhibition adds an extra layer of gravitas to the exhibited art objects.  Of the 3478 human beings recorded in this single ledger, only 11 survived. Viewers are not just reading fantastical stories or art historical analyses. They are witnessing the afterlife of the attempted annihilation of Jewish culture and faith. 

For some paintings, such as Henri Matisse’s Girl in Yellow and Blue with Guitar (1939) and Daisies (1939), the journey was short and bitter. Both paintings were stolen by Nazis from famed French-Jewish art dealer Paul Rosenberg’s Bordeaux bank vault and were earmarked for Nazi Reichsmarschall Hermann Göring’s personal collection. The wall text indicates that the saga concluded “following the war, both were returned to Rosenberg and were later sold.” Other paintings, such as Max Pechstein’s Landscape (Nudes in a Landscape) (1912), were lost for decades, forgotten amidst dusty basements before resurfacing in institutional collections. Pechstein’s Landscape was restituted to the heirs of Hugo Simon, a German-Jewish banker, this year (2021!), evidencing the ongoing battle against Nazi plunder.

Max Pechstein’s Landscape (Nudes in a Landscape), 1912

The exhibition culminates with a display of contemporary works by artists Maria Eichhorn, Hadar Gad, Dor Guex, and Lisa Oppenheim. Each of the aforementioned artists seeks to shed light on the enduring legacy and ramifications of Nazi plundering while simultaneously shedding light on restitution efforts. Maria Eichhorn even put together a dossier of philosopher Hannah Arendt’s field reports, memoranda, and other primary documents from her time as an emissary for Jewish Cultural Reconstruction, Inc. (JCR). This dossier offers a documented view into the restitution efforts that took place in the wake of the Second World War. Visitors are encouraged to take a copy of the dossier with them. The unassuming booklet serves as a tangible record of plunder to take with them back into the real world.  

Image Credit: Aubrey Catrone

 Overall, the Jewish Museum exhibition offers a broad overview of an issue that is often sensationalized by the mainstream media. Afterlives draws viewers into a world of beautiful and sacred objects that were pulled from their owners and subsequently destroyed or traded by those in power. I had hoped that the exhibition would shed more light on the arduousness of restitution cases or even provenance research itself.  An untold number of art objects remain missing. The laws governing clean title vary from country to country (i.e., rightful ownership). And, there is no universal standard in place for conducting provenance research or due diligence. It can be a long and tedious process to follow the path of an artwork that someone has disrupted or tried to erase. However, I hope that each individual who visits this exhibition is left with a greater understanding of the work that has been done in this field and the work that is left to be completed.

* Afterlives: Recovering the Lost Stories of Looted Art is on view at the Jewish Museum in New York until 9 January 2022

Additional Image Credits: 
Image 1: Installation view of Afterlives: Recovering the Lost Stories of Looted Art, August 20, 2021-January 9, 2022, the Jewish Museum, NY. Photo by Steven Paneccasio 

Image 2: Max Pechstein, Landscape (Nudes in a Landscape), 1912, oil on canvas, 71 x 80 cm, Photo by Philippe Migeat.

Image 3: A dossier in the city. Photo of Maria Eichhorn’s Hannah Arendt: Jewish Cultural Reconstruction Field Reports, Memoranda, Etc., 2021.


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