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February 10, 2011

Thursday, February 10, 2011 - ,, No comments

The Journal of Art Crime: Essayist Christopher A. Marinello from the Art Loss Register "On Fakes"

by Catherine Schofield Sezgin

In the fourth issue of The Journal of Art Crime, Christopher A. Marinello discusses the Art Loss Register’s response to the proliferation of forgeries in the art market in an editorial essay titled “On Fakes”.

Christopher A. Marinello had been a litigator in the criminal and civil courts in New York for more than 20 years before joining the Art Loss Register (ALR) as General Counsel. Chris has represented galleries, dealers, artists and collectors and is currently managing all U. S. and worldwide art recovery cases for the London-based Art Loss Register, the largest international database of stolen, missing and looted artwork used by law enforcement agencies, the insurance industry, the art market, museums, and private collectors who can commission pre-sale due diligence checks and fine art recovery services. Chris serves as the ALR’s chief negotiator and has mediated and settled countless art related disputes as well as several high profile Holocaust Restitution claims. He is often asked by law enforcement to take part in clandestine art recovery operations and has participated in numerous international conferences on stolen art. Chris has taught Law & Ethics in the Art Market at New York University SCPS, Seton Hall University and Sotheby’s Institute of Art, Masters Degree Program and is a member of Advisory council of the Appraisers Association of America and Inland Marine Underwriter’s Association.

ARCA blog: In your essay, you say that fake and fraudulent artwork being sold in the market place is at the top of the agenda for dealers and collectors. The Art Loss Register has compiled a Fakes Database. How long has this service been in place and how would you describe the size of the Fakes Database?
Mr. Marinello: "The sheer number of fake and fraudulent works is astounding. We are currently compiling records and resources from law enforcement worldwide as well as dealer associations, collector groups, artist authentication boards and committees as well as other sources. We have been working on this project for several years now and fully expect the numbers to overtake those for stolen art."
ARCA blog: You write that The Art Loss Register is open to technological advances in location devices and authentication methods but still relies upon the “keen eye of an educated expert and the diligent provenance research performed by trained art historians.” Do you see any changes in how connoisseurship is being applied today?
Mr. Marinello: "Today’s art historians are certainly taking advantage of advances in technology. The point I want to make is that despite these advances, there is no substitute for a well trained art historian. Computers cannot replicate the skill necessary to perform proper due diligence and provenance research. I applaud the ARCA program for educating the already well educated and stressing the importance of academic analysis."
To seek out this piece, and many others, consider a subscription to the Journal of Art Crime—the first peer-reviewed academic journal covering art and heritage crime. ARCA publishes two volumes annually in the Spring and Fall. Individual, Institutional, electronic and printed versions are all available, with subscriptions as low as 30 Euros. All proceeds go to ARCA's nonprofit research and education initiatives. Please see the publications page for more information.

Photo: Raphaelllo Sanzio's "Portrait of A Young Man." Mr. Marinello was asked to provide an image for this blog post and he chose Raphael's painting, formerly exhibited at the Czartoryski Museum, Kraków, Poland, and missing since 1945 when it was stolen by the Nazis, making it one of the most important paintings lost during the war.

February 9, 2011

Wednesday, February 09, 2011 - ,,, 1 comment

Amelia, Umbria: An Eyewitness Account Recalls the Allied Bombing of Amelia in 1944

By Francesca Rossi, Guest Contributor

During the World War II, people in Amelia felt quite safe from the fighting because there was no reason for them to suppose Amelia would be considered a military target. But they were wrong. On the 25th of January in 1944, on a beautiful winter day in Amelia, no one could have predicted what would happen that morning, especially not Umberto Cerasi who at the time was just a young boy. In his book “Amelia – Un anno di storia dal 25 luglio 1943 al 13 giugno 1944: ricordi, testimonianze, documenti”, Mr. Cerasi tells us also about that day (translated from the Italian):
“I remember that morning because I was there and because you can’t forget those kind of facts. I was an apprentice at a typography studio nearby the Public Gardens and I was working when I heard the sound of the warning siren located on the top of the Cathedral bell tower. I started to run, trying to find a shelter, but I could already hear the rumble of the B-29 and when I looked up, I saw the training aircraft above me. There was a weird twinkle under the fuselage: cluster bombs were being dropped over us!”

“The bombs exploded on the ancient polygonal walls and again on Via Cavour hitting the elementary girl’s school, the church of Saint Elisabetta, the house of the parish, a house owned by Mr. Ammaniti, and other nearby houses. It was a massacre! An unknown number of people were severely injured and twenty-six people died including the Director of Education Ms. Iole Orsini, twelve little girls and three nuns. It was terrible!”
“When the explosions stopped, I could hear only people crying. So I came back home, actually hoping to still find my home and terrified not to find my family anymore. Fortunately there it was, and so was my mother and my father. Then I reached Via Cavour, the most damaged area, and as I approached the area I could realize the magnitude of the tragedy: parents holding in their arms the little girls who had been in the school, with tattered clothes and faces covered in white dust. There were a lot of people in front of heaps of rubble from where dead bodies were beginning to be extracted. I was just a kid but I could realize my presence was a hindrance, so I went away with my eyes full of tears and my heart pounding in my chest."
No one ever knew the real reason for this act of war: there are different hypotheses but the most probable is that it was just a tragic mistake in the attempt to hit the bridge on the nearby Rio Grande. What we know is that on January 25, 1944, all those innocent people died and since then, every year, everyone in Amelia attends Mass in the church of Santa Lucia, built on the ruins of Santa Elisabetta, to commemorate the 26 victims:

Orsini Iole, 40 years old: Director of Education
Bertini Quinta, 25 years old – Sister (nun and religious educator)
Bolli Teresa, 74 years old- Sister
Martini Jolanda, 23 years old – Sister
Paolocci Fiorella, 10 years old – schoolgirl
Ciancuto Graziella, 10 years old – schoolgirl
Silvani Paola, 6 years old – schoolgirl
Fiorucci Maria Teresa, 12 years old – schoolgirl
Barcherini Graziella, 7 years old – schoolgirl
Lanfaloni Consiglia, 10 years old – schoolgirl
Proietti Rosella, 6 years old – schoolgirl
Suadoni Geltrude, 11 years old – schoolgirl
Proietti Palmira, 10 years old – schoolgirl
Botarelli Maria, 12 years old – schoolgirl
Corvi Fedina, 8 years old – schoolgirl
Marzoli Rossana, 4 years old – schoolgirl
Servi Nazzareno, 67 years old – worker
Esposito Pasquale, 28 years old – worker
Grisci David, 68 years old – farmer
Castellani Emilia, 54 years old – housewife
Tinarelli Castorino, 36 years old – worker
Grilli Enzo, 13 years old – apprentice
Quadraccia Ferrero, 14 years old – apprentice
Margheriti Gregorio, 64 years old – shoemaker
Fabrizi Agenore, 39 years old – farmer
Olivieri Palmira, 77 years old - housewife

(Source: “AMELIA – UN ANNO DI STORIA DAL 25 LUGLIO 1943 AL 13 GIUGNO 1944: ricordi, testimonianze, documenti” di Umberto Cerasi)

Francesca Rossi will be writing about the history and culture of Amelia as a guest writer for the ARCA blog. Ms. Rossi graduated from the Universitá degli Studi di Siena in Arezzo with a degree in biomedical laboratory techniques. She is an interior designer and responsible for the identify brand for an interior design studio in Amelia. Although born in Terni, Francesca was raised in Amelia, the summer base for ARCA's Postgraduate Certificate Program in Art Crime and Cultural Heritage Protection.

Wednesday, February 09, 2011 - ,,,, No comments

Amelia, Umbria: Rosa Venerini's Schools and a WWII Tragic Bombing

by Catherine Schofield Sezgin

February 9 is the anniversary of the birthday of the 17th century educator who has a school named after her in Amelia. A statue of Rose Venerini on a walkway of a small school in Amelia commemorates the founder of public schools for Italian girls more than 350 years ago. Rose opened forty schools from 1685 to 1728, including one at the foot of the Campidoglio, the smallest and most famous of Rome’s Seven Hills. The motto of the Maestre Pie Venerini is “Educate to save.” Nearby a plaque memorializes the Allied bombing of this school on January 25, 1944, which killed students, teachers, and residents of a nearby house. The Allies missed an ammunitions factor in nearby Terni, and that morning, innocent people died. The bomb also destroyed the church of Santa Elisabetta. Parishioners constructed a new church, Santa Lucia, on the site in 1956.

Wednesday, February 09, 2011 - ,,,, No comments

The Journal of Art Crime: Essayist Simon Cole on Connoisseurship

by Catherine Schofield Sezgin

In one of ARCA’s three scholarly responses to David Grann’s “The Mark of a Masterpiece,” published in The New Yorker in July 2010, Simon A. Cole penned an editorial essay, “Connoisseurship All the Way Down: Art Authentication, Forgery, Fingerprint Identification, Expert Knowledge” in the fourth issue of The Journal of Art Crime (Fall 2010).

Simon A. Cole is Associate Professor & Chair of the Department of Criminology, Law, and Society at the University of California, Irvine. He is the author of Suspect Identities: A History of Fingerprinting and Criminal Identification (Harvard University Press, 2001) and Truth Machine: The Contentious History of DNA Fingerprinting (University of Chicago Press, 2008, with Michael Lynch, Ruth McNally & Kathleen Jourdan). His work has been published in numerous criminology journals, Art Journal, and Suspect (MIT Press, 2005), the 10th issue of the design award winning series Alphabet City. He is co-editor of the journal Theoretical Criminology.

ARCA blog: Professor Cole, if you were given a Caravaggio painting to authenticate, would you trust an art historian or a forensic art expert? Would your preference for the type of expert change if the painting was a 20th century Van Gogh or a 21st century Jackson Pollock?
Professor Cole: I don’t think the point I was making would change based on the period of the painting. But the point I was making was that we can’t really know whom to trust! Certainly, there is an appeal to thinking “science” is preferable to “I know it when I see it” connoisseurship. But, there’s also an appeal to thinking that only an art historian can evaluate all the evidence in all its complexity. And, much of forensic science turns out to essentially be “I know it when I see it” as well (which doesn’t necessarily mean it’s wrong).
ARCA blog: In your essay, you compare art “connoisseurship” with the art – not the science – of identifying fingerprints. Would you have the same level of doubt about the authenticity of a painting’s creator based on the identification of a fingerprint as you would the guilt or innocent of a murderer identified by a “fingerprint expert”?
Professor Cole: Yes! In both cases, the fingerprint attribution would be a valuable piece of evidence. But one would also have to consider the possibility that the attribution is erroneous, which it could be due to a variety of causes (such as fraud, unintentional error, and the possibility of another individuals with very similar friction ridge detail). One would then have to consider this evidence in conjunction with all the other relevant evidence.
To seek out this piece, and many others, consider a subscription to the Journal of Art Crime—the first peer-reviewed academic journal covering art and heritage crime. ARCA publishes two volumes annually in the Spring and Fall. Individual, Institutional, electronic and printed versions are all available, with subscriptions as low as 30 Euros. All proceeds go to ARCA's nonprofit research and education initiatives. Please see the publications page for more information.

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