Blog Subscription via Follow.it

Showing posts sorted by date for query Steinhardt. Sort by relevance Show all posts
Showing posts sorted by date for query Steinhardt. Sort by relevance Show all posts

September 12, 2022

Monday, September 12, 2022 - ,,,,,, No comments

Orpheus, the poet, and his two sirens are going home

Back in August, ARCA wrote about a 11 August 2022 announcement made by the J. Paul Getty Museum where the museum publically stated its intention to relinquish its nearly-lifesize Apulian sculptural group "Seated Musician and Sirens" to the Italian authorities "after evidence persuaded the museum that the statues had been illegally excavated."  

In elaborating on the three sculptures' return, directors Timothy Potts, Maria Hummer-Tuttle and Robert Tuttle of the J. Paul Getty stated "Thanks to information provided by Matthew Bogdanos and the Antiquities Trafficking Unit of the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office indicating the illegal excavation of Orpheus and the Sirens, we determined that these objects should be returned." 

Their announcement strategically omitted that the New York Attorney's office had already seized the terracotta sculptures back in the Spring, in April 2022, as part of the Manhattan office's investigation into an accused Italian antiquities smuggler, Gianfranco Becchina. 

Friday, September 9, 2022, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin L. Bragg, Jr.,  announced the return of these three artworks formal handover to the people of Italy. They were given over in a formal ceremony held at the J. Paul Getty Museum lead by Assistant District Attorney Matthew Bogdanos and Special Agent Robert Mancene from Homeland Security Investigations and attended on the Italian side by General Roberto Riccardi, Commander of the Carabinieri’s Command for the Protection of Cultural Heritage (TPC), Warrant Officer Angelo Ragusa, and Silvia Chiave, Los Angeles-based Consul General for the Republic of Italy.

Originally brightly painted, this large-scale sculptural ensemble was purchased by John Paul Getty Sr.,  the founder of Getty Oil Company, in the spring of 1976 days after they were stolen from a plundered chamber tomb near Taranto, Italy.  Broken into hundreds of dirt-encrusted clay fragments and ultimately reconsolidated, American-born, British petroleum industrialist purchased the 3-statue group, sculpted in Tarentum at the end of the 4th century BCE for $550,000 from Bank Leu, A.G with no known provenance aside from the Swiss bank seller.

The investigation by the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office, working in collaboration with the Carabinieri Command for the Protection of Cultural Heritage, confirmed that the three terracotta artworks at the  Pacific Palisades' museum were sourced by local grave robbers working for Raffaele Monticelli, an intermediary trafficker who today is believed to be one of the biggest fences of archaeological finds coming from Italy, and perhaps one of the top three in Europe.

Raffaele Monticelli, sometimes referred to as the “professor from Taranto” is a former elementary school teacher now in his eighties.  He once controlled and financed clandestine excavations which systematically looted large swaths of southern Italy, particularly in Puglia, Calabria and Campania.  Listed on the now famous trafficking organigram, in which two cordata lead to Robert Hecht but by different routes, Monticelli was an active member of Gianfranco Becchina’s cordata.  Numerous transactions between the pair have been well-documented in the Becchina archive.

According to the findings of the DANY investigation and its international law enforcement partner, the broken sculptures were illegally exported out of the Italian territory in contravention of Italian laws and into Switzerland.  Once there, Becchina and Monticelli paid for the nearly-lifesize terracotta sculptural group of a Poet and Sirens to be restored.  Afterward, the sale of the sculptures was arranged through Leo Mildenberg, a Swiss numismatist, antiquities collector, and identified handler of illicit antiquities, via the Swiss private Bank Leu A.G. 

According to the Manhattan District Attorney's Office's Michael Steinhardt statement of facts, we can concretise, on page 36, that Raffaele Monticelli had known  relationships with Leo Mildenberg as well as the Sicilian dealer Gianfranco Becchina. 

As mentioned in an earlier article, John Paul Getty Sr., wrote in his dairy that these three sculptures were purchased on the recommendation of Jiří Frel, the J. Paul Getty's first Curator of Antiquities, showing how sometimes museum insiders have skin in the game.  Frel, as most Italian trafficking experts know, was later implicated in a number of controversies that ultimately destroyed his career and tarnished the California museum's reputation.  He was ultimately placed on paid leave from the Getty in 1984, before being allowed to quietly resign two years later. 

After leaving the Getty, Frel shuttled between residences in Budapest and Italy and at one point even registered himself as being domiciled at the home of Gianfranco Becchina in Castelvetrano, underscoring the closeness of the curator's relationship with the suspect dealer.

In making his announcement of this This successful multi-jurisdictional investigation on Friday, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin L. Bragg, Jr., named those attorneys, officers and agencies who made this seizure and utimately this restitution possible. Those were, in order:  Assistant District Attorney Matthew Bogdanos, Chief of the Antiquities Trafficking Unit; Assistant District Attorney Yuval Simchi-Levi; Supervising Investigative Analyst Apsara Iyer and Investigative Analysts Giuditta Giardini and Daniel Healey; and Special Agent Robert Mancene of Homeland Security Investigations. Investigative support was provided by TPC Warrant Officer Angelo Ragusa.

When Orpheus, the poet, and his two sirens eventually fly, they will initially go on display in the Museo dell'Arte Salvata (Museum of Rescued Art), housed in the Octagonal Hall at the Baths of Diocletian in Rome. 

September 7, 2022

Wednesday, September 07, 2022 - ,,,,,,,,, No comments

5+1+9+1= 16 plundered Egyptian artefacts restituted to their rightful owners in New York


Six of these pieces were seized while on display at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.  And like the restitutions returned to Italy yesterday, these pieces have likewise been linked to extensive criminal investigations into international antiquities-trafficking networks which have impacted multiple museum collections. Though in this case, the Egyptian artefats were handled by contemporary traffickers and looters, those whose networks have resulted in high level arrests in both France and Germany.  

Five of these antiquities, worth more than $3 million in total, were confiscated from the Metropolitan under a May 19 court order as having been looted from archaeological sites in Egypt, then eventually smuggled through Germany or the Netherlands before moving on to France.  These were sold by traffickers through the Paris-based Pierre Bergé & Associés to the Metropolitan Museum in New York.  

It should be noted that information gathered in this investigation has also resulted in the arrest of nine individuals in France including most strikingly, Jean-Luc Martinez, the former Chairman and CEO of the Musée du Louvre in Paris. 

The six artefacts from the Met's collection that were seized and are now going home are:

1 of 6 - A Monumental Stela of Kemes, ca. 1750–1720 BCE


Before the Met took down its accession page for this artefact, the provenance listed for this stela as listed in 2019 stated the following:

Purchased February 1969 by Uwe Schnell, Germany, from Heinz Herzer Gallery in Munich. Purchased in the 1970s by a private collector (probably Serop Simonian, Hamburg, Germany). Published fully in 1994, exhibited in Bonn University Art Museum 2006 through at least 2008 and published in the catalog. Acquired by the Museum at auction Pierre Bergé, 2014.

A check of open source records using the names Ewe Schnell, Heinz Herzer and Pierre Bergé & Associés combined only turns up one other antiquity, a Fayum panel painting of a woman in a blue mantle, which was also acquired by the Metropolitan Museum and one we will speak about later in this article.

Heinz Herzer, as many followers of ARCA's blog know, has his own interesting history in dealing with ancient objects with fabricated provenance.

Serop Simonian is an art dealer of Armenian origin at the fulcrum of the Met's gold-sheathed mummiform coffin of Nedjemankh restitution case as well as other pieces already seized and returned by the DANY or identified in other jurisdictions. His name comes up repeatedly in relation to suspect artefacts identified during police, and public prosecutor investigations, as well as academic forensic research.  Simonian has also been tied to numerous suspect acquisitions approved for purchase at the Louvre Abu Dhabi and is quite famous for having stirred up quite a bit of controversy in Italy regarding the sale of the disputed Artemidorus papyrus in 2004 for €2.75 million to the Compagnia San Paolo Art Foundation.  

But back to the Stela of Kemes.  On April 25, 2016, the Metropolitan's accession page for this Egyptian artefact stated the provenance quite differently.  Listing its collecting history as:

Believed to have been in the Todrous Collection, Luxor. Purchased February 1969 by Uwe Schnell, Germany, from Heinz Herzer Gallery in Munich. Purchased in the 1970s by the owner of the Tamerit Collection, Germany. Acquired by the Museum at auction Pierre Bergé, 2014.

This earlier collection history mentions a "Todrous Collection" of which there is nothing documented in open source records anywhere on the web for any other ancient objects.  A late antique textile fragment of a tunic with the inventory number T 34, from "the Tamerit collection" is on record at the at the Papyrussammlung der Österreichischen Nationalbibliothek at the Austrian National Library, though not much else.

Note that this Met record spells the collection's name Todrous, while the recently restituted golden coffin spelled the name Tawadrus, and trade journals have spelled the name Tawadros.  Later in this article you will also see the name spelled Tadross. All refer to the deceased Luxor dealer Habib Tawadros.

Christophe Kunicki's own website listed the provenance for this stela as:

Ancient european private collection, 1969.
With Tadross, Luxor, 1960’s

But stepping back even farther, outside of the Met Museum's and the seller's respective websites, the Monumental Stela of Kemes was published in the 2014 Volume 25 Number 5 issue of the journal Minerva: The International Review of Ancient Art & Archaeology.

This trade magazine listed the provenance for the stela as:

A rare Egyptian limestone chapel-stele of Kemes, superior of musicians (3), from the 13th Dynasty, circa 1770 BC (H. 73cm), in the form of a quadrangular naos resting upon a base carved with façades, was purchased from the Luxor dealer Tawadros during the 1960s. The cover-piece of the sale, it was estimated at €300,000-€400,000, but brought in a hammer price of just €200,00 from the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The expert for both sales was Christophe Kunicki.

Screen Shot: Volume 25 Number 5, Page 53
Minerva: The International Review of Ancient Art & Archaeology

It is important to recognise that the involvement of the French dealer Christophe Kunicki via Pierre Bergé & Associés does not appear in any of the Metropolitan Museum's provenance records for the 13th Dynasty Egyptian limestone chapel-stele of Kemes, despite what this trade journal says and despite the Met's curators in the Egypt department having direct and frequent contact with him as he brokered pieces to the museum directly.

Purchased on 21 May 2014, the Met's record also left out the "Luxor dealer Tawadros" connection on this object.  That name, if you will recall, is also the name associated on the  now restituted 1st century B.C.E mummiform coffin, inscribed in the name of Nedjemankh.
_________


Painted Fayum panel portraits of Egypt are among the few preserved examples of ancient Greek-style paintings on panel and canvas.  Prior to its seizure, this one was on view at The Met's Gallery 137.  The woman in the blue mantle was purchased in 2013 via Pierre Bergé auction house in Paris, with Christophe Kunicki, working as expert. 

When the Metropolitan's accession page was still live, the museum first listed its provenance as:

Purchased 1968 by Uwe Schnell from Heinz Herzer Gallery, Munich. Purchased 1972 by the owner of the Tamerit Collection. Purchased by the Museum from Pierre Bergé & Associés, Paris, 2013.

This was later changed to:

Purchased 1968 by Uwe Schnell from Heinz Herzer Gallery, Munich. Purchased 1972 by Serop Simonian, Hamburg Germany, who owned it until 2013. Published 1997 and 2003, exhibited in Frankfurt in 1999 and Vienna in 2003 and published in exhibition catalogs. Consigned to Pierre Bergé & Associés by a private collector; purchased by the Museum from Pierre Bergé at auction, Paris, 2013.

In trade catalogues for this artefact Kunicki listed only “a European collection“ as the Fayum portrait's sole provenance. 

3 of 6 - Stela Dedicated to the Goddess Hathor by the Temple Singer in the Interior of Amun



Prior to its seizure, this Third Intermediate Period (Kushite) to Late Period stela was on view at The Met's Gallery 137.  This Egyptian artefact was purchased in December 2015 (accessioned in 2016) via Pierre Bergé auction house in Paris, with Christophe Kunicki, working as expert. 

Just before the Met took down this object's accession page, the museum listed the stela's provenance as:

In the Khashaba Collection, Assyut, by 1910. Permission granted to heirs to export through the Egyptian Museum Cairo for sale abroad by 1969. Exported abroad with license in 1972. Purchased by Adolf Smith (Schmidt), Germany, 1975, and descended in the family. Collection of Serop Simonian, Hamburg, Germany, 2015. Consigned to Pierre Berge & Associates by a private collector; auctioned at Pierre Bergé, Paris, December 2015, where it was purchased by the Museum. 

The 2015 Pierre Berge catalogue listed the provenance as:

Ancienne collection Sayed Pasha Khashaba, années 1910. Ancienne collection Smith, Allemagne, 1975.
Collection européenne.

Between 1910 and 1914, Sayed Bey Khashaba, AKA Sayed Pasha Khashaba, AKA Saiyid Khashaba Pasha, with other various subtle misspellings obtained from the Antiquities Service concessions to excavate at Assiut, Meir, Deir el-Gabrawi, Tihna and at Soknopaiou Nesos, in the Fayum.  I will leave whether or not this steal came from any of these places to the Egyptologists. 

4 of 6 - A face from a painted wooden Egyptian coffin


Before being sundered in two, this Egyptian face once belonged to an anthropoid wood coffin decorated with plaster and then delicately painted in polychromy.  

This artefact was purchased by the Metropolitan during the same December 2015 sale as the previous stela, (accessioned in 2016) via Pierre Bergé auction house in Paris, with Christophe Kunicki, working as expert. 

Just before the Met took down this object's accession page, the museum listed the stela's provenance as:

Collection of Robert Boyd, originally from Scotland and living in Indonesia, from about 1890, possibly acquired through Eugene Dubois. Brought to the Netherlands by Boyd's descendants about 1950. Sold in 1968 by Galerie - 2000 annex Curiosa, Rotterdam, to Mr. Jan Veneman, Oegstgeest, the Netherlands. Subsequently sold again on the art market in The Netherlands. Placed by a Dutch dealer at auction, Pierre Bergé & Associés, Paris, December 16, 2015, where it was purchased by the Museum.

5 of 6 - Exodus Painting, five elements from a painted hanging depicting the Crossing of the Red Sea


The first appearance of the Exodus Painting in five fragments, depicting the Crossing of the Red Sea, occured in a 1998 publication, Alexandria: Die erste Königsstadt der hellenistischen Welt : Bilder aus der Nilmetropole von Alexander dem Grossen bis Kleopatra VII, written by Günter Grimm.   Grimm, who died 17 September 2010, is the same egyptologist who had a working relationship with Serop Simonian regarding the authentication of the suspect “Artemidorus” and other papyri while at the Archaeologisches Institut at the  Universität Trier.

Head of the University Institute in the mid-1980s, Grimm opened a small Late Period gallery in the Institute with objects from Serop Simonian’s stock.

On 26 November 2013 these five fragments came up for auction at Hôtel Drouot via Pierre Bergé & Associés with Christophe Kunicki listed as expert. At that Paris sale, Simonian's footprint was omitted and the only provenance given was: 

6 of 6 - An 8th century BCE Egyptian bronze statuette of a Kneeling Ruler or Priest


This sixth Egyptian artefact was seized at the Metropolitan Museum of Art earlier this year when linked to 81-year-old fugitive Georges Lotfi who split his time between New York,  Paris and Tripli, Lebanon. Lotfi was charged by the New York authorities in August 2022 with criminal possession of stolen property and remains at large.   

Before its seizure in February 2022, 2006, Lotfi sold the small bronze statue to the Metropolitan with a provenance history which read:

Ex Collection Joseph Shitrit, Israel, from the 1960s. Purchased from him by Biblical Antiquities, Jerusalem, Israel, 2005. Purchased by the Museum from Georges Lotfi, Tripoli and Paris, 2006.

In actuality the Egyptian antiquity had passed first through the hands of a source country looter in 2005, then on to a part-time looter/part-time dealer in Israel named Gil Chaya, a formerly licensed antiquities dealer from Jerusalem and the purported nephew of Shlomo Moussaieff. 


In 2011, as if to brag that pieces he handled had made it into a prestigious gallery at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Chaya published a series of photos showing the bronze in his home, both before and after its restoration, posting a comment with the photo which read, "2 days after i clean it it was already in the amarna room at the MET."  This solidifies without a doubt that the provenance for this piece,as having come from the collection of Joseph Shitrit in the 1960s, is pure fabrication. 

Nine of the other Egyptian artefacts restituted in New York today are detailed in the Michael Steinhardt (Statement of Facts) document and are as follows:

1 of 9 - Vase from the Pan-Athenian Games


2 of 9 - Tel El-Yahudiyeh Beer Strainer

 

3 of 9 - Statue of a Winged Human;


4 of 9 - A carved piece of ivory depicting 12 highly-engaged figures on musical instruments


5,6,7,8,& 9 of 9 - A set of five gold and silver ornaments and plaques;


In 2017 the New York District Attorney initiated a criminal investigation into Michael Steinhardt’s acquisition, possession, and sale of antiquities.  That office's "Statement of Facts" document is the evidentiary basis for the conclusion that 180 antiquities possessed by Steinhardt constituted stolen property under New York law. 

The final object in today's restitution is a Ptolemaic gold coin.


This ancient coin was recovered as part of an ongoing investigation, which for now remains under the discretion of the prosecutor's office. 

In closing I would like to say that due diligence of looted antiquities, especially those that could be from conflict-based, or post-conflict source countries, must be meaningful and not simply and superficially plausible, in the furtherance of a purchase.  This holds true for lofty universal museums, as well as private buyers.  

Partially-documented histories in an object's collection background, do not necessarily always point to fresh loot or illegal export, but when an antiquity's background looks murky, as was obviously the case with several of these artefacts, museums and wealthy collectors need to step up their game, so they no longer perpetuate and incentivise plunder.  

Likewise, museums like the Metropolitan should not remove their accession pages, no matter how embarrassing they find them.  They should leave them up with notations that these pieces have gone home and who handled them. In doing so, they allow researchers and collectors to be more aware of the problem actors circulating material from past sales.  This also saves folks like me from having to store things away that only a few people can access. 

To conclude, ARCA would like to thank DA Bragg, Assistant District Attorney Matthew Bogdanos, Chief of the Antiquities Trafficking Unit; Assistant District Attorneys James Edwards-Lebair and Taylor Holland, Supervising Investigative Analyst Apsara Iyer, Investigative Analysts Giuditta Giardini, Alyssa Thiel, Daniel Healey, and Hilary Chassé; who alongside Special Agents John Paul Labbat and Robert Mancene of Homeland Security Investigations for the work put into these investigations.  

We would also like to thank Stephane Blumel, Major de Gendarmerie, of France’s Office central de lutte contre le trafic des biens culturels (OCBC) and Silvelie Karfeld and Nicole Pogantke of the Arts and Antiquities Crimes Unit of Germany’s Bundeskriminalamt (BKA) Kunst und Kulturgutkriminalität for their forensic investigative support in other jurisdictions.  Working collaboratively, we now know more about when, and where, and with whom, some of these recovered artefacts have circulated. 

By Lynda Albertson

August 12, 2022

Friday, August 12, 2022 - ,,,,,,, No comments

Raffaele Monticelli's connection to Bank Leu A.G. and to the Getty Villa's "Seated Musician and Sirens" AKA Orpheus and the Sirens

In a tightly worded announcement made on 11 August 2022 the J. Paul Getty Museum revealed that it will finally relinquish its nearly-lifesize terracotta sculptural group "Seated Musician and Sirens" to the Italian authorities "after evidence persuaded the museum that the statues had been illegally excavated."  In elaborating on the three sculptures' return, directors Timothy Potts, Maria Hummer-Tuttle and Robert Tuttle of the J. Paul Getty stated "Thanks to information provided by Matthew Bogdanos and the Antiquities Trafficking Unit of the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office indicating the illegal excavation of Orpheus and the Sirens, we determined that these objects should be returned." 

While this announcement seemed like breaking news across the English speaking world, making several major news publications, it's not to those living and working on Italian cultural heritage losses. Many of those who have been following the tug of war between Italy and the Getty museum for more than a decade have felt that these objects, coming from the Magna Graecia colony of Taranto, should have already come home, and are curious as to what confirmatory evidence the New York authorities now have about these objects' illicit past and those who handled them which finally resulted in the museum's sudden release of their prized grouping. 

As backstory, the seated poet and his two standing sirens were confiscated in April 2022 as part of New York's investigation into an accused Italian antiquities smuggler. Originally brightly painted, this large-scale sculptural ensemble was purchased by John Paul Getty Sr.,  the founder of Getty Oil Company, in the spring of 1976 with no known provenance aside attesting to its collecting history, aside from the name of the Swiss bank seller.

Orpheus, seated on his chair, with footstool, and slab, is missing part of his musical instrument (probably a plektron) and the middle finger of the left hand.  Reassembled from a number of fragments prior to its acquisition by the Getty, his legs, head and other sections appear to have been reconsolidated, leaving him mostly intact.  Missing sections were also filled in, and smoothed over, with obscuring encrustations added on the body and the head, perhaps to conceal break lines which can sometimes be indicative of illegal excavation. 

Like with the sculpture of the poet, both of the sirens in this grouping also show signs of having been reconstructed from multiple fragments.  On the first siren, gaps can be seen in her short chiton and in her right claw.  For the second, most of the curls and the little finger of her right hand have been broken off the statue at some point in her transport out of Italy. 

But what did John Paul Getty Sr. have to say about their circulation on the art market and his collecting habits as he filled his new museum?

Prior to his death, and in ever declining health despite being deeply involved in the construction and opening of the Getty Villa,  Getty made multiple final acquisitions for his museum, with little attention towards the provenance and via several suspect brokers of ancient art who repeatedly have been accused of  trafficking in antiquities.  These purchases are outlined in his March 6, 1976 diary entry and include:  

  • a 530 BCE Archaic marble head from Heinz Herzer worth 56,000 DM (Object Number: 76.AA.6);
  • a Greek Attic Panatheniac Amphora Attributed to the Nichomachos Group from Nicolas Koutoulakis worth 70,000 USD (Object Number: 76.AE.5.a);
  • a Statue of Togatus from Bank Leu, A.G. for 61,000 SF;
  • a 180 BCE Hellenic Marble Head from Muhammed Yoganah for 50,000 USD;
  • a 100–250 CE Toman silver statuette of Venus from Mathias Komor for $7500 (Object Number:76.AM.4);
  • a 210 CE Front of a Sarcophagus with the Myth of Endymion from Robin Symes for 30,000 GBP (Object Number: 76.AA.8.b);  
and finally, 
  • the group of 3 statues made in Tarentum at the end of the 4th century BCE for $550,000 from Bank Leu, A.G. (Object Numbers: 76.AD.11.1, 76.AD.11.2 and 76.AD.11.3).
Getty wrote in his dairy that all of the artefacts above, had been purchased on the recommendation of Jiří Frel, the Getty's Czech-American archaeologist.  Frel, was the J. Paul Getty Museum's first Curator of Antiquities would later be implicated in a number of controversies that tarnished the reputation of the museum.  Based on suspicions of malpractice, he was placed on paid leave from the Getty in 1984 and was allowed to quietly resign in 1986.  

After leaving the California museum, Frel, served as a consultant for wealthy European collectors, taught classes, and shuttled between residences in Budapest and Italy. At one point he even registered himself as being domiciled in Sicily, setting his residence in the palazzo of the problematic antiquities dealer Gianfranco Becchina in Castelvetrano.

Speaking with Italian journalists, New York prosecutor Matthew Bogdanos from the Manhattan District Attorney's Office's Antiquities Trafficking Unit stated that the J. Paul Getty Museum had cooperated with the DANY regarding these pieces after their seizure, but underscored that their seemingly impromptu restitution is still part of an ongoing criminal investigation being conducted by the Manhattan office in collaboration with the Comando Carabinieri per la Tutela del Patrimonio Culturale.  Bogdanos added that the museum's repatriation statement, released by the Getty, "left half of the truth out" and by that one can surmise he is referring to their seizure the previous April. 

Speaking further, Bogdanos added that this multi-year investigation started with the exploration of suspect market actors his team has spent years investigating.  The prosecutor underscored that this sculpture group's illegal removal from Italy, and export to the United States via Switzerland, involved a well known trafficking network which is known to have operated in Italy for decades.  

One member of this network who has now been publicly identified is Raffaele Monticelli, the retired elementary teacher, who gave up teaching for the more lucrative roll of middle man broker of illicit antiquities.  Monticelli has been arrested several times, and connected to multiple trafficking networks for decades.  Most recently, in late 2021, he was arrested by the Dutch authorities after having carried a looted helmet to Delft for restoration.

If we take a look at the Manhattan District Attorney's Office's Michael Steinhardt statement of facts, we can also determine, on page 36, that Raffaele Monticelli also had a relationship with Leo Mildenberg, the late Swiss numismatist for the Swiss private Bank Leu A.G., who is known to have brokered sales both for Raffaele Monticelli and for Gianfranco Becchina. 

How long has this restitution taken? 

The sculptural group first appeared as a grouping of high concern in the list of identified finds drawn up by Italy's Ministry of Culture at the beginning of 2006.  

The Taranto provenance, in addition to appearing in the digital record compiled by the J. Paul Museum, is supported by Italian scholars Pietro Giovanni Guzzo and Angelo Bottini who published the grouping purchased by the Getty in 1976. 

Furthermore, an article, published in the "Gazzetta del Mezzogiorno" dated 30 November 2006, and republished in the web magazine "patrimoniosos" stated "the comparisons with the monumental groups in terracotta found in central and southern Italy and the representations we have on the ceramic finds of Apulian production, which document the presence of decorative terracotta statues on the monumental tombs of Taranto, dispel any doubts about their origin from southern Italy "


Photographs of the pieces were also seen in 2018 in a series of black and white photos documenting portions of the restored sculptures on the 8 December 2018 RAI documentary "Petrolio - Ladri di Bellezza" produced by journalist Duilio Giammaria and Senator Margherita Corrado has repeatedly spoken in the XVIII Session of the Italian Senate about the need to bring these artefacts home.

Yet, despite all that, the 4th century BCE sculptures were (still) center stage on the ground floor of the Getty Villa in California's Pacific Palisades during the museum's  exhibition: Underworld - Imagining the Afterlife as late as October 31, 2018–March 18, 2019.   They were removed only after this investigation came to a head earlier this year.  

When Orpheus and his Sirens eventually fly home in September, they will initially go on display in the Museo dell'Arte Salvata (Museum of Rescued Art), housed in the Octagonal Hall at the Baths of Diocletian in Rome.  Perhaps by then we will be able to publicly share how the New York District Attorney's Office in Manhattan, HSI-ICE and the Italian Carabinieri moved this case successfully forward. 


April 4, 2022

Monday, April 04, 2022 - ,,,,,,, No comments

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

June 24, 2020

Wednesday, June 24, 2020 - ,,,,,,,,, No comments

Another looted conflict antiquity from the Temple of Eshmun in Sidon, Lebanon seized. This time at Royal Athena Galleries in New York

Left Image provided by the NYDA's Office and HSI-ICE
Right Image from Royal-Athena Galleries catalog
When speaking of the effects of conflict antiquities, the market's most vocal proponents, the International Association of Dealers in Ancient Art (IADAA) and the Confédération Internationale des Négociants en Œuvres d’Art (CINOA) often reflect on the limited number of objects seen in market circulation derived from the recent Middle East conflicts.  Members in positions of power are invited to speak at UNESCO, stand at podiums at trade events, and write articles lamenting that collectors and the trade in an age-old tradition, are under attack by heavy-handed regulators.

They never seem to quite get around to discussing in detail any of the illicit artefacts that  HAVE made it into the ancient art market, sometimes not identified for decades, and long after their respective civil wars are resolved.  They also don't monetize their own profits from this slow trickle of conflict antiquities, which transfuse the ancient art market with financial blood, years after the human bodies that once fought around them stop bleeding.

The dealer associations don't like to talk about the painful scars of plunder from earlier wars, like the museum-quality Khmer-era statues that came to market following the civil disturbances in Cambodia.  Some of the finest examples of Cambodian art produced during the Angkorian period (circa 800-1400 CE) were extracted from that country and readily snapped up by art institutions and private collectors, despite the fact that they were pillaged and illegally exported.

Looted from Cambodia’s ancient temples, during the Cambodian civil war, which raged from 1970 to 1998, conflict antiquities from that non-middle east war did not begin to flow back to their country of origin until 2014.  Likewise, antiquities dealers known to be involved in the trade, like Nancy Wiener and Douglas Latchford, a/k/a “Pakpong Kriangsak”, weren't charged until 2016 and 2019 respectively, almost twenty years after the war concluded.

In the US charging document for Latchford, correspondence evidence by the collector-dealer brazenly admits to his informed role.  Speaking by email to a colluding market colleague, discussing a recently plundered bronze head, Latchford writes:

“was recently found around the site of the Angkor Borei group in the N E of Cambodia, in the Preah Vihar area. They are looking for the body, no luck so far, all they have found last week were two land mines !! What price would you be interested in buying it at? let me know as I will have to bargain for it.”

Latchford also sent this same dealer another email that included a photograph of a standing Buddha still covered in dirt.  In this email he exclaimed:

“Hold on to your hat, just been offered this 56 cm Angkor Borei Buddha, just excavated, which looks fantastic. It’s still across the border, but WOW.”

Interestingly, source-country export licenses never accompanied any of these pieces, known to be in movement after the invention of email, and long after Cambodia's laws for the protection of their culture were implemented. 

The dealer groups also never seem to mention that OTHER civil war in the Middle East. You know, the multifaceted civil war in Lebanon, Al-Ḥarb al-Ahliyyah al-Libnāniyyah, which lasted from 1975 to 1990 that was also responsible for 120,000 deaths and created one million refugees.

The Lebanese civil war was one of the most devastating conflicts of the late 20th century.  During that war, and from the Temple of Eshmun alone, excavated in 1967 under the oversight of French archaeologist Maurice Dunand, numerous artefacts were stolen in 1981 when a storage depot the Jubayl/Byblos Citadel fell to armed members of al-Katd'ib (the Phalangist Party).  Of those only twelve have been painstakingly identified and restituted back to Lebanon from various collectors and dealers.

Those artifacts included:

• one male head and three male torsos identified in a 1991 catalogue for Numismatic & Ancient Art Gallery, managed by Azzedine El-Aaji and  Burton Yost Berry in Zurich; 

• one male torso and one sarcophagus fragment offered for sale by Sotheby's London in its 8 December 1994 auction; 

• a marble male torso located with the Dorotheum Auction House in Vienna in 2000; 

• a marble male head identified by Jean-David Cahn in Basel and self reported for return in 2006; 

• a marble male torso identified with Galerie Gunter Puhze in Freiberg, Germany in 2017; 

• a marble bull's head, a torso of an athlete, and a torso of a calf bearer identified with purchases by collectors, George Lufti, Michael Steinhardt, and Lynda and William Beierwaltes in 2017. 

That was all, until this year. 

Last week marked the latest action in an effort by the Manhattan district attorney, Cyrus R. Vance Jr., to seize looted antiquities discovered in New York City in order to return them to their countries of origin.

One of those seizures turns out to be an ancient object, once described as a 130 CE Roman Marble Life-Size Portrait Head of an Athlete, also previously excavated at the Temple of Eshmun in Sidon and also stolen in 1981. 


This marble head was seized at Royal-Athena Galleries, a New York City-based gallery that is operated by Jerome Eisenberg.  According to authorities, once Royal Athena became aware of the evidence, they completely cooperated with the Manhattan DA’s Office and consented to the head’s return to Lebanon.

In Royal-Athena Galleries - Art of the Ancient World, Volume XXVIII - 2017, featuring 176 Greek, Etruscan, Roman, Byzantine, Egyptian, & Near Eastern antiquities, Eisenberg had described the seized artefact as follows:

Roman Marble Life-Size Portrait Head of an Athlete, possibly a pankratist. His closely cropped beard and thin moustache are suggestive of the styles favored by the athletes of the period. Sensitively carved of marble from the area near Saliari on the Greek island of Thasos, his strong countenance has alert deepset eyes and a  determined expression upon his parted lips.  Ca. 130 AD H 10 in. (26.7 cm) Ex French collection; W.H. collection, Westport, Connecticut, acquired from Royal-Athena Galleries in 1988.  Published J. Eisenberg, Art of the Ancient World, vol XVI, 2005, no 12.  

Even if scientific analysis of the statue-grade block of marble used for this magnificent sculpture were to reveal that the slab came from the Saliari marble quarries on Thasos, the movement of raw materials between the Phoenicians of Lebanon and the Greeks was common in antiquity.  But while the stone used for this sculpture could confuse dealers and collectors to the country of origin, its accompanying paperwork should not have.

Who were the owners Eisenberg codified as the "Ex-French collection" and "W.H. collection, Westport, Connecticut" and what export documentation was provided, if any, to justify this sculpture's legitimacy in the ancient art market?  These finer case details have not yet been made public by the New York authorities, and like the previous twelve recovered antiquities from the Temple of Eshmun, may further clarify which other ancient art dealers handled objects stolen during the Lebanese civil war,  and with whom or where they purchased them.

This new seizure in New York illustrates the difficulty faced by source countries in identifying historic conflict antiquities simply by trolling through every catalog, for every auction ever created, by any dealer, in any language in any country around the world; especially when the material used to create the artefact traveled, and might intentionally or unintentionally result in the object being mislabeled as coming from another country altogether.

In closing, I would like to underscore something as it relates to the difficulty in identifying conflict antiquities, and the seemingly impossible task faced by scholars, law enforcement, and source country ministries in bridging the gap between locating their plundered artefacts after the fact, years after these antiquities have infiltrated the ancient art market. I would also like to comment on how determining all the culpable hands these objects have passed through on their way to fine gallery showrooms in New York and other cities is a slow and tedious process which is not always a straight line to a restitution victory.

As this single incidence of plunder illustrates, the Lebanese Republic could not have reported this 1981 civil war-era theft to the Art Loss Register because the ALR had not yet been founded.  Even in 1991, after the ALR came into existence and began the never-ending task of archiving stolen objects around the globe, the archival photos for this theft, useful in cross-matching the stolen Temple of Eshmun objects, were only in the hands of a single foreign scholar, and not the Lebanese authorities.  This left the Ministry of Culture in Lebanon at a marked disadvantage for being able to prove irrefutably what objects in circulation absolutely belonged to them, and were in fact stolen from the Byblos Citadel antiquities depot during their civil war.

It wasn't until Professor Rolf Stucky, the former Head of the Department of Classical Archaeology at the University of Basel in Switzerland, and a colleague of archaeologist Maurice Dunand, published two books in 2005 that the Lebanese authorities got a much-needed lead which helped in the recovering of their antiquities.  Stucky's books contained critical photos that he had taken while working in Lebanon between 1973 and 1974 which matched with written excavation records for objects known to have been excavated at the Temple of Eshmun.  With these photos, the Lebanese authorities could start to sort out which artifacts had been stolen from the Byblos Citadel antiquities depot and already recovered and which objects were now known to still be missing.

Even with identifiable photos as to what belonged to whom, there are simply not enough eyes monitoring the ancient art market and too many mediums by which antiquities are sold, often misidentified, for source countries to recover all of their losses before the statute of limitations in various market countries makes investigations futile. In 2017, in seeking the seizure of the Temple of Ishmun Bull's head, Assistant District Attorney Matthew Bogdanos spoke to the cases he had worked on stating that his efforts had resulted in "multiple convictions, the seizures of thousands of antiquities totaling more than $150 million, and the repatriation of recovered antiquities to half-a-dozen countries".  And that's just the illicit antiquities in circulation that one State authority, with a dedicated prosecutor and a trained group of researchers, has managed to successfully detect.

What about the countries and cities where we don't have enough provenance eyes or a vigilant public prosecutor?  

So when the market responds that they satisfactorily self-monitor, or that the problem is with only a few bad eggs, or that the sector doesn't see a wide-spread problem with blood antiquities circulating which requires legislative oversight...

I beg to differ. 

By:  Lynda Albertson


Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)