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March 5, 2012

The Journal of Art Crime, Fall 2011: Noah Charney on "Lessons from the History of Art Crime"

In the Fall 2011 issue of The Journal of Art Crime, publisher Noah Charney takes a break from his regular column "Lessons from the History of Art Crime" to include a chapter from his recent book, The Thefts of the Mona Lisa: On Stealing the World's Most Famous Painting.  This is the first book published by ARCA Publications, a new endeavor of the Association for Research into Crimes against Art.  All profits from the print edition of this book, which is available on Amazon, go to ARCA and support ARCA's non-profit activities.  The sample chapter includes the story of Picasso and Apollinaire's involvement in theft from the Louvre.  "While they were accused of having stolen the Mona Lisa, of which they were innocent, they were guilty of the theft of other artworks from the Louvre," Charney writes.

Noah Charney is the Founder and President of ARCA and the Editor-in-Chief of The Journal of Art Crime. Recently a Visiting Lecturer at Yale University, he is currently Adjunct Professor of Art History at the American University of Rome. He is the editor of ARCA’s first book, Art & Crime: Exploring the Dark Side of the Art World (Praeger 2009). His latest book is The Thefts of the Mona Lisa: On Stealing the World’s Most Coveted Masterpiece (ARCA Publications 2011).

You may read this excerpt in The Journal of Art Crime by purchasing a subscription to the journal.

March 4, 2012

The Journal of Art Crime, Fall 2011: General B(a) CC Giovanni Pastore on "Archaeology and the Problem of Unauthorized Excavation in Italy"

In the Fall 2011 issue of The Journal of Art Crime, General B(a) CC Giovanni Pastore writes of "Archaeology and the Problem of Unauthorized Excavation in Italy":

The public follows, with growing and increasingly alarmed attention, news on the destruction of historic sites because of speculation, pollution and even war. In contrast, little consideration is given to the rather serious state of danger in which the world’s archaeological heritage remains as a result of being the target of increasingly frequent episodes of looting at illegal excavations. 
In recent decades these depredations, due to the smuggling of archaeological material on the international arts market, have taken on such a scale that not even the specialists in this sector can assess the value of the losses with confidence. 
What is certain, however, is that the archaeological heritage of many regions of the world is constantly the subject of illegal activities involving not only the physical destruction of looted artifacts, but also the resulting loss of the rich heritage of historical information contained in those archaeological sites, destroyed by the violent action of the excavations themselves. 
The regions most severely affected by this phenomenon are in Central and South America, Italy, the Middle East, China and Turkey, while countries such as Germany, Switzerland and Austria increasingly report on looting at archaeological sites.

General B(a) CC Giovanni Pastore served as Vice- Commandant of the Carabinieri Division for the Protection of Cultural Heritage from 1995 until his retirement in 2011. During that time he was widely considered the world’s finest art policeman, Colonel Pastore commanded the twelve Carabinieri art police divisions within Italy. Pastore was trained at the elite military academy in Modena. He studied art history, law, and security, and excelled in horsemanship. Over his long career, he has been decorated with numerous medals both in Italy, including the equivalent of a knighthood, and by grateful nations abroad, in appreciation for his professional service. He is one of the founding trustees of ARCA.

You may read the complete article by subscribing to The Journal of Art Crime.

March 3, 2012

The Journal of Art Crime, Fall 2011: Paolo Giorgio Ferri Asks "Are Penal Procedures Only a Last Resort?"

In the Fall 2011 issue of The Journal of Art Crime, Paolo Giorgio Ferri asks "Are Penal Procedures Only a Last Resort?" He writes:
It is a share experience that in the art market some publicized and well-targeted penal procedures versus art dealers, auction houses, museum curators and/or others involved in this trade have strong deterrent effects. This happens mostly because of the people interested in and of their high status. And the intensification of investigations in the national and international field, which will very likely lead to the limiting of illegal purchases, especially with reference to those known as the “major purchasers” will be carefully assessed by the professionals who will reduce their demands in proportion to the investigative capacity of the public institutions. 
In this respect, one should recall the Italy’s recent initiatives through the criminal law -considered sometimes as primary tool in the protection of the Italian cultural heritage- which have had an impact on the markets, especially abroad (for instance, these initiatives triggered an ample process of return by U.S. museums, and nowadays Italian cultural items of uncertain provenance are less attractive objects of exchange). 
However, it now behooves me to underline that the adequacy of a given judicial space appears to be of vital importance not only for the cultural heritage of a single nation, but also for all the other countries, -at least- of the same cultural area. It is a known fact that the criminals acting in this sector take advantage of the weak links in the various systems, exporting and even using for the various systems of triangular trading the legal systems most permeable to illegal trafficking. And then from them, sending the cultural objects also to those countries where protection is effective and congruous. In fact, this process of laundering antiquities is highly facilitated by jurisdictions without any or insufficient regulation of the antiquities market, or by failure to enforce the existing legislation.

Paolo Giorgio Ferri is a retired Prosecutor for the Republic of Italy who played an integral role in the return of looted antiquities illicitly exported from Italy and sold to North American public and private collections. He served as the lead attorney for the Museum and the J. Paul Getty Museum and its former curator of antiquities, Marion True. Presently he serves as an international expert in cultural goods juridical problems for the Italian Ministry of Cultural Heritage.

You may read this article via subscription to The Journal of Art Crime.

March 2, 2012

The Journal of Art Crime, Fall 2011: Howard N. Spiegler on the "Portrait of Wally" case

In the Fall 2011 issue of The Journal of Art Crime, Howard N. Spiegler writes of "What the Lady has Wrought: The Ramifications of the Portrait of Wally Case".   This article first appeared in the newsletter of the Art Law Group of Herrick, Feinstein LLP, Art and Advocacy, Fall 2010, Volume 7 and is reprinted with permission.  Herrick, Feinstein represented the Estate of Lea Bondi Jaray, a Jewish art dealer in Vienna who fled for London in 1939 after her gallery was "Aryanized" by a Nazi agent, Mr. Spiegler explains.  He summarizes the case in the first paragraph:

On July 20, 2010, on the eve of trial, the case of United States v. Portrait of Wally, which our firm litigated for more than ten years, was finally resolved by stipulation and order. The U.S. Attorney in Manhattan commenced the case in the fall of 1999 by seizing the painting, “Portrait of Wally” by Egon Schiele (Wally), while it was on loan for exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. The case has been credited with awakening governments around the world, as well as museums, collectors, and others in the global art community, to the problem of Nazi-looted art almost seventy years after the beginning of the Nazi era in Europe. Although this case will surely be commented on and analyzed for many years to come – including in a documentary film due to be released in the spring – as the attorneys for the claimant in the case, we thought it would be helpful to provide some thoughts from our unique vantage point.

Howard Spiegler is co-chair of Herrick, Feinstein’s international art practice, which includes all aspects of commercial art matters, both in the litigation and transactional areas. He has been involved in several well-known and important litigations brought on behalf of foreign governments and heirs of Holocaust victims and others to recover stolen artwork or cultural property, including the recent recovery by the heir of the famous Jewish art dealer Jacques Goudstikker of over 200 Nazi-looted artworks from the Dutch Government. He has also facilitated recoveries on behalf of the Republic of Turkey of numerous valuable antiquities, the currently pending litigation brought on behalf of the Estate of Lea Bondi Jaray to recover a Schiele painting, “Portrait of Wally”, confiscated by a Nazi agent in Austria in the late 1930’s, and the recently resolved action on behalf of the heirs of Kazimir Malevich, the world-renowned 20th Century Russian artist, against the City of Amsterdam, the Netherlands. This last case resulted in the recovery by the heirs of five Malevich paintings. He received his J.D. degree from Columbia University School of Law in 1974. He serves on the Editorial Board of The Journal of Art Crime and regularly writes and speaks around the world on issues relating to art law.

A copy of this issue may be obtained through subscription to The Journal of Art Crime.

March 1, 2012

Cambodia's Antiquities: Objects on hold pending legal status

A recent article in The New York Times again focused attention on the status of antiquities coming out of Cambodia, a country that changed statehood in the 20th century. Many countries, such as Turkey and Italy just to name two, wrote laws forbidding the export of art or cultural property beginning in the late 19th century and the early 20th century. Turkey, like Cambodia, went from an imperialistic reign to a republic and rules were restated to be reapplied to the new sovereignty.

Tom Mashberg (co-author of Stealing Rembrandts and a veteran reporter on the theft of the 1990 theft of the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum) and Ralph Blumenthal write in the NYT about the current status of an object from Ankor Wat in "Mythic Warrior is Captive in Global Art Theft" (subtitled "Sotheby's Caught in Dispute Over Prized Cambodian Statue"). Of particular note is research conducted by Cambodian scholar Tess Davis, executive director of the Lawyer's Committee for Cultural Heritage, who believes that a 1925 law that nationalizes Cambodian cultural property. International cooperation and agreement has been sought for more than four decades under UNESCO's 1970 Convention on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property.

As the NYT reports:
If international legal authorities and American civil courts agree, the law could establish 1925, rather than 1993, as the dividing point after which Cambodian artifacts taken without government permits can be treated as stolen property. Cambodia would still have to prove that the statue was looted after 1925, “a high burden but not an impossible one,” according to Mr. Bogdanos, who agrees the 1925 law “appears to be valid.”
Further information about the sale of Cambodian cultural property through Sotheby's was covered last October on the ARCA blog here.

A recent email from Tess Davis sent to "Friends of Cambodia" requested the assistance for His Excellency Hab Touch, Director General of the Department of Heritage in the Ministry of Culture and Fine Arts (MOCFA) to attend the Tulane-Siena summer abroad law school courses in Cultural Heritage and the Arts in Italy this June. The purpose of the trip, according to Ms. Davis, is to "strengthen Cambodia's understanding of its legal options for protecting its patrimony within the country and repatriating those antiquities already looted and stolen from the country."

ARCA has offered material support to the Cambodian contingent, and has offered studentships to interested individuals from the Cambodian Department of Heritage.

The MOCFA does not have a lawyer or other legal expert on staff, nor is there a single Cambodian attorney working in this subject area, according to Ms. Davis: "This is greatly hindering the country's ability to legally safeguard and recover its cultural heritage." Anyone who would like to provide assistance, is welcome to contact Tess Davis at terressadavis@mac.com.

February 29, 2012

FBI Agent (Retired) Virginia Curry and former Scotland Yard Detective Richard Ellis Will Team Up This Summer to Teach An Art Crime Course at Stonehill College in Massachusetts

Virginia Curry and Dick Ellis holding a painting
 by David Teniers, Peasant Filling His Pipe,  stolen from the
Richard Green Gallery in London.
ARCA supports this short course program as a precursor to our Postgraduate Certificate Program in International Art Crime and Cultural Heritage Protection Program.  Attendees to the Stonehill program will qualify for a fees reduction to ARCA's 10 week program if they attend both programs.  Please contact education@artcrime.info for more information.

Former Scotland Yard detective Richard Ellis and former FBI Agent Virginia Curry will team up to teach "The Fine Art of Crime and Art World Basic Primer" at Stonehill College from July 30 to August 3, 2012 at North Easton, Massachusetts.


Richard Ellis is a professional art crime investigator and a director of the Art Management Group. Based in London he is a former detective with New Scotland Yard, where he founded and ran the Art & Antiques Squad for over a decade.  FBI Special Agent (Retired) and Art Crime Team Investigator Virginia Curry is a FBI certified and highly successful undercover agent/instructor and former FBI Security consultant, now privately licensed by the State of Texas. This is the description for their course:
Presenting our partnership with Stonehill College, in which we take full advantage of the beautiful campus and the rich resources of the greater Boston area we offer participants a "hands on" connection and an exceptional experience of scholarship and professionalism with art.  There will be lecturers on campus each morning focusing on topics which initiate the novice aficionado to the economics of art, provide suggestions for researching their own areas of art interest and of course we will discuss crimes against art and share our first hand international experience, scholarship and current topics in the field. 
In the afternoons we visit several museums, premier art galleries and conduct practical exercises, such as participation in a mock auction at Stonehill, and learn about how auctions are conducted at a major Boston fine art auction house our behind the scenes visit.   We will meet museum professionals who will explain their function in regard to exhibition preparation and curation. We’ll try our hand at solving the most important unsolved museum heist in U.S. history. We will observe how conservation specialists work and how security managers manage the risk of the exposure of their treasures.  We'll speak with the curator of an important corporate collection to see how business collects and presents investment art. We'll experience the culture of Boston from the Red Sox at Fenway Park to the clambakes of Cape Cod.  This unique seminar adventure equips you to pursue your interest in collecting and appreciating art and understanding the diverse crimes against art like none other.


Lunches on site at Stonehill College are included.  Transportation for excursions is included.  Scheduled evening events and socials such as the opening Sam Adams Boston Lager toasting reception, Boston Red Sox game, and the closing clam bake, barring inclement weather or unforeseen emergency, are included.  All basic course materials (handouts, etc.,) are included.  Other evening meals and meals off campus are at personal expense.  Local lodging at a discounted rate is available, which includes breakfast and transportation to Stonehill College and return.  Discounted airfare has been arranged through American Airlines for travelers.
Cost: $2,250. A Deposit of $300 is required to reserve your place by May 1, 2012; balance must be received by June 1, 2012.  Kindly respond early since participation is quite limited.
For more information please contact: mpietrowski@stonehill.edu.

February 28, 2012

The Journal of Art Crime, Fall 2011: Donn Zaretsky's column "Art Law and Policy"

In Donn Zaretsky's regular column, "Art Law and Policy", the attorney asks "When is a citizen not a citizen for purposes of foreign sovereign immunity?" in the Fall 2011 issue of The Journal of Art Crime.

Mr. Zaretsky tries to answer that question in his column:
The case that The New York Times has called “the world’s largest unresolved Holocaust art claim” may provide an answer to that question. In de Csepel v. Republic Of Hungary (10-cv-1261), heirs of the Hungarian banker Baron Mor Lipot Herzog sued in United States District Court in Washington seeking the return of a collection worth more than $100 million. Since the suit is against the Republic of Hungary (and several of its state-run museums, where much of the collection still hangs), the question of foreign sovereign immunity naturally presents itself. The plaintiffs say the doctrine doesn’t apply because the works were taken in violation of international law -- even though it is well-established that a state’s taking of the property of its own citizens cannot violate international law. In a recent decision (issued September 1, 2011), the District Court agreed.
Donn Zaretsky is an art law specialist at the firm John Silberman Associates and a leading name in the art law corner of the legal blogosphere. Zaretsky publishes the Art Law Blog at  and is frequently cited by journalists for his commentary on art-related legal matters.

You may read Mr. Zaretsky's opinion in ARCA's publication, The Journal of Art Crime, by subscribing here.

February 27, 2012

The Journal of Art Crime, Fall 2011: Christopher A. Marinello and Jerome Hasler on "The Flap Over Scrap: Theft and Vandalism in Exterior Sculptures"

In the Fall 2011 issue of The Journal of Art Crime, Christopher A. Marinello and Jerome Hasler look at "The Flap Over Scrap: Theft and Vandalism in External Sculptures". Here an excerpt:
Every morning on their way to the Notting Hill tube many individuals run into (sometimes literally) Nadim Karam's Carnival Elephant sculpture, idly evoking the movement of people around it with it's gently revolving fan, spinning in unison with the whirlwind of activity at the Newcombe Piazza. Last week, however, the fan was not moving: some rascal had indiscriminately broken off one of the blades. The stasis causes many to wonder how and when the watchful elephant will be repaired, following the unholy act of animal cruelty enacted upon it. 
Deliberate damage upon public sculptures and monuments is by no means a modern development. Indeed even medieval morons pried bronze clamps and support bars from inside the walls of Rome’s Colosseum for use elsewhere in the city, owing in part to their own inability to manufacture the building materials they required.
Jerome Hasler is a student of the Courtauld Institute of Art, London.

Christopher A. Marinello had been a litigator in the criminal and civil courts in New York for over 20 years before joining the Art Loss Register as Executive Director and General Counsel. Chris has represented galleries, dealers, artists and collectors and is currently managing US and worldwide art recovery cases for the London based organization. The Art Loss Register is the world’s largest international database of stolen, missing and looted artwork. It is used by law enforcement agencies, the insurance industry, the art market, museums and private collectors, who can commission pre-sale due diligence checks as well as fine art recovery services. Chris serves as the ALR’s chief negotiator and has mediated and settled numerous 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 artistic property. 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. He is also a member of Advisory Council of the Appraisers Association of America and Inland Marine Underwriters Association.

February 26, 2012

The Journal of Art Crime, Fall 2011: David Gill's Column "Context Matters" looks at "Compliance and the Antiquities Market

In the Fall issue of The Journal of Art Crime, David Gill, in his column "Context Matters" looks at "Compliance and the Antiquities Market." Here's an excerpt from his column:

Over the years there has been a major change in the way countries have sought to reclaim archaeological material that had been looted. Claims have been made against the background of the 1970 UNESCO Convention on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property. This was accepted by the USA in 1984 and by the United Kingdom in 2002. 
Attempts to reclaim material were extended and tended to take time to go through the legal channels. Such disputes included the Kanakaria Mosaics to Cyprus, the Dekadrachm Hoard and the Lydian Treasure to Turkey, and the Aidonia Treasure to Greece. The case of the Sevso Treasure is unresolved as although it was certainly removed from its archaeological context by unscientific means, it has not been possible to confirm where this hoard was found. 
The seizure of the Medici Dossier in the Geneva Freeport (and related photographic archives in Basel and in Greece) has allowed the Italian authorities to adopt a different strategy. Images of objects in a fragmented state or still covered in mud have been an emotive force in the rhetoric surrounding the returns. Museums that were reluctant to negotiate were persuaded that bad publicity could be avoided if discussions about returns were initiated. In one case a major North American museum was shown images in 2005 and less than a year later had arranged to return 13 antiquities to Italy. It was, and is, hard to argue that something was in “an old collection” when the object had been recorded in a distressed state subsequent to the 1970 UNESCO Convention. 
Yet compliance has been reluctant in some quarters. Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts was aware nearly twenty years ago that the torso of a Weary Herakles fit the abdomen and legs of a statue that had been excavated at Perge in southern Turkey. The presentation of a collection history that suggested that the torso had surfaced in Germany in the 1950s was a distraction. The situation was made more complicated as the donors had retained part ownership of the torso. Full title was eventually transferred to the MFA.
David Gill is Head of the Division of Humanities and Professor of Archaeological Heritage at University Campus Suffolk, UK. He is a former Rome Scholar at the British School at Rome. He returned to Newcastle University as a Sir James Knott Fellow where he laid the foundations for Artful Crafts: Ancient Greek Silverware and Pottery (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1994) written with Michael Vickers. He was appointed Museum Assistant in Research in the Department of Antiquities at the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge where he had curatorial responsibility for the Greek and Roman collections. He then moved to Swansea University where he was Reader in Mediterranean Archaeology. His Sifting the Soil of Greece: the Early Years of the British School at Athens (1886-1919) (London: Institute of Classical Studies, 2011) was published to coincide with the 125th anniversary of the School.

February 24, 2012

The Journal of Art Crime, Fall 2011: Leila Amineddoleh on "The Pillaging of the Abandoned Spanish Countryside"

The Fall 2011 issue of The Journal of Art Crime features an article by ARCA Alum (2010) Leila Amineddoleh on "The Pillaging of The Spanish Countryside", first presented at the International Crime Conference in Amelia last July.

Abstract: Spain is rich in art treasures: artwork ranging from religious works, modern paintings, ancient architecture, Roman ruins, and Visigoth remnants are densely scattered across Spain’s cities and countryside. Whereas some of the art is world-renowned and protected, much of the art is still hidden in churches and in depopulated towns and is left vulnerable to damage and theft. 
Spain’s cache of hidden works has great cultural value to the Spanish cultural identity; however, these works are often misappropriated because their existence is virtually unknown or unprotected. In light of the international upset over the theft of the Codex Calixtinus, this paper sets forth recommendations for Spain to follow to protect is patrimony, most importantly the necessity of creating an extensive catalogue, encompassing both State and Church property.
Leila Amineddoleh is an art law and intellectual property attorney in New York City. Upon graduation from law school, she worked as a litigator at Fitzpatrick Cella for three years. She then worked as a legal consultant, and recently joined Lysaght, Lysaght & Ertel. She is Of Counsel at the firm and the Chair of the Art Law Group. Recently she joined Fordham University School of Law where she teaches Art Law as an adjunct professor. Prior to the pursuit of her legal degree, Ms. Amineddoleh received her B.A. from NYU, and she completed ARCA’s Postgraduate Program in 2010.

You may subscribe to The Journal of Art Crime through the ARCA website here.