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May 23, 2014

The Spring/Summer 2014 issue of The Journal of Art Crime Is Now Available

The Spring/Summer 2014 issue (#11) of The Journal of Art Crime edited by ARCA founder Noah Charney is now available. The Table of Contents is listed on ARCA's website here. The Associate Editors are Marc Balcells (John Jay College of Law) and Christos Tsirogiannis (University of Cambridge). Design and layout (including the front cover illustration) are produced by Urška Charney.
Letter from the Editor Spring/Summer 2014
Welcome to the new issue of The Journal of Art Crime, and thank you for subscribing. Your subscription supports ARCA in our research and educational endeavors, and we are grateful for it. 
In this issue you’ll find academic papers from graduates of ARCA’s Postgraduate Certificate Program, as well as the work of world-renowned experts in the field, who likely need no introduction, Neil Brodie and Martin Kemp. This precisely embodies what ARCA and the JAC is all about: supporting new scholars and established experts in a common venue. Where else can a young postgraduate student find her name alongside Martin Kemp’s, a man who is quite probably the most famous art historian living today? I would particularly like to thank Drs. Kemp and Brodie for including their fine essays in this issue of the JAC. They were originally prepared for a forthcoming essay collection, to be published by Palgrave. This collection, as yet untitled, will function as a follow-up to ARCA’s Art & Crime: Exploring the Dark Side of the Art World (Praeger 2009), and will feature a dozen new essays by top scholars and professionals, as well as a selection of the finest essays already published in the JAC, over its first five years in print. More information on this volume will follow, but these two essays will give you a preview of “coming attractions,” as it were. 
We hope that you will enjoy these articles. Best wishes and thanks again for your support.
Noah Charney Founder, ARCA Editor-in-Chief, The Journal of Art Crime
 The Journal of Art Crime may be accessed through subscription or in paperback from Amazon.com. 

May 22, 2014

Fox 25 News (MyFoxBoston.com): "FBI talks exclusively to Bob Ward about Stolen Art" [The 1990 Isabella Stewart Gardner Unsolved Heist]; Compare it to what Ulrich Boser reported in his book in 2009

"FBI has confirmed sighting of Gardner artwork after heist" reports Bob Ward in a television segment on May 21 for Fox 25 News (MyBoston.com).
In his first TV interview, FBI Special Agent Geoff Kelly, the Bureau's leading investigator on the Gardner Case, tells FOX 25's Bob Ward the trail for the missing Gardner artwork has not grown cold. Kelly said the Bureau has confirmed sightings, from sources the Bureau deems credible, of the Gardner artwork in the years after it was stolen. He also identified three persons of interest in the Gardner case, all with ties to organized crime: Carmello Merlino, Robert Guarente, and Robert Gentile. Kelly said in the late 1990's, two FBI informants told the Bureau that Merlino was preparing to return Rembrandt's Storm on the Sea of Galilee, in an effort to collect the reward. However, Merlino and his crew were soon arrested in an aborted armored car heist and the painting was never returned. Kelly believes Guarente somehow passed control of the stolen Gardner artwork to Gentile, a Manchester, Conn. man. Kelly believes Gentile has ties to organized crime in Philadelphia, PA and that Gentile helped bring some or all of the stolen Gardner artwork to Philadelphia where it was last seen in 2000, offered for sale. In 2012 Gentile's home and property in Manchester, Conn. were extensively searched but no sign of the stolen Gardner artwork was located. However, Kelly said authorities recovered police paraphernalia, including "clothing, articles of clothing with police and FBI insignias on it, handcuffs, a scanner, two way radios, and Tasers" and these are not common items. Gentile, through his lawyer, denied having any connection to the Gardner art heist or with moving the artwork after the fact. Both Merlino and Guarente are now dead. If you have any information about the Gardner Museum artwork, call the FBI at 1-800-CALL-FBI. There is a $5 million reward in this case. 
Read more (and see the video which includes an appearance by Anthony Amore, security director of the Gardner museum): http://www.myfoxboston.com/story/25583520/fbi-has-confirmed-sightings-of-gardner-artwork-after-heist#ixzz32SaaZt9e

In Ulrich Boser's book, The Gardner Heist: The True Store of the World's Largest Unsolved Art Theft (HarperCollins, 2009) the index included 11 references to Carmello Merlino who died in prison in 2005. Merlino is described as the "gangland captain" of David Turner who was picked up by the FBI on Feb. 7, 1999 and questioned about the Gardner heist (page 100):
"The FBI told me that they had information from several sources that I was an actual participant in the robbery," Turner recalled. "What was said was 'Give us the paintings right now, and you can go home."
Boser described Merlino as a 'South Boston mobster' (p. 101) whose:
'body shop grew into an underworld flea market for looted goods. "If there was something you wanted stolen, that was the place. You could go there and just put in an order, and they would have crews running all sorts of places, South Shore Malls, downtown, everywhere," retired state police officer Eddie Whelan told me.
[Interesting sidebar -- the art stolen from Jeffrey Gundlach was recovered by police in an automobile stereo shop in Pasadena, CA in 2012.]

Boser wrote on pages 105-107 that:
Merlino was picked up on a drug charge in 1992, and through an intermediary, he offered to return the paintings for a reduced prison sentence. He told prosecutors that the masterpieces were "very big and international," that the deal has to be kept quiet or he would be killed. But Merlino never offered any hard evidence of the lost art ... [but] it was clear that Merlino did not have direct access to the art, that he was attempting to secure the masterpieces from someone else.
Boser wrote on page 201:
Perhaps mob associate Robert Guarente was the mastermind? He was a friend of Turner's, a frequent visitor to Merlino's body shop, and had connections to Myles Connor. But Guarente died in 2004 without any sign of the paintings. The FBI confidential informant reports also imply that Turner himself had the loot. That seems impossible. Turner would have almost certainly given up the canvases to get out of his thirty-eight year prison sentence. 

May 21, 2014

LA Times' Mike Boehm on the return of the "Temple Wrestler" from the Norton Simon Museum to Cambodia

Mike Boehm, an arts reporter for the Los Angeles Times, publishes today on the return of the "Temple Wrestler" from the Norton Simon Museum to Cambodia (see here for the museum's announcements earlier this month).

Boehm quoted the museum's legal status in avoiding a lawsuit:
The Norton Simon took a different approach, based on past cordial relations with Cambodia's cultural authorities. Without a suit having been filed, museum representatives went to Phnom Penh for discussions earlier this year. Despite what the museum characterized as "a good-faith difference of views" with Cambodia over whether the Norton Simon was legally obliged to send the statue back, its leaders concluded that there were special reasons to send it home. "While there are extremely strong legal arguments for why we could defeat a claim, and while the Cambodian law is ambiguous at best, in this circumstance it seems appropriate and in keeping with the positive relationship the Norton Simon has had with Cambodia over the years to gift the statue to them," said Luis Li, an attorney for the museum. "They have a very specific archaeological context they want to create, and I think the Norton Simon was moved by that."
And on other Cambodian art at the Norton Simon Museum, Boehm writes:
The Norton Simon Museum will still own 40 ancient Cambodian objects, including a gigantic standing figure of Buddha that serves as a greeter in its lobby, and a lion that crouches on guard near the entrance to the gallery where Bhima will soon no longer preside. It's uncertain whether a dozen other pieces are from Cambodia or from Thailand. "We have not been approached by Cambodian or U.S. officials about other works in the collection and have no indication of future requests," museum spokeswoman Leslie Denk said this week.

May 17, 2014

Norton Simon Museum announces "Temple Wrestler" last day on display in Pasadena will be May 22

by Catherine Schofield Sezgin, ARCA Blog Editor-in-Chief

Today the Norton Simon Museum here in Pasadena sent out an email to the community:
Dear members and friends, 
You may have read in the newspaper that the Norton Simon Art Foundation is making a gift of its “Temple Wrestler” statue to the Kingdom of Cambodia. This monumental 10th-century sandstone sculpture depicting Bhima, a heroic figure from the Hindu masterpiece The Mahabharata, has been exhibited continuously at the Norton Simon Museum for nearly four decades. During this period, the Museum has taken great care to preserve the work, and to highlight its significance through scholarly research and publication. Now, following a compelling request from officials in Cambodia, the piece will return to its country of origin, joining several other sculptures that are believed to have once stood at a temple in Koh Ker. 
We wanted to inform you that the last day this remarkable artwork will be on public view is next Thursday, May 22nd. For those of you interested in seeing it before it makes its journey to Phnom Penh and to the National Museum there, we hope you will visit us in the coming days. 
Kind regards, 
Leslie C. Denk Director of Public Affairs
On May 6, 2014, the museum had issued a press release announcing the return of the "Temple Wrestler" to the Kingdom of Cambodia "in response to a unique and compelling request by top officials in Cambodia to help rebuild its “soul” as a nation, the Norton Simon has decided to make a gift of the Bhima to the Kingdom of Cambodia and to its people":
The Norton Simon properly acquired the Bhima from a reputable art dealer in New York in 1976. However, the facts about the Bhima’s provenance prior to the dealer’s ownership are unclear because of the chaotic wartime conditions in Cambodia during the 1970s. Even though the Kingdom of Cambodia and the Norton Simon have a good faith difference of views in relation to the meaning and scope of Cambodian law and guidelines governing the determination of ownership of the Bhima, the Norton Simon worked directly with Cambodia to come up with a mutually acceptable solution.
Page 287 of the Handbook of the Norton Simon Museum (2003) contains the image of this statue, identified as a sandstone TEMPLE GUARDIAN 'typical of those found at the site of Koh Ker, which for a brief period (921-928) served as the capital of the Khmer empire'. Other than the acquisition date of 1980, no other information is provided about how the statue traveled from Cambodia to the United States.

May 15, 2014

Dutch media reports that Gutmann family porcelain auctioned in 1934 ended up in museums in The Netherlands

by Catherine Schofield Sezgin, ARCA Blog Editor-in-Chief

Dutch art investigator Arthur Brand sent me a link to an article posted in English on May 14 by Maxime Zech in the NLTimes.nl, "Nazi-stolen art in Rijksmuseum, Palace Het Loo:Report". I asked Mr. Brand if people in The Netherlands were surprised, and here's his response:
Yes, people are highly surprised. Just recently an extensive search has been closed and those items were not discovered. Some huge names are involved. There is no doubt that these 15 items, divided amongst five museums, including Palace Het Loo and the Rijksmuseum, have to be considered as looted. They were all auctioned in 1934 and that particular auction has been considered by both the German and Austrian government as being an "involuntary sale". This absolutely does not mean that the Palace or the museums did know that they once bought looted art. Far from that: this is a worldwide problem that just shows that we have done too little, too late regarding provenance-research...
Here's the article:
The art collection of Palace Het Loo, the Rijksmuseum and three other museums are thought to include pieces and artifacts that were looted from a Jewish family during a Nazi plunder, the Telegraaf reports. In total, 15 pieces of a valuable Meissen porcelain dinnerware ware set may have been stolen from the Gutmann family. The items may have been put up for auction in 1934 under coercion from the Nazis. Now, 80 years after the fact, Amsterdam investigation bureau Artiaz was able to trace the pieces, to the museums. “We are taking this very seriously, and are going to establish an origins research action immediately”, a spokesperson of the Paleis Het Loo National Museum Foundation said in a reaction.
Artiaz traced the dinnerware set pieces by looking through old auction documents.
“Salacious is that the Ekkart commission concluded a big investigation into looted art in Dutch museums without detecting these set pieces”, says Arthur Brand who executed the investigations with David Kleefstra and Alex Omhoff. 
The Facts and Files bureau in Berlin investigated the case for the Gutmann family, who live in Germany, and concludes that the 15 porcelain gravy boats and plates were still registered as lost until yesterday. “We are expecting that the Gutmanns will request us to contact the Netherlands State and the Restitution Commission, so that the pieces can hopefully return to the family” says investigator Beate Schreiber. The items are part of a unique 435-piece Meissen dinnerware set depicting village scenes, which was given to Willem V around 1774 as a gift from the United East-Indian Company. The prince sold the set during exile in England. Later, 26 items were bought by Herbert Gutmann, son of banker Eugen Gutmann who set up the Dresdner Bank. When the Nazis came to power in Germany in 1933, they saddled him with a sky high debt.

May 13, 2014

ARCA's Sixth Annual Interdisciplinary Art Crime Conference in Amelia, Italy - June 27-29, 2014

Amelia, Italy
The Association for Research into Crimes against Art (ARCA) will be hosting its sixth annual Interdisciplinary Art Crime Conference the weekend of June 27-29, 2014. This 2-day conference is open to the public and all are welcome. Registration is required, but the conference is free of charge subject to space availability.

Held in the beautiful town of Amelia (Umbria), the seat of ARCA’s Postgraduate Certificate Program in Art Crime and Cultural Heritage Protection. The conference will include multidisciplinary panel sessions, key note speakers, an ice-breaker cocktail reception and an awards dinner on Saturday evening honoring this year’s recipients of ARCA’s annual award for outstanding scholarship and professional dedication to the protection and recovery of cultural heritage.

Porta de la valle, Amelia
Providing an arena for intellectual and professional exchange, this annual art crime conference highlights the nonprofit’s mission and serves as a forum that aims to facilitate a critical appraisal of the protection of art and heritage worldwide. Bringing together international scholars, law enforcement experts, art professionals, the general public and participants in ARCA’s postgraduate certificate program in Art Crime and Cultural Heritage Protection, attendees have the opportunity to examine contemporary issues of common concern in this important field.

To reserve a placement for one or both day’s sessions, please write to the association conference coordinators at: italy.conference (at) artcrimeresearch.org. Provide your full name and names of those attending with you, your email address, and your preference for either or both day’s sessions.


The 2014 ARCA Award Winners are:

Art Policing, Recovery, Protection and Security
Dr. Daniela Rizzo and Mr Maurizio Pellegrini, Soprintendenza Beni Archeologici Etruria Meridionale – Villa Giulia
Past winners: Vernon Rapley (2009), Francesco Rutelli (2009), Charlie Hill (2010), Dick Drent (2010), Paolo Giorgio Ferri (2011), Lord Colin Renfrew (2011), Stuttgart Detective Ernst Schöller (2012), Karl von Habsburg and Dr. Joris Kila (Jointly – 2012), Sharon Cohen Levin (2013), Christos Tsirogiannis (2013)

Eleanor and Anthony Vallombroso Award for Excellence in Art Crime Scholarship
Simon Mackenzie, Trafficking Culture project at the University of Glasgow
Past winners: Norman Palmer (2009), Larry Rothfield (2010), Neil Brodie (2011), Jason Felch and Ralph Frammolino (Jointly – 2012), Duncan Chappell (2013)

Lifetime Achievement in Defense of Art Award
Anne Webber, founder and director of The Commission for Looted Art In Europe
Past winners: Carabinieri TPC collectively (2009), Howard Spiegler (2010), John Merryman (2011), Dr. George H. O. Abungu (2012), Blanca Niño Norton (2013)

The list of presenters and topics scheduled for the 2014 Art Crime Conference:

Panel I:  Highlights from Recent US and EU Investigations

The Fall of the House of Knoedler: Fakes, Deception and Naiveté
James C Moore, Esq
Arbitrator and mediator of commercial disputes
Formerly, partner and trial lawyer with large New York law firm and president of New York State Bar Association

Hello Dalí: Anatomy of a Modern Day Art Theft Investigation
Jordan Arnold Esq.
K2 Intelligence
Former Assistant District Attorney and Head, Financial Intelligence Unit, New York County District Attorney’s Office

The Gurlitt Case: German and international responses to the legal and ethical questions to ownership rights in looting cases
Duncan Chappell, PhD Lawyer and Criminologist, Faculty of Law at the University of Sydney
 and
Saskia Hufnagel, PhD
Lecturer in Criminal Law, Queen Mary University of London
Rechtsanwalt – Fachanwalt Strafrecht, Hufnagel und Partner

The Gurlitt Case: An Inside View From Christopher A. Marinello, Lawyer and Representative for the Heirs of Paul Rosenberg
Christopher A. Marinello, Esq
Director and Founder, Art Recovery International

Panel II: The Many Faces of the Illegal Heritage Trade - Panel led by Christos Tsirogiannis PhD.

Papyri, collectors and the antiquities market: a survey and some questions
Roberta Mazza, PhD University of Bologna
Lecturer (Assistant Professor), Classics and Ancient History, University of Manchester Research Fellow, John Rylands Research Institute – John Rylands Library

Using open-source data to identify participation in the illicit antiquities trade: A case study on the intercommunal conflict in Cyprus, 1963-1974
Sam Hardy, DPhil University of Sussex
Illicit antiquities trade researcher
Research Associate, Centre for Applied Archaeology, University College London

The Dikmen Conspiracy: The Illicit Removal, Journey and Trade of Looted Ecclesiastical Antiquities from Occupied Cyprus
Christiana O’Connell-Schizas, LLB University of Kent, LPC University of Law
Baker & McKenzie, Riyadh

Panel III: The Vulnerabilities of Sacred Art In Situ: Yesterday and Still Today

The Theft and Ransom of Caravaggio’s “St. Jerome Writing”, Co-Cathedral of St. John
Rev. Dr. Marius Zerafa, O.P. S.T.L., Lect. Th., A.R. Hist. S., Dr. Sc.Soc
Founder of the Museum of Fine Arts in Valletta, Malta
Former Curator and Director of the Malta Museums

Fighting the Thieves in Italian Churches
Judith Harris, Journalist (ARTnews; www.i-italy.org)
Author, Pompeii Awakened, The Monster in the Closet

Evacuate the objects from vulnerable religious sites? No, protect them in situ!
Stéphane Théfo
Police Officer/Project Manager, INTERPOL Office of Legal Affairs

Panel IV: The Genuine Article: Fakes and Forgeries and the Art of Deception

Would the real Mr. Goldie please stand up?
Penelope Jackson M. Phil, University of Queensland, MA University of Auckland
Director, Tauranga Art Gallery Toi Tauranga, New Zealand

Forgery and Offenses Resembling Forgery
Susan Douglas, PhD Concordia University
Lecturer (Assistant Professor) Contemporary Art and Theory, University of Guelph

In the Red Corner: “Connoisseurship and Art History”, and the Blue Corner: “Scientific Testing and Analysis” – Who’s right in determining Authenticity?
Toby Bull, Senior Inspector of Police, Hong Kong Police Force
Founder, TrackArt (Art Risk Consultancy), Hong Kong

Panel V: Looting, Litigation and Repatriation

Will it be the Getty Bronze or L'atleta di Fano? Italy's ongoing case for the return of the bronze statue of the Victorious Youth
Maurizio Fiorilli. Avvocato della Stato, Italy (Ret) and Stefano Alessandrini, Consultant

The Duryodhana, the Balarama and the Bhima: a Cambodian perspective on the return of three pre-Angkorian sandstone statues from Prasat Chen at the Koh Ker temple complex
His Highness Sisowath Ravivaddhana Monipong of Cambodia

Panel VI: The Mental Condition and its Role in Art Crime

'It's beyond my control' An historic and psychiatric investigation into the claim of bibliomania
Anna Knutsson MA (Hon) University of St. Andrews
Research Editor Smith Library

Art Vandalism from a Forensic Behavioral Perspective
Frans Koenraadt PhD
Professor, Universiteit Utrecht, Willem Pompe Institute of Criminal Law and Criminology

Panel VII: Cultural Heritage and Armed Conflict, Reflections from Past and Present

File Zadar: New insights on art works taken from Zadar to Italy during World War II
Antonija Mlikota, PhD University of Zagreb
Assistant Professor of Art History, University of Zadar

IMCuRWG Blue Shield cultural assessment mission to Timbuktu
Joris Kila, PhD University of Amsterdam
Chairman of the ‘International Military Cultural Resources Work Group’ (IMCuRWG).
Universität Wien, Kompetenzzentrum Kulturelles Erbe und Kulturgüterschutz, Universität Wien, Alois-Musil-Center für Orientalische Archäologie, U.S. AFRICOM

A modern look at an Eternal Problem: Sixty years after the creation of the 1954 Hague Convention
Cinnamon Stephens, JD
Esquire

Panel VIII: Smart Collecting and Connoisseurship and When Art is Stolen

What’s wrong with this picture? Standards and issues of connoisseurship
Tanya Pia Starrett, MA HONS LLB, University of Glasgow
Solicitor

Crossborder Collecting in the XXI Century: Comparative Law Issues
Massimo Sterpi, Avvocato
Partner, Studio Legale Jacobacci & Associati 

Bicycles vs. Rembrandt
Martin Finkelnberg
Head of the Art and Antiques Crime Unit
National Criminal Intelligence Division, The Netherlands

Key Note Closing – A Look to the Future

Is International Law for the Protection of Artistic Freedom Adequate?
Eleni Tokmakidou – Moschouri, PhD University of Manchester
MJur University of Birmingham
Attorney at Law at the Supreme Court of Greece

This event opens with a icebreaker cocktail on Friday, June 27th at the Palazzo Farrattini. The conference will be held Saturday, June 28 and Sunday, June 29, 2014 at the Sala Boccarini, inside the cloister of the Biblioteca Comunale L.Lama adjacent to the Museo Civico Archeologico e Pinacoteca “Edilberto Rosa” in Amelia, Italy. Sessions begin promptly at 9:00 am, with a break for coffee and optional Saturday lunch as well as an optional Italian slow food dinner Saturday evening.

ARCA Alum ('13) Gerald Fitzgerald publishes opinion piece in Art Papers on art market due diligence concerning provenance and the public record

ARCA Alum '13 and trial lawyer Gerald Fitzgerald published an opinion piece, "Give Us CPR" (May/June issue, 2014) in Art Papers (here's the first two paragraphs, you can read the rest of the text online):
A call for art market due diligence, concerning provenance and the public record. 
Provenance is the origin and history of ownership of a painting or object, and it is essential to determining the object's authenticity, monetary value, and secure title. Although reveling in sales boosted both by new market interest and freshly minted dotcom billionaires, the international art and antiquities market will soon stumble badly unless it embraces new technologies to centralize and to radically increase the scope, quality, and authority of provenance research.
The art market currently generates about $60 billion annually. It does so without meaningful regulation and is myopic in the intelligent use of contemporary tools. It functions almost precisely as it did in the early 19th century. Trust still governs in an increasingly untrustworthy environment. As a result this market is rife with forgery, fakery, looting, and sales of stolen objects, all accompanied by a morass of litigation. The way out of this quagmire lies not with increased legal action but in sewing shut the gaping holes in provenance research that permit such chicanery. The creation of a nonprofit Center for Provenance Research (CPR), funded by a small levy on market sales, is sorely needed to vet the legitimacy of what is traded. The greatest deterrent to fraud on the market is a decreasing ability to get away with it.

Ginanne Brownell quotes ARCA Founder Noah Charney in "New Arms for Fighting Back Against the Looters" (International New York Times, May 8)

ARCA Founder Noah Charney quoted in GINANNE BROWNELL's piece on MAY 8, 2014, "New Arms for Fighting Back Against the Looters" in the International New York Times:
WARSAW, POLAND — The Division of Looted Art at Poland’s Ministry of Culture is a small office with a big mandate. Since 1992, the four-person unit has been charged with collecting and digitizing information about the more than 63,000 objects stolen from the Polish state, churches and private citizens during World War II. Until now, the division’s website was only able to exhibit 3,000 of the objects. Thanks to an upgrade and reintroduction in March, today almost 14,000 lost pieces — including Raphael’s “Portrait of a Young Man,” taken by the Nazis from a family collection in Krakow — will have a virtual home. 
“The Internet has become the main source of finding information on Polish looted art,” said Karina Chabowska, an employee, seated next to several filing cabinets full of photographs and files about stolen works waiting to be uploaded. “The new site will be important to exchange information with auction houses, with people from museums and also to give them some tips of what to do if they find pieces of art that could have been looted or stolen from Poland.” 
Technology has given new impetus to the search for lost and stolen art. Through projects ranging from websites to digital fingerprinting of artworks, governments and organizations are now able to share information and images of missing works widely, allowing the images to be recognized and, it is hoped, returned. 
“For people interested in lost treasure, technology has made it much more likely that we will find things like, for example, locations to excavate to find dozens of other hiding places,” said Noah Charney, an art historian and founder of the Association for Research into Crimes Against Art. “So technology has made the world both smaller and more transparent.”

Listen to 'Art Crime with Arthur Tompkins: Four Horses of San Marco' on Radio New Zealand


Judge Arthur Tompkins
District Court Judge Arthur Tompkins, a member of 'Interpols DNA Monitoring Expert Group, has a special interest in crimes involving artistic masterpieces. He discusses the ancient sculpture The Four Horses of San Marco. Listen now on Radio New Zealand.

Judge Tompkins teaches a course, "Art in War", at ARCA's Postgraduate Program in Art Crime and Cultural Heritage Protection. Last month, Judge Tompkins discussed The Ghent Altarpiece on Radio New Zealand.

Dan Brown used Judge Tompkins' research on this subject in the fictional book Inferno (2011).

Exhibit Review: "Catastrophe! Ten Years Later: The Looting and Destruction of Iraq's Past" at the Royal Ontario Museum June 2013 – January 2014

By Dr. Susan Douglas, professor at the University of Guelph, Canada and ARCA writer-in-residence 2013

In April 2003, the plunder of the Iraq National Museum became headline news. The museum was ransacked systematically. Many priceless antiquities were stolen, including the museum’s entire collection of cylinder seals and the Warka vase, a masterpiece. Other items were badly damaged or destroyed, many of them permanently.

Along with material culture, institutional memory was altered dramatically during the events of April 8-12. The Library and the offices and archives of the Iraq State Board of Antiquities and Heritage were targeted specifically. As looters raided the historic museum arsonists destroyed the National Library ruining a valuable scholarly database in the process. The database, maintained by museum staff, contained extensive records of Iraq’s ancient cultures; it is now slowly and painstakingly being rebuilt with help from specialists in many countries.

Catastrophe! succinctly presented the subtle consequences of political conflict and war. Originally developed by The Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago and revamped for the Royal Ontario Museum, this exhibition aimed to educate the public as to the devastation of Iraq’s cultural heritage. It drew attention to the issues, illuminating the threat stealing history and civilization poses for society. It delivered the message that iconic collections, historic buildings, archeological sites, and information are all under constant threat as part of the world’s cultural heritage.

The space was filled with texts and images, signs, rather than objects: powerful emblems of the underlying losses we’ve collectively suffered in the “land of two rivers,” former Mesopotamia.

There were six sections in this exhibit: Introduction; The Museum; Archaeological and Heritage Sites in Iraq; The Importance of Archaeological Context; Looted Artifacts; and What Has Been Done: What Can be Done? Protecting the Past. Site destruction -- the physical removal of objects from archeological sites, was a critical theme. Along with the destruction of Bagdad came the plundering of archeological sites in the region, a more pernicious threat to cultural heritage. In May 2003, over 300 looters were digging at Isin, a former capital of Mesopotamia discovered by Europeans in the 1970s. Isin was a significant center in the twentieth century BCE, when pilgrims travelled there to worship Gula, the goddess of healing, and to be cured. Signs and ritual tokens, in the form of cuneiform tablets and cylinders seals, were thought to aid in the healing process. When the worshippers left, these relics were left behind, and now they are the record of an ancient civilization and a resource be preserved and shared. They tell us, first and foremost, about our common history and identity. When archeological sites are desecrated our ability to understand past cultures is seriously hindered. This is why the protection of historic sites is a crucial.

We can all do our part as a society to stem the illicit trade in antiquities. The Looted Artifacts section shows looters brazenly producing “fresh” artifacts for sale, exploiting war conflict. Many articles are smuggled out of their countries of origin by organized criminals into the hands of collectors in just this way. The link between collecting and trade is clear; as an image of a box discovered in a market crammed with cylinder seals and other small relics still bearing accession numbers illustrates. In Iraq, though a few of the 15,000 items reportedly looted from the museum’s storerooms have since been recovered, most of them have disappeared into the illicit art market and are never likely to be found unless we all take responsibility as stakeholders.

This was a didactic exhibition. Warning: New knowledge. Some visitors might have left saddened. Others may have experienced a call to action.

Catastrophe! Ten Years Later: The Looting and Destruction of Iraq's Past was presented at the Royal Ontario Museum as a complement to Mesopotamia: Inventing our World that I will review in my next post.

Dr. Douglas, a writer and curator in Toronto, is the founding editor of the Glossary of Modern Latin American Art (Wordpress). Http://modernlatinamericanart.wordpress.com. The Glossary (GALA for short) contains many references to art and crime in Latin America and a University of Guelph project.