Art Hostage Services
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The Art Hostage team undertakes a wide range of services, including due diligence, collection conservation and management, risk assessment and security as well as legal issues, recovery and dispute resolution involving art and artifacts. Through partnerships with leading organizations, the Art Hostage team can provide a complete service for all aspects of collecting and protecting art.
800-year-old stolen saint’s heart returned to Dublin cathedral
People observe the heart of St Laurence O’Toole at Christ Church Cathedral in Dublin
The 800-year-old heart of Dublin’s patron saint has been recovered by
police, six years after it was stolen from a cathedral in the city.
The relic – the heart of St Laurence O’Toole – was taken from Christ Church Cathedral in 2012.
It has no monetary value but is “a priceless treasure” for the church,
the cathedral’s Dean, the Very Reverend Dermot Dunne, said.
The theft of the relic, which had been kept in a wooden heart-shaped
box and placed within a small iron-barred cage, sparked a six-year
investigation by Gardai.
It will be presented to the Archbishop of Dublin, the Most Reverend Dr
Michael Jackson on Thursday evening by Garda Assistant Commissioner Pat
Leahy.
Archbishop Jackson thanked those who had helped recover the relic, and
described the return of the heart as a joyful moment for the people of
the city.
He said: “The return of the heart of Laurence O’Toole to Christ Church
Cathedral brings great joy to the people of Dublin as Dubliners.
“For those of us associated with the life of the dioceses, it brings
again to the fore the close relationship between Glendalough and Dublin,
a relationship of more than 800 years.
People line up to observe the heart of St Laurence O’Toole
“Laurence left the monastic city of Glendalough of which he was Abbot
to become Archbishop of Dublin, hence cementing a vibrant relationship
that continues unabated to this day.”
Rev Dunne said he was “delighted” at the relic’s return.
He said: “I said at the time it was stolen that the relic has no
economic value but it is a priceless treasure that links the cathedral’s
present foundation with its founding father, St Laurence O’Toole.”
Assistant Commissioner Leahy commended officers who he said had “kept
their radars on and their minds open in this ongoing investigation”.
Gardai said no arrests have been made.
There will now be a shrine to St Laurence, who died in 1180, in the
cathedral, the church said, noting that they had looked at their
security since the theft and continue to have regular reviews.
Stolen Art Surrendered After Criminal Group’s Heist Decades Ago
The
Federal Bureau of Investigation recovered a prized painting from a
decades-old art heist in New York City, thanks to the guilty conscience
of an aging organized crime figure, the agency announced.
The
painting, a Chagall from 1911 titled “Othello and Desdemona” was stolen
in 1988 along with several other invaluable artifacts and artworks
including those of Renoir, Hopper, and Picasso.
The heist was executed over the course of several days; the
thieves entered the 16th-floor loft of Ernest and Rose Heller—wealthy
art collectors who were in Aspen for their annual two-month vacation--
and left without a single trace. No arrests were ever made, and none of
the artworks have been recovered until now.
A 72-year old, terminally-ill man with ties to Bulgarian criminal groups
contacted the FBI’s Art Crime Unit in Washington, DC to hand over the
painting and clear his conscience before his death, according to an FBI report.
The unnamed man claimed to have been contracted to sell the
painting in the early nineties and once he found an interested buyer,
the person who contracted him—one of thieves-- tried to cut him out of
the deal. In retaliation, he stole the painting and stored it in his
attic in Maryland, which police found to be kept in a makeshift paper
box titled “Misc High School Artwork.”
At the time of the theft, the painting was worth
US$750,000. In 2018, it’s value is estimated to be well over the
million-dollar mark.
At one point, the 72-year old attempted to sell the painting to a gallery without proof of ownership.
“The gallery refused to accept the painting,” the press release states.
“They suggested that the individual contact law enforcement, which resulted in the FBI obtaining custody of the painting.”
The man who contracted the 72-year old was one of the
masterminds of the heist. He had a degree in fine arts and worked as a
superintendent in the building that was burglarized. He was later
convicted of similar crimes and is now in prison.
The statute of limitations on the heist expired years ago
and no charges are being filed against the known thief or the man who
surrendered the painting. The artwork will be returned to the Heller
estate.
Dutch Old Master stolen by Nazis to go to auction
It is due to goes on auction on July 4 in London with a pre-sale estimate of £1.5-2.5 million.
A Dutch Old Master painting stolen by the Nazis towards the end of World
War II is to be auctioned after it was discovered hanging in the
official residence of the Lord Mayor of London.
The Oyster Meal by Jacob Ochtervelt was put on show in the Amsterdam offices of auction house Sotheby’s.
It is due to goes on auction on July 4 in London with a pre-sale estimate of £1.5-2.5 million.
Charlotte Bischoff van Heemskerck recounts how the painting was recovered
Charlotte Bischoff van Heemskerck, the 97-year-old daughter of
the Arnhem children’s doctor who originally owned the painting, says
that as a child she loved the light blue dress and fur-trimmed red coat
worn by the girl being offered a plate of oysters by her suitor.
Ochtervelt’s oil on canvas masterpiece, from 1664-65, shows a man
presenting a plate of oysters to a warmly-lit, seated young woman.
“I loved it,” Ms Bischoff van Heemskerck said. “I was a
young girl; I liked her dress, I liked her coat with the white fur and
the way he offered her the oysters.”
Ms Bischoff van Heemskerck was reunited with the painting last year
at a ceremony in London, now she has decided to sell it to pass on the
proceeds to the children of her siblings.
After the war, the painting changed hands several times before the family tracked it down.
It resurfaced in the mid-1950s at a gallery in the German city of
Duesseldorf. It was later bought by an American diplomat before British
property developer Harold Samuel bought it in 1971 and later bequeathed
it to the City of London Corporation.
Ms Bischoff van Heemskerck said tracking down the missing art was not
a priority in the immediate aftermath of the war, as her father sought
to re-establish his children’s hospital.
“My father said, ‘we won’t talk about the missing things’,” she said. “We will just live again.”
New York judge awards Egon Schiele art to Holocaust heirs
A New York judge has awarded two Nazi-looted drawings to the heirs of an Austrian Holocaust victim.
The
drawings - Woman Hiding Her Face and Woman in a Black Pinafore by Egon
Schiele - will go to the heirs of Fritz Grunbaum, killed in Dachau
concentration camp in 1941.
The Nazis confiscated Grunbaum's 449-piece art collection when he was arrested in 1938.
London-based art dealer Richard Nagy had claimed a legal title to the works.
He had exhibited the drawings at a 2015 art show in New York, where the heirs discovered the art was up for sale.
Mr Nagy said he had bought them legally. But the Manhattan state
court ruled against him, citing the 2016 Holocaust Expropriated Art
Recovery (Hear) Act. Image copyrightEgon Schiele/Leopold Museum Image caption
Egon Schiele (1890-1918), depicted here in a self-portrait, was an Austrian figurative painter
The act extended the statute of limitations for making claims on Nazi-stolen art to six years after its "actual discovery".
Raymond
Dowd, a lawyer for the Grunbaum heirs - Timothy Reif, David Fraenkel
and Milos Vavra - argued that the lost works were not discovered by his
clients until they noticed they were up for sale at the art fair.
After
the ruling, Mr Dowd praised the decision for moving "a step closer" to
recovering art taken in "the largest mass theft in history".
The case follows a failed attempt by Milos Vavra and
Mr Dowd in 2005 to win restitution for another Schiele drawing from
Grunbaum's collection.
The court in that case ruled in favour of
Boston businessman who owned the work, on the grounds that too much time
had passed since the heirs had made their claim.
Thieves escape with €2.2m gold artwork after 220kph chase
Thieves smashed their way into an art gallery to steal a 2.2
million euro artwork before escaping police by fleeing at 220 kilometres
an hour down the wrong side of a highway with their lights out.
The burglary broke through 5cm thick reinforced glass using some kind
of battering ram in order to reach the piece, called "Golden Natural
Chaos" which is made from 45kg of 18 karat gold.
The entire operation took just four minutes. A neighbour of the
gallery in Knokke, Belgium captured the getaway car being loaded up
after being awoken by the alarm.
Artist Arne Quinze who took more than 2 years to make the work, told
Euronews he was stunned and devastated because he had invested so much -
both financially and artistically in its creation.
"When it was finished I remember the team went silent. Not just
because they were proud but because of the feeling created by the piece.
The piece made us," he said. "It's impossible to make that piece
again."
"Now it's a race. Like every piece of art it's impossible to sell so they will melt it down for the gold," he added.
Police were on the scene within around five minutes, according to a
spokesman for the artist, but were unable to recover the work despite a
long car chase.
The artwork, which was originally made in Belgium as part of
a collaboration with precious metals manufacturer Heimerle+Meule has
toured the world, passing through China, the US and France before
returning to its homeland.
The scene of the crime
Chinese antiquities stolen in raid on Bath museum
Haul includes precious gold and jade artefacts, which police say may have been stolen to order
UPDATE: This article was amended to include comment from Vernon Rapley
Police have issued an
appeal for witnesses after four masked men broke into a museum in
south-west England and stole precious jade and gold artefacts as well as
many other items.
The raid on the Museum of East Asian Art in Bath took place at around 1.20am on Tuesday 17 April.
Zitan wood covered box with inlays (18th century)Avon and Somerset Constabulary
Witnesses saw the
thieves smash a first-floor window to enter the museum. The four men
then broke into display cabinets and removed numerous objects, according
to a statement on the website of Avon and Somerset Police.
The
break-in follows an attempted robbery at the same museum six years ago,
when three men tried to steal items during opening hours. On that
occasion, nothing was taken and the intruders escaped before police
arrived.
This time, the
thieves removed objects including a jade monkey holding a peach from the
Yuan or early Ming dynasty (13th-15th century); a carving of jade
mandarin ducks with lotus flowers from the Qing dynasty (probably 18th
century); a set of 14 gold belt plaques decorated with flowers from the
early Ming dynasty (around 1500 or earlier); a Jizhou stoneware vase
with painted floral and insect designs from the Southern Song dynasty
(12th-13th century); a soapstone figure of the scholar Dongfang Shuo by
the stone carver Yang Yuxuan from the late Ming or early Qing dynasty
(1630-1680); and a zitan wood covered box with various inlays from the
Qing dynasty (18th century).
The men were then seen
fleeing the museum in a dark SUV. Police arrived at the scene five
minutes after receiving a phone call from a member of the public. They
are now investigating the crime scene, conducting door-to-door enquiries
and reviewing local CCTV footage.
A
museum employee tells The Art Newspaper that the thieves had taken
“many more” objects than those listed as stolen on the police website.
Museum staff are now working on compiling a full list of the seized
items and will publish this on their website “as soon as possible”, the
employee says. The museum will remain closed for the next few weeks and
“hopes to reopen by 5 May” for its new exhibition [A Quest for Wellness:
Contemporary Art by Zhang Yanzi], she adds.
“Due
to the items stolen and the speed of the burglary, we suspect this to
be a targeted attack, with the artefacts possibly stolen to order. These
items range in monetary value, but their cultural significance is
priceless,” Detective Sergeant Matthew Reed said in a statement.
Vernon
Rapley, the director of Cultural Heritage Protection & Security at
the Victoria & Albert Museum and the chair of the National Museum
Security Group, says: “We were all saddened to hear about of the theft
from the Museum of East Asian Art in Bath, I know that museums across
the UK will do all that they can to assist in recovering the property
and hopefully bringing the offenders to justice. It is concerning to
witness a crime targeting jade and gold in a museum, after a period of
relative quiet within the UK. The NMSG monitors crime patterns across
the UK and Europe, and has been keeping a cautious eye on events
targeting gold and other precious goods. We very much hope that this
crime isn’t the start of a pattern of offending.”
The astonishing £100,000 haul burglars stole from Cheltenham flat - including Faberge eggs and Rolex watch
The list of stolen goods is quite incredible - and the owner is devastated
The hunt is one for two Faberge eggs and a Faberge bowl after they were stolen from a flat in Cheltenham.
David
Sartori was devastated to return to his home in Evesham Road and find
the eggs had been stolen in a burglary. The thieves also took a whole
host of other items and in all the haul was worth more than £100,000.
It included a Faberge 24k gold and royal blue enamel miniature bowl, valued at £30,000.
The Faberge bowl that David most wants to get back That was given to David as a gift by his late grandfather, Charles Hayes.
The
39-year-old, who works as a garden designer, is desperate to get all of
the items back but the bowl is of particular sentimental value to him.
He said: “I wish I had been here and could have done more. I feel really upset about this.
“My enjoyment is to come home and look at my collection.
“As sad as that sounds, I love it. It’s my thing.
“It’s the fact that one day I walked in and my treasures had gone.”
The full list of items stolen, valued at £100,000+
Faberge Antique Russian Imperial Silver Letter Opener – £4,310
Asprey solid silver pill boxes – x3 £1200-1500
Asprey cuff links - £300.00
Collection of blue enamel and solid silver pill boxes – x8 in all - total £2/2500
Solid silver writing pen - £800-1000
Enamel green and silver Art Deco pill boxes – £500
Asprey blue enamel miniature carriage clock plus leather case – £6500/7000
Collection of solid silver pill boxes – x5 in total - £500ish
A solid silver miniature settee and two French chairs – £1000
A solid crown & silver horn with red silk tassel - £800
A
pair of Gucci Aviator sunglasses - £350 A pair of Prada sunglasses. -
£400 A pair of Gucci sports sun glasses - £300 (All boxes left behind) A
Gucci wash bag £400
Grandfather’s war medals
5 gold full sovereigns £1500
Apple iPod
A brand new iPhone 7
A baby blue Nintendo DS plus charger and games in a black material holder - £250
One 18 ct gold money clip
A Gucci monogram belt with polished silver buckle stamped Gucci - £300
A Gucci leather grey snakeskin belt unopened stamped Gucci on buckle -£300
A pair of black Emporio Armani aviator sunglasses unopened unwrapped - £350
Two solid silver and tortoise shell writing pens - in a distinctive Buckingham Palace black velvet box - £500
X3 Lalique glass sculptures £800/1000
X3 Gucci candles unopened and unwrapped - £300
A silver Gucci bamboo bracelet - £400
X2 antique silver pocket watches
A black Mount Blanc writing pen - £600
A silver gilt grape stand and grape scissors - £800/£1000
A miniature solid silver brief case - Tiffany and Co - £300
A miniature silver vase 2” tall - Tiffany and Co - £300.00
A Louis Vuitton Passport Wallet - £200
A
collection of miniature solid silver and enamel animals. British hall
marks. A pheasant.... three pink pigs, a peacock, a giraffe, a leopard
and a large lion - £2500 minimum
A collection of 14 Herend
porcelain animals with a distinctive fishnet pattern some pink, 24k
gold, blue, green. Some will have an Aspreys red and gilt sticker on
their bases - £2500 minimum
A Gucci silver chain with two dog tags attached both stamped in tiny letters Gucci - £250
He added that it had taken him 30 years to build up his
collection and he was grateful that about 60 per cent of it had not been
stolen during the March 26 burglary. Items that were not taken included
seven more Faberge products, including eggs.
David’s eggs are
not any of the 50 that are famous across the world and can change hands
for millions of pounds. Those were made by Faberge for the Imperial
Russian royal family between 1885 and 1916.
But his are, nonetheless, original Faberge eggs and are very valuable and collectable.
One of the precious Faberge eggs stolen from a Cheltenham flat The haul stolen from David’s flat, which he has been
restoring for about 18 months, included valuable watches, jewellery and
antiques. Medals belonging to his grandfather were also stolen.
One
egg is gold with a porcelain rosebud housing a gold chain and diamond
pendant. The other is a gold Zodiac Pisces egg which has a royal blue
enamel front panel, a gold star sign and an aquamarine stone inside.
Other
pieces are jewellery and watches from Rolex, Chanel, Tiffany, Asprey
and Gucci. A valuable Asprey blue enamel miniature carriage clock and
leather case was also stolen.
The Louis Vuitton bag that was stolen in the burglary and which the thieves may have put other items from the collection into David began collecting as a child with the help of his grandfather and that is one of the reasons he is so fond of the pieces.
He added: “I want everything back. I don’t want a cheque, I want them back.
“The bowl is completely unique. There’s one in the whole world and that’s it.”
Hatton Garden 'mastermind' is the son of 'genius' Cambridge
biophysicist: 'Basil the ghost's' father pioneered study of DNA as aunt
slams claims against him as 'outlandish'
'Final' Hatton Garden suspect is the son of a top Cambridge biophysicist
Police say they found jewellery and gold at his north London flat
He appeared in court yesterday and his lawyer said he is a jeweller
His aunt has insisted he is not behind the raid and the charges are 'outlandish'
The man
alleged to be the mastermind behind the Hatton Garden jewel heist is
the son of a Cambridge scientist, it was revealed last night.
Michael
Seed is accused of being 'Basil the Ghost', the only burglar who evaded
capture following the notorious £25million raid over the Easter weekend
of 2015.
He was arrested on Tuesday at
a run-down council flat less than two miles from Hatton Garden vault
with what is alleged to be property from the burglary.
Police say they found a large amount of jewellery, precious stones and gold ingots.
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Michael Seed, a jeweller suspected of being the final member of the Hatton Garden gang, appeared in court today
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A
court sketch of Seed, who was remanded in custody until he can appear
before a judge next month. The £25million raid on the safety deposit box
firm (right) was one of the most audacious in British criminal history
Officers
have spent three years hunting the masked figure seen on CCTV walking
away from the raid with a bin bag full of cash, gems, gold and
jewellery.
A man known as 'Basil' was seen using a key to enter the building and is believed to have disabled the alarm system.
Detectives
believe that 'Basil' was one of only two raiders who crawled into the
vault to ransack deposit boxes after a hole was bored in a basement
wall. He stayed on the wanted list as six accomplices were jailed for up
to seven years each.
Yesterday, grey-haired Seed, 57, appeared in court on two charges related to the raid.
The
son of biophysicist John Seed - who taught himself to degree level
before taking a PhD at Christ Church, Cambridge - his background is a
far cry from that of the mainly elderly working-class members of the
gang nicknamed the 'diamond wheezers'.
Seed himself is understood to have studied sciences at the University of Nottingham.
Seed's
aunt Kathleen Seed last night questioned whether he was involved in the
raid. She told The Times: 'The idea of him being a safebreaker is
outlandish.'
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A CCTV still shows a Hatton Garden raider said to have got away after the jewellery raid
The official value of the
record-breaking haul is £13.7million, but police suspect it could be as
high as £25million as much of the cash, foreign currency, gems and gold
in the underground vault was never declared by the owners.
Facing
charges of conspiracy to burgle and conspiracy to conceal or disguise
criminal property, Seed appeared before City of Westminster magistrates
in a green jacket, blue checked shirt and jeans and spoke only to
confirm his name, age, address and nationality.
His barrister, James Reilly, suggested he would deny the offences, saying: 'He works as a jeweller - he fashions jewellery.
He
had no knowledge or belief of involvement with the burglary.'
Prosecutor Philip Stott said: 'The charges relate to the burglary of the
Hatton Garden Safe Deposit company over Easter weekend in 2015.
'Mr
Seed was arrested and inside [the] address was a large number of items
of jewellery, precious stones and golden ingots. It's an amount
consistent with Mr Seed having been involved in the burglary.
'There
are covert audio recordings of others involved, describing the role of
others in the team, who refer to [an accomplice] by the pseudonym
Basil.'
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Officers from Scotland Yard's Flying Squad raided Seed's flat in Islington last week
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Neighbours in the block of flats said Seed seemed like a nice man but was not well known
There
was no application for bail and after chief magistrate Emma Arbuthnot
remanded him in custody Seed, who had followed the proceedings
attentively, smiled, nodded and bowed to the bench before being led
away.
Later, on the Mersey Estate in
Islington, rubber gloves and large bottles of chemicals could be seen in
the kitchen of the small flat where he was arrested.
Neighbours said Seed was a 'pleasant man' but suspected he was down on his luck because he wore the same clothes every day.
A
caretaker on the estate said: 'He was Mr Invisible, Mr Anonymous, but
he was very pleasant and would always say good morning.'
Seed's father has been dead for some years while his 90-year-old mother still lives in Cambridge. He has three siblings.
His
aunt Kathleen Seed, 83, who lives in Nottingham, said: 'The thought of
Michael being a bank robber is so remote, I would find that so highly
unlikely.'
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The hole the gang drilled through the wall of a vault beneath London's diamond quarter
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The scene inside the vault after the raid took place in over the Easter weekend three years ago
Art gallery ram-raid: No sign of paintings one year on
It's been a year since robbers ram raided an Auckland
Auctioneers and fled with two valuable paintings by artist Gottfried
Lindauer.
The 'Chieftainess Ngatai-Raure'
and 'Chief Ngatai-Raure' (inset) were stolen from the International Art
Centre in Parnell on 1 April last year. Photo: RNZ / Laura Tupou
However their whereabouts, and who exactly was behind the heist remain a mystery.
In the early hours of Saturday morning, 1 April last year, a window
in the front of the International Art Gallery shattered as a car backed
into the building.
Alarms went off but by the time people arrived two 1884 Gottfried Lindauer paintings known as Chieftainess Ngatai-Raure and Chief Ngatai-Raure were gone.
A year on the centre's director Richard Thomson said they were still no closer to finding them.
"There's no news about the paintings... For us it's still as big a mystery as it is to a lot of people."
It took several months for the $50,000 to $100,000 worth of damage to
the building to be fully repaired and security measures have been
ramped up.
They will be on show this week as works from Dame Kiri Te Kanawa's
personal collection go up for auction, including three major paintings
by Charles Frederick Goldie.
"There's a couple of really serious things that we've done that we've talked to the insurance company about.
"We've got 24 hour monitoring on foot, so after hours we've got an
actual guard on at the moment until the auction is finished. The
security is obviously quite high."
Mr Thomson said he believed the paintings hadn't left the country.
"A lot of people say 'oh they'll be overseas hanging on a wall in
Shanghai or somewhere' but I really believe that's unlikely ...
Everyone's speculating and who knows, they might just turn up. They
could turn up in half an hour, they could turn up this time next year,
we just don't know."
However, he said it wasn't something he'd like to dwell on.
"That's not how I live my life. The only person dwelling on that
situation is the people that took them. They'll be living in fear and
they'll have problems so their day will come."
Art historian and art crime expert Penelope Jackson said the art
community was more aware now and it demonstrated to the country that New
Zealand wasn't immune to these sorts of crimes.
"This terrible event had all the ingredients, all the sensational
ingredients really, that you might get in a movie. Night time, smash and
grab, highly valuable works and when I say valuable I mean not just
monetary valuable but culturally valuable. That there were two get away
vehicles etc."
While nothing is for certain, she said the paintings were more likely
to still be in the country with their cultural significance and history
meaning there's a bigger market for them here.
"New Zealand's too small, there'll be something that happens that
will be a catalyst that will lead someone or the police to find those
works."
She said many famous paintings have been found again in the past, in
late 2016 two Vincent van Gogh paintings were found in Naples after
being stolen from a public art museum in Amsterdam 14 years earlier.
Ms Jackson said many were worried about what condition they would be in if they did turn up.
"You've got paintings there that are 134 years old now so they're very vulnerable.
"They were moved quickly, there was broken glass involved, there was
speeding vehicles, and if you think about how in an art museum context
works are moved, you know not when the public are there, on cushioned
trolleys, white gloves, lots of people, very carefully, very slowly, and
this was the complete opposite."
Two Spaniards arrested over smuggling of artifacts looted by ISIS
Some of the artworks have been traced to the Cyrene archaeological site in northern Libya.
Spanish
police have arrested two men for allegedly smuggling pieces of art
looted by groups affiliated with ISIS from sites in Libya.
Authorities
there believe this to be the first ever police operation against the
financing of terrorism through the looting of art.
The
suspects, both 31-year-old Spanish nationals, are art experts who
bought the pieces -- known in the market as "blood antiquities" -- to
sell in their gallery, according to a police statement Wednesday that
did not specify where the gallery was located. Police named them only as
Mr. O.C.P and Mr. J.B.P.
Police recovered a number of artworks after searching five locations.
They
were arrested in Barcelona for their "alleged participation in the
crimes of financing terrorism, belonging to a criminal organization,
trading in stolen goods, smuggling and forging documents."
The
statement said that the suspects were part of a Catalonia-based network
with international reach dedicated to the retail of artworks from
territories controlled by groups affiliated to ISIS.
The
two men used foreign intermediaries to acquire the artworks, and
concealed the origin of the goods by dispatching them from Asia and
different parts of the Middle East, police said.
After
searching five locations, including storage facilities and the gallery
where some looted pieces were on sale to the public, police recovered
artworks including sculptures, mosaics and sarcophagi.
With
the help of the Libyan authorities, police verified the authenticity of
the pieces and traced their origin to the Apollonia and Cyrene
archaeological sites in northern Libya, both of which have been looted
by terrorist groups.
The recovered items included sculptures and mosaics.
Some
of the recovered pieces showed imperfections such as bumps and dents
that suggested they had been extracted from the ground violently and
transported insecurely, police said.
Police believe the suspects carried out restoration work on the artworks in Spain in an attempt to disguise the damage.
The
warning came after "credible reports" that some Americans had been
offered cultural items that seemed to have been taken from Syria and
Iraq, according to a statement at the time from Bonnie Magness-Gardiner,
who was then manager of the FBI's Art Theft Program.
Nazi-looted Cranach painting returned to rightful heirs to be sold at Christie’s Old Masters auction
An Old Master portrait missing for nearly 80
years has been returned to the heirs of Dutch banker and art collector
Fritz Gutmann. They now plan to auction the picture with an estimate of
$1m-2m.
'Portrait
of John Frederick I, elector of Saxony' by Lucas Cranach the Elder
measuring 24¾ x 15⅝ in (62.8 x 39.7 cm). Image from Christie's.
Lucas Cranach the Elder’s Portrait of John Frederick I, Elector of Saxony was last publicly displayed in Rotterdam in 1938.
Gutmann’s vast collection in his home to the west of Amsterdam was
stolen by the Nazis in 1940, with many works acquired for Hitler and
Goering. Gutmann and his wife Louise were arrested in 1943 and died in
the camps of Theresienstadt and Auschwitz a year later.
But after its former owner acknowledged it had been stolen, Gutmann’s
heirs, with the help of experts at Christie’s, negotiated its return.
The half-length oil on panel will now be offered at Christie’s Old Masters auction on April 19 in New York.
Simon Goodman, Fritz Gutmann’s grandson and owner of the Cranach
painting, said: “I have spent years hunting for this marvellous
painting. Among those pieces still missing from my grandfather’s
collection, this was the piece I was the most doubtful of ever
recovering. My family are thrilled by its discovery. We are also
extremely grateful to the people who brought it forward and to
Christie’s for facilitating its return.”
Monica Dugot, international director of restitution at Christie’s,
said: “We hope that the reappearance of this painting demonstrates that
with goodwill, perseverance and collaboration, amicable and fair
solutions can be found in resolving complex restitution cases and losses
due to Nazi persecution, even after so many years.”
The portrait, painted in the 1530s, depicts John Frederick I
(1503-54), an electoral prince and head of the Schmalkaldic League of
Germany - a defensive alliance formed by Protestant territories. John
Frederick was an ardent supporter of Martin Luther and the Reformation,
and is considered to be one of the founders of the University of
Wittenberg.
He married Sibylle of Cleves in September 1526, whom Cranach also
portrayed on numerous occasions. According to Christie’s, this painting
is one of Cranach’s most refined depictions of John Frederick, who at
the time of painting was the artist’s greatest patron and close friend.
Belgian Police Discover 84 Pages of Stolen Albert Uderzo Art in Forest
It feels something that might have actually happened in an Asterix
comic, to be followed by a lot of dead wild boar. But it appears that
Belgian police have discovered 84 stolen pieces of art by Asterix co-creator Albert Uderzo, secreted in a forest. Or, rather, the town of Forest.
Eighty-four original drawings were found during a search of the town
earlier this month. The art was reported stolen last year after being
discovered being sold at auction in Belgium as part of what was called ‘The Rackham Collection’. But after the auction, the art — and the sellers — disappeared.
At the time, Uderzo said the pieces were either stolen, or lent out in 2012 and not returned. The owner of the auction house, Alain Huberty,
while holding an investigation to determine the origin of the art
pieces, stated that he knew the seller is honest, and that any
statement from Uderzo that the art disappeared in 2012 is false. And the
owner reported they had owned them for 30 years, and no police
complaint has been filed.
But the gendarmes were on the hunt. And it was the French police who
discovered their location, and worked with Belgian authorities to
organise a raid within 24 hours. Denis Goeman, spokesman for the Brussels prosecutor’s office, put the speed down to Getafix’s magic potion.
The stolen drawings are some of Uderzo’s earliest and predate Asterix, from the ’40s to the ’60s, including childhood drawings, he worked on the Captain Marvel Jr character and also Castagnac, a forerunner of Asterix.
The countries have different laws over art ownership, as a result of
the theft of Jewish property during the Second World War. In France,
owners of art are obliged to disclose how they acquired them, but not in
Belgium. Uderzo describes Belgium as being “a little curious country
for not having similar legislation,” which would have prevented the
pages being put up for sale in the first place.
Asterix pages and covers regularly sell for six or seven figures, and
while these artworks are worth less, in total they would be worth many
millions.
No one has yet been charged or arrested and the French investigation continues.
French customs officers have found an impressionist
painting by Edgar Degas stowed on a bus, more than eight years after it
was reported stolen.
The French Culture Ministry said Friday that
customs agents in Marne-la-Vallee were surprised to find a work of art
bearing the signature "Degas" inside a suitcase in the bus' luggage
compartment. The ministry says none of the passengers claimed the
suitcase during the Feb. 16 search.
Experts
verified the artwork as Degas' "Les Choristes" ("The Chorus Singers"),
which depicts a scene from Mozart's opera "Don Giovanni."
The painting was stolen from a Marseille museum in 2009 while on loan from Paris' Musee d'Orsay.
French
Culture Minister Francoise Nyssen said she was delighted by the
recovery of a work "whose disappearance represented a heavy loss for the
French impressionist heritage."
Did stolen Caravaggio go to Switzerland?
Mafia informant claims the painting, which is included in the FBI’s list of top ten art crimes, was sold to a Swiss dealer
Italian investigators are
following a new lead in the hope of solving one of the most notorious
art crimes of the past 50 years: the theft of Caravaggio’s Nativity with
St Francis and St Lawrence from a Baroque oratory in Palermo, Sicily,
in October 1969.
In
testimony to the Italian parliament’s standing commission on organised
crime, recently revealed in La Repubblica newspaper, the mafia member
turned informant Gaetano Grado said the painting was initially stolen by
small-time criminals. The subsequent press coverage of the theft
alerted the mafia to the painting’s importance and potential value. The
criminal organisation made it known they wished to receive the work and
the Caravaggio was duly presented to Gaetano Badalamenti, the head of
the Sicilian Mafia Commission known as the Cupola, which rules on
disputes between competing mafia families, Grado said.
Badalamenti
then sold the work to a Swiss dealer who travelled to Palermo to
finalise the deal, Grado said, adding that Badalamenti told him the
painting would be cut into pieces to transport it abroad. When shown
photographs of several Swiss dealers, Grado identified the one he claims
purchased the Caravaggio from Badalamenti. The name of the dealer in
question, now deceased, has not been released.
Rosy
Bindi, the head of the government commission on organised crime, said
she hopes for “international cooperation” in the investigation of the
new information. Grado’s testimony has been shared with the Sicilian
authorities.
Mafia claims
The
theft of the Caravaggio, which is included in the FBI’s list of the top
ten art crimes, has featured in the testimony of numerous mafia
informants. The information they have provided has ranged from the
unlikely to the absurd. There have been claims that the painting was
kept by the mafia for display at their gatherings, that it was stored in
a stable and eaten by mice, that it was irreparably damaged during its
theft and then destroyed, and even that it was used as a bedside carpet
by a mafia boss.
France Hopes Exhibit Of Nazi-Stolen Art Can Aid Stalled Search For Owners
Paintings looted by Nazis during World War II, are on
display at the Louvre museum, in Paris. In a move aimed at returning
work of art looted by Nazis during World War II, the Louvre museum has
opened two showrooms with 31 paintings on display which can be claimed
by their legitimate owners.
Christophe Ena/AP
France's most famous museum recently designated two rooms for
paintings looted by Nazis in World War II. The rightful owners of these
works never have been found, and the Louvre says the exhibit is a
continuation of the search. But critics say the museum has not done
nearly enough over the years.
The 31 paintings include French,
Italian and Flemish artists — eclectic works from various periods that
once were destined for the personal collections of Nazi officials and an
art museum Hitler was planning for Austria. What the paintings have in
common is that they all were stolen or obtained through forced sales
from Jewish families.
Louvre curator Vincent Delieuvin says the display is a symbol to remind people that the museum has not forgotten.
"Unlike
in the regular collections, we've hung the paintings closely together
to evoke the intimateness of a private home," he says. "We want to find
the rightful owners of these paintings, but we also want these rooms to
serve as a place of memory — a place where people can come reflect on
this terrible time in history where Jewish families fled or were killed
and their artworks were plundered."
Parisian Collete Grillot, 86, felt it was important to come view the paintings.
"I
lived through the war when I was a child and it has marked my whole
life," she says. "I'm not Jewish, but at school I had a Jewish friend
who wore the Star of David."
Valerie Sutter, a French teacher from Florida, also visited the museum to take in and reflect on the collection.
"I find this fascinating," she says. "That they're still
looking, and that they're still hoping to find the owners. I find that
very touching, very worthy."
Others are not sure how worthy the
Louvre's efforts have been. The exhibit has been criticized for lacking
historical context and for being relegated to two tiny, obscure rooms.
Lawyer Corinne Hershkovitch says the Louvre only really has become
proactive on the issue of Nazi-looted artwork in the past few years.
In
1999, Hershkovitch successfully sued the Louvre to get back several
paintings that were sold at auction in 1941, a year after their owner's
death. While the sale of the artwork appeared to have taken place
legally, Hershkovitch argued that the fact that the owner's children
were unable to attend — because they had fled Nazi-occupied Paris — made
it a forced sale. Hershkovitch won.
"They've done too little,
too late," she says of the Louvre. "And there's sometimes been this
whole sentiment of 'why are you coming to bother us with this 50 and 60
years later?' "
The Louvre currently has custody of around 800
stolen or forced-sale paintings whose owners are still unknown. Most are
hanging in museums across France. Curator Delieuvin says that's to give
them maximum exposure to the public.
For Hershkovitch, putting museums in charge of giving back artworks was the first mistake.
"Curators want to conserve paintings," she says. "That's their job."
She
admits that most families who get artworks back usually do sell them,
so not only does the museum lose an important work, but it sees it go on
the market to be bought by another museum or a private collector.
During
World War II, the Nazis took around 100,000 artworks from France. Some
60,000 were brought back to France after the war, and 45,000 of those
immediately were reclaimed by their owners. Then, says Hershkovitch,
everything slowed to a halt.
"The Jews wanted to reintegrate
into French society and the French wanted to forget about the
collaboration, so there was a kind of consensus to pull a veil over all
this and move on," she says.
Standingwith French Culture Minister Françoise Nyssen,
Christopher Bromberg and Henrietta Schubert, grandchildren of Henry and
Hertha Bromberg, view Flemish painter Joachim Patinir's Triptych of the Crucifixion, which was returned to them Monday by the French state.
Didier Plowy/Ministère de la Culture
Hershkovitch says all that changed with the next generation, who
raised consciousness worldwide about the issue in the '90s. In 1998 in
Washington, DC, 44 countries signed new international protocols for the identification and return of Nazi confiscated art."
A
seminal moment in France came with President Jacques Chirac's 1995
speech on the anniversary of a famous roundup of Paris Jews during the
war. Chirac said the Velodrome d'Hiver roundup had been carried out not by the Nazis, but by French police.
He
said France, a country of enlightenment and human rights, had been
complicit in Nazi barbarism. He called on the French to face this dark
chapter in their history. It was the first time the country confronted
its role in the deportation of some 72,000 Jews during the war.
Hershkovitch says it was huge, and that "Chirac's speech changed things both morally and judicially."
Hershkovitch says people had not come to terms with the country's
collaborationist Vichy regime because the hero of the resistance,
president Charles DeGaulle, had acted as if Vichy were not part of
France.
"He put Vichy in a sort of parenthesis of French
history," she says. "And when you put something aside and don't confront
it, you cannot solve the problem."
In 1997 France launched a
three year investigation into the theft of Jewish art under the Nazi
occupation. The ensuing "Matteoli Report" offered propositions for
finding and compensating victims and for increasing national awareness
of Nazi looting.
That eventually led to the creation of a
working group to actively search for the artworks' rightful owners,
instead of waiting for them to come forward. The group includes the
French culture and foreign ministries, museum curators and the Shoah
Foundation.
The French culture ministry also has put its vast database of Nazi looted artworks, including photos, online.
Delieuvin
says that database is the best way to link a looted painting to its
rightful owner, which he describes as a very complicated process.
"The
other day a family came to us with a picture of the work and we found
it on the database," he says. But Delieuvan says most often there's no
picture or even the name of the person who once owned the art.
Many
art sales took place during the war, but not all of them were forced
sales. Delieuvin says that if a work was sold at auction it is much
easier to track, because records can be obtained showing the buyer and
the seller. "If the seller was Jewish, then there's a good chance it was
a forced sale," he says.
But plenty of non-Jews also sold
works to Nazis during the war. If it was a private sale, Delieuvin says
there's usually no trace of who the seller was.
France is still
conserving about 2,000 artworks that are thought to have been looted or
obtained through forced sales by Nazis. Only around 100 have been
returned since the 1950s.
American Christopher Bromberg has gotten back two of his family's
artworks. Bromberg's grandfather was forced to sell his paintings
quickly as he fled Nazi Germany in 1938 through Switzerland and France
to reach the United States. In a ceremony in Paris last week,
French culture minister Françoise Nyssen returned a 16th century
Flemish painting to Bromberg and his sister Henrietta Schubert.
Nyssen called the restitution of the plundered work a struggle for justice and memory.
"This
is a moment of pain and of hope," she said. "After 70 years and much
searching, this painting has been returned to its rightful owner."
Nyssen promised France would continue to fight relentlessly for the return of Nazi looted artworks to their rightful owners.
In 2016 Bromberg was handed over another one of his grandfather's paintings in a similar ceremony.
"There's
this feeling of thanks and gratitude that is more valuable than the
paintings themselves," he said. "It's the society that I want to take my
hat off to, that allows this kind of event to take place."
A Stolen Watch Used to Mean Ready Cash for Thieves. Not Any More
Katya Hills is the managing
director of the Watch Register, which provides both identification and
recovery services of lost and stolen watches.Credit
Tom Jamieson for The New York Times
Watches
have long been easy targets for thieves. Stolen off a wrist or taken in
a smash-and-grab attack, high-end timepieces, easily transportable and
often untraceable, could easily be turned into cash.
But
that has been changing. The rise of online services specializing in
identifying lost or stolen watches has helped law enforcement, dealers
and diligent buyers — even in Miami, which the FBI has identified as one
of the top fencing hubs in the United States (and where the Watches
& Wonders fair is opening Friday).
“
‘No mama, no papa’ — that is what they call watches with no papers and
no serial number,” Jeff Harris, a Los Angeles-based watch dealer, said.
“Those are very easy to trade. After all, a gold Submariner is a gold
Submariner.”
To
Mr. Harris, the vernacular of that underworld has become all too
familiar. He was in Las Vegas last April to attend the International
Watch and Jewelry Guild trade show, held at the Rio All-Suite Hotel and
Casino. With about $2 million in mostly vintage and one-of-a-kind
timepieces locked in his room safe, Mr. Harris went to dinner — and
returned about an hour later to find the room door broken and the safe
missing.
“The
safe was crowbarred out of the wall,” Mr. Harris said. “The thief had
wrapped it in a towel to take it out to the stairwell. He was caught on
video running out of the hotel and jumping into a cab.”
A pair of fake Rolex watches
at the Watch Register. Of the 60,000 lost and stolen timepieces in its
database, one third are Rolexes.Credit
Tom Jamieson for The New York Times
Filippo
Salvador Cuomo, who was arrested days later in Miami, was identified
from a combination of the surveillance video and a jacket that he left
behind in his own room at the hotel. His name had been sewn into the
label.
He
pleaded guilty to larceny and, through an agreement with Nevada state
prosecutors, received a five-year prison sentence; a federal case (he
crossed state lines during the crime) is pending.
Mr.
Harris’s watches, however, were not recovered. “They made off with a
couple of ruby- and sapphire-encrusted Rolex Daytonas, vintage
complicated Pateks, Rolexes with Stella dials, a unique Audemars Piguet
and other very rare timepieces,” the dealer said.
According
to the FBI’s website, organized groups of thieves often use
intermediaries, commonly called fences, in cities such as Los Angeles,
Houston, New York and Miami to convert stolen goods into cash.
In
his case, Mr. Harris said, authorities have leads to two fences in
Miami. “We suspect a Miami jeweler and a known Milanese money launderer,
identified in the Rio hotel’s surveillance video,” Mr. Harris said. “In
the U.S., the hub for stolen watches is Miami. In Europe, it is Italy.”
There are no official statistics on the number of watches stolen around the world each year but the FBI’s website
estimates that the jewelry and watch industry in the United States
loses more than $100 million annually in retail thefts. Since 1992, the
FBI’s Jewelry & Gem Theft program has helped the industry combat
such crimes. And, while the bureau does not maintain a database, it does
cooperate with the Jewelers’ Security Alliance, a nonprofit trade
association that has a registry of stolen watches and jewelry.
5 Things To Consider
Taking Precautions
Receipts,
a record of serial numbers and any makers’ certificates or guarantees
should be kept — but stored separately from your watches, to avoid
losing everything in a robbery. Registry sites recommend that, as an
additional precaution, you photograph your watches and all paperwork and
then email the images to yourself.
Insurance
Your
homeowners’ or renters’ policy may cover theft but check the details.
Companies often require high-value items like watches and jewelry to be
documented individually, sometimes with valuations. And even if your
policy covers losses in a home burglary, it may not cover thefts while
traveling or just going about your day.
What to Do
If
your watch is lost or stolen, report it to the police and then get an
official copy of the complaint. You will need the document to alert the
watch’s maker and stolen-watch registries. If the timepiece is found, it
also will help establish your claim to the piece.
Just Remember
Social
media allows you to broadcast your loss to a wide audience but be aware
that there is a risk involved in disclosing a watch’s serial number. A
legitimate serial number can, for example, be used on another watch,
even a counterfeit one, to improve its chances of being sold.
If You're Buying
It
is a good idea to check watch registries for the serial number of any
secondhand watch you’re thinking of purchasing. While such a basic
search isn’t foolproof, it should turn up any obvious problems.
In
Europe, Europol, the European Union’s law enforcement agency based in
The Hague, offers similar help to businesses and it works with International Jeweller Security, a registry site.
After
the robbery, Mr. Harris posted descriptions of his watches and their
serial numbers online. That information was picked up by MyStolenWatch,
a specialized theft-check website that, like Watch CSA or WatchFacts,
lists stolen watches by serial numbers. “My watches and their serial
numbers are now listed on several registers and they also come up in a
Google search if anyone checks,” Mr. Harris said.
The
theft-check company with the largest global database of stolen watches
is Watch Register, a London-based site operated by the Art Loss
Register, a well-known stolen art tracking service founded in 1990. The
Watch Register provides both identification and recovery services of
lost and stolen watches across borders.
“We
had been registering watches since 1991 when we first started
collecting information about stolen artworks as a service to auction
houses,” Katya Hills, managing director of the Watch Register, said. “By
2014, we had sufficient data on watches to provide a targeted service.”
Today,
the Watch Register has details about more than 60,000 lost and stolen
watches, involving more than 850 brands. One third, according to Ms.
Hill, are stolen or lost Rolexes and, while most of the timepieces are
modern, there also are vintage ones as well as pocket watches. Users
must pay a fee of 10 pounds plus tax (about $13.75) to check the
provenance or status of a watch; subscriptions for dealers and pawnshops
that need multiple searches also are available.
“Last
year alone, we added 10,000 more watches to our database,” Ms. Hills
said. “We get between 80,000 to 100,000 search requests per year.”
The Watch Register also deals
with older timepieces. “We treat vintage or pocket watches like
antiques,” Ms. Hills said. “We use keywords from the description and the
image, and the search becomes more sophisticated.”Credit
Tom Jamieson for The New York Times
Unlike
modern high-end watches, each of which has a unique serial number,
vintage timepieces or pocket watches can only be registered by
descriptions of their distinctive features. “We treat vintage or pocket
watches like antiques,” Ms. Hills said. “We use keywords from the
description and the image, and the search becomes more sophisticated.”
The
site has had its successes. In 2016, for example, the Watch Register
helped recover a Patek Philippe stolen in Naples, Italy, that had turned
up in an auction in New York.
When
auction houses are preparing an art or watch event, they typically
check their lots against both the Art Loss and Watch registers. “All our
worldwide catalogs, including online sales, are checked by the Art Loss
Register,” said Sabine Kegel, international senior watch specialist at
Christie’s in Geneva.
While
auction houses, pawnshops and dealers can check such sites before
reselling a watch, Mr. Harris said he feared that such online tracking
just pushed opportunistic watch thieves further underground.
“People
can still buy a stolen watch and wear it, without ever looking up the
serial number,” Mr. Harris said. “Also now there are places that can
change the serial number on some watches.”
Because
his stolen watches were mostly one-of-a-kind or limited editions, Mr.
Harris is optimistic that they will be recovered. “My watches are so
unique that they can be immediately identified if they ever turn up,” he
said. “There are very few buyers in the world for these watches. The
best option at this point may be for the thieves to ‘sell’ them back to
me.”
More than £100,000 of jewellery stolen from antiques shop after burglars cut a hole in the roo
Police have launched an investigation after thieves
entered a Harrogate antiques shop through a hole in the roof and stole
more than £100,000 of jewellery and other valuable items.
Hundreds
of objects were taken, including a number of highly-distinctive bespoke
pieces. The incident took place on Tuesday, 13 February at 27 West
Park, opposite the Stray.
Police believe the thieves cut a hole in the roof of the building and
climbed through it at around 9.50pm. They broke into a number of
cabinets, probably using a jemmy, and emptied them.
Due to the quantity of items taken from a number of different antique
and jewellery dealers, police are still in the process of itemising the
thefts as part of their ongoing investigation.
However, stolen items include rings; bracelets; earrings; silver,
gold and bespoke necklaces; antique pocket watches and high-value
designer watches.
Initial estimates put the value of the stolen stock at more than £100,000.
Police have released images of some of the more distinctive pieces in the hope they will be recognised by members of the public.
They include:
An 18-carat gold ring featuring ruby, diamonds and sapphire.
A silver Maurice Lacroix wrist watch
A distinctive tiered silver necklace with gemstone setting
A number of silver and gem-based items of jewellery, including
bespoke hand jewellery worn across the palm of the hand with a
highly-distinctive leaf effect on the knuckles
Officers have released CCTV images of a person they want to trace as
part of their investigation, which has also seen police carry out
forensic tests at the scene and extensive enquiries around the area.
A North Yorkshire Police spokesman said: “While the face of the
person captured on CCTV is covered, we’re hoping that members of the
public who were in the area at the time may remember seeing someone
wearing similar items of clothing – a quilted jacket, possibly light in
colour, jeans with a long belt, sporty trainers and a small Nike
rucksack.
“We also believe there were quite a few members of the public in and
around Roberts Street, which is to the rear of the Maplin store, and the
surrounding streets and ginnels around the time of the break-in.
“If you were in this area at around 9.50pm on Tuesday and saw a
person or group of people acting suspiciously, please let us know – the
information may seem trivial to you but it may be important to our
investigation.”
Anyone who has any information about the incident or the person
pictured on CCTV, or witnessed anyone acting suspiciously in the area at
the time should contact North Yorkshire Police on 101, select option 2
and ask for Amanda Hanusch-Moore.
You can also email PC Moore on
Amanda.Hanusch-Moore@northyorkshire.pnn.police.uk or contact
Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800 555 111. Please quote reference number
12180024704 when sharing information.
Art Theft: Munch’s Oslo Museum ‘Scream’
On the 12 of February 1994,
the day of the opening of the 1994 Winter Olympics in Lillehammer, two
men broke into Oslo’s National Gallery and lifted its version of The Scream.
The painting had been moved down to a second-level gallery in honour of
the Olympic festivities, presumably to become more accessible to the
growing number of visitors. It took the thieves 50 seconds to climb a
ladder, smash through a window and cut the uninsured artwork from the
wall with wire cutters. They left their tools behind to make a swift
exit, but not before writing a note reading “Thanks for the poor security”.
The entire episode was filmed by security cameras. The international
mass media covering the games sensationalised the incident, as expected. In Lost Art, Jennifer Mundy writes, “In
most cases it is clear why a work of art is lost. It can be wilfully
destroyed or accidentally mislaid. It may never have been intended to
endure; or the materials used may have proved ephemeral. But sometimes
the loss can be the result of a cause or a motive that is more difficult
to discern or understand. When a work of art is stolen it is usually
obvious that the thieves knew what they were taking and why: to use as
collateral in criminal activities, to resell on a black market and make
major financial gain, or, occasionally, to grace the home of a private
collector. (…) there may be an initial flurry of press reports, but a
blanket of official silence quickly descends, as the police undertake
their enquiries and, more often than not, owners await a ransom demand
or contact from an intermediary. Typically, it may be several months or
even several years before those holding a stolen artwork make any
attempt to contact its owners.” This was the case with Munch’s work too.
After a month of laying low, the thieves demanded a US$1 million ransom
from the gallery, but the latter refused to pay it. Instead, the
Norwegian police set up a sting operation in collaboration with the
British police and the Getty Museum and the painting was recovered
undamaged on the 7th of May 1994. Two Metropolitan Police
officers trapped the thieves by pretending they would buy the painting
for £250,000. Apparently, it is quite common practice for British police
to be involved in recuperating stolen art in Europe, partly because
about 60% of it ends up trafficked or clandestinely auctioned in London. Except for a tiny pinprick, The Scream
was indeed found intact in Aasgaarstrand, a seaside town outside Oslo
in south Norway where Munch painted many of his well-known works. Two
years later, four men were convicted, including one who had already
stolen Munch’s The Vampire years earlier, yet they were released on legal grounds as the British agents had operated in Norway under fake identities. The extent and gravity of art theft is little known to the general public. “Art
theft and the trafficking of stolen works of art is a major criminal
business, perhaps the largest in terms of financial value after the
illegal trade in arms and drugs. The FBI currently values criminal
income from art theft at $6-8 billion a year. The Art Loss Register – a
private company that documents and helps trace stolen or lost artworks,
antiques and collectables – has over 300,000 items listed in its
database and adds a further 10,000 each year. The theft of artworks is
commonplace, but it becomes a news item, and lodged in the public’s
memory, when the works are by major artists or when they are taken from
museums. The loss in these cases is shared and public, and interest may
be piqued by the enormous value of the artworks and by details of
exactly how they were taken – particularly if there are echoes of
well-known films.” (Jennifer Mundy,Lost Art). It is true that the cinema frequently glorifies the daring of art thieves. Macho art-heist films such as The Thomas Crown Affair(Steve McQueen), Entrapment(Sean Connery), Ocean’s 12 (Brad
Pitt) and many more, revel the thrill of the cleverly orchestrated
operation of removing a priceless item from the most securely guarded
environments.
However, Hollywood perpetuates a flawed myth. Alastair Sooke of The Telegraph researched a far from glamorous, dark side of art theft: “pilfered
art will accrue value on the black market. Typically, a stolen
painting’s underworld currency will be between three and 10 per cent of
its estimated legitimate value, as quoted in the media. (…) It could
then be used as collateral, helping to finance drug deals, gun-running,
tobacco trafficking, and other illicit activities. (…) “Since the
introduction of money-laundering regulations, it has become unsafe for
criminals to pay for their operations in cash,” says Dick Ellis, who set
up the Art and Antiques Squad at New Scotland Yard. “With its
black-market value, stolen art can easily be carried across
international borders.” Keep that in mind next time you cheer the art thief in your favourite heist.
'Grey Gardens' estate sues Long Island gallery for owning stolen Jackie Kennedy painting
An
East Hampton art gallery is being sued for owning a stolen portrait of
Jackie Kennedy Onassis. The painting was featured in a 1998 Hamptons
Magazine article.
It’s the highest of high-society legal battles.
The estate of one of the “Grey Gardens” socialites has filed suit
against an East Hampton art gallery, claiming that a decades-old
portrait of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis is in fact a stolen family
heirloom.
Representatives of the late Edith (Little Edie) Bouvier Beale — one
half of the reclusive, formerly wealthy mother-daughter duo whose lives
were chronicled in the 1976 documentary — insist they have the rightful
claim on the painting that went missing in the late 1960s.
Edith (Little Edie) Beale and Onassis were first cousins.
The target of the suit is Terry Wallace, an established East End art
dealer who insists the painting legitimately belongs to him.
Wallace told the Daily News he has no intention of turning over the prized portrait without a fight.
“I have clear title to the painting and I have clear ownership of the painting,” he said.
Wallace says he bought the work in the “late 1980s from a very
reputable antiques dealer.” But he stopped short of identifying the
dealer.
The piece of art at the center of the high-brow legal brawl in Long
Island federal court was painted in 1950 long before then-19-year-old
Jacqueline Lee Bouvier met John F. Kennedy.
It was commissioned by the future First Lady’s father, John Vernou
Bouvier III — a well-heeled stockbroker nicknamed “Black Jack” — and
painted by Irwin Hoffman.
Neither side would put a price tag on the painting but that’s perhaps the only thing they agree on.
Before he died, Black Jack gave the portrait to his sister Edith Ewing Bouvier Beale, known as “Big Edie.”
Big Edie and Little Edie lived together at a decaying mansion in East Hampton known as Grey Gardens.
A 1941 photo shows Onassis walking down East Hampton and One Gracie Square in New York City.
The lawsuit said there was at least one burglary in the 1960s or 1970s.
But the Beales, who feuded with local officials, didn’t report the
theft.
Before Little Edie's 2002 death in Florida at age 84, she reminded her
nephew and future estate executor, that valuables like the painting were
filched from Grey Gardens.
The suit said a 1998 Hamptons Magazine article showcased the portrait.
Then in 2004, Beale’s nephew’s wife, Eva, spotted it at Wallace Gallery.
When she asked Wallace about the portrait's origins, he told her the
same thing he would later tell The News — that it came from a dealer he
refused to identify who had since died.
In 2016, Eva Beale found the 1998 article in Little Edie’s records and
determined it was the stolen painting she was referring to years ago.
The suit was filed Thursday after Wallace rebuffed Beale's request to
hand over the painting or at least provide information on its
provenance.
“After the gallery repeatedly denied its requests for return of the
Jackie portrait and for information about its provenance — information
regularly provided to art buyers in the ordinary course of business —
the Estate was forced to commence this action,” said Megan Noh, one of
the estate's lawyers.
Noh called the portrait “a long-lost heirloom, a piece of the Bouvier family's legacy and, indeed, of American history.
“The family is very much looking forward to being reunited with it,” she added.
But Wallace said he wouldn't risk wrecking his business or reputation
with questionable works after running his gallery for the past 25 years.
“If the painting was stolen, I would be the first one to give it back to them,” he said.
A Long-Lost Nigerian Masterpiece Found in a London Apartment Just Set a Record at Bonhams
Lost for decades, the rediscovered portrait was a hit at auction.
Ben Enwonwu, Tutu (1974). Courtesy of Bonhams London.
A long-lost masterpiece by Nigerian artist Ben Enwonwu sold yesterday for £1.2 million ($1.67 million) at “Africa Now,” the first-ever evening sale of contemporary African art at Bonhams London. The 1974 painting, titled Tutu,
depicts Adetutu Ademiluyi, a Nigerian royal princess. Hammered down to
an anonymous phone bidder after a 20-minute bidding war, it is now the
most expensive Nigerian Modernist work ever sold at auction.
The painting had been assumed lost for decades before the
family that owned it invited a Bonhams specialist to appraise it late
last year. “I was absolutely staggered when I first saw the piece. The
owners, who had inherited it, had no idea of its current value,” Giles
Peppiatt, the director of African art at Bonhams, told Nigerian novelist
Ben Okri in the Financial Times.
The painting is “the most significant discovery in
contemporary African art in over 50 years,” Okri wrote. “It is the only
authentic Tutu, the equivalent of some rare archaeological find.”
Ben Enwonwu, Tutu (1973). The first of three Tutu paintings was stolen in 1994 and its whereabouts remain unknown. Courtesy of Bonhams London.
Enwonwu tracked down the princess in the town of Ile-Ife and
convinced the royal family to let him paint her portrait in 1974. The
painting became a Nigerian icon, a sort of African Mona Lisa; poster reproductions hang on walls all over the country, according to the FT.
The pre-sale estimate for the work topped out at just £300,000 ($266,000). According to the artnet Price Database, the artist’s previous record at auction was £361,250 ($544,042) for a set of seven wooden sculptures commissioned by the Daily Mirror in 1960 and sold at Bonhams London in 2013.
These seven wooden sculptures commissioned from Ben Enwonwu by the Daily Mirror in 1960 previously held the artist’s auction record. Photo courtesy of Bonhams London.
Tutu was last publicly exhibited in 1975 at the
Italian embassy in Lagos, and its whereabouts were unknown for
decades. Enwonwu made three original Tutu works featuring
Asemiluyi, of which this is the second. The other two have since been
lost; the first version was stolen shortly before the artist’s death in
1994. (The sitter is believed to still be alive and living in Lagos,
although members of her family are reportedly unsure of her exact
whereabouts.)
“The portrait of Tutu is a national icon in Nigeria and of
huge cultural significance. It is very exciting to have played a part in
the discovery and sale of this remarkable work,” Peppiatt said in a
statement. He said he has often been asked to examine Tutu works, but up until now they had all been prints.
Ben Enwonwu, Tutu (1974). Courtesy of Bonhams London.
Painted three years after the end of the Nigerian Civil War, Tutu was
intended as an expression of national unity—the artist and the
princess’s tribes had been on opposite sides of the conflict—and
Enwonwu’s way of celebrating his country’s cultural identity. “He
thought she epitomized what he was trying to push about Africa,” Oliver Enwonwu, the artist’s son, told the Guardian
'Stolen works' sentence of Picasso's electrician overturned
France's highest appeal court has overturned the
conviction of Pablo Picasso's former electrician and his wife, who were
given suspended sentences for keeping 271 of his works in their garage
for four decades.
'Stolen works' sentence of Picasso's electrician overturned
Pierre and Danielle Le Guennec were given two-year suspended
jail sentences in 2015 for possession of stolen goods, in a case that
made headlines worldwide.
A higher court upheld the verdict in 2016 but the Cour de Cassation, in a ruling seen by AFP Thursday, overturned it.
Ruling there was insufficient evidence that "the goods held by the suspects had been stolen" the court ordered a retrial.
The couple's lawyer Antoine Vey hailed the ruling.
"It's a great decision which reinforces the line that Le Guennecs have always upheld -- that there was no theft whatsoever."
The retrial will offer them "a huge opportunity to finally establish the truth", Vey said.
The
collection, whose value has not been assessed, includes drawings of
women and horses, nine rare Cubist collages from the time Picasso was
working with fellow French artist Georges Braque and a work from his
famous "blue period".
At his original trial Le Guennec, who is in
his late seventies, claimed that Picasso had presented him with the
artworks towards the end of his life to reward him for his loyal
service.
But he later changed his account, telling the appeal
court that the works were part of a huge trove of art that Picasso's
widow Jacqueline asked him to conceal after the artist's death in 1973.
Le
Guennec said he stored more than a dozen garbage bags of unsigned works
which Jacqueline later retrieved, except for one which she left him
saying: "Keep this, it's for you."
The affair came to light when
Pierre Le Guennec attempted to get the works authenticated by Picasso's
son Claude Ruiz-Picasso in 2010.
The artist's heirs promptly filed a complaint against him, triggering an investigation.
