MSN-list Digest, Vol 7, Issue 117 Send MSN-list mailing list submissions to 	msn-list@te.verweg.com To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit 	http://duvel.te.verweg.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/msn-list or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to 	msn-list-request@te.verweg.com You can reach the person managing the list at 	msn-list-owner@te.verweg.com When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific than "Re: Contents of MSN-list digest..." archive of the list: http://msn-list.te.verweg.com/ . Today's Topics:    1. Heirs.tyepad.com (Museum Security Network Mailing list)    2. "An Obscure State Department committee...       (Museum Security Network Mailing list)    3. Australia. Angkor Wat relics for sale on eBay       (Museum Security Network Mailing list)    4. Bulgaria. Antiques trade is second most profitable activity:       history museum director (Museum Security Network Mailing list)    5. us. Protecting public art (Museum Security Network Mailing list)    6. Peru tries to stop the auctioning of its culture       (Museum Security Network Mailing list)    7. Italy. Furto d?arte a Imola. In via Appia rubata una ?Madonna       con bambino? del XVI secolo. Nessun segno d?effrazione.       (Museum Security Network Mailing list)    8. They Are Inauthentic, Yes, but Beautiful       (Museum Security Network Mailing list) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Message: 1 Date: Mon, 14 May 2007 08:32:07 -0400 From: Museum Security Network Mailing list  Subject: [MSN] Heirs.tyepad.com To:  Message-ID:  Content-Type: text/plain;	charset="ISO-8859-1" As a long time member of this list, I would like to inform its membership of the creation of my blog on art loss during the Holocaust: HEIRS - Observations on Provenance   Your Invitation to Join Me to Share Your Valued Expertise and Opinions   Dear Friend,   I am writing to invite you to become a participant, contributor, and  critic to my very new weblog: HEIRS ? Observations on Provenance.   http://heirs.typepad.com   Over the last several years, I have been researching, writing and advocating in Canada about a variety of aspects related to the art stolen by the Nazis during the Holocaust. Some of you have served as willing mentors and resource persons in my initial  activity. Some are claimants having benefited from my efforts as well. I have created this weblog with the intent of promoting an "open forum? to feature and discuss the entire spectrum of issues dealing with the subject.   With the timely opening of the documentary film, The Rape of Europa, whih I review on my blog today, I believe this weblog initiative will become essential to the ongoing discussion. I am hopeful that concerned and committed museum and cultural arts professionals  will  add to and be a part of this venture.   Ultimately, in furthering my work through this blog, I am determined to shed light onto the dark places of the past? and the present. And I look forward to you sharing your expertise in order to becoming part of that illumination.   Thank you for your interest? and I hope to see you online.   Sincerely,   Fern Smiley fernsmile@rogers.com Publisher and Editor Offline comments are respectfully invited. ON line opinions and blog comments are most appreciated. ------------------------------ Message: 2 Date: Fri, 18 May 2007 09:52:29 +0200 From: Museum Security Network Mailing list  Subject: [MSN] "An Obscure State Department committee... To: Museum Security Network Mailinglist  Message-ID: <464D5B3D.6040700@bruggemansolutions.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8; format=flowed http://www.thewalters.org/blog/comments.aspx?b=19 "An Obscure State Department committee... by Gary Vikan on April 16, 2007 ? has been the focus of fierce battles between archaeologists and dealers." This is how author Jeremy Kahn characterized the President's Cultural Property Advisory Committee (CPAC) in a full-page article in the New York Times ("Is the U.S. Protecting Foreign Artifacts? Don't Ask," April 8, 2007). I was a Clinton appointee to that committee, serving from 2000 to April 2003, when I and two other members resigned in the wake of the looting of the National Museum of Iraq, in Baghdad. The work of CPAC, which was created in 1983 by legislation intended to give effect to ratification of the UNESCO Convention on cultural property (1970), is to make recommendations to the State Department on applications from foreign nations asking, in effect, that their export laws governing cultural property become our import laws. From its inception, the committee?s activities have been highly secretive; in recent years, its internal deliberations have become increasingly contentious, as the archaeologists? voice has come to dominate the collectors and dealers on the committee.  The hot issue now is whether the State Department will accept, on CPAC?s recommendation, a sweeping ban on the import of Chinese art and artifacts predating 1911. (The often-repeated counterarguments are that the Chinese have yet to clean up their own art-dealing house and that the share of the Chinese trade is relatively small, and will simply go elsewhere.) The points made by Kahn, and through him, by his many sources on and off the committee, including its present chair, Jay Kislak, are right on the mark. The archaeologists? voice and values are disproportionately strong among the CPAC membership, and its activities are overly secretive and exclusionary. For CPAC to function as intended, its 11 members must not only legitimately represent the interests of their designated constituencies?archaeologists, museums, the art trade, and the general public?they must also be committed to be guided in their deliberations by the four "determinations" set out in the 1983 legislation.  To quote Jeremy Kahn: ??[the foreign nation]...must document the extent to which pillaging jeopardizes important cultural sites and objects. It must provide evidence that it is combating looting inside its borders. It must establish that the American market in these objects is large enough to warrant more control and that other methods to address looting are not available. ...so American dealers and collectors are not unfairly disadvantaged."  A final, "quid-pro-quo" determination, not mentioned by Kahn, has to do with what they might reasonably expect in return from the requesting nation, in terms, most notably, of extended loans for scholarly and educational purposes. The problem with each of these requirements is one of threshold; namely, how much looting, effort to stop looting, multi-national cooperation in interdicting movement of looted material, is sufficient to warrant action by the U.S. government that will come at the disadvantage of at least some of its citizens. In these deliberations, committee members are challenged to rise above their individual, parochial interests to address these questions against a backdrop of shared interests and values?and simple common sense. And even if this lofty state of being should someday come to pass, which many of us doubt, there remains one disturbing lacuna both in the wording of the determinations and in the spirit of the committee?s deliberations; namely, a recognition of the validity and value of the movement of cultural property across borders for the purpose of collecting?the principle that lies at the very heart of the great encyclopedic museums of the world.  This, if acknowledged and acted upon by the committee, would provide the necessary counterbalance to its laudable work of protecting archaeological sites. Protected sites should be the penultimate goal of CPAC; its ultimate goal should be the controlled movement of cultural property across borders. If this is not our vision and strategy, how can we ever hope that it might someday become a shared international vision and strategy? As for the two theses of the Kahn's article, that the membership of CPAC is skewed toward the archaeologists? perspective and that the committee?s activities inappropriately secretive, I fully agree. More sunshine would be good, both for the committee, so that its deliberations might be better informed by information coming from outside its own tight circle, and for the public at large, so that it will be fully aware of those entrusted with setting U.S. foreign cultural policy, and hold them accountable.   Comment by Deborah on 4/18/2007 12:19:28 AM How disheartening, for Museum Directors, Curators, employees and the public.  I am grateful for the coverage though, as I support public knowledge and interests in this very important part of our world's cultures.  Hopefully someone with enough clout will finally pull the reigns in with archaeologists and others involved in financial and professional gain concerning these precious treasures.     Comment by John G. Ford, trustee of the Walters Art Museum on 4/20/2007 4:23:16 PM Everyone interested in the issues before CPAC is thoroughly frustrated but at the same time vowing to make his/her voice heard in committee and/or the world at large as Jeremy Kahn has done in his NY Times article of April 8. It is unfortunate that Gary Vikan and others resigned from the committee thereby weakening their voices on the important issues that should be front and center for the committee and its work. Namely to address the four items highlighted by Kahn before the committee acts in secrecy in addition to being an unbalanced and non-representative committee.   Why would it not be appropriate for the Association of Art Museum Directors to speak with one voice in a very public manner so that the thinking American public will make its voice heard in newspapers, magazines and symposia? Namely, the recognition of the validity and value of the movement of cultural property across borders for the purpose of collecting and displaying the wealth and breath of all the worlds cultures!   Comment by Joan Sobkov on 4/20/2007 4:32:21 PM I assume you read the article in today's Times about the opening of the new Greek/Roman galleries.  You and he are certainly on the same wavelength.  I subscribe to Archaeology Today, published by AIA.  Their position is fiercely opposed to new acquisitions in museums but editorially I don't find them to support the "return it all" movement.  As with most issues, a little light and less heat would be beneficial.   Comment by Judy Van Dyke on 4/25/2007 3:04:20 PM I recently traveled to the Middle East (Jordan, Syria, Egypt, and Lebanon).  One of our tour leaders was from the Oriental Institute at the University of Chicago.  OI has sponsored archaeological excavations and has received objects from those digs which are part of its collections here in the U.S.  The joint agreements relating to objects were very specific.  For example, if duplicate artifacts were excavated, OI might be able to "claim" one of the duplicates. I realize that this relates to a controlled dig, but it is an example of how countries with cultural property can use financing and expertise from countries such as the U.S. to uncover and research their objects in a controlled way.  I assume this is what you feel CPAC should be encouraging.    Comment by gv on 4/27/2007 12:09:08 PM John, you're right, of course, but as it turned out, the entire committee was turned over; it's political, after all.   Comment by gv on 4/27/2007 12:12:33 PM Judy, Yes, that old system of partage was great, and brought some real treasures to Europe.  Nefertiti, in Berlin, among them.  Unfortunately, it doesn't much happen anymore, and the Egyptians have put a claim, nearly a century after the fact, on Nefertiti. g     Comment by Harlan J. Berk on 5/2/2007 11:29:58 AM If,as Judy Van Dyke said,"It's OK for the OI to take a duplicate item for a controled dig" Then why restrict a south Italian owl skyphos which exist in the thousands.No country needs or can store or study the millions of duplicate antiquities that exist such as scarabs,munny beads,Sumerian cylindar seals,everyday UR III small tablets and the like. Harlan J. Berk   Comment by Wayne G. Sayles on 5/2/2007 11:54:51 AM It might be good for us to remember that Cultural Property Nationalism is a minority opinion on the world stage, even though it has a disproportionately loud voice.  Since WWII, the movement toward globalism has advanced steadily and now encompasses nearly every facet of our lives.  Why should our access to the art and history of diverse cultures be treated any differently than access to the goods that they produce in our own time?  Whose interests are wide sweeping restrictions on the transfer of cultural property really protecting?  Isn't the repression of independent scholarship really akin to feudal monasticism?  It is obviously a complex issue that deserves, indeed demands, careful consideration by those empowered to control our lives.   Comment by Thomas A. Barbeau on 5/6/2007 12:51:57 PM Without getting too deeply analytical about these matters, I wonder who is considering the probable fate of what must be considered Western cultural properties that lie under and above the ground in "Muslim Lands" as Salafist Islam rises from influence to ascendency. The Islamic notion of "jahiliah" is an elastic concept which refers to the ignorant and abominable times prior to the coming of Islam. The artifacts of these times are evil, or at best, worthless under Islamic Sharia law. How much of the Hindu, Hellenistic, Roman and Byzantine patrimony has already been destroyed through deliberate neglect and fanaticim in Islamic areas? Are these attitudes in Islamic countries being monitored? Is there any scholarship that addresses this sad history without apology? Is there an official position to be taken regarding this problem?   Comment by gv on 5/6/2007 12:58:20 PM Good comments, Harlan and Wayne.  Thank you, both. Your notion, Wayne, of positioning cultural property within the framework of globalization is a good one.  But the key, as with copyright and such, is some form of control.  Note this week's NEW YORKER and "The Idol Thief." The smuggling of art is a messy business, not only from a legal point of view, but because is disrupts and destroys things precious to us all.   Comment by Peter K. Tompa on 5/6/2007 5:53:37 PM Gary Vikan's comments take on special significance because he sat on CPAC himself.    The United States has reserved its independent judgment regarding the scope and need for import controls on cultural artifacts.  Under the governing statute, the Convention on Cultural Property Implementation Act, U.S. actions in these complex matters should not be bound by the characterizations of other countries. The exercise of this independent judgment in this complex area requires input from the knowledgeable members of CPAC.  CPAC helps recommend a balance between efforts to control looting at archeological sites and the legitimate international exchange of cultural artifacts.  Unfortunately, CPACs ability to provide useful advice in this area has been seriously compromised by the lack of transparency Mr. Vikan and Jeremy Kahn describe. The Department of State has effectively stacked the deck by limiting publicly available information necessary to contest import restriction requests. This effectively restricts the flow of information to the Committee itself to that secretly provided by the archaeological community and the source nations seeking restrictions.  Such information typically highlights or even exaggerates facts supporting such restrictions while supressing those that don't.   Hopefully Mr. Vikan's blog and Jeremy Kahn's article will help prompt others to make similar concerns known to their elected officials.  Only public pressure will help ensure that the State Department reviews its  current procedures to require that any decision to impose import restrictions on cultural artifacts is based on a complete record. Archaeologists and source countries don't need to deal with the impact of import restrictions.  Museums, collectors and those engaged in the legitimate international trade of cultural goods do.  It is only fair, therefore, that their voices are fully heard in Washington too.    Comment by jay kislak on 5/10/2007 2:32:18 PM Right on.Gary.I'm trying ,but you know how hard that is dealing with the entrenched beaurucracy.Any ideas or help you may give would be appreciated.As you know,we now have two new members.Maybe,just maybe,things will change a little.   Comment by JHMerryman on 5/11/2007 3:46:32 PM Here is the way I see it. The career bureaucrats on the Committee's staff were long ago captured by the AIA. The AIA has long been a captive of its own fervor. Neither gives more than token deference to the terms of the CPIA. Not a pretty picture. No wonder they hide.     Comment by gv on 5/12/2007 9:49:58 AM Jay, you found me! GV ------------------------------ Message: 3 Date: Fri, 18 May 2007 09:54:09 +0200 From: Museum Security Network Mailing list  Subject: [MSN] Australia. Angkor Wat relics for sale on eBay To: Museum Security Network Mailinglist  Message-ID: <464D5BA1.6070203@bruggemansolutions.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8; format=flowed Angkor Wat relics for sale on eBay PM - Thursday, 17 May , 2007  18:42:00 Reporter: Timothy McDonald MARK COLVIN: Angkor Wat is a huge and ancient city of palaces and temples that rise out of the Cambodian forests and whose history gives it a prised position on the world heritage-list. Now, a vendor on the Internet auction site eBay says you can have your very own piece of it. Invaders and treasure hunters have looted Angkor Wat extensively since the Khmer kings abandoned it hundreds of years ago. Although it's been illegal to remove relics from Cambodia for the last decade, heritage workers say those laws are very difficult to enforce. Timothy McDonald reports. TIMOTHY MCDONALD: For just under $6,000 you can have your own relief sculpture or statue to sit on the mantelpiece or next to the water feature in the back yard. There's just one problem, it's quite possibly illegal to buy or sell the goods. So eBay immediately started an investigation when PM informed the company about the seller. eBay spokesman Daniel Feiler says it may be rare example of an unwanted item slipping past the site's monitors. DANIEL FEILER: While we do have systems and tools in place, as well as over 2,000 trust and safety personnel who monitor the site and look out for things that might infringe our policies, or just shouldn't be on our site, there is the occasional thing that might slip through the cracks. TIMOTHY MCDONALD: The seller is based in Thailand but says his products are housed in Singapore and he insists the statues are the real thing. There is a market in fakes and it's possible that these items aren't what the seller says they are. Similar items that are sold legally through auction houses often sell for more than double the price. If the sale is fraudulent, Mr Feiler says the seller's likely to be caught. DANIEL FEILER: On a site like eBay that has close cooperation with law enforcement agencies all around the world, or certainly in all the 35 markets in which it operates, then you're running a high risk of getting caught. TIMOTHY MCDONALD: Heritage workers say they're worried that if the items are genuine, they may have been stolen. Heritage Watch is a non-government organisation that's working to preserve Cambodia's rich cultural heritage. The Director Dr Spieald O'Reilly says people have been plundering the site for hundreds of years. SPIEALD O'REILLY: Looting in Cambodia has a very long history. It goes back to the time of wars with Thailand when booty was taken back to Thailand and materials actually found in Burma today, dating back to several hundred years ago. So it's not a new problem. It was current under the French Colonial regime there, it continues today. TIMOTHY MCDONALD: New laws came into effect in 1994 which made it illegal to remove historic relics from Cambodia, but the looting continued. One of the worst examples was in 1999, when the Cambodian Military spent weeks using circular saws to remove sandstone blocks, which then made their way to Thailand. They've since been returned. Dr O'Reilly says the situation has gotten significantly better in recent years, but the illegal trade still persists. SPIEALD O'REILLY: There are people who are dealing in antiquities that are stolen recently from Cambodia and other countries around the world and it is illegal frankly to deal with these and to take them into possession. So you need to be very careful because these things can be repossessed and you can lose significant amounts of money if you're dealing with an unscrupulous dealer. TIMOTHY MCDONALD: While it's illegal to sell any relic removed from Cambodia after 1994, the rule has proven difficult to enforce. Often it's the Cambodian Government that's had to prove that any questionable relic was removed after the law came into effect. And that often requires photographic or documentary evidence. Dr O'Reilly says that's slowed the number of items returned to Cambodia to a trickle. MARK COLVIN: Timothy McDonald. http://www.abc.net.au ------------------------------ Message: 4 Date: Fri, 18 May 2007 09:54:55 +0200 From: Museum Security Network Mailing list  Subject: [MSN] Bulgaria. Antiques trade is second most profitable 	activity: history museum director To: Museum Security Network Mailinglist  Message-ID: <464D5BCF.6070006@bruggemansolutions.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8; format=flowed Antiques trade is second most profitable activity: history museum director 17 May 2007 | 17:28 | FOCUS News Agency Veliko Tarnovo. Trade in antiques is the second most profitable activity following drug dealing, director of the Regional History Museum in the town of Veliko Tarnovo (Northern Bulgaria) Ivan Tsarov told Radio Focus-Veliko Tarnovo in a comment to the latest stolen antiques affair in the town of Pavlikeni. According to him each settlement houses at least one such criminal group. Treasure hunters in Bulgaria are about 200,000-300,000 and they are organized. I have heard trade in antiques uses the channels of drug dealing. Bulgaria rates third in number of monuments of culture, following Italy and Greece, which have already established a special police branch dealing with monuments of culture and trade in antiques, Ivan Tsarov added. Denitsa TSONEVA http://www.focus-fen.net/ ------------------------------ Message: 5 Date: Fri, 18 May 2007 09:57:17 +0200 From: Museum Security Network Mailing list  Subject: [MSN] us. Protecting public art To: Museum Security Network Mailinglist  Message-ID: <464D5C5D.5060807@bruggemansolutions.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8; format=flowed Protecting public art City looks to offer higher security measures after bronze-sculpture robbery. By JAIMEE LYNN FLETCHER The Orange County Register BREA ? Children at Laurel Elementary school miss the mother and child that used to dance on the corner of Birch Street and Poplar Avenue. Many were greeted by the whimsical bronze statue on their walk home from school and now they want to know: where did she go? "Spirit of Life" ? a sculpture depicting a mother swinging her child ? has stood prominent on the busy corner for 11 years. Now, all that is left is a gaping hole of what once was. The statue ? owned by the Arbors Housing Association ? was stolen at about 3 a.m. April 20. The fear is it has been melted down for its metal. The sculpture is part of the city's Art in Public Places program ? which requires developments over $1.5 million to earmark 1 percent of the project cost for a public art piece. Fliers were sent to local scrap yards, the piece was registered with the Federal Bureau of Investigation's stolen art list and put on the Fine Art Registry to try and recover the sculpture. So far, there are no leads. "Spirit of Life" is the second statue taken in 10 years. The burglary has prompted the city to look into more advanced security options to offer owners. There are 142 pieces around the city. "I've been researching and looking for things that we could offer owners such as a Lo Jack or a GPS system," said Trinitee Manuel, Community Services specialist for Art in Public Places. "We want to give owners the option to invest a few thousand dollars into a sculpture and give them that resource." Art Willis, president of the Arbors Housing Association, said the residents are weighing their options to commission a new piece. "We don't have any timeline right now, but we want to set one soon," he said. "We're not sure what we're going to pick out." Willis said the association's next piece will be better protected. "We will absolutely look into higher security," he said. "We should put some kind of device on it." Willis said the association was in shock when it learned of the burglary ? the 350-pound statue could not have been an easy heist. Whoever stripped the figure from its post came prepared, Manuel said. The statue, she said, was grounded by an inch-thick piece of galvanized metal set 7 inches into a block of cement. "Spirit of Life" is valued at $85,000 and if melted, would be worth just a few hundred dollars. "It's a ridiculous amount compared to the cultural value and the actual value of the piece," Manuel said. The statue ? commissioned in 1996 ? was constructed by Scottish artist John Kennedy who has since died. However, the Arbors Housing Association would be able to get a duplicate, but may have to pay more for it. "We really wouldn't know how much more it would be until we took a look at their insurance," said Tyra Golter, assistant manager of Kennedy's estate. "But it was 10 years ago and price has definitely gone up." The Arbors Housing Association hopes to have a new statue in place by late December.  http://www.ocregister.com/ ------------------------------ Message: 6 Date: Fri, 18 May 2007 09:58:06 +0200 From: Museum Security Network Mailing list  Subject: [MSN] Peru tries to stop the auctioning of its culture To: Museum Security Network Mailinglist  Message-ID: <464D5C8E.6010503@bruggemansolutions.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8; format=flowed Peru tries to stop the auctioning of its culture Fri May 18, 2007 8:45 AM IST By Jean Luis Arce LIMA (Reuters) - Peru has urged the world's leading auction houses, Christie's and Sotheby's, to halt the sale of dozens of pre-Colombian artifacts and hand them over to Peru, saying they were almost certainly exported illegally. The pieces, which include gold and silver jewelry, rare ceramics and delicate textiles, some over 2,000 years old, went under the hammer in New York at Sotheby's on Thursday afternoon and are scheduled to be sold at Christie's next Wednesday. "What we're asking is that as a gesture of goodwill, they don't auction these pieces," said Cecilia Bakula, director of Peru's National Institute of Culture, a state body responsible for safeguarding cultural assets. "I'd like to think these auction houses have high ethical standards and that they'll understand that Peru's claim is not against them but is about exercising a right that we cannot give up on," she told a news conference late on Wednesday. Christie's and Sotheby's said in separate statements on Thursday they had carefully reviewed the provenance of each item up for auction and rejected the claims by Peru. "We have received no information from the Peruvian government or from any other sources which would lead us to believe that any of these lots were stolen or improperly exported out of Peru," Christie's said. Sotheby's said it was "regrettable that the Peruvian government waited until the very last moment to contact us with such obviously flawed claims." "We have concluded that there was no merit to the request to remove them from the sale," it said. "The objects were therefore included in today's sale and we are confident that our purchasers obtained good title to these objects." Peruvian diplomatic sources in the United States said the Embassy in Washington had written to the U.S. State Department on several occasions regarding the sales. Many of the artifacts for sale are from the Chavin, Chimu, Paracas, Mochica, Huari and Nazca cultures that flourished in Peru before the Incas rose to power in the 12th century. According to the catalogs of the two auction houses, some of the nearly 50 lots were expected to fetch up to $35,000. 'EVIL NETWORK' Bakula said Peru passed a law in 1822, a year after it gained independence from Spain, to protect its rich heritage. As such, the Andean nation regards any piece of art removed from Peru after that date as having been taken illegally. Bakula said the onus was on sellers and auction houses to prove the pieces were not taken from Peru without permission. "I am absolutely sure they won't be able to do that," she said. Peru has one of the richest pre-Colombian legacies in Latin America and is littered with archeological sites predating the Spanish conquest of the early 16th century. Over the years, countless treasures have been removed from the country illegally. According to the INC, in May alone it has recovered over 70 Peruvian artifacts from Uruguay, Germany, Mexico, Colombia and New Zealand and is expecting the repatriation next month of nearly 500 pieces from the United States. "We're trying to find out who the organizers of this trafficking are," Bakula said. "It's not casual, this is part of an evil, destructive and powerful network." (Additional reporting by Michelle Nichols in New York) http://in.today.reuters.com ------------------------------ Message: 7 Date: Fri, 18 May 2007 09:59:11 +0200 From: Museum Security Network Mailing list  Subject: [MSN] Italy. Furto d?arte a Imola. In via Appia rubata una 	?Madonna con bambino? del XVI secolo. Nessun segno d?effrazione. To: Museum Security Network Mailinglist  Message-ID: <464D5CCF.6020301@bruggemansolutions.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8; format=flowed Furto d?arte a Imola In via Appia rubata una ?Madonna con bambino? del XVI secolo. Nessun segno d?effrazione. Imola. E? successo all?inizio della scorsa settimana, ma la notizia ? stata data solo oggi. In Via Appia ad Imola, ? stato rubato un dipinto del XVI? secolo, raffigurante una Madonna con Bambino glorificati da angeli, (90 x 71 cm - vedi foto, cliccare sopra per ingrandirla) pi? la cornice.  Le circostanze del furto non sono chiare, poich? il quadro ornava una sala accessibile al pubblico e non ? stata riscontrata nessuna effrazione. Il furto ? stato denunciato il giorno dopo al Nucleo di Tutela del Patrimonio Artistico dei Carabinieri di Bologna e l'opera ? inserita nel loro data base ed in quello dell'Art Loss Register di Londra ed ? quindi difficilmente e rischiosamente commerciabile ed esponibile. Il collezionista, che preferisce restare anonimo, ha riferito che "? impossibile puntare il dito su qualcuno. Collocata in un luogo di passaggio, potrebbe essere stata rubata da chiunque. L'opera non ha mercato ed ? di difficile commerciabilit?. Spero che il colpevole ci rifletta e possa farcela riavere al pi? presto". http://www.sabatoseraonline.it/ ------------------------------ Message: 8 Date: Fri, 18 May 2007 09:59:46 +0200 From: Museum Security Network Mailing list  Subject: [MSN] They Are Inauthentic, Yes, but Beautiful To: Museum Security Network Mailinglist  Message-ID: <464D5CF2.6090304@bruggemansolutions.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8; format=flowed They Are Inauthentic, Yes, but Beautiful By GRACE GLUECK It could have fooled me, as it fooled others. The exquisitely detailed sculpture of St. Michael battling the dragon of the Apocalypse, in half-human scale, wrought in gilt silver with semiprecious stones, is a gorgeous thing, showing the saint looking down in triumph as his lance pierces a loathsome creature writhing at his feet. For a long time it was thought to be an original medieval work, so well regarded that it was once part of a Rothschild collection. But it turned out to be an original fake, perpetrated in the 19th century by one Luigi Parmiggiani (1860 to about 1932), a k a Louis Marcy. It is now the centerpiece of a lively and illuminating show, ?Fakes and Forgeries: The Art of Deception,? organized by the Bruce Museum in Greenwich, Conn., where Marcy?s creation is accompanied by some 50 other objects of the forger?s art, from antiquity to now. The show includes a Cycladic head given the date of around 2,500 B.C., and Campbell?s soup cans proclaimed as Andy Warhol originals. Among the other ?treasures? here are Mir? and Giacometti paintings by the versatile English faker John Myatt; a Matisse pastiche by the Hungarian charmer Elmyr de Hory (the subject of a biography by the literary forger Clifford Irving, who, with Mr. de Hory, was in turn the subject of a film by Orson Welles); and signed counterfeits by unknowns in the manner of de Kooning and Basquiat. The show is devoted by and large to intentional art faking or forgery, applied to paintings, sculptures, prints, drawings and photographs, and the many means of doing it. But a possible exception to the intentionally fraudulent is a finely wrought Renaissance-style carved marble plaque depicting the Madonna and Child, by Giovanni Bastianini (1830-1868). Encouraged by a dealer to create pastiches of quattrocento artists? works, Bastianini based this one on a 15th-century Italian polychrome relief by Antonio Rosellino, and it was probably passed off as an authentic creation from that period. Yet Bastianini did not really intend to deceive, and notwithstanding their unoriginality, his works were bought by museums like the Louvre and the Victoria and Albert. This particular marble is vibrant enough to stand as a work of art on its own. Among other exceptions are the amazing ?pre-Columbian? knockoffs produced by Br?gido Lara, a native of Mexico who, raised near archaeological digs in Oaxaca and Veracruz, tuned into Maya, Aztec and other ancient styles. Prompted by the ancient artifacts around him, he started making ceramic sculptures in the 1950s, using the same materials. He claims that the works he sold to tourists and dealers were always identified as of his own authorship. But eventually they got into the art market as genuine pre-Columbian sculptures. Mr. Lara is represented in the show by a wonderful life-size painted figure, ?Large Standing Woman,? that scholars believe depicts Cihuateotl, the Aztec goddess of women who died in childbirth. Her mouth is open in what appears to be an agonized scream, her eyes are closed, and she wears a headdress adorned with the snouts of four blue dragons. The work was given to the St. Louis Art Museum in 1979 by Morton D. May. Dating tests have proved inconclusive, but many authorities now believe it is spurious. Interestingly enough, when Mr. Lara was arrested in 1974 on grounds of trafficking in stolen artifacts, he asked for clay and produced reproductions of the supposedly purloined goods. On demonstrating that he was a forger rather than a thief, Mr. Lara was released. He ended up being hired by the anthropology museum in Xalapa to restore ancient objects. Now authorized to make legitimate replicas, he signs them but continues to assert that his creations, both signed and unsigned, are not forgeries. The show raises the question of what exactly a fake or forgery is, and how do you tell one from, say, an artist?s honest attempt to copy the work of another? Not simple questions, as Nancy Hall-Duncan, senior curator at the Bruce who assembled the show, makes clear in her catalog essay. As a basic definition she holds a forgery to be ?a work that, by mimicking the style of an artist or replicating his signature, represents itself as being produced by that artist,? constituting ?a deliberate attempt to deceive.? But to complicate matters our perception of what?s real and what?s not has been altered in the present day, she suggests, by the explosion of replication in our society, occasioned by copying machines, digital cameras, sheep cloning and such. In the art world, reproductions occur not only in prints and photography but also in the work of artists like Andy Warhol and Jeff Koons. Some artists have even questioned the value of originality and unique authorship by appropriating the work of others, for example Sherrie Levine?s making her own art statement by rephotographing the work of Walker Evans. Why make fakes? The obvious answer is money, but there are other motives, ranging from anger at the art world and its elite to a desire to show off the forger?s own skills at copying, if not creativity. Mr. Marcy, for example, was arrested in Paris in 1903 not for forgery ? although his house was full of suspect ?antiquities? ? but for his anarchistic beliefs. After his release from prison he started a journal that attacked the capitalist art world, including even forgers. Probably the 20th century?s most famous forger is Han van Meegeren, a Dutch-born faker whose ?Christ and His Disciples at Emmaus? (about 1936-37), shown here, is one of the world?s most familiar examples of the forger?s art. Painted in what he held was the early style of the 17th-century Dutch artist Johannes Vermeer, whose output was brilliant but scanty, the van Meegeren version was laid over an authentic but anonymous 17th-century painting. Roughly based on ?Supper at Emmaus? (about 1605) by Caravaggio, the van Meegeren fooled Dutch art experts and dealers and, according to the exhibition catalog, was bought in 1937 by the Dutch Rembrandt Society for about $4.7 million in today?s dollars, then donated to the Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen in Rotterdam. In 1945, at the end of World War II, Mr. van Meegeren was arrested by Dutch authorities not for forgery but on a charge of collaboration with the enemy. Hoping to help his case, he confessed to forging 14 Dutch masterpieces, including ?Christ and His Disciples.? Like Mr. Lara, he asked for materials to be brought to his home, where in front of six official witnesses he demonstrated the truth of his confession by painting his last work, ?Young Christ Teaching in the Temple.? The collaboration charges were dropped. He was charged instead with forging signatures and sentenced to a year in prison but died six weeks after the sentencing. Today, more than half a century later, the van Meegeren forgeries look grotesque beside the actual work of Vermeer. How could anyone, least of all art experts, have taken them seriously? You may well ask, but there?s no real answer. Take it for granted that, as long as art is with us, fakes and forgeries will be too. ?Fakes and Forgeries: The Art of Deception? will be on view through Sept. 9 at the Bruce Museum, 1 Museum Drive, Greenwich, Conn.; (203) 869-0376 or brucemuseum.org. http://www.nytimes.com/ ------------------------------ _______________________________________________ MSN-list mailing list MSN-list@te.verweg.com http://duvel.te.verweg.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/msn-list End of MSN-list Digest, Vol 7, Issue 117 ****************************************