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October 5, 2011

What does lack of provenance indicate in sales catalogues? Tess Davis of Heritage Watch writes that Sotheby's lack of provenance information from 1988-2010 indicates sale of looted antiquities; Compliance Officer Jane Levine of Sotheby's Disagrees

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

The Getty Center's exhibit in 2011, Gods of Angkor, displayed masterpieces from the National Museum of Cambodia in a small room at the Brentwood complex from February through August. But throughout the 1990s, Sotheby's sold Cambodian art through various auctions. Where did these pieces originate from and were they looted or legally traded?

Tess Davis, assistant director of Heritage Watch, a nonprofit group dedicated to the preservation of cultural property in Southeast Asia, published an article, "Supply and demand: exposing the illicit trade in Cambodian antiquities through a study of Sotheby's auction house" in the July issue of Crime, Law and Social Change (Springer Science+Business Media BV 2011). This is the abstract:
"Looters are reducing countless ancient sites to rubble in their search for buried treasures to sell on the international market. The trafficking of these and other stolen cultural objects has developed into a criminal industry that spans the globe. For numerous reasons, the small Southeast Asian nation of Cambodia presents an opportunity to ground this illicit trade in reality. This paper supplements previous studies that have detailed the pillaging of the country’s archaeological sites, and aims to better comprehend the trafficking of its artifacts, through an investigation of their final destination: the international art market. Of course, the global market for Cambodian art is wide, but Sotheby’s Auction House provides an excellent sample. For over 20 years, its Department of Indian and Southeast Asian Art in New York City has held regular sales of Cambodian antiquities, which have been well published in print catalogues and on the web. These records indicate that Sotheby’s has placed 377 Khmer pieces on the block since 1988—when those auctions began—and 2010. An analysis of these sales presents two major findings. Seventy-one percent of the antiquities had no published provenance, or ownership history, meaning they could not be traced to previous collections, exhibitions, sales, or publications. Most of the provenances were weak, such as anonymous private collections, or even prior Sotheby’s sales. None established that any of the artifacts had entered the market legally, that is, that they initially came from archaeological excavations, colonial collections, or the Cambodian state and its institutions. While these statistics are alarming, in and of themselves, fluctuations in the sale of the unprovenanced pieces can also be linked to events that would affect the number of looted antiquities exiting Cambodia and entering the United States. This correlation suggests an illegal origin for much of the Khmer material put on the auction block by Sotheby’s."
According to journalists Riah Pryor and Melanie Gerlis of The Art Newspaper (October 2011) in their article "Sotheby's calls on author to retract looted art report", Jane Levine, Sotheby's world-wide director of compliance, wrote a letter dated August 26 to Davis requesting that her published article be retracted. According to the journalists: 
Levine objects principally to the report's view that that auction house routinely sold Khmer antiquities that were illegally removed or transported out of Cambodia and says 'the paper is devoid of any credible factual support for such serious and damaging allegations.'
Levine, who spoke on a panel at the meeting commemorating the 40th anniversary of the 1970 Convention in March in Paris at UNESCO about Sotheby's stricter compliance regulations in selling antiquities, 'says a lack of provenance, particularly when limited to a catalogue entry, does not necessarily mean the origin is illegal,' Pryor and Gerlis quoted.

In her article, Davis wrote:
"Sotheby’s has repeatedly been caught auctioning stolen art and looted antiquities, including pieces from Cambodia. For example, Sotheby’s repatriated two sandstone heads and a statuette to Cambodia after they were published by Looting in Angkor: One Hundred Missing Objects, a 1993 report of UNESCO’s International Council of Museums (ICOM), which pleaded for the return of 100 valuable antiquities stolen from the Conservation d’Angkor in the 1980s and early 1990s. In his exposé Sotheby’s: The Inside Story (1997), journalist Peter Watson uncovered that sculptures from Angkor Wat had been smuggled into Sotheby’s London offices disguised as “dolls” and “stone torsos,” on at least two separate occasions."
This history at Sotheby's prompted Davis to look at Sotheby's auction catalogues from 1988 to 2010 in regards to the sale of Cambodian art. The absence of the information about the provenance or the history of the objects prompted Davis to ask about the legality of the sale of these objects, a question raised for the past 40 years since the international UNESCO treaty began the dialogue that only cooperation between countries could stem the looting and sale of looted cultural property. In 2006, a PBS show, Illicit Antiquities, featured Heritage Watch discussing the loss of cultural property from Cambodia.

Davis' survey of Sotheby catalogues over more than 20 years found that almost 70% of the objects for sale omitted information about the history of sale of the objects. Levine objects to Davis' observations and the conclusion that such an omission facilitates the sale of potentially looted objects. Levine and Sotheby's could continue the discussion about the auction house's sale of Cambodian art by now providing the information to document the legal or illegal trade of these objects.

ARCA blog caught up via email with Heritage Watch's founder and director, Dr. Dougald O'Reilly, and asked him about the extent of looting in Cambodia:
Dr. O'Reilly: Looting is still a major problem in Cambodia, yes. The type of looting has evolved from targeting temple sites for sculpture and relief (although this still occurs) to looting prehistoric sites, digging up graves for beads and other artefacts.
Is it important that provenance information be published in an auction house's sales catalogue?
Dr. O'Reilly: Publishing provenance is crucial. If there is no provenance, it is rather suspicious.  It should be part of the auction houses' codes of conduct.
Would I want to know this information before purchasing an object from Cambodia?
Dr. O'Reilly: If you were a buyer, yes you should want to know this unless you care little for the preservation of cultural heritage. One of the problems is that collectors often see themselves as protectors of the past, 'it is safer with me than in the developing country it came from' attitude. Clearly this is a neo-colonialist, out-dated and arrogant point of view but it is always the argument brought to bear. The British government have used it for decades in regard to the Parthenon marbles. Why have they not been returned when there is a state-of-the-art facility in Athens to house them?

October 4, 2011

The Journal of Art Crime, Spring 2011: Diane Joy Charney on "Another look at the 2010 ARCA Conference on the Study of Art Crime: Something for Everyone"

French literature lecturer Diane Charney ties in Romain Gary's "Le Faux" (The Fake), a 20th century story by the WWII hero and novelist. Professor Charney, who has taught at Yale since 1984, describes this multi-layered intriguing story:
A shady, nouveau-riche Neapolitan collector, Baretta, who earned his fortune selling Italian salami, is in the news for having purchased, for a princely sum, what many believe to be a "fake Van Gogh." Seeking to burnish his image through buying expensive art, Baretta pays a visit to the renowned expert, S, who he hopes will authenticate, or at least not challenge, the authenticity of his Van Gogh. S is also a newcomer to Parisian grand society, who has come a long way from his poor Turkish roots. Despite their equally modest backgrounds, however, Baretta and S have very different approaches to the exchange value of art. Among the themes of this richly suspenseful story are an obsession with authenticity in art and in cultural origins, and the valorization of the aesthetic object.
"'Le Faux' can become a lens through which to review the 2010 ARCA conference," writes Charney. Her analysis includes presenters such as Betina Kuzmarov "Rethinking the Qianlong Bronze Heads: Objective versus Aesthetic Visions of Cultural Property"; Judge Arthur Tompkins on an International Art Crime Tribunal; Chris Marinello's "The Role of the Art Loss Register and its Efforts to Recover Stolen Art through the Legitimate Marketplace and the Underworld"; and Colette Marvin on "Curating Art Crime".

You may read this essay by subscribing to The Journal of Art Crime through ARCA's website or by purchasing an individual issue at Amazon.com.

October 3, 2011

The Journal of Art Crime, Spring 2011: "Freeze of BBC License Fee Continues Dream of Art Thief Who Stole Goya's 'Portrait of the Duke of Wellington' from the National Gallery in 1961

In an editorial essay for the Spring 2011 issue of The Journal of Art Crime, editor-in-chief Noah Charney writes about the 50th anniversary of "the only successful theft from London's National Gallery", when a "brazen thief" stole Goya's 'Portrait of the Duke of Wellington' on August 21, 1961.

Since Kempton Bunton, who had been fined twice for refusing to pay the license required to watch television in the UK, claimed that he had always intended to return the painting, he was taking an advantage of an 'odd loophole' in British law. To read further about this case, you may subscribe to The Journal of Art Crime through the ARCA website or purchase the issue through Amazon.com.

October 2, 2011

Stonehill College: "Veteran Art Detectives Discuss Most Notorious Cases at Martin Institute"

Photo: Virginia Curry and Dick Ellis
Here's a link to Stonehill College's website and the post about the lecture by former art police investigators, Virginia Curry (FBI) and Dick Ellis (Scotland Yard). Cases highlighted included "Peter the Cheater"; forger Elmyr de Hory; the thefts at Russborough House; looting of Egyptian antiquities; the Sevso Silver; and the involvement of James "Whitey" Bulger in the 1990 theft of the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum.


October 1, 2011

The Journal of Art Crime, Spring 2011: Q&A with the LAPD Art Theft Detail

In the Spring 2011 issue of The Journal of Art Crime, ARCA Blog Editor-in-chief Catherine Schofield Sezgin interviews Detective Don Hrycyk who has worked on art theft and forgeries since 1994 with the Los Angeles Police Department's Art Theft Detail, the only full-time municipal law enforcement unit in the United States devoted to the investigation of art crimes.

The LAPD Art Theft Detail, founded in 1984, recovered $71 million in stolen art from 1993 through 2008.  In this interview, Detective Hrycyk, a former homicide officer working in South-Central Los Angeles, discusses the size of the problem of art crime in LA, smuggled antiquities, working with international law enforcement agenices, and the biggest challenge the LAPD Art Theft Detail faces in recovering a stolen work of art.

You may obtain a copy of The Journal of Art Crime through subscription at ARCA's website or by ordering an individual issue through Amazon.com.

September 30, 2011

Forgery in South Africa: The Story of Frans Claerhout

A 'fake'

by Toby Orford

Higher prices for art are an inevitable sign of emerging market maturity – and also widespread criminal activity. Although art dealers and auctioneers are discreet about the scope of the problem in South Africa, the sales of art attributed to the artist Frans Claerhout on an internet auction site is blatant evidence that art forgery is an ongoing problem that cannot be ignored or, it seems, stopped.

A Belgian Catholic missionary priest, Frans Claerhout, lived most of his life in the Orange Free State. From 1957 onwards – heavily influenced by Flemish expressionism - Claerhout painted a large number of landscapes and figures. Other media included drawings in charcoal, pen-and-ink and crayon.

In 2002 the artist belatedly acknowledged that a close family friend of 45 years had started independently to copy his work, without his knowledge or involvement, and that “hundreds” of forgeries had been sold as originals in well-known Bloemfontein art gallery.

Claerhout died in 2006. Several years later a suspiciously large number of works are being sold on South African internet auction – and private - websites. Anonymous sellers are advertising works at prices in the region of ZAR 3,000 (approx USD 375) to ZAR 7,000 (approx USD 875). As Artinsure (www.artinsure.co.za) has noted, in a clumsy attempt to manufacture credible provenance, paintings are accompanied by a “Certificate of Authenticity” and, on the back, a reproduction of a supposedly original message from the artist. Unfortunately, the pro forma message does not refer to the artwork to which it is attached -  and is also false.

The quality of the work is inexplicably amateurish and inferior, and obviously inconsistent with the artist’s style, technique and imagery. Moreover, buyers have reported that paintings have arrived with fresh, wet – even smudged – paint, on board that only recently became available in South Africa.

Nevertheless, the tactic of selling fakes very cheaply on the internet has been quite successful. It has been reported that more than 30 such forgeries have been identified. The low prices are both a temptation and a warning. It is usually the less wealthy and less experienced purchaser that is deceived. Tempted by greed to “beat the market”, even those who suspect that they have been deceived probably don’t care. Or, for such a low outlay, they are prepared to take the risk – or to turn a blind eye to what is going on.  
Cecile Loedolff, an art curator, said in 2002 that the Absa Bank Collection had decided a long time ago to stop buying Claerhout paintings:

" I don't touch a Claerhout ….. I find it very strange that nobody became suspicious earlier. In the last few years, Claerhouts have been issued at the speed of white light."

People are naturally concerned about the authenticity of anything attributed to Claerhout and this will always be bad news for the value of his art. This may explain why as recently as Monday 26 September 2011 several Claerhout paintings failed to sell at a major fine art auction in Cape Town.

The South African Police are investigating. Previous police investigations have failed and a lack of training, experience and resources means that criminal prosecutions are unlikely. Unfortunately www.bidorbuy.co.za/ is not taking any action, because (it says) it has yet to be presented with any “hard, factual evidence or proof” and has not been contacted by the authorities.

And so, nearly ten years later, the uncertainty, which some lamely predicted would “sort itself out”, continues. The general reluctance to confront and stop such obviously fraudulent activity is surprising.

Privately funded litigation might be the only way to break this vicious circle. Robert Badenhorst is an artist and gallery owner who agrees that Claerhout values have dropped. He is currently considering whether to overcome inertia and to organise a private investigation in order to collect the evidence that is necessary to prosecute the sellers. Civil litigation against them is also a possibility. Although the buyers who have been cheated want to recover their losses, the main objective of any legal action would be to “name and shame” – and stop the forgeries. This is necessary in order to protect Claerhout’s legacy. But it is also necessary to protect the reputation of South African art in general. 

© Toby Orford 2011

September 29, 2011

Thursday, September 29, 2011 - , No comments

Evidence of changing attitudes: The Art Loss Register recovers valuable medallion on behalf of the Castle Friedenstein Foundation in Gotha Germany

When SJ Phillips, a jewellery and art dealer, offered to sell a rare 17th century gold medallion to Boston's Museum of Fine Arts museum the institute contacted the Art Loss Register who confirmed that the item was on it's database of stolen works, and once contacted with this information, the seller offered to return the item to it's pre-World War II owners. You may read the press release on the Art Loss Register's website here.

September 28, 2011

The Journal of Art Crime, Spring 2011: Noah Charney's Q&A with Alan Hirsch

Williams College's Professor Alan Hirsch spoke with Noah Charney for a Q&A column for the Spring 2011 issue of The Journal of Art Crime.

Hirsch is author of For the People: What the Constitution Really Says About Your Rights (Free Press, 1998) and Talking Heads: Political Talk Shows and Their Star Pundits (St. Martin's, 1991). His most recent book is The Beauty of Short Hops: How Chance and Circumstance Confound the Moneyball Approach to Baseball (McFarland, 2011).
Why, you might ask, [Charney writes] is he being interviewed for a column about art historical mysteries and art crime? Because he is the world's foremost expert in the 1961 theft of Goya's "Portrait of the Duke of Wellington," stolen from the National Gallery in London -- he's currently writing a book on it.
Hirsch addresses the issues of art history, law, and true crime as involved in the Goya Theft. You may read this interview in the Spring 2011 issue of The Journal of Art Crime by subscribing through ARCA's website or purchasing individual issues through Amazon.com.

September 27, 2011

Tuesday, September 27, 2011 - , No comments

"The Three Elephants" are Fighting For Survival in Court: Moral Rights Through the Prism of the South African Constitution

'Elephant' by artist Andries Botha under construction
Press release issued by Toby Orford, TOBY ORFORD ART LAW, who attended ARCA's Third International Art Crime Conference.

In order to protect his “Three Elephants” artwork – a life-size sculpture at the Warwick Triangle Viaduct in Durban – the internationally respected artist Andries Botha has been forced to institute legal proceedings. The case is brought against eThekwini Municipality and other parties, including the Minister of Arts and Culture, Mr Paul Mashatile. Botha will be represented in the Durban High Court proceedings by the prominent constitutional and administrative law Advocates Gilbert Marcus SC and Max du Plessis.

The dispute has generated much public interest since February 2010 and the dilemma of Andries Botha and “The Three Elephants” has been reported on extensively in the media, in South Africa and internationally.

At the heart of the dispute is the fate of “The Three Elephants”. “If eThekwini has its way, my sculpture, which was approved and commissioned by them, will be torn down”, said Andries Botha. Although eThekwini concluded a contract with Botha to build three elephants emerging from a sea of stones, it changed its mind in June 2010. Having formally ordered Botha to stop working on the public sculpture, eThekwini passed a Resolution which approved the destruction of two of the elephants and the incorporation of the remaining elephant into a new urban design concept consisting of the “Big Five” animals.

eThekwini's about-turn is closely linked to rumours that local ANC politicians are fearful that “The Three Elephants” are too closely related to the official symbol of the Inkatha Freedom Party:

“This is ironic because the elephants were specially chosen – by eThekwini - as an apolitical African metaphor for tolerance, co-existence and due consideration for a vulnerable eco-system”, said Botha.

Botha wants to complete “The Three Elephants” project in the public interest, and to receive payment for the work he and his employees have done. Notwithstanding Botha's efforts to find a solution to the stand-off, eThekwini has refused to give an undertaking to safeguard the integrity of “The Three Elephants” – which means that the elephants may be removed at any time.

Andries Botha says that he has been left with no choice but to seek the court's protection. His legal representative Toby Orford of Toby Orford Art Law has been instructed to lodge application papers at the Durban High Court. Toby Orford confirmed that the papers have been filed and are being served on the respondents. According to Toby Orford, “The purpose of the application is fully set out in the application papers but it is no secret that it is an application for a declaration to confirm Andries Botha's rights, a review of eThekwini's decision and an interdict prohibiting eThekwini (and others) from modifying, altering or destroying “The Three Elephants”. Andries also has separate claims in contract and delict against the contractors involved in the Warwick Triangle project.”

Botha's case is that eThekwini's decision to remove two of the elephant figures is a decision to destroy, mutilate or change a work of art. eThekwini's decision amounts to censorship and interference, which violates the artist's freedom of artistic expression which is guaranteed by the Constitution.

Above all, eThekwini's decision is a breach of the moral rights of an artist. Toby Orford explained further:

“Moral rights are known in copyright law as the author's “moral right” and are closely derived from Article 6 of the Berne Convention, 1886. An artist's moral rights (as set out in section 20 of the Copyright Act) are infringed when without his approval his right of paternity in the work is not acknowledged or (as in this case) an unjustifiable distortion, mutilation or other modification of the work takes place or is threatened.”

It is time that the moral right of the artist is upheld in South Africa, as seen through the wide-angle lens of section 16 of the Constitution:

“Art and artists have clear rights. Unfortunately, it appears that the only way to protect those rights and the public's interest in The Three Elephants is by recourse to the courts. This decision has been taken only after careful deliberation and unsuccessful efforts to broker a compromise solution”, said Toby Orford.

Toby Orford can be reached at toby@tobyorford.com OR www.tobyorford.com.

September 26, 2011

The Journal of Art Crime, Spring 2011: Noah Charney's Q&A with Peter Watson

Peter Watson, the critically-acclaimed author, answered questions posed by Noah Charney for the Q&A column for the fifth issue of The Journal of Art Crime.

Mr. Watson has been a senior editor at the London Sunday Times, the New York correspondent of the daily Times, and a columnist for the Observer. He has also written regularly for the New York Times and the Spectator. He is the author of several books of cultural and intellectual history, including Ideas: A History of Thought and Invention and, most recently The German Genius. His work on the art world and art crime includes The Caravaggio Conspiracy; Sotheby's: the Inside Story; and The Medici Conspiracy. From 1997 to 2007 he was a research associate at the McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research at the University of Cambridge.

Charney asks Watson about writing, his first interest in the dark side of the art world, and his theory about the fate of the Caravaggio Nativity, and his opinion as to the best way to curb art crime in the future.

You may subscribe to The Journal of Art Crime through the ARCA website or purchase individual issues through Amazon.com.