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February 10, 2015

Tuesday, February 10, 2015 - , 2 comments

"Portrait of Isabella d'Este" attributed to Leonardo Da Vinci siezed in Lugano, Switzerland.

By Lynda Albertson and Stefano Alessandrini


A painting, the ”Portrait of Isabella d'Este, attributed to Leonardo Da Vinci, has been recovered in Lugano, Switzerland as the result of a complex joint-operation involving the Italian Public Prosecutors in Pesaro, the Guardia di Finanza of Pesaro and the Ancona squad of the Comando Carabinieri per la Tutela del Patrimonio Culturale in cooperation with Swiss law enforcement authorities who executed a seizure request for International Judicial assistance (Letters rogatory).


The lengthy case investigation began in August 2013 when investigators in Italy identified that an attorney in Pesaro had been contracted to quietly sell the painting, purportedly held in a Swiss bank vault,  on behalf of an Italian family for no less than 95 million euro.

The portrait had created an international stir earlier when Professor Carlo Pedretti, Armand Hammer chair of Leonardo Studies at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) attributed the artwork to Leonardo Da Vinci.  Dr. Pedretti had matched the painting to an acknowledged sketch drawn by Da Vinci in 1499 or 1450 which depicts Isabella d'Este, Marchioness of Mantua.  This chalk on paper portrait hangs on view at the Louvre Museum in Paris and was likely sketched by Da Vinci when he was on his way to Venice from Mantova.  There is also a similar one in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, which are the only two confirmed likenesses of her by the artist.

A second world acknowledged expert on Renaissance man and Leonardo, Dr. Martin Kemp, professor emeritus of the history of art at Trinity College, Oxford, doubted the likelihood that this painting was an actual work of art by da Vinci stating that “canvas was not used by Leonardo or anyone in his production line."

If the authentication of the painting is correct, it will be a historic discovery.  Of the generally-accepted twenty-three major extant artworks attributed to Da Vinci the medium of choice has always been wooden boards, frequently of poplar or paper.  But regardless of the disputed attribution, it  appears that the painting was illegally exported from Italy without benefit of a  proper export license and while it is not clear yet if the family moved the painting to Switzerland for fear of theft or for fear of taxes, its removal severely violates Italian law.
Italy's strict rules requires that any work of art that is more than 50 years old and made by an artist who has died requires a license if it is to be exported.  This holds true for temporary moves as well as permanent sales which makes the lack of paperwork on this artwork noteworthy and highly suspect.  Italy's law art the movement of artworks was passed in 1939 specifically to prevent the country's masterpieces of ancient and Renaissance art from leaving its borders.

Back in Italy, it is expected that the oil of canvas painting will undergo further evaluation to determine if the work should be confirmed conclusively as being attributed to Leonardo Da Vinci or "in the style of".  The painting, measuring 61x46.5 cm assuredly matches the chalk on paper sketch of the Marchioness of Mantua in the Louvre and she is known to have written two letters to Da Vinci, though both were requesting artworks depicting a young Christ.

Isabella d'Este, was a collector of antiquities, a patron of art, and one of the most fashionable and powerful women of the Italian Renaissance.  A patron to other important painters including Giovanni Bellini, Raphael, and Titian, so it would not be unlikely that a request for a portrait might also have made during their acquaintance.  One potential clue in the paintings favor occurred in 1517.  While in France, Da Vinci showed a series of paintings to Cardinal Luigi d'Aragona. On October 11th, at Blois Castle, de Beatis commented on two portraits, one referencing “a certain lady of Lombardy” which could be d'Este along with a passing reference to a certain Signora Gualanda.

The spell of Leonardo and his mysterious women continues.

February 8, 2015

Sunday, February 08, 2015 - , No comments

Dr. Kathleen Whitaker, Former Chief Curator of Los Angeles' Southwest Museum of the American Indian, on the site's designation as "National Treasure"

The saga continues for the venerable, 115 year-old Southwest Museum of the American Indian (SWM), and it’s Casa de Adobe, (founded in 1914) a reconstruction of a Spanish colonial home - both designated herein as The Southwest Museum Site.

A public announcement made on January 22, 2015 in Los Angeles, CA revealed the site has been designated a “National Treasure”  by The National Trust for Historic Preservation (NTHP),  a privately funded, non-profit Washington, D.C.-based organization.  With this declaration it is hoped by many that there will be a brighter future for the oldest, but neglected museum.

The “Treasure” designation is part of a NTHP program that identifies historically significant American landmarks facing actual or imminent threat of deterioration and loss of use.  Such sites are selected based on: integrity, contribution to America’s diverse history, and preservation strategies that can be applied to other sites.  It is hoped by the NTHP and its partners - the Autry National Center (that retains stewardship of the museum), and Los Angeles City Councilman Gil Cedillo’s office - this recognition will bring national attention to the financially depleted Southwest Museum and create new interest in funding from sources within and beyond the local community.  A remapping of the site is their goal.

The Southwest Museum was founded in 1907 by Charles Fletcher Lummis, an American ethnologist and later the city editor for The Los Angeles Times.  It grew from the vastness of Los Angeles’ cultural diversity, educational and environmental ideologies.  For many, the museum’s buildings with their revival mission and Californiano hacienda style architecture carry an identity rooted in California history.  And the renowned collection it once housed gives focus to a Native American and Hispanic aesthetic bringing forth the themes and intentions of culture that the public has come to expect.  Moreover, is generally acknowledged that the site’s first acts of occupation as a museum have left a core of connection in the memory of, and identity with the people of Southern California.

Barbara Pahl, who heads the regional district for National Trust for Historic Preservation acknowledged: “The amount of passion that has surrounded this museum makes it clear how significant and special it is.  This is a very important place and deserves a future.” (NTHP meeting held at SWM. 1/22/15)

At the January 22 meeting, Pahl highlighted four recurring themes and opportunities the partnership will seek, including: 1) Establish a framework and parameters, 2) Identify community priorities and market analysis, 3) Build a consensus around a shared vision, and 4) Develop a business plan for the shared vision.  Toward these goals, and over the next 18 months the NTHP, The Autry National Center, and Councilman Gil Cedillo’s office in concert with the community, will gather ideas, and build a general agreement regarding a future use for the Southwest Museum Site. 

There was no clarity as to who would fund this new partnership study; and the organizers did not open the meeting to discussion, nor solicit questions from the audience.  Autry president W. Richard West, Jr. did note, however, that funding and other resources “is something we’ll find out as we go along (NTHP meeting held at SWM, 1/22/15).” In addition, a broad-ranging compendium of discussants and organizers will be formed in association with this partnership, and the discussion will be open to all ideas with brainstorming and analysis of The Southwest Museum Site’s many possible uses.  If individuals would like to contribute to the discussion, the following website address was provided for one’s thoughts: www.treasureswm.org.

West also declared in a Los Angeles Times article (1/22/15) and again at the public meeting “I see this [partnership] as an uplifting turning point in this saga that gets us out of the mired past and toward a collective and collaborative future.  It lifts us beyond where we have been, to get our sights on where we should end up.”  He added that the Autry conglomerate has “respect for the site’s history” and commitment to the Southwest Museum’s buildings and is looking forward “to a sustainable future” for this facility.  Mrs. Jackie Autry was not present at the meeting.  However in support of West’s remarks, two Autry board members Michael Heumann and Tom Lee were in attendance.

In addition there was a large turnout of supporters, critics, and skeptics that included members of the local community,  Occidental College president, Jonathan Veitch, Native American organization representatives and leaders, former Southwest Museum staff members, and the Highland Park Heritage Trust.  Carol Teutsch, a member of the Friends of the Southwest Museum Coalition and Roundtable that has represented past community opposition to the closing of the Southwest Museum stated to the LA Times (1/22/15): “Looking for solutions that are sustainable is something we welcome.  Our suggestion to the National Trust has been that [reviving a museum at the site] be the priority until it’s proved nonviable.”  

Clearly, on the surface, the gesture to remap the Southwest Museum Site is well-meaning, offering new possible continuation and purpose for an aged site.  Yet in quiet, sidebar conversations by doubters at the January 22 meeting, it was suggested the action might be yet another smoke screen by the Autry National Center intended to discourage further opposition and litigation between them and the local residents of the Mount Washington/Highland Park environs, and Southwest Museum supporters.  A second concern, which was more to the point, was that the “partners” - based on history and past experience - are thought to not have the financial or other resources to address the current site’s crisis and that additional meetings, studies and brainstorming may be further exercises in futility.”  Beginning in the mid-1980s there were discussions between the Southwest Museum and the County of Los Angeles regarding a  recast of the museum.  Such discussions occurred again in 1992 when the Southwest Museum was contemplating a move from its present site, and this was later followed by several Blue Ribbon mayoral committees in the 1990s and early 2000.  All previous discussions, studies and brainstorming failed.

Underpinning this new announcement is the idea that any future use of the building site remains open to discussion, and the outcome might not include its original use as a museum.  It is this latter thought that led to an early contentious relationship between the local Mount Washington/Highland Park community Coalition, Southwest Museum supporters and the Autry National Center.  In 2003, shortly after the “merger” of the Southwest and Autry museums, the newly formed Autry National Center began shutting down the historic Los Angeles site, leaving the Braun Research Library open by appointment only.  To further fuel the growing dissension, there was a complete absorption of the Southwest Museum’s ethnographically and historically important Native American and Hispanic collections, the library, and ethnobotanical garden with little of it being exhibited, and all of it remaining underutilized.  Southwest Museum supporters cried foul.  

The Friends of the Southwest Museum Coalition viewed the commitment made by the Autry “to operate the Southwest Museum….” as a deliberate failure and a violation of the merger agreement.  The Autry, however, has completed one comprehensive conservation project on a portion of the museum’s collection, but says “it lacks the resources to run the Mount Washington site as a full-time museum in tandem with the main Autry museum in Griffith Park” (Los Angeles Times; 1/22/15).” 

Moreover, exhibitions, operating hours, extensive staff reduction, cutbacks and shutdowns in programming at both facilities have curtailed any further efforts to operate the Southwest Museum Site.  Yet despite the depleted economic concerns cited by the Autry administration, they submitted plans to the City of Los Angeles to create a $175 million expansion plan for the Griffith Park Museum.  By 2009, the Friends of the Southwest Museum Coalition rallied significant City Council and other support. They filed a lawsuit that resulted in the City of Los Angeles rejecting the expansion unless the Autry reopened the Southwest Museum to full operation.  A stalemate resulted.  This created further vitriol where critics and some city overseers saw this as confirmation that the Autry would eventually abandon The Southwest Museum and The Casa de Adobe. 

In a reactive, almost half-hearted effort to create compromise, one gallery in the Southwest Museum was reopened in early 2013 offering a revamped Pueblo pottery exhibition that was originally curated in 1989.  This has now been on exhibit for a year and a half, and expects to remain on display through at least 2016-2017.  It is open to the public on Saturdays only.  The Casa de Adobe has been completely closed and its collection removed. The museum’s renowned Native American collection has also been moved to a newly purchased Autry National Center facility in Burbank, CA  - now currently under renovation.  

Despite these past frictions, the meeting postured a positive outlook.  It will be interesting to follow the transactions and negotiations in the next 18 months and it is always a positive sign when all the “players” are sincere and proactive - not merely symbolic.   It is hoped there will be a common attitude toward bringing together different sensibilities and knowledge, thereby enriching the Southwest Museum Site, not sending it into further disharmony and deterioration.  The Site must be given a new license to exist in reconciliation with the social and cultural needs of its surrounding community.  Over the years it has been no secret many would like it to see it carry forward cultural themes and concerns, and remain a domain of social interaction and community engagement.  


Kathleen Whitaker, PhD
Research Associate, Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County
Former Director, Indian Arts Research Center School for Advanced Research, Santa Fe, NM

Former Chief Curator, Southwest Museum, Los Angeles, CA

The Los Angeles Time's article by Mike Boehm, "National preservation trust tabs Southwest Museum a national treasure", was published on January 22, 2015.

February 7, 2015

Saturday, February 07, 2015 - ,,,,,,,,, No comments

Sir, how much is that (2nd Century B.C.E.) Vase in the Window? Part I

2015 has barely started and antiquities traffickers have begun making headlines in multiple countries.  In this three part series, ARCA will explore three current trafficking cases in detail to underscore that the ownership and commodification of the past continues. 

Part I - Operation Aureus - Bulgaria's Blues

On January 30th the State Agency for National Security (DANS) in Bulgaria reported that it had conducted two significant trafficking investigations into illegally circulated ancient and medieval objects and coins.  The two-month long probe started November 26, 2014 and ran until January 26, 2015 during which time DANS officers conducted thirty-six searches in eleven cities seizing a total of 2,289 objects protected by Bulgaria’s Cultural Heritage Act.  The Act encompasses intangible and tangible immovable and movable heritage as an aggregate of cultural values which bear historical memory and national identity and have their own academic or cultural value.   SANS reported that they detained several individuals for their participation in an organized criminal group trafficking in antiquities but their names have not been currently been released to the public, citing the ongoing nature of the ongoing investigation.

Google Maps Looters

Google Maps Looters
From an ancient world perspective, Bulgaria has some of the richest archaeological sites in Europe.  From an economic perspective, regions such as Severozapaden, have some of the lowest-ranked economies in Bulgaria and the European Union.  That makes archaeologically rich areas, like Ratiaria, which is located on the Danube River, near the modern-day city of Archar, in the Vidin District of Northwest Bulgaria particularly vulnerable.  With unemployment high and limited work possibilities since the fall of Communism, it's not surprising that subsistence looters have treated the site as their own personal Automatic Antiquities Machine.  The territory has been so heavily looted in the past twenty years that even a Google Street View car managed to snap shots of a local looting crew while mapping area roads.

Working with shovels and metal detectors, looters generally make little, often passing their finds on to local middlemen dealers, like this one arrested in Ruptsi, Bulgaria in 2011. Hiding in plain sight,  the businessman was known among the locals and among treasure hunters as an active dealer in cultural goods in the region and was brazen enough to keep a storage of heavier items in his garden.

Where There are Looters there are Buyers and Not all Roads Lead to Rome

While the number of items seized in this 2015 Bulgarian investigation is distressingly large, the types of objects confiscated are all too familiar to art police whose investigative work revolves around combating heritage looting and smuggling.  To those who examine heritage trafficking in search of patterns, there are also a few interesting points to consider.

The Bulgarian investigators seized everything from pottery and figurines, bronze and precious metal, jewellery of all types, ancient and medieval seals, religious crosses and icons, pieces of marble, and even Thracian weapons and horse-riding decorations. The objects have common denominators: they were, for the most part, easy to traffic because of their small size and they were the types of objects buyers willingly purchase, and with increasing frequency via online auction sites. 

Whether or not these items were destined for sites similar to eBay would be a hypothesis that hasn't be proven, but what we can underscore is that there is an ongoing supply market furnishing ancient objects for online transactions.  Platforms like eBay, with millions of auctions annually, are difficult for law enforcement to police, but easy sites for traffickers to navigate to connect with potential buyers internationally. The seller can be relatively anonymous and as their ratings are built on successful sales with satisfied customers, shady dealers can add or drop seller profiles to masquerade as being ethically legitimate.

Who is their preferred buyer?  

The individual who is willing to purchase heritage objects from anonymous suppliers.  The novice collector or aficionado who is not worried about owning objects which might turn out to be fake or might not have a pristine collection history that explains the context of the item, where it has originated from or who has been its custodian up until the point of sale.  For the purpose of this article, ARCA has highlighted three current online auctions with similar Bulgarian items to those seized during the Aureus investigation.

Auction I lists a purported 9th century BC Ancient Bronze Thracian Fibula. The object was being offered by a seller in Bulgaria but listed nothing in the way of collection history as was absent in most of the auctions we viewed.  Provenance isn't something auction participants seem to require in order to consider an item attractive for purchase.

Auction II claims to be of a rare iron Thracian battle weapon, CIRCA IV-Ic. B.C. This auctioneer is reportedly UK-based, applying a layer of legitimacy, but the item's auction detail states the object will be shipped to the buyer "from Eastern Europe".  Again there is no collection history and the buyer is far removed from the trafficker.
Auction III lists an object on sale described as an Ancient Thracian Honrseman Bronze Figure. This auction item has purportedly travelled a long way and is now being sold by a Canadian antique trader, again without benefit of a collection history indicating how it made its way to North America. The seller does not appear to be a novice and states he has been in the trading business since 1970.

Interesting Observations

During the Bulgarian DANS investigation law enforcement officers also seized metal detectors and specific geophysical detecting instruments used to determination of the exact position and depth of objects while still in the ground thus showing that these devices are not used exclusively by law-abiding recreationists willing to abide by established laws.

Like with Italy's Gianfranco Becchina case, officers confiscated binders with multiple photos, auction house catalogs and invoices indicating that the scale of items being sold was a fluid enterprise level operation and not a casual one-off sale. 

Landscapes of looted terrain in Bulgaria have a similar moonscape pattern to those we have seen repeatedly in satellite imagery in Syria and Iraq.  This should be highlighted as proof that large-scale antiquities looting is not solely a funding source for criminal groups such as ISIS in conflict zones but also a source for revenue streams in economically challenging areas with a high rate of under or unemployment.  In this Google Street View image one can see an example of the looting pits that cover large swaths of Bulgaria terrain as well as a brazen group of looters working in broad daylight as an organized team.
 
In addition to searching workshops, DANS agents undertook an evaluation of Bulgaria's largest private museum in search of irregularities. The businessman who owns this vast collection was listed in law enforcement press releases using his initials, "VB".   The Bulgarian press has indicated that the initials represent millionaire Vasil Bozhkov who is known to have a vast collection of Roman, Greek and Thracian works of art and whose coin collection is listed as one of the most extensive in the country. Bozhkov is also the founder of The Thrace Foundation an organization active in heritage-based events.

Previously, in January 2009, Petar Kostadinov published an article reporting that Vasil Bozhkov and Bulgarian prosecutor Kamen Mihov were alleged to have been involved in government-level corruption plot devised to prevent the extradition of international art dealer Ali Abou’Taam to Egypt on antiquities trafficking charges.

The allegations presented in the newspaper article cited an email published by Dutch private art investigator Arthur Brand to the Museum Security Network mailing list.  A representative of Phoenix Ancient Art replied to David Gill's Looting Matters blog with this letter relating to the detention of Ali Aboutaam in Sofia.  No mention of Mr. Bozhkov's relationship with the art dealer was made.

Eight months later, a diplomatic cable from the US Embassy in Sofia, dated September 11, 2009, released first via WikiLeaks and later republished by the Sofia News Agency Novelite indicated that Bozhkov has been long suspected of having ties to organized crime.

On January 14, 2015, the US ambassador to Bulgaria Marcie B. Ries and Bulgaria’s Culture Minister Petar Stoyanovich signed a memorandum of understanding at the National History Museum in Boyana on the outskirts of Sofia.  This US/Bulgarian MOU calls for the protection of cultural heritage and is designed to prevent the illicit trade of Bulgarian cultural heritage items into the United States and to allow the return of said items to Bulgaria of any such item confiscated. 

ARCA will continue to follow this case as details on the investigation are released.

By Lynda Albertson, ARCA











(Photos: dans.bg)
References Used in this Article

http://www.all-sa.com/GaleriasCataluna.html

http://html.ancientegyptonline.org/spain-recovers-egyptian-artifacts-in-smuggling-ring/

http://archaeology.archbg.net/

http://www.elmundo.es/cultura/2015/01/28/54c8d1f5e2704e4e0c8b457f.html

https://www.europol.europa.eu/content/european-police-arrest-35-and-recover-thousands-stolen-cultural-artefacts

https://frognews.bg/news_85185/DANS-pogna-V-B-proveriavat-antichnata-mu-kolektsiia/

https://www.google.com/maps/place/Colonia+Ulpia+Ratiaria/@43.5557251,24.675708,9z

http://www.guardiacivil.es/ca/prensa/noticias/5219.html

http://www.lavanguardia.com/sucesos/20150128/54425193062/desmantelada-banda-arte-egipcio-ilegal.html

http://lootingmatters.blogspot.it/2009/01/sofia-detention-comment-from-phoenix.html

http://m.novinite.com/articles/162960/Bulgaria+Busts+Int%27l+Antiquities+Trafficking+Ring

http://www.novinite.com/articles/130391/WikiLeaks%3A+US+CDA+Report+on+Top+Bulgarian+Criminals#sthash.1qrWNiES.dpuf

http://www.museum-security.org/2009/01/bulgarian-prosecutor-kamen-mihov-and-bulgarian-millionaire-and-art-collector-vassil-bozhkov-were-alleged-to-have-been-involved-in-an-elaborate-scheme-to-let-international-art-dealer-ali-aboutaam-esc/

http://www.museum-security.org/2009/01/press-release-the-continuing-story-about-art-dealer-ali-abou%E2%80%99taam-can-justice-be-bought-in-bulgaria/

http://www.researchgate.net/publication/264380100_Pegman_caught_looters_in_the_act!_How_digital_media_can_help_raising_awareness_of_looting_and_destruction_of_archaeological_sites._The_example_of_Ratiaria._The_European_Archaeologist._Issue_41_Summer_2014_25-27

http://sofiaecho.com/2009/01/21/666138_bulgarian-prosecutor-art-collector-conspired-to-free-controversial-art-dealer-journalist-alleges

http://sofiaglobe.com/2015/01/30/bulgaria-busts-international-antiquities-trafficking-ring/

http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/archaeology-in-crisis-bulgaria-plagued-by-grave-robbers-a-524976.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EBay

February 6, 2015

Friday, February 06, 2015 - , No comments

United States District Judge Catherine C. Blake denied the motion for reconsideration filed by the Ancient Coin Collectors Guild

After careful consideration the United States District Judge Catherine C. Blake denied the motion for reconsideration filed by the Ancient Coin Collectors Guild (ACCG, “the Guild”), of her June 3, 2014 opinion in the the Fourth Circuit’s ruling in Ancient Coin Collectors Guild v. U.S. Customs and Border Protection, 698 F.3d 171 (4th Cir. 2012).

Her original ruling in the United States District Court for the District of Maryland affirmed the government’s motion to strike noting much of the answer and most, if not all, of the affirmative defenses stating the ACCG sought to re-litigate issues concerning the validity of the regulations and the government’s decision to impose import restrictions on certain Cypriot and Chinese coins.
This case was earlier presented to the United States Court of Appeals, Fourth Circuit who unanimously ruled that the U.S. Customs and Border Protection did not act outside of its authority under the Convention on Cultural Property Implementation Act in its seizure of import restricted Chinese and Cypriot coins in this long and complicated case, rejecting the claimant's invitation to "engage in a searching review of the government's implementation of CPIA import restrictions on Chinese and Cypriot cultural property."

February 5, 2015

Thursday, February 05, 2015 - ,,,,,,,,, No comments

Pieter Paul Rubens, “The daughters of Cetrops find the serpent-shaped baby”

Posted originally in its entirety with permission from the author and Plundered Art. 

The daughters of Cetrops find the serpent-shaped baby, Rubens
by Marc Masurovsky

What’s in a provenance? According to one saying, it is all in the eye of the beholder. Should it be? After all, there are those who believe, truly believe, that a provenance is optional and is a mere adornment for the art object being offered for sale, traded, loaned or otherwise donated. The art market has learned that an “interesting” provenance can enhance the value of the art object being offered up, especially if it has survived the vagaries of war and genocide.

Still, others think that a provenance is the closest thing to a legal document. Now, why would these “others” say such a thing? Well, for one thing, a provenance should give those who come to museums to view, who go to auction houses and galleries to acquire, some basic information about where the object came from, who the current owner is, who the previous owners were. Shouldn’t the provenance meet some or all of those requirements? And if so, how complete should it be? After all, we don’t want to give the wrong impression about an object, we surely don’t want to rewrite its history, we don’t want to lie about the true history of an object. Do we?

For the sake of the exercise, let’s use a painting by Pieter Paul Rubens, “The daughters of Cetrops find the serpent-shaped baby Erichthonius, 1615, an oil on panel, painted by the 17th master in 1615 or so we think.

The online art historical database of the world-renown “Rijksbureau V. Kunsthistorische Documentatie” (RKD), a fascinating softly interactive collection of information about Dutch paintings and their collectors, proves to be most useful and the departure point for our exercise.

According to the RKD, the provenance reads as follows:

Gilhofer & Ranschburg, Luzern, 1934-11-30, lot nr. 40 
niet verkocht (volgens veiling cat. 7-8 december 2011)
Hans W. Lange, Berlijn, Collection B., Vienna, 1938-11-18 - 1938-11-19, lot nr. 180
Lange, Hans W. (Berlijn) 1938-11-18, lot nr. 180 
, het betreft hier de gedwongen verkoop van de collectie van Victor Bloch
Lempertz (Keulen) 2006-11-18, afb. colour reproduction, lotnr. 1133 
, met opgave van herkomst en literatuur
Sotheby's (Londen (Engeland)) 2011-12-07 - 2011-12-08, afb. colour reproduction, lot nr. 198 
, met opgave van herkomst en literatuur;
Dorotheum (Wenen) 2012-04-18, afb. colour reproduction, lot nr. 606 .

private collection Colas de Marolles, Frankrijk
private collection Viktor Bloch, Wenen 1938 waarschijnlijk in 1934 niet verkocht. In 1938 in Berlijn verkocht als ' collectie B., niet-arische collectie', d.w.z. joods (zie Held 1980)
Particuliere collectie / Private collection 1938 - sinds de late jaren 1930 (volgens veilingcat. 7-8- december 2011)
Hans W. Lange, Berlin
Galerie Jean-François Heim, Parijs/Bazel 2014 - Shown at the European Fine Arts Fair, Maastricht, March 2014

The Lempertz auction house in Köln, Germany, which is a habitual reseller of Holocaust-era plundered art objects, provided the following information for the Rubens painting in its sales information on November 18, 2006:

Slg. Victor Bloch, Wien;
Auktion XVIII, Gilhofer u. Ranschburg, Luzern, 30.11.1934, Lot 40;
Auktion H. W. Lange, Berlin, 18./19.11.1938, Lot 180;
seit dem Ende der Dreißigerjahre in einer westdeutschen Privatsammlung.

The Sotheby’s auction house sold the painting on December 7, 2011. Its sales catalogue included the following information about the Rubens painting:

Dr. Victor Bloch, Vienna;
His sale, Lucerne, Gilhofer and Ranschburg, 30 November 1934, lot 40, where unsold;
His forced sale ("Collection B. Vienna"), Berlin, H.W. Lange, 18-19 November 1938, lot 180;
In the possession of the family of the present owner since the end of the 1930s.

It added: “This work is sold pursuant to a settlement agreement between the current owner and the heirs of Victor Bloch...At the time of the sale in 1938, this work was accompanied by the expertise of Max J. Friedländer and Gustav Glück.”

The Dorotheum auction house in Vienna, Austria, sold the Rubens painting on April 18, 2012 and disclosed no provenance information.

We know from the RKD provenance that the Rubens painting ended up with the gallery of Jean-François Heim in Basel, Switzerland. Mr. Heim’s gallery provided the following information online:
Colas de Marolles heraldic symbol
Colas de Marolles family Collection
Probably Van Schorrel Sale, Antwerp, 1774
Dr. Victor Bloch Collection, Vienna (as Peter Paul Rubens) Sale XVIII, Gilhofer & Ranschburg, Lucerne, 30/11/1934, lot 40
Sale H. W. Lange, Berlin, 18-19/11/1938, lot 180
From the end of the 1930s in a private collection in West Germany
Sale Lempertz, Cologne, 18/11/2006, lot 1133 (as Peter Paul Rubens)

To sum things up, as far as the extant literature allows us to conclude, the oldest owner to be identified for the 1615 painting by Rubens was a French collector by the name of Colas de Marolles who presumably acquired the painting in 1774 at the van Schorrel sale in Antwerp. Jean-François Heim is the only one who mentioned this XVIIIth century historical tidbit. The painting ended up in the collection of Dr. Victor Bloch, of Vienna, at an unknown date. Dr. Bloch tried to sell the painting on November 30, 1934 at Gilhofer and Ranschburg, in Lucerne, Switzerland, as lot No. 40. But the painting failed to find a buyer, a fact noted by Lempertz, Sotheby’s and Heim.

The Nazis annexed Austria in an Anchluss on March 10, 1938. Dr. Bloch, being of Jewish descent, was subject to anti-Jewish racial laws. The Hans W. Lange auction house in Berlin, Germany, a veteran of “Jew auctions”, the swift liquidation or “forced sale” of movable property belonging to persons of Jewish descent. The property of Dr. Bloch was listed in the Lange catalogue as non-aryan, a tip-off to the potential buyer that this sale was a fire sale. Lange sold the Rubens without the consent of Dr. Bloch, to an unknown buyer on November 18-19, 1938 as Lot No. 180, a fact noted by the RKD and Sotheby’s. The Lempertz auction house and Heim failed to indicate in their provenances for the Rubens painting the fact that the Bloch sale, a non-Aryan sale, a forced sale, occurred within the context of Nazi anti-Jewish policies of economic and racial persecution aimed at dispossessing all persons of Jewish descent of their property, movable and immovable. Anyone reading their provenances would have to assume that the sale at Lange was licit and the buyer who acquired the Rubens painting had obtained it in good faith despite the fact that the Lange sale was well-advertised as involving non-Aryan property, code for Jewish, code for persecuted, code for forced sale.

The Lempertz auction house sold the Rubens painting on November 18, 2006, misleading the acquiring public into believing that the painting had been sold licitly in good faith by Lange in November 1938. For 68 years, the Rubens painting was owned illegally. In other words, Lempertz passed bad title to the next possessor who thought that he/she was acquiring the painting in good faith. On December 7, 2011, Sotheby’s in London, UK, accepted the Rubens painting on consignment from the possessor who had acquired it at Lempertz. Since December 1998, the art world has had to take heed of the so-called Washington Principles, drafted and adopted at the Washington Conference on Holocaust-era Assets. These non-binding principles serve as an ethical and moral checkpoint for the art market and cultural institutions in their treatment of art objects that have been misappropriated between 1933 and 1945. These said institutions and players are advised to do their utmost to resolve ownership disputes pertaining to these plundered objects and to reach “fair and just solutions” with the victims of the thefts and the current possessors.

Sotheby’s indicated in its sales catalogue that a settlement agreement had been reached with the heirs of Victor Bloch, meaning that the sale was going to proceed and the family of Dr. Bloch was strongly advised to accept a certain sum of money to preserve title in the hands of the seller and to close their claim for the painting. The sale proceeded. The buyer at Sotheby’s sold the Rubens a year later at the Dorotheum in Vienna on April 8, 2012. Jean-François Heim’s gallery displayed the painting at the Maastricht Art fair in 2014.

This “provenance exercise” is meant to serve as a cautionary tale regarding how art market players interpret the history of ownership of an object being displayed or offered for sale. It also shows how gallery owners and auctioneers are apt to select facts about the history of an art object. In other words, the history of objects is (re)constructed to serve, no doubt, the interests of the house. The provenance ends up being an exercise much like docudramas and historical reenactments on television, where fact and fiction coexist and interlace to produce a new narrative that masks the harsh realities of history.

February 3, 2015

Tuesday, February 03, 2015 - ,,, No comments

Ghosts of the Past: Nazi-Looted Art and Its Legacies

An International Conference co-organized by Columbia University's Department of Art History and Archaeology & Deutsches Haus ​in collaboration with the Goethe-Institut New York and the Jewish Museum, New York.


Schedule:
February 19, 6:30 - 8:00 PM
Jewish Museum, 1109 Fifth Avenue at 92nd Street   
Keynote Lecture by Prof. Olaf Peters

February 20, 9:00 - 1:00 PM
Columbia University, 501 Schermerhorn Hall

February 21, 9:00 - 6:00 PM
Columbia University, Deutsches Haus, 420 West 116th Street

For details please see the event website here. 

February 1, 2015

Sunday, February 01, 2015 - ,,,,, No comments

ARCA Founder Noah Charney returns to Amelia for seventh year to teach "Art Forgers and Thieves" for the 2014 Postgraduate Certificate Program in Art Crime and Cultural Heritage Protection

Noah Charney in Ghent
ARCA founder Noah Charney returns to Amelia for the seventh year to teach "Art Forgers and Thieves" for the 2014 Postgraduate Certificate Program in Art Crime and Cultural Heritage Protection.

What is the relevancy of your course?

Art theft and forgery fascinate professional and the general public alike, but both fields have received relatively little in the way of scholarly study prior to the foundation of ARCA. This course will examine historical case studies of art theft and forgery from which we can glean more global lessons about both phenomena. What are the preferred modi operandi for art thieves and how can knowing them help us better secure our art collections? What is the most common confidence trick used by art forgers, and how can we guard against it? We will examine these questions through the context of fascinating historical case studies.

Why do you keep coming back to teach in Amelia?

I love teaching and I love Amelia. It's an ideal small Italian town, one which provides the true immersion experience in Italian life. It is gorgeous, charming, and the locals adopt our students as their own. It's a great place to spend a summer.

What do you hope students will get out of the course?

My students should, first and foremost, enjoy themselves enough that they don't realize just how much they are learning until the end of the program. Then everything will shift into place and they will realize that they are among a tiny group of fellow experts and program graduates who know more about this subject than anyone else in the world. It's a very empowering feeling. But during my course, I try to teach through engaging anecdotes, to which I tie in theory, which makes the lessons far easier to comprehend and retain. If a course is interesting enough, students learn without feeling like they are "Working."

What would a typical day be like in your classroom?

I tend to talk a lot, as I have a lot of stories to tell. I'm something of a performance junkie, so I'm jumping around in front of my slides, but then we always engage in group discussion. I feel that if there's anything a student has not understood, it is because I have not taught it well enough, and I say that on the first day. So it's up to me to lay out case studies as examples of theories in practice, to make complicated matters clear.

In anticipation of your course, what book, article, or movie would you recommend to students?

In an act of shameless self-promotion, I recommend that my students read my non-fiction books on the subject: Stealing the Mystic Lamb; The Thefts of the Mona Lisa; Art & Crime, and even The Wine Forger's Handbook. Rare wine counts as edible art!

January 30, 2015

Friday, January 30, 2015 - ,,,, No comments

Breaking News: Will the Real Owners of the Stolen Paul Gauguin Painting Please Stand Up? A Case for Mediation.

In April 2014 the stolen art world ignited when a press conference conducted by General Mariano Mossa of Italy’s Comando Carabinieri Tutela Patrimonio Culturale art crime squad and the country’s Minister of Culture and Tourism, Dario Franceschini, announced that Italy had recovered two stolen paintings worth more than 33 million euros.

Originally owned by philanthropist Mathilda Marks, daughter of Michael Marks, who founded the Marks and Spencer retail empire and her husband, Terence Kennedy, the two paintings, Fruits sur une table ou nature au petit chien (Still Life with a Small Dog) by Paul Gauguin and Pierre Bonnard’s La femme aux deux fauteuils (Woman with Two Armchairs) had been stolen from a opulent London flat in Chester Terrace in 1970.  The art thieves, posing as burglar alarm repairmen, gained access to the house on the pretext of verifying the owner’s alarm system.  Pretending to go about their work, the criminals quickly removed the artworks from their original frames and bolted while the housekeeper was distracted preparing tea.

After their theft, the art works were smuggled out of England and on to France where they were later abandoned on a Turin-bound train arriving from Paris.  The culprits were never identified though police speculate that whoever was transporting the paintings may have abandoned them when they were spooked by customs officials on the train.

Found by railway inspectors, the two paintings languished for more than a year in the Turin train system’s lost property section before being auctioned off by Italy's national railway network in 1975 as unrecovered lost property.  This time period is significant because the sale occurred five years before the Carabinieri's famous art crime tracking database came into existence.  Unaware of their importance, the pictures were sold for a mere 45,000 lire – €26 in today's money, to a Fiat employee identified only as Nicolò, who later moved back to Siracusa, Sicily when he retired from the auto industry job as a metal mechanic in Turin. 

The Antiques Trade Gazette, reported that Rome’s public prosecutor Marcello Cascini, has stated that the Carabinieri TPC had been alerted to the paintings when a friend of the Italian buyer tried to sell them.  Other news services have reported that the autoworker’s son, Salvatore voluntarily contacted the Carabineri TPC directly when he began to suspect that his father’s paintings where not merely bargain basement knock-off’s.  In either case, the family members have been cooperative and have avoided the lime-light while the paintings were sequestered in 2014 until rightful ownership could be established.

Who is entitled to proceed for restitution and is possession really 9/10ths of the law?

Despite EU efforts to reach uniformity, each domestic law system in the EC provides specific regulations that may vary between Common Law and Civil Code approaches in determining who the rightful owner of a stolen object is. 

Following Art.1153 of the Italian Code, "Effects of the acquisition of possession”, in order to resist a forfeiture claim and protect his interests, the bona fides Sicilian buyer first would have to establish that he acquired the artworks and currently holds the items under dispute.  Second he would need to prove that he had a "valid" title upon which the goods have been acquired and third he would need to show that he was acting on good faith when he purchased the paintings.

Based on Italian civil code criteria the paintings would have had to have been owned by the Fiat worker for 10 years if he was unaware they were stolen goods or twenty years if he had any knowledge that the artworks he had purchased were hot art.

On the basis of the civil code in Italy,  information provided by the Carabinieri TPC that specializes in art and antiquities and given more than forty years had passed since the time of the London theft and subsequent purchase, the Italian courts ruled in the autoworker’s favor last month.  The property was returned to its Italian owner who reported that he planned to sell the Gauguin.

His victory proves there is some truth to the old adage, ownership is easier to maintain if one has possession of something and difficult to enforce if one does not.

Italian law. UK law. Swiss Law. 

But while Mrs. Marks and her American husband, Terence Kennedy, had no children they did have heirs to their vast fortune.

Terence Frank Kennedy met Mathilda Marks in Paris and were married shortly thereafter on 23 August 1951.  A flashy couple, they travelled frequently and spent their money on jewellery, cars, dogs and art. They would buy the Guaguin painting in 1962 from Sotheby’s in New York.

Speaking with Richard Ellis, director of the Art Management Group and a former head of Scotland Yard's Art and Antiques Squad, ARCA learned that when Mathilda Marks died 01 September 1964 she left her widower as the principal beneficiary to her personal estate, leaving him the pictures, which remained in his Chester Terrace home in Regents Park until the high profile art theft in June 1970.

Later he would close the house and travel between Switzerland, London and the South of France where he met John Henderson, then a young actor, who would go on to serve as his personal assistant after he suffered from a major stroke.  Henderson would become Kennedy's lifelong friend, support person  and constant companion for the next twenty years.

When Mr. Kennedy died in 1997 he made Mr. Henderson his sole heir under a will administered in Switzerland. In addition to a will, Mr. Henderson can produce the complete provenance of the paintings and their original frames, complete with exhibition history.

According to Ellis, the terms of Kennedy’s will means that all of Mr Kennedy's possessions, whether in his keeping at the time or not, now belong to John Henderson, inclusive of the now contested stolen pictures and the paintings' frames which he still has. The fact that investigations revealed no insurance payout having been made on the pictures, means that at least under UK law, Mr. Henderson retains clear title to the art works.

Where do the “owners” go from here?

Mr. Ellis reported that he is attempting to schedule a meeting with Roberto Matarazzo, Italian legal counsel to the 70-year-old retired Fiat factory worker arguing that this evidence seems to dictate that the Carabineri TPC and Italian Courts may not have satisfactorily investigated the claim to ownership with regards to these valuable artworks prior to their ruling in the retiree’s favor.  Ellis would like to set up an appointment to discuss the matter in Naples as soon as possible but definitely before any potentially, controversial sale.

This may be a perfect opportunity for all parties to consider the advantages of extra-judicial methods of dispute resolution through the use of a mediator. By sitting down to talk and finding an agreement via mediation on this matter, both parties may be able to arrive at a satisfactory resolution for all parties via Directive 2008/52/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 21 May 2008.  This directive is specifically intended to encourage amicable dispute resolution vs. long litigious drawn out battles, particularly in civil and commercial matters.

Its the appropriate recourse for art and cultural heritage dispute in the event of an art theft where both the heirs and the purchasing party have vested interests, financial or emotional, in the artworks.

By Lynda Albertson, ARCA

References used in this article:

http://www.antiquestradegazette.com/news/2015/jan/28/british-heir-challenges-italian-factory-worker%E2%80%99s-claim-over-stolen-%C2%A325m-gauguin/
http://www.boglione.eu/it/chi-siamo/focus/item/216-re-getting-back-stolen-valuable-goods-the-eu-perspective.html

http://europa.eu/legislation_summaries/justice_freedom_security/judicial_cooperation_in_civil_matters/l33251_en.htm

Italian Studies in Law: A Review of Legal Problems, edited by Alessandro Pizzorusso

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/03/arts/design/two-stolen-paintings-are-found-in-italy.html?_r=0

http://www.panorama.it/cultura/gauguin-bonnard-capolavori/

http://www.thepeerage.com/p36836.htm

January 26, 2015

Monday, January 26, 2015 - ,,,, 2 comments

Policeman, Antiquities Smuggler, Black Market Cigarette Bootlegger, Arms Trafficker, Terrorist: A Snapshot of the Many Faces of One, Greek, Organized Crime Cell


Investigating organized crime links with art crimes components is complicated. Sometimes researchers are able to draw detailed maps of criminal enterprise that fuels the illicit art and antiquities trade and other times investigations lead us down windy roads to nowhere, or at least to places where gathering further evidence is not likely and possibly dangerous.

Earlier this month Greek news bureaus hit the wires reporting on a series of startling arrests, some involving suspects who liked to mix a little art and culture with their organized crime activities.

Image Credit - Yahoo News
On Saturday, January 3, 2015 Greece’s anti-terrorism unit captured Christodoulos Xiros; an on-the-run associate of the once-powerful and ultra-violent 17N group (Greek: Επαναστατική Οργάνωση 17 Νοέμβρη ).  Xiros had walked away from his prison sentence in January 2014 while on furlough visiting his family during the Christmas holidays.

Tracked to the town of Anavyssos in southeast of Athens, Christodoulos Xiros had changed his appearance, let his hair grow out and dyed it blonde.  But instead of lying low and enjoying his freedom while on the lam, the escapee chose to taunt Greek authorities; releasing ominous statements that implied he intended to pick up where he left off before his original incarceration for murder began.

Less than one month into his escape, Xiros submitted a long-winded manifesto along with a four-minute video to the website Independent Media Center. His untraceable statements, posted online at Indymedia/IMC were laced with violent innuendo alongside governmental and civil rights complaints. 

Speaking in front of images of Ernesto "Che" Guevara, two heroes of Greece's war of independence and a communist World War II resistance fighter, Xiros promised to wage war against those he believed were responsible for the destruction of Greece.  He vowed to “fight to the bitter end" and went so far as to dedicate lyrics from a song by V. Papakostantinou called 'Karaiskakis' emphasizing the phrase “When I return I will f**k you up.”

Image Credit: protothema.gr
Police Chief Dimitris Tsaknakis informed the press that Greek authorities had been searching for Christodoulos Xiros in and around the Athens’ suburbs for three months.  Investigators traced him via informant tips relayed to police, possibly in hopes of receiving part of the reward money being offered for information leading to his capture and arrest.

These tips, along with information gleaned from intercepted phone calls and solid gumshoe policing helped track the fugitive and set the stage for his organized apprehension.  Xiros had been hiding in relatively plain sight, going by the name “Manolis”.

At the time of his recapture, he was armed with a fully loaded Belgian or Hungarian-constructed Browning P35 9mm pistol.  News agencies reported that the gun’s serial number and make were scratched out, an action that impeded its traceability.

Image Credit: http://mikrometoxos.gr
A search of the house where he had been holed up contained an extensive cache of weaponry.  Law enforcement authorities inventoried assault rifles, Magtech 9mm ammunition, a rocket-propelled launcher, RPGs, grenades, six kilograms of explosive-making materials and a plethora of parts used for the manufacture of explosive devices including fuse wire, detonators and ignition wicks.

For a complete list of the evidence seized, please click here.
Image Credit: http://mikrometoxos.gr

After examining the evidence confiscated from the house in Anavyssos, Public Safety Minister, Vassilis Kikilias told reporters "Greek police prevented a major attack against the heart of the Greek prison system."  It seems that alongside the weaponry, police had found a well-developed diagram of the Korydallos prison complex.  Authorities believe that in stockpiling arms, Christodoulos Xiros was preparing for an armed assault and possible break-out on the western Athens prison, most likely to occur during Greece’s recent lead-up to the election that was held this weekend.

As a maximum-security facility, Korydallos Prison Complex has a notorious reputation.  In addition to housing other 17N convicts, it’s also has had its share of movie-worthy prison escapes.  Not only did Christodoulos Xiros vanish while on furlough but inmate/kidnapper Vasilis Paleokostas escaped twice, each time using a hijacked helicopter, first in June 2006 and again in February 2009.  During the second breakout a nearby resident captured the get-away chopper on amateur video. The grainy footage on this film shows the helicopter rising from the prison grounds and shots can be heard firing in the background while the amateur video maker comments.


Korydallos prison is also an over-crowded penal facility that has had substantial civil rights issues, many of which Christodoulos Xiros written manifesto outlined in Robin Hood-esque detail. Plagued by riots, overcrowding, poor health and sanitation conditions and a purported thriving black economy, the prison facility has been criticized not only by its convicts, but by Amnesty International and human rights bodies such as the Council of Europe's Committee for the Prevention of Torture. On occasion things have been so bad that inmates have staged hunger and medicine strikes to demand better living conditions and more immediate access to medical care.

But before Christodoulos Xiros, became a murdering guerrilla anarchist he was once a musical instrument maker and lived on the Aegean island of Ikaria.  Born to a retired priest, Triantafyllos Xiros, and his wife Moschoula, three of their ten children would later be condemned for participation in the 17 November group: Christodoulos, Savvas, and Vasilis.

Savvas Xiros was a painter of Greek religious icons.  He came to the attention of police following a botched bombing attack on June 29, 2002.  Whether from faulty fusing or poor execution, the IED he was handling detonated prematurely.  The explosion blinded him in one eye and caused partial vision loss in the other, blew off three fingers from his right hand, burst an eardrum and collapsed one of his lungs.  In total, he would spend 65 days at the Evangelismos Hospital in Athens recuperating from his debilitating injuries.
Savvas (L) and Vasilis (R) Xiros - Image Credit http://www.tovima.gr

Unconscious for four days, when Savvas Xiros came to he started cooperating with authorities, possibly encouraged by Greece’s rulings that enabled terrorists to receive lighter prison sentences in return for cooperation.  Later he would recant his statements and imply that his confession was made under extreme duress, while under the influence of psychotropic drugs or "truth serums" administered without his consent.  No evidence has been presented which collaborates this allegation, nor his later claims that prison inmates at Korydallos are routinely administered chemical restraints for non-therapeutic reasons.

Whether or not his confessions were self-preserving or influenced by state persuasion, Savvas Xiros’ testimony proved pivotal in Greece’s case against 17N and in dismantling the organized crime group. His testimony detailed the history of the cell from its nascent birth in 1975 as a Marxist-leaning domestic terrorism organization to its fateful decision to murder British defense attaché, Brigadier Stephen Saunders June 8, 2000.

As a result of Savvas Xiros’ testimony and the testimony of others, including his own brother, Christodoulos Xiros, ten members of 17N would be convicted for their rolls in 23 murders and sent to prison.   Prior to his escape from justice, Christodoulos Xiros was serving six life terms, plus 25 years. Savvas received five life sentences plus 25 years for his own role in 5 assassinations and Vasilis Xiros, the youngest of the three siblings, was condemned to 25 years for simple collusion to assassinate.

But this article’s publication in in ARCA’s blog is not solely to outline the life-cycle of one of Greece’s grimmest terrorist groups. Its purpose is to illustrate that organized criminal enterprise has many diverse elements and sometimes significantly and sometimes casually art crime plays its own part.

Theocharis Chrysakis -Image Credit - http://www.telegrafi.com
Following Christodoulos Xiros capture, on January 3, 2015 police have begun identifying additional co-conspirators.  One has been listed as a 37-year-old Albanian who posed as a Coast Guard officer using the pseudonym “Theocharis Chrysakis” or "Hari Koka". Police have indicated that this accomplice had prior arrest records for gun and narcotics possession.  There has also been speculation that Xiros’ stash of weapons and explosives may have been acquired via Greek criminals with Albanian supplier connections, possibly affiliated with this ally.

Christos Patoucheas - Image Credit - http://www.ethnos.gr
A second accomplice has been reported to be a 54-year-old former law enforcement officer.  Greek news wire reports have separately listed the individual as “unnamed” “Christos P” and “Christos Patoucheas” describing him as an ex police officer, dismissed from the EKAM, Special Counter-Terrorist Unit of the Hellenic Police twelve years ago.

The reason for his dismissal: involvement in antiquities smuggling and links to extortion rackets.  Patoucheas also seems to be involved in a functioning extortion ring operating from within the 6th wing of Korydallos prison which allegedly orchestrated additional bombings.

As abettors to Christodoulos Xiros these men now face graver charges than simple gun possession and antiquities trafficking.   Each can be charged as a member of a terrorist organization, as well as with contributing to the manufacturing, supply and possession of common explosives and bombs.  All of these offenses can be tried under Greece’s Anti-Terrorism Act.

But despite the successes of preventing further armed attacks and the recapture of a fugitive from justice, many questions remain regarding this organized crime group.

How is it that prison authorities felt it appropriate to grant furlough to a convicted terrorist despite his direct and indirect involvement in the deaths of 23 people?  How long has Christodoulos Xiros had this relationship with the former officer of Greece’s EKAM?  What are the details of this accomplice’s prior involvement in antiquities smuggling and extortion and is there any correlation between Accomplice One's Albanian arms channels and Accomplice Two's earlier involvement in art trafficking?

But before any of our readers jumps to premature conclusions, I am not implying that Christodoulos Xiros’ organization was in any way funded by antiquities smuggling.  None of my research, in looking for antiquities smuggling connections to this escapee or his associates has uncovered evidence that would substantiate such a claim. Given the more lucrative profitability of extortion and arms and cigarette trafficking, it would also seem superfluous at best as a potential revenue stream to fund Greek terrorism.

My point is merely to underscore, in a thought provoking way, the complexity of criminal behavior and that traffickers, especially art traffickers, are not always tie-wearing antiquities dealers with glossy Geneva free ports and warehouses.

Some art criminals are simply opportunistic criminals. They are incentivized to smuggle whatever illicit commodity has a willing buyer.  The type of “merchandise” isn’t important.  The contraband could be art and antiquities, or drugs and weaponry.  The sole criterion is that the enterprising criminal has access to a willing buyer and a steady supply stream of merchandise that supports his market’s demand.

I mention this because I think it is important, when examining organized crime and terrorism and its potential connection to antiquities smuggling, that researchers not to fall into the trap of feeding the media’s insatiable desire to see actuarial percentages that calculate the risk, size, percentage, threat, motivation or impact of a specific subset of organized crime, be it terrorism, arms trafficking, cigarette bootlegging or antiquities looting.  When we do, we allow the media to skim over the complexity of the subject in exchange for scary headlines that superficially skim the surface and are often based on estimates.

By the same toke art crime researchers should be more comfortable with admitting to journalists “I can’t answer that” or "there is not enough evidence to confirm links between art smuggling and terrorism" in cases like the Xiros investigation, when there is not enough proof available to satisfy the hypothesis.   In most cases, the mere mention of the words ‘organized crime’ and the circumstances of real life cases, as complex as this Greek terrorism cell, already have sufficiently powerful details on which journalists can draw readership without the need for supposition.

For those that want to take a closer look at organized crime and the difficult problem of assessing its scope, I suggest starting with this 2004 academic article.  Produced by criminologists, it gives readers a far greater understanding of the complexity of quantifying organized criminal behavior than I can within the scope of this already overly-long blog post.   The article also sadly underscores that despite having been written more than ten years ago, we are still wrestling with the same problems where organized crime information gathering is concerned.

The sad truth is that even today conclusions are too-often drawn based on too few cases and estimates rather than harder-to-actually-substantiate data giving the media tantalizing conjecture rather than providing much in the way of concrete evidence regarding a specific subset of criminal enterprise.

Part of the reason for this is that researching the mechanisms behind organized crime and any illicit trafficking market is a potentially risky endeavor. Global Initiative estimates that 35% of the journalists killed in the last ten years were reporting on organized crime or corruption.  And no matter how firmly experts researching organized crime disclaim unrealistic estimates or over-reaching assumptions it will always be, at best, an imprecise science by its very nature.

Measuring something as complex and elusive as organized crime, or specifically organized crime with art-related offenses would require law enforcement to develop a conceptual and theoretical framework that permits the police to gather data on and then measure the types of art crimes in a more meaningful way.

Unfortunately we aren't there yet, despite what some media headlines tell you.

By Lynda Albertson, ARCA


References used in this article: 
http://www.amnesty.org/en/region/greece?page=14
https://athens.indymedia.org/post/1512022/
http://www.cpt.coe.int/documents/grc/2011-10-inf-eng.htm
http://en.protothema.gr/counter-terrorism-police-investigates-more-suspected-accomplices-of-xiros/
http://en.protothema.gr/public-order-minister-v-kikilias-gives-details-on-the-capture-of-terrorist-c-xiros-photos/
http://www.ethnos.gr/article.asp?catid=22768&subid=2&pubid=63369134
http://www.globalinitiative.net/programs/drugs/reporting-on-organized-crime/
http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1683&dat=20020720&id=ZqkaAAAAIBAJ&sjid=PUUEAAAAIBAJ&pg=6721,6856359
http://www.grreporter.info/en/police_expect_largescale_terrorist_attack/10589
Inside Greek Terrorism, by George Kassimeris, Oxford University Press (October 1, 2013)
http://www.kathimerini.gr/799330/article/epikairothta/ellada/plhroforiodoths-edwse-ton-3hro
http://mikrometoxos.gr/?p=4991
http://www.newsweek.com/christodoulos-xiros-greek-marxist-guerrilla-arrested-296458
Organized Crime, Corruption and Crime Prevention, Editors: Stefano Caneppele and Francesco Calderoni
Race Against Terror, By Nicholas Gage, Vanity Fair, Jan 2007 Issue 557, p64, 9p
http://www.telegrafi.com/lajme/ky-eshte-shqiptari-qe-bashkepunonte-me-terroristin-grek-foto-80-8897.html
The Faces of Terrorism: Multidisciplinary Perspectives, edited by David Canter
http://www.thetoc.gr/eng/news/article/the-terrorists-next-door
‘Threats and Phantoms of Organised Crime, Corruption and Terrorism’ (Critical European Perspectives), June 1, 2004 by Petrus C. Van Duyne (Author, Editor), Matjaz Jager (Editor), Klaus Von Lampe (Editor), James L. Newell (Editor)
http://www.tovima.gr/en/article/?aid=664944
http://www.tovima.gr/relatedarticles/article/?aid=155710
http://www.veth.gov.gr/index.php?MDL=pages&Branch=N_N0000000100_N0000002123_N0000002173_S0851703103






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