Italy in Negotiations with the Getty Museum

Yesterday's New York Times has an interesting article regarding Italy's negotiations with the Getty museum for the return of Italian antiquities. One of the objects at issue is this 5th Century B.C. limestone statue of Aphrodite which the Getty acquired in 1988.

The negotiations are part of an aggressive strategy Italy seems to be implementing with respect to policing and repatriating its antiquities. The so-called Getty trial is currently underway in Rome, and Italy also recently signed an agreement with Switzerland, one of the traditional transit states for Italian antiquities.

Italy wants the return of 52 objects currently in the Getty collection, which Italy alleges were illicitly excavated. I think a sign of the testiness of the negotiations is the way the Times prefaced a quote from an inside source familiar with the negotiations:

People close to the negotiations, speaking on condition of anonymity out of concern that their remarks could arouse personal antagonism and jeopardize the talks, say the Getty has made it clear that it is prepared to return about two dozen objects on the list.

If the items were in fact illicitly excavated, Italy may be able to get the Getty to return at least some of the objects, as it's really bad publicity for the Getty overall. I'm just speculating here, but they may want to wait until the conclusion of the trial before they return the objects, and that's when I would expect a deal to emerge (much in the same way a President may boot an unpopular Secretary of Defense). We should remember, though, that much of the damage has already been done. When this statue was excavated, it was embedded in a wealth of archaeological information, what is often referred to as context. When this object was dug up, that context was almost certainly destroyed. Also, the Getty didn't excavate these objects, though they did pay a substantial sum for them. Italy's argument is that these funds support the illicit excavators and unscrupulous dealers, so this kind of transaction should be reversed, to prevent future destruction. This is a tenuous disincentive though, and one of the reasons why tackling the illicit trade in cultural property is so difficult.

At this point, the Italy-Getty negotiations seem very similar to the Greece-British Museum arguments regarding the Parthenon Marbles. However there is one marked difference: this sale only occurred within the last 20 years, while the Parthenon Marbles have been in Britain for closer to 200 years.

10 arrested in Agrigento, Italy

Agenzia Giornalistica Italia reported on Nov. 6 that 12 arrest warrants were issued, and 10 arrests were carried out for art theft and kidnapping.

The arrests occurred in Agrigento, on the island of Sicily. The island, of course, is notorious for its beautiful Greek and Roman heritage, and also for its ties to organized crime.

The image is of the temple of Dioscurio, located near Agrigento. The city is one of the poorest in Italy, despite its incredibly rich archaeological heritage. This may be an example of the Italian authorities cracking down on illicit excavation. I haven't been able to find any more information on the arrests, but when I do, I'll post it here.

$491 million

Christie's yesterday shattered the previous auction record with its sale of post-impressionist works the New York Times reports today. The previous record was $269 million. Of the sale, about $125 million involved the sale of recently repatriated works which were looted by the Nazies during World War II. Before the sale, five of them were hanging in museums.

Christie's does a good job of making these auctions a spectacle. I've never seen one firsthand, but they must be quite a show. Perhaps the most interesting aspect is the way many of the buyers are secret. We may never know who purchased some of these works. Certainly, we cannot argue that the heirs of holocaust victims are entitled to the return of works that was taken from them during the war. However, looking at the end result, are we all better off having these Klimt's in a wialthy benefactor's living room? I don't think so. In my view courts should do a better job of fashioning compromise between nations and claimants.

The image is by Hiroko Masuike, for the New York Times. Other images are available here.

Picasso Pulled

The Picasso I discussed yesterday was removed from auction today, even after a Federal District Court Judge dismissed the claimant's suit. Apparently he brought suit in NY State Court today. At first blush, I don't think he has much of a case. We will see how accommodating the NY courts will be though, I suppose.

Sale of Picasso's "The Absinthe Drinker" may be halted

Christie's may have a difficult time breaking the single-auction record today. The Art Newspaper reports the auction house is considering removing the work from the sale. Andrew Lloyd Webber was attempting to sell the work, estimated at $60 million, with the proceeds going to charity. The work, from Picasso's blue period, was also the subject of a Federal District Court Case, dismissed yesterday.

The dismissal has not been published yet on Lexis, but the New York Times has an overview of the claimant's case. Judge Jed Rakoff dismissed the claims because the federal law dealing with Holocaust restitution was inapplicable in this case. I'm not an expert on holocaust litigation, so I'm not sure which law the NYT is talking about. Apparently, the claimant has a case in New York state court however.

The claims seem tenuous to me at first blush. The plaintiff, Mr. Schoeps, is the heir of Paul von Mendelssohn-Barthold, a wealthy Berlin banker and art collector. He was forced to sell all his paintings as a result of Nazi persecution. The Nazi's didn't actually take the painting, but they seized his assets so that he had no choice but to sell the work. The ruling was just issued yesterday. I'll try to get my hands on the dismissal and look at the substance of the claims. To me, though, it seems like the claimant will have a very difficult time winning the case. We shouldn't underestimate the underlying equities of a case either, Lloyd Webber was selling the work in order to donate the proceeds to charity. Though Mr. Schoeps story is indeed a tragic one, I'm not sure he will be using the work, or its proceeds, in as charitable a manner.

Will Billboards help Return $300 Million in Stolen Art?

Over the weekend, the Boston Globe picks up a piece by London's Financial Times, that Eric Ives, head of the FBI's major theft unit, is considering using billboards to aid its investigation of the works stolen from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston in 1990. One of the works stolen includes this work, which is Rembrandt's only seascape. The total value of all of the works has been estimated at $300 million. I've written about this theft before, in terms of a new documentary here. The best account of the theft I've found is Court TV's here.

Will Billboard's work? I'm not sure. They certainly can't hurt. The idea, I suppose, is for someone to catch a glimpse of these works and after seeing the billboard, alert the authorities. I'm not sure there would be much of a market for these works, as they are so widely known in the art world, that there would certainly be an impossibility of a good faith purchase. The law would not honor the sale because the buyers should know that these works have been stolen.

Fascinating theories abound, involving Boston Mafia and IRA members. Certainly, no one will be able to sell these works on any licit market, and if the thieves are caught, there may be a prosecution under the National Stolen Property Act if the transaction has a federal character (like crossing state lines for example). At this point, nearly 16 years after the theft, there does not seem to be any leads for the FBI Investigation, and a billboard campaign may serve to renew interest in the theft.

Repatriation Fuelling the Art Market

In today's New York Times, another article on how the art market is booming. One of the reasons has been the recent repatriation of art looted by the Nazis in World War II. I discussed the Klimt's earlier this week, but there are also works by Kirchner, Vuillard and Picasso.

This remains an interesting issue. When courts and commentators speak of repatriation, it is often done so in terms of how these pieces of art have been taken during the war, and how they should be returned to the heirs of the original owners. An unacknowledged issue though, is how valuable these works are. There value can be so high, that its simply not economically feasible for the current claimants to hold on to them, and they end up auctioning them. Perhaps instead of simply awarding title to the paintings, courts may want to fashion compromises. They could agree to a fractional ownership scheme, allowing a claimant to hold on to the work for a certain part of the year for example. Or they could agree to a one-time payoff. In the United States, replevin actions are the primary mechanism which claimants use to seek the return of works of art. However, ownership disputes spanning 60 years are not always easily solved by awarding title to one party or another. A better solution may be a compromise between the parties.

Record price for Pollock's No. 5, 1948?

The New York Times reports today that David Geffen may have sold a drip painting by Jackson Pollock for $140 million dollars yesterday. The price has yet to be officially confirmed, but may indicate that the art market is currently booming, which seems in line with the potential for Christie's to set a record auction next week.

It seems Geffen may be unloading his art collection in a bid to purchase the LA Times. The price would exceed the $135 million Ronald S. Lauder paid for a Klimt last year.

An Exhibit of Stolen Art in Rome

A new art exhibit in Rome will display 100 works of art that the Italian Art Squad, the Carabinieri Cultural Heritage Protect Unit, have recovered in recent years. The exhibition will take place at the Palazzo Incontro, (Meeting Palace).

It is often said that if we could gather all of the stolen works of art into one museum, it would be the world's finest collection of art. That claim is of course quite far-fetched and nearly impossible to quantify, but perhaps this exhibition will illustrate how much art is being lost.

The exhibition, titled "Stolen art, the return" includes Young girl with red stockings by Amedeo Modigliane (pictured here) which was stolen from its private owner in the 1990's, and has never been publicly displayed. Other works include two paintings by Francesco Barbieri, known as il Guercino. Also, an artifact called the "Ivory Face" uses a technique called chryselephantine which combines Ivory and Gold. Its age and provenance are unknown however, illustrating how much context can be lost when illicit excavation takes place.

The exhibition is quite remarkable, and a very shrewd move by the art squad. It is a very tangible expression of how many works are being lost, and how a well-funded and committed police force can limit the illicit trade in these works.

Kingsland Update

Antiques and The Arts Online has a piece about the Kingsland auction. It seems Kingsland may have been a student at Harvard. Also, there were some 400 paintings in his 1-bedroom Manhattan apartment. Sounds suspicious to me. The City of New York and the Stair Gallery should have perhaps known that something was not quite right about the situation.