U.S. Pushes Germany to Reveal Hoard of Nazi-Looted Art Germany is skirting an international deal on the restitution of art to Holocaust victims, U.S. negotiator tells TIME

More than 20 months have passed since German authorities uncovered a hidden trove of hundreds of artworks that the Nazis looted during the Holocaust. Yet only 79 of those works, which were found in the apartment of Cornelius Gurlitt, the son of Adolf Hitler‘s art dealer, have so far been made public. The secrecy, intended to protect Gurlitt’s right to privacy, has left many victims of Nazi confiscation unable to file claims for their art to be returned. Now, the apparent lack of transparency on the part of German authorities has urged the U.S. to start applying diplomatic pressure on behalf of Holocaust survivors and their heirs. “This list of artworks needs to be published,” Stuart Eizenstat, the adviser to U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry on Holocaust issues, told TIME in an interview Wednesday.

In 1998, more than 40 countries, including the U.S. and Germany, signed an agreement known as the Washington Principles, which outline necessary steps for the return of art looted by the Nazis. Serving at the time as Under Secretary of State in the Clinton Administration, Eizenstat organized and led the negotiation of that agreement on behalf of the U.S., and he insists that Germany is at risk of violating the principles by keeping Gurlitt’s hoard from the public. “The basic principle,” he says, “is that every effort should be made to publicize art that’s found to have been confiscated by the Nazis and not subsequently restituted in order to locate their pre-war owners.”

On Nov. 8, the U.S. embassy in Berlin issued an official démarche to the office of German Chancellor Angela Merkel, as well as the German Ministry of Justice and the Ministry of Culture, urging that the list of paintings found in Gurlitt’s apartment be published, Eizenstat says. (The U.S. embassy does not appear to have publicized that démarche, and an embassy spokesman could not immediately confirm when reached by TIME on Friday whether it had indeed been issued.)

Four days later, on Nov. 12, German authorities published 25 of the works on the government-run website LostArt.de, promising that the list would be “continuously updated.” But the slow drip of the disclosures since then has not satisfied Eizenstat or the potential claimants waiting to see if their art works were among those found in Gurlitt’s possession. References to Gurlitt’s privacy, which is protected under German law, does not win much sympathy from Eizenstat. “Whose privacy is it they’re trying to protect?” he says. “The families want to know what happened to their art, the museums want to know what happened to their art. And he has no right to privacy if he got them, or his father got them, in an untoward way.”

Gurlitt’s father, Hildebrand Gurlitt, is known to have helped the Nazis sell off the art they looted or confiscated from German museums and private collectors, most of whom were Jewish. The younger Gurlitt, in an interview published on Sunday, told the German weekly magazine Der Spiegel that his father had legally acquired all of the 1406 artworks from art dealers and museums, reportedly including works by Renoir, Picasso and Matisse. He also raised the issue of privacy, telling Der Spiegel: “What kind of government are they to show my private property?”

On Thursday, the German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung reported that about 310 of the works would be returned to Gurlitt, citing the Bavarian prosecutor in charge of the case. These works are “undoubtedly the property of the accused,” the prosecutor, Reinhard Nemetz, was quoted as saying. As for the rest of the works, their review will be completed next week at the latest, the prosecutor told Süddeutsche Zeitung. But fighting over the ownership of these works in German courts would be a losing struggle for Holocaust survivors, art lawyers and experts told TIME this week, as Gurlitt would be able to invoke Germany’s statute of limitations for such cases to protect himself from civil lawsuits.

That is part of the reason the Washington Principles laid out a restitution process not tied up in regular courts. After seeking out and publishing any art works suspected of being Nazi loot, Germany is mandated under that agreement to form a special government commission to review any claims to their ownership. In Gurlitt’s case, if the commission finds that he is the legal owner, he gets to keep the artworks in question. If the ownership is in doubt, the commission can also rule that the art should be sold and the proceeds split between Gurlitt and the claimant. “The principles envision a number of creative solutions, just and fair solutions. But none of that is possible without the initial publication,” says Eizenstat. Without it, “You’d just be flying in the blind, because you wouldn’t know what to negotiate.”

So far in the Gurlitt case, Germany does not appear to have complied with any of the steps in this process, even though it has been “exemplary” in implementing the Washington Principles over the past decade, says Eizenstat. However, since the Principles are not legally binding, the only thing foreign diplomats can do is apply moral and diplomatic pressure on Germany to comply.

At the top of the federal hierarchy, that seems to be working. Numerous German ministers, as well as the spokesman for Chancellor Merkel, have called for urgency and transparency in the Gurlitt case since it began to draw international outrage earlier this month. “The problem is with some of the Bavarian prosecutor’s issues, like privacy and the tax evasion case.” Suspected tax evasion is what led German authorities to search Gurlitt’s apartment in February 2012, when they first stumbled upon his hoard of art.

Since then, the prosecutors handling the investigation in Bavaria have continued to treat it as a case of tax evasion rather than of stolen or looted art. For Eizenstat, that reveals a weakness in the agreement he negotiated 15 years ago. “It indicates that subnational units like the Bavarian government have difficulty with the Washington Principles, which are principles subscribed to by the national governments,” he says. So at the local level, the authorities are apparently able to keep Nazi loot under wraps – at least until the moral and political pressure from their superiors comes bearing down.

Read more: U.S. Pushes Germany to Reveal Hoard of Nazi-Looted Art | TIME.com http://world.time.com/2013/11/22/u-s-pushes-germany-to-reveal-hoard-of-nazi-looted-art/#ixzz2lR4u3p7d

Justice is finally served! Valerie Cooper goes to jail, charged with fraud after stealing over half a million of tax payers dollars!

Valerie Cooper, the former Art Gallery of Calgary CEO who defrauded her employer of $100,000, has been sentenced to a year in jail.

She will also get a year of probation, 80 hours of community service and is banned from being employed in a position with signing authority on financial accounts.

Cooper admitted in July to defrauding her employer through false expense claims over a three-year period.

Some of the money went to pay for her condo rental, unauthorized travel and personal expenses like clothing, cleaning and massage services.

Valerie Cooper, former CEO of Art Gallery of Calgary, was charged with multiple counts of fraud in May 2012 after the charitable organization said it was missing $500,000.

Cooper said in the past that she never even knew what fraud meant but she did not mean to hurt the gallery, as she loved working there.

The Crown had asked for two years less a day while her defence had asked for no jail but a conditional sentence order instead.
"I'm somewhat disappointed that she wasn't given a conditional sentence order in the circumstances; however, clearly I think the sentence was within the range," said defence lawyer Willie de Wit.

He said his client is also disappointed.
"This is not a person that goes around and knowingly commits criminal offences. The whole gist of argument was she thought she was owed this money ... and made a mistake with respect to how she tried to get it back," said de Wit.

Judge Anne Brown said breach of trust, the amount and duration of the fraud and the fact that the art gallery is a non-profit organization were aggravating factors in today's sentence.

But she also took into account when deciding her fate that Cooper had no criminal record, she is well educated and she entered a guilty plea.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/valerie-cooper-former-art-gallery-ceo-gets-jail-time-for-fraud-1.2325953

More than a thousand archaeological pieces stolen at Egypt's Mallawi museum

MALLAWI (AFP).- Magdy Tahami looks in disbelief at what remains of Egypt's tiny Mallawi museum. The ground is littered with glass from the display cabinets, which once housed its precious collection, after a mob attacked and looted the building, during a nationwide crackdown on Islamist protesters. Before, hundreds of antiquities, statuettes, gold and jewels told the history of Egypt, from pharaonic times to the Muslim caliphs, from the Omayyad dynasty in the 7th century to the Fatimids in the 12th, and touching on Greek and Roman antiquities.

For 20 years, these historic treasures were assistant-director Tahami's whole life. "I like this museum more than my own house, I have spent more time there than at home. It is as if it were my house that has been destroyed, burgled and pillaged," he says. For him and his colleagues, the Mallawi museum, 70 kilometres (43 miles) from Minya, the town in Upper Egypt south of Cairo, has payed a steep price for the bloody crackdown on protests by supporters of ousted Islamist president Mohamed Morsi, toppled by the army on July 3. On August 14, shortly after the police and army launched an operation on pro-Morsi protest camps in Cairo that killed hundreds in few hours, several hundred armed men attacked the museum.

While nobody is certain who the attackers and looters were, the walls of the museum are still daubed with pro-Morsi slogans. "Yes to Islam, yes to the Muslim Brotherhood," says one slogan, in a nod to the group from which Morsi hails. Another warns: "Sisi, we are coming," referring to army chief Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, the strongman who announced Morsi's overthrow on July 3 after massive rallies against the Islamist former head of state. And the museum, with its antiquities and statues, which a minority of radical Islamists had called to be destroyed, was not the only building to be targeted.

In the region, which is home to a sizeable Christian minority, several churches and Coptic institutions have been also attacked. Warned in advance of the bloody events in the capital, the employees closed the museum and barricaded themselves inside with a dozen policemen, but they could not stop the damage, Tahami says. He describes the scene as a "battlefield," with automatic fire echoing from all sides so that "we did not know where they were coming from or who was firing". After several hours, nearly all of the 1,089 museum pieces had been stolen or destroyed, says Tahami.UNESCO said the attack had caused "irreversible damage to the history and identity of the Egyptian people" in a country full of archaeological wonders. "They took everything. The few pieces they left, because they couldn't carry them away, they vandalised," Tahami recalls. "Here, they burned a mummy," he says, pointing to a black stain on the ground.

Every day, the police says it has recovered more of the stolen antiquities but so far they have only found 221 items. Fearing some of these treasures may turn up on the black market, UNESCO said the looted objects had been recorded and that selling the items is illegal both inside and outside of Egypt. The floor of the museum's main display room is still covered with broken glass and wrecked display cases, and a similar scene of devastation can be seen in two adjoining rooms and the one upstairs. In front of the entrance to the museum, still pocked with bullet holes and surrounded by burned-out cars, Khalil Hussein, the head of security, looks on in silence. "The day after the attack, an official delegation came to see the damage. When they came, a sniper shot our colleague Sameh Ahmed Abdel Hafiz, who worked at the ticket desk, as he was standing in the courtyard," he says. During the 2011 uprising that toppled former president Hosni Mubarak, several museums were pillaged, including the Museum of Egyptian Antiquities near Cairo's Tahrir square, epicentre of the demonstrations.

"A picture taken on August 26, 2013, shows the vandalized and looted exhibition hall at the Mallawi Museum in the southern Egyptian town of Mallawi. The museum was the scene of an armed robery on August 14, during which more than a thousand archaeological pieces were stolen."
AFP PHOTO/GIANLUIGI GUERCIA. By: Mohamad Ali Harissi

More Information: http://artdaily.com/news/64754/More-than-a-thousand-archaeological-pieces-stolen-at-Egypt-s-Mallawi-museum#.Uia8FD968mY[/url]

Copyright © artdaily.org © 1994-2013 Agence France-Presse

A former assistant to artist Jasper Johns has been charged with stealing 22 works

NEW YORK, NY.- Last wednesday, James Meyer assistant of the master of Pop Art Jasper Johns, was stopped by the FBI and accused of stealing 22 art Works of Johns, some of these unfinished, and selling them to an art gallery in Manhattan. The pieces were valued for 6.5 million dollars and the artist’s assitant acquired 3.4 million. Meyer declared himself innocent and is currently free on (250,000 dollar) bail. According to the accusation, between 2006 and 2012, Meyer had a parallel archive of unfinished paintings in the artist’s studio in Sharon, Conneticut, which he sold afterwards to a New York art gallery. The assitant falsified the documentation which made him owner of the pieces, which he passed off as gifts from his mentor. John is one of the most important artists of his generation, known for his United States’ flags canvasses. His work on Three Flags, which can be admired in the Whitney Museum, was acquired in 1980 for a million dollars, the highest sum paid to a live artist to date. According to his web page, Meyer, of mexican origin, was adopted in California in 1962 and studied at the Visual Arts school of New York before he started to work for Johns. The portal theartblog.org published an interview with Meyers in which he admitted that when he was 22 years old he survived in Brooklin making copied of Van Gogh and Matisse for six dollars an hour to decorate the walls of a chain of restaurants in the city, work he didn’t like. His friends then suggested that he should ask profesional artists if he could collaborate with them. One of the first he tried, according to the article, was Johns. With a portfolio of his drawings in one hand and his CV on his other hand, Meyer showed up in front of the building where John’s studio was located in Houston Street. “I put on my suit and called”, revealed the assistant. However, that day he didn’t get past the threshold, but he left the painter his work. When he came back the next day to retrieve them, Johns invited him for a cup of coffee. “Come back tomorrow and we’ll see what will happen day to day”, recalls Meyer. Throughout his years collaborating with Johns, Meyer would draw traces in canvasses that Johns would later errase and repaint.

James Meyer, former assistant of the master of Pop Art Jasper Johns. Photo: Linkedin.


More Information: http://artdaily.com/news/64466/A-former-assistant-to-artist-Jasper-Johns-has-been-charged-with-stealing-22-works#.UhL4MW2AmHc[/url] Copyright © artdaily.org

Canvas nails found by experts investigating Rotterdam heist

BUCHAREST.- An image showing old copper and iron nails used to fix canvas on the wooden frame of paintings is shown during a press conference at the National History Museum of Romania in Bucharest on August 8, 2013. Romanian experts sifting through ashes that could contain charred debris of masterpieces stolen from Rotterdam's Kunsthal museum have identified fragments typical of burnt oil paintings, the museum carrying out the analysis said Thursday. Six Romanians will stand trial in August for what has been called the "theft of the century". The works stolen include Picasso's "Tete d'Arlequin", Monet's "Waterloo Bridge" and Lucian Freud's "Woman with Eyes Closed". AFP PHOTO DANIEL MIHAILESCU.

The World's Major Art Thefts

BUCHAREST (AFP).- Major art thefts around the world over the past decade, as the trial of six Romanians accused of stealing seven masterpieces from a Dutch museum last October is set to open on Tuesday in Bucharest:

October 16, 2012: Seven masterpieces, including works by Picasso, Matisse, Monet and Gauguin, were stolen in a pre-dawn heist at Rotterdam's Kunsthal museum. Prosecutors say the paintings were worth 18 million euros ($24 million), although experts initially put their collective value at up to 100 million euros.

August 21, 2010: Van Gogh's "Poppy Flowers", worth $55 million, was stolen from Cairo's Mahmoud Khalil museum after it is cut out of its frame. It has yet to be found.

May 20, 2010: A lone thief stole works by Matisse, Picasso and three other modern masters from a Paris gallery as it emerged that an alarm was out of order at the time of the 100 million euro heist. The works are still missing.

February 10, 2008: Four paintings by Cezanne, Degas, Van Gogh and Monet valued at more than 112 million euros were stolen from a museum in Zurich, Switzerland. The Van Gogh and the Monet were later recovered; the other two have not been found.

August 5, 2007: Two Bruegels, a Sisley and a Monet, all considered priceless, were stolen from the Jules Cheret museum in Nice, France. They were recovered the following year.

In December 2011, a French court convicted five men arrested in an FBI sting and sentenced them to between two and nine years.

February 25, 2006: Works by Salvador Dali, Picasso, Matisse and Monet, estimated at $54 million, were taken from the Chacara do Ceu museum during the annual carnival celebrations in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. They have not been recovered.

August 22, 2004: Edvard Munch's masterpieces "The Scream" and "Madonna", valued at 80 million euros, were stolen from an Oslo museum. They were recovered damaged in 2006.

December 7, 2002: Two Van Goghs, valued at several million euros, were stolen from the Van Gogh museum in Amsterdam. The pieces have so far not been found.

In addition, in March 1990, 13 works of art were lifted from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston, including rare paintings by Rembrandt and Vermeer. The total value of the haul was estimated at a record $500 million. In March 2013 the authorities said they had identified the thieves, but that it was too late to prosecute as the statute of limitations had run out.

The most dramatic theft was probably that of Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa, stolen from the Louvre in Paris on August 21, 1911. It was found in December 1913.

A reproduction of the Edgar Degas painting "Ludovic Lepic and his Daughter", one of four paintings by major artists which were stolen from the private E.G. Buehrle Collection, in Zurich, Switzerland. Photo: Foundation E.G. Buehrle Collection.

© 1994-2013 Agence France-Presse More Information: http://artdaily.com/news/64326/The-world-s-major-art-thefts-#.UgxXNG2AmHc[/url] Copyright © artdaily.org

Romania court adjourns Dutch art heist trial; Suspect offers to return paintings

Eugen Darie (R) and Radu Dogaru (R), two of the six suspects in the Dutch art heist trial, exit a local Court in Bucharest, Romania on August 13, 2013. A Bucharest court on Tuesday, August 13, 2013 adjourned the trial of six Romanians charged with a spectacular theft from the Rotterdam Kunsthall , including masterpieces by Monet, Picasso and Gauguin that are now feared to have been burned. AFP PHOTO DANIEL MIHAILESCU.

BUCHAREST (AFP).- A Bucharest court on Tuesday adjourned the trial of six Romanians charged with a spectacular theft from a Dutch museum, including masterpieces by Monet, Picasso and Gauguin that are now feared to have been burned. Immediately after opening proceedings, the court president postponed the trial to September 10 to allow more time for legal issues to be examined, including bail requests. It took less than three minutes for the thieves to take seven works by some of the world's most famous artists from the Kunsthal museum in Rotterdam in the pre-dawn heist last October. Among the paintings carried away in burlap sacks were Picasso's "Tete d'Arlequin" and Monet's "Waterloo Bridge".
Shortly before the hearing opened, a lawyer for the alleged mastermind said his client, who admits his guilt, had offered to return five of the works in return for being tried in the Netherlands instead of Romania. "Radu Dogaru tried to make a deal with the (Dutch) prosecutors," Catalin Dancu told reporters, adding that the punishments for robbery were lighter in the Netherlands. There was no mention of the other two missing paintings, and the lawyer said he could not confirm whether Dogaru was actually in possession of any of the masterpieces. Investigators are still trying to figure out what happened to the paintings. Dogaru's mother Olga earlier this year told prosecutors she had torched them in her stove in the sleepy village of Carcaliu in a bid to destroy evidence and protect her son, but she retracted that statement last month. An analysis by experts from Romania's National History Museum revealed that ashes retrieved from her stove included the remains of three oil paintings and nails from frames used before the end of the 19th century. The museum could not say whether these were from the paintings stolen in Rotterdam, although four of those were oil paintings.

Four of the suspects, including Dogaru, were in court for Tuesday's brief hearing. A fifth, who is not in detention, did not attend the session while a sixth accused is on the run and will be tried in absentia. As well as standing trial for aiding and abetting, Olga Dogaru faces a separate investigation into the possible destruction of the artworks. The total value of the haul, dubbed the "theft of the century" in the Netherlands, was 18 million euros ($24 million) according to prosecutors, while art experts at the time of the heist claimed the paintings were worth up to 100 million euros. "The theft was carried out according to a meticulous plan," prosecutors say in the indictment. Dogaru, 29, is already under investigation in Romania for murder and human trafficking. If found guilty of "theft with exceptionally serious consequences", he faces a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison. Dogaru and his alleged accomplices all come from the same region in eastern Romania but lived in the Netherlands, and were under suspicion for robbery while their girlfriends allegedly were sex workers.

With little knowledge of art but eager to steal valuable old pieces, the group settled on the Kunsthal by chance. After searching for museums on their GPS, the group initially found themselves at Rotterdam's Natural History Museum, but soon realised its exhibits could not be resold, according to the indictment. They then chanced upon a poster advertising an exhibition of 150 masterpieces from the private Triton Foundation at the Kunsthal. Despite their value, none of the paintings were equipped with alarms, Dutch authorities said. After smuggling the paintings into Romania by road, the group tried to sell them without success. A former model, Petre Condrat, accused of being an intermediary, is charged with concealment. A Romanian art expert on Monday said she alerted the authorities last November after being asked by a friend to appraise two canvases. In an interview with Romanian daily Adevarul and Dutch daily NRC Handelsblad, Mariana Dragu of Romania's National Art Museum said she was shocked to discover that the works -- Gauguin's "Femme Devant une Fenetre Ouverte, dite La Fiancee" and "La Liseuse en Blanc et Jaune" by Matisse -- were originals. Two months later, three of the suspects -- Dogaru, Eugen Darie and Mihai Alexandru Bitu -- were arrested in Romania. Two of them had been identified by Dutch police thanks to surveillance cameras. © 1994-2013 Agence France-Presse

More Information: http://artdaily.com/news/64353/Romania-court-adjourns-Dutch-art-heist-trial--Suspect-offers-to-return-paintings#.UgxQtG2AmHc[/url] Copyright © artdaily.org

Experts investigating Rotterdam heist find remains of at least three oil paintings

An image showing a microscope picture of a canvas piece containig lead oxide is shown during a press conference is shown during a press conference at the National History Museum of Romania in Bucharest on August 8, 2013. Romanian experts sifting through ashes that could contain charred debris of masterpieces stolen from Rotterdam's Kunsthal museum have identified fragments typical of burnt oil paintings, the museum carrying out the analysis said Thursday. Six Romanians will stand trial in August for what has been called the "theft of the century". The works stolen include Picasso's "Tete d'Arlequin", Monet's "Waterloo Bridge" and Lucian Freud's "Woman with Eyes Closed". AFP PHOTO DANIEL MIHAILESCU.


BUCHAREST (AFP).- Experts investigating the theft of seven masterpieces said Thursday they had found the burned remains of at least three oil paintings at the Romanian home of the chief suspect's mother. Olga Dogaru admitted torching the stolen artworks, including two Monets and a Picasso, to destroy evidence against her son. Prosecutors say the seven paintings were worth 18 million euros ($24 million), although experts have put their collective value at over 100 million euros. She later retracted her statement, but Romanian art experts say they have discovered traces of three or four paintings in ashes taken from a wood-burning stove in her home. Ernest Oberlaender-Tarnoveanu, head of Romania's National History Museum which analysed the ashes, said he could not be sure the paintings were those swiped from Rotterdam's Kunsthal museum last October. "The number and the type of nails we found (in the ashes) indicate that we have at least three paintings there. There are also tacks that could belong to a fourth one," he told a press conference. "We found remains of burned oil paintings, but whether they are the ones that were stolen is a separate question, to be determined by prosecutors and judges." Olga Dogaru, her son Radu and four other Romanians go on trial on Tuesday in Bucharest over the audacious heist, which has been called the "theft of the century". It took the thieves just a pair of pliers and less than three minutes and to break into the museum and snatch the masterpieces, according to the indictment. Four of the stolen canvases were oil paintings, while the other three -- including Monet's "Waterloo Bridge" and Picasso's "Tête d'Arlequin" -- would be impossible to identify if burned as they were either pastel or coloured ink on paper, Oberlaender-Tarnoveanu said.
© 1994-2013 Agence France-Presse More Information: http://artdaily.com/news/64267/Experts-investigating-Rotterdam-heist-find-remains-of-at-least-three-oil-paintings-#.UgxXbm2AmHd[/url] Copyright © artdaily.org

Romanian art expert Mariana Dragu was key witness in Dutch art heist probe

'Waterloo Bridge, London' by Claude Monet.

BUCHAREST (AFP).- A Romanian art expert said Monday she helped police identify the suspects of a spectacular heist from a Dutch museum after she was asked to appraise two paintings in 2012. In an interview with Romanian daily Adevarul and Dutch daily NRC Handelsblad, Mariana Dragu of Romania's National Art Museum said she "felt she had to do something" when she realised that the paintings she had seen were stolen from the Kunsthal Museum in Rotterdam. A total of seven masterpieces including a Picasso, a Gauguin and two Monets were taken from the museum in October 2012. The works are feared lost after the mother of the main suspect told prosecutors she had torched them in a bid to destroy evidence. In November, Dragu was asked by a friend to appraise two paintings that he planned to buy if they were not fakes. She was met in a Bucharest flat by the art collector and two other men, one of whom proved to be among the suspects of the robbery. "I had heard about the theft but I had not seen any images so I did not realise at once that it could have been the stolen paintings," she said. After closely examining the two canvases -- "Femme Devant une Fenetre Ouverte, dite La Fiancee" by Paul Gauguin and "La Liseuse en Blanc et Jaune" by Henri Matisse -- she was shocked to discover that they were original. "I was told they came from England," she added, stressing that by then she had understood they were stolen. When asked about their value, Dragu told the men their "only chance to make some money was to hand them to the police, claiming they had found them in a garbage can". She was allowed to take only one picture -- the back of the Matisse, which carried several labels indicating that it had been exhibited in several international displays. Back home, Dragu went online and discovered the two canvases were among the seven masterpieces stolen from the Kunsthal. The next day she called the prosecutor's office. When the Dutch police were told the paintings were in Romania "they could not believe it," she said. "But the picture I had taken was the best evidence that it was true." "My only regret is that I was not clever and strong enough to say I know a potential buyer. I might have saved the paintings," she said. Two months later, three suspects, including one of the two men she had met, were arrested in Romania. Their trial begins Tuesday.
© 1994-2013 Agence France-Presse

More Information: http://artdaily.com/news/64342/Romanian-art-expert-Mariana-Dragu-was-key-witness-in-Dutch-art-heist-probe-#.UgxVLm2AmHc[/url] Copyright © artdaily.org

New York dealer Glafira Rosales who duped galleries indicted over massive art fraud

NEW YORK (AFP).- An art dealer who allegedly duped two top New York galleries into buying counterfeit paintings she presented as works by Modernist masters has been indicted for fraud, money laundering and tax evasion. Prosecutors said Glafira Rosales, 56, will be arraigned in a Manhattan court Friday on charges of selling more than 60 fake works of art between 1994 and 2009 for a total of $33.2 million. Rosales is also charged with concealing the proceeds of her sales by having much of the money sent to overseas bank accounts and filing false tax returns. She faces up to 20 years in prison if convicted of fraud and money laundering, the two most serious of the seven counts on which she has been indicted. "The indictment depicts a complete circle of fraud perpetrated by Glafira Rosales -- fake paintings sold on behalf of non-existent clients with money deposited into a hidden bank account," said Preet Bharara, the US attorney in charge of the case. According to prosecutors, Rosales managed to convince the galleries that some of the previously unknown works came from two clients -- one based in Switzerland and one based in Spain -- where she had set up bank accounts to receive the payments. Prosecutors say her Swiss client, presented as a wealthy individual who had inherited the art works, was a "a pure fiction" while the Spanish one was a real art collector but had never owned the paintings he was supposed to be selling or had any business relationship with Rosales. Rosales's most spectacular success came with the sale of a supposed Jackson Pollock painting known as "Untitled 1950" to the Knoedler & Company gallery, at the time the oldest gallery in New York. In 2007, Knoedler's then president Ann Freedman sold the work to London collector Pierre Lagrange for $17 million. Lagrange subsequently discovered that two paints used in the work were not invented until after Pollock had died and launched a law-suit against Knoedler & Freedman in May. Days after the suit was filed, Knoedler went out of business, after 165 years at the forefront of the New York art market. Lagrange's action was one of at least six lawsuits initiated by buyers who suspected they were sold fakes, and their doubts triggered an investigation by the FBI. Other works provided by Rosales were sold by Julian Weissman, another prominent art dealer who had represented the artist Robert Motherwell when he was alive. Rosales is alleged to have supplied at least seven fake works represented as paintings by Motherwell, as well as others presented as works by Mark Rothko and Willem de Kooning. Rosales, who denies the charges against her, has been in custody since she was arrested in May. Federal authorities have said she poses a flight risk because of her substantial funds overseas. © 1994-2013 Agence France-Presse

Untitled,1956 attributed to Mark Rothko.

More Information: http://artdaily.com/news/63859/New-York-dealer-Glafira-Rosales-who-duped-galleries-indicted-over-massive-art-fraud-#.UesDaW2-Vfw[/url] Copyright © artdaily.org

Romanian mum 'destroyed' stolen Picasso, Monet paintings valued at over $130 million

BUCHAREST (AFP).- The mother of a Romanian art heist suspect has admitted to torching seven stolen masterpieces, including works by Picasso and Monet, the Mediafax news agency reported Tuesday. The mother of suspect Radu Doragu said she incinerated the artworks, valued at over 100 million euros ($130 million), in her stove in a bid to "destroy any evidence". "After the arrest of my son in January 2013, I was very scared because I knew that what had happened was very serious," Mediafax reported Dogaru's mother as saying, citing court documents. "I placed the suitcase containing the paintings in the stove. I put in some logs, slippers and rubber shoes and waited until they had completely burned." The court documents appear to confirm earlier fears, after it was reported in May that investigators were combing through ashes found in her home. Six Romanians will stand trial in August for what has been called the "theft of the century". The seven masterpieces were swiped from Rotterdam's Kunsthal museum on October 16 in less than 90 seconds. The heist gripped The Netherlands and the art world as police struggled to solve the crime, putting 25 officers on the case. The works stolen include Picasso's "Tete d'Arlequin", Monet's "Waterloo Bridge" and Lucian Freud's "Woman with Eyes Closed".

Picture taken on October 16, 2012 shows an empty space left by a painting from French artist Henri Matisse that was stolen at the Kunsthal museum in Rotterdam. Romanian suspect charged over the spectacular theft of seven masterpieces including Paul Gauguin, Henri Matisse, Claude Monet and Pablo Picasso from the Dutch museum, will be trialed in Roumania but the paintngs have never been found. AFP PHOTO / ANP / ROBIN UTRECHT.

More Information: http://artdaily.com/news/63812/Romanian-mum--destroyed--stolen-Picasso--Monet-paintings-valued-at-over--130-million#.UesB7W2-Vfw[/url] Copyright © artdaily.org

John Constable painting in National Gallery vandalised in United Kingdom fathers' rights protest

LONDON (AFP).- John Constable's masterpiece "The Hay Wain" was attacked in Britain's National Gallery on Friday by a protester believed to be linked to the campaign group Fathers4Justice. A man was arrested at the prestigious gallery after gluing a 10-centimetre (four-inch) photograph of a young boy to the 1821 landscape. The National Gallery said no lasting damage had been done to the painting, which is one of Britain's best-known works of art.
Fathers4Justice released a statement from a man named as Paul Manning who said a custody battle with his former partner had forced him to take "drastic action". The British group, which campaigns for fathers' fair access to their children following separation from the mother, also released photographs of Manning holding an image of his son, with the word HELP scrawled on it. A second photo showed the image glued to the famous canvas. The attack came as a Fathers4Justice campaigner appeared in court accused of vandalising a portrait of Queen Elizabeth II in London's Westminster Abbey two weeks ago. Fathers4Justice had called for dads to take "independent weekly direct action", saying it was abandoning a five-year "attempted engagement with the political establishment". London's Metropolitan Police said a 57-year-old man was in police custody after being arrested shortly after 1 pm (1200 GMT).
A spokeswoman for the National Gallery said the painting was already back on display. "Conservation staff were on the scene very rapidly and the painting was removed for treatment," she said. "No damage to Constable's original paint occurred and there is no lasting damage to the painting." Set up in 2001, Fathers4Justice have gained a reputation over the years for headline-grabbing stunts. Their activists have scaled buildings such as Buckingham Palace dressed as superheroes, and in 2004 they sparked a major security alert at the British parliament when they pelted then-prime minister Tony Blair with flour as he was speaking. A spokeswoman for Fathers4Justice said the group was now encouraging fathers to write "help" or place pictures of their children in "significant places where they are visible to the world". "We can no longer stem the tide of desperation and anger of fathers who have had their families destroyed and their hopes betrayed by a government that promised equal parenting but only delivered desperation," she said.

Fathers4Justice released a statement from a man named as Paul Manning who said a custody battle with his former partner had forced him to take "drastic action". Photo: Fathers4Justice.

© 1994-2013 Agence France-Presse
More Information: http://artdaily.com/news/62337/John-Constable-painting-in-National-Gallery-vandalised-in-United-Kingdom-fathers--rights-protest#.UdBziG0tpI0[/url] Copyright © artdaily.org

Investigators analyse ashes taken from the house of one of the suspects as Dutch heist paintings feared burnt!

BUCHAREST (AFP).- Investigators are analysing ashes found in the house of a Romanian suspect charged for the spectacular Dutch museum heist, judicial sources said Wednesday, raising fears that the seven stolen masterpieces may have been burnt. "Tests are underway, they will take some time," Gabriela Neagu, a spokeswoman for the Romanian prosecutor's office, told AFP. "The ash tests are a stage in the ongoing probe, investigators have to take every hypothesis into account", she added. Investigators fear that the suspects may have set fire to their haul after realising that they could not sell the paintings, which included works by Pablo Picasso, Claude Monet and Henri Matisse. The ashes were taken from the house of Olga Dogaru, mother of one of the suspects and herself charged with "complicity to theft." Her son's lawyer, Doina Lupu, told AFP the tests "were inconclusive" so far. Dogaru was arrested in March after her house in eastern Romania was thoroughly searched. An empty suitcase which had presumably served to store the stolen paintings was unearthed during the operation. Seven Romanians, including Dogaru, have been charged in connection with the theft of the paintings from Rotterdam's Kunsthal museum on October 16. Experts have estimated their value at more than 100 million euros ($130 million). The heist gripped the Netherlands and the art world as police struggled to solve the crime, despite putting 25 officers on the case. The works stolen include Picasso's "Tete d'Arlequin"(pictured above), Monet's "Waterloo Bridge" and Lucian Freud's "Woman with Eyes Closed".

© 1994-2013 Agence France-Presse
More Information: http://artdaily.com/index.asp?int_sec=2&int_new=62908#.UaoQkpyg0cs[/url] Copyright © artdaily.org

Spanish court sends Chinese businessman, art dealer and fraud suspect Gao Ping back to jail

MADRID (AFP).- A Spanish court ordered the return to prison on Tuesday of a Chinese art dealer suspected of leading a massive money-laundering gang in Spain pending his possible trial, judging him a flight risk. Gao Ping was arrested in October 2012 along with dozens of mostly Chinese suspects as part of a police investigation dubbed "Operation Emperor" but a court ordered him bailed the following month due to procedural irregularities relating to his detention. Spain's High Court, the country's top criminal court, ordered his return to jail on Tuesday because of the "sufficiently intense temptation" to flee the country and because of the serious nature of the crimes he is alleged to have committed. Spanish prosecutors suspect Gao of leading a gang that laundered up to 300,000 euros ($392,000) a year, dodged taxes, bribed officials and forged documents. Gao, reportedly from Zhejiang in northeastern China, owns art galleries in Madrid and Beijing plus businesses in Cobo Calleja, a huge Chinese trading estate in southern Madrid. Judges are due to decide at an unspecified date whether he will go on trial Police seized 10 million euros in cash as part of their operation as well as 200 cars, several guns, jewels and art works.
© 1994-2013 Agence France-Presse More Information: http://artdaily.com/index.asp?int_sec=2&int_new=61990#.UXBFesq7f5A[/url] Copyright © artdaily.org

One million euro stolen gold egg recovered near French-Swiss border during a routine roadblock

GRENOBLE (AFP).- A bejewelled golden egg stolen four years ago in Geneva and worth an estimated one million euros ($1.3 million) has been recovered by French police near the Swiss border, police said Monday. The precious egg, made in the style of the famous Faberge pieces, was discovered on Thursday in a "suspect" BMW pulled over during a routine roadblock near the Swiss border, driven by two Belarusian men who were promptly arrested. A third Belarusian, a Swiss resident, trailing in a Jaguar was pulled over and arrested a short while later, according to a police statement. Under questioning the three men unconvincingly claimed they had found the jewelled work of art lying on the ground, or had bought it cheaply in a flea-market, a French police official told AFP on condition of anonymity. "They're not talking much. We have the impression we're dealing with a team tasked with transporting and negotiating the sale of the artwork," the official said. The three, aged between 24 and 38, were charged with receiving stolen goods and possessing a weapon. They were already sought in France and Switzerland for several burglaries. The egg, containing more than a kilogramme of gold and boasting hundreds of gems, was burgled in 2009 from a Kuwait import-export firm based in Geneva.
© 1994-2013 Agence France-Presse
More Information: http://artdaily.com/index.asp?int_sec=2&int_new=61992#.UXBDOsq7f5A[/url] Copyright © artdaily.org

FBI provides new information regarding the 1990 Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum art heist

BOSTON (AFP).- The FBI said Monday that they finally know who conducted a daring art heist in Boston exactly 23 years ago -- but the thieves can no longer be prosecuted. For two decades, the 1990 theft of 13 works of art from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, including rare paintings by Rembrandt and Vermeer, has been one of America's greatest unsolved crimes. Now, says the FBI's Boston chief Richard DesLauriers, agents "confirmed the identity of those who entered the museum and others associated with the theft." At a news conference, he touted "significant investigative progress." But there are two big hitches. First, the thieves who hit the museum dressed as Boston police officers essentially got away with it -- because the robbery "occurred 23 years ago, the statute of limitations has run" out, US Attorney Carmen Ortiz told reporters. The prosecutor said the only likely prosecutions were over "criminal liability for anyone in possession." In addition, the FBI still doesn't know where the masterpieces are hidden. DesLauriers said it was clear now for the first time that the art had been stolen by "a criminal organization with a base in the mid-Atlantic states and New England" and about a decade ago was brought, in part, to Philadelphia. "We do not know where the art is currently located," he said, describing the paintings' fate as having been "secreted, unseen and unappreciated." Officials said they wanted to spread news about the unclaimed $5 million reward for information leading to the paintings' recovery and to appeal for tips. Ortiz also put out another piece of bait: immunity from prosecution. There is "potential for immunity to anyone connected," she said, adding that there was no guarantee of "blanket immunity without knowing the specifics." The apparent progress in one of history's greatest art thefts, also including works by Manet and Renoir, comes exactly 23 years since the thieves conned their way into the museum after hours. Once in, they tied up the two guards and "roamed the galleries," according to the account from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. Only the next morning when the new shift arrived were the bound guards -- and the robbery -- discovered. © 1994-2013 Agence France-Presse
More Information: http://artdaily.com/index.asp?int_sec=11&int_new=61397#.UVSYk1e7f5A[/url] Copyright © artdaily.org

Seven paintings stolen during World War II returned to heirs in emotional Paris ceremony

PARIS (AFP).- Six paintings that fell into the hands of the Nazis after their Jewish industrialist owner was forced to sell in order to flee occupied Paris in 1941 were on Tuesday returned to his grandson. In an emotional ceremony at the French culture ministry in Paris, Thomas Selldorff, 84, from near Boston said he was "very happy" to accept the 18th century German and Italian works which he last saw at his grandfather's Vienna home as a small child. They were sold to raise funds for Richard Neumann's passage from Paris to Spain and Cuba. "It's a great day for me. I have three children... and the paintings are going to stay in the family, in our respective homes," a visibly moved Selldorff said, speaking in French. A seventh painting, "The Stop" by Dutch painter Pieter-Jansz van Asch (1603-1678) confiscated by the Nazis from Prague banker Josef Wiener, was also handed over. A lawyer accepted the painting on behalf of the son of a friend of Wiener's wife. Wiener perished in the holocaust. Selldorff's grandfather owned over 200 works of art before the war. But he was forced to leave part of his collection behind when he fled Austria when it was annexed by the Nazis in 1938, and later sold others in Paris. The Nazis had planned to transfer the paintings to a museum that Adolf Hitler envisaged opening in the Austrian town of Linz. After the end of the war, however, they were placed in museums around France, three of them in the Louvre. On Monday, France vowed to step up efforts to return works of art stolen from Jews by the Nazis to the families of their rightful owners. An estimated 2,000 works of art are currently held in trust by France's state museums pending identification of their owners. Culture Minister Aurelie Filippetti said France would be taking a more active approach to identifying the rightful owners. "Until now we have waited for inheritors or relatives to trigger research procedures," Filippetti said. "I want to introduce a more proactive approach under which France will seek the owners whether or not a formal request has been made."
© 1994-2013 Agence France-Presse

More Information: http://artdaily.com/index.asp?int_sec=11&int_new=61416#.UVSXQVe7f5A[/url] Copyright © artdaily.org

Serbian police find Rembrandt stolen in 2006, painting already been stolen 10 years earlier

BELGRADE (AFP).- Serbian police have recovered a painting by 17th-century Dutch master Rembrandt that was stolen in 2006, and arrested four people, a spokeswoman said on Tuesday. Rembrandt's "Portrait of the Father" was found on Monday during a police operation in Sremska Mitrovica, some 50 kilometres (31 miles) west of Belgrade, the spokeswoman told AFP. It was stolen from a museum in the northern town of Novi Sad, 70 kilometres from the capital, with three other works. Four people were arrested during the operation, the spokeswoman said. The painting, which the museum estimated was worth 2.5 million pounds (2.8 million euros, $3.7 million), was stolen in January 2006. It had already been stolen 10 years earlier but was recovered in Spain. The work is 28 x 22.5 centimetres (11 x nine inches) in size and was painted around 1630. The other paintings stolen from the Novi Sad City Museum in 2006 were a Rubens, a piece by Francesco Mola from the 17th century, and another by an unknown German-Dutch artist from the 16th century. At the time police said that two masked and armed robbers broke into the museum and tied up two employees on duty before making off with the paintings. None of the other works has been recovered. Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn, who lived from 1606 to 1669, is considered one of Europe's greatest Baroque painters and his country's most important.
© 1994-2013 Agence France-Presse
More Information: http://artdaily.com/index.asp?int_sec=2&int_new=61274#.UUJJdlf58hM[/url] Copyright © artdaily.org

Russian President Vladimir Putin refuses to return disputed Jewish archive to United States

MOSCOW (AFP).- Russian President Vladimir Putin said Tuesday he refused to return a historic but disputed Jewish archive to the United States because doing so would "open a Pandora's box". He spoke after a US judge slapped a daily fine of $50,000 (37,500 euros) on Moscow last month for its failure to comply with a 2010 order to return the sacred texts. Putin's international cultural cooperation representative Mikhail Shvydko said at the time that the ruling "doomed" the chances of the archive ever being sent to the United States. Speaking at a Moscow meeting on inter-ethnic issues, Putin called the ruling "unjust" and proposed instead to display the collection in Moscow. "If we open a Pandora's box today and begin to grant such claims, then there won't be an end to such requests and it is unclear what they will lead to," he said in televised remarks. "Maybe one day we will be able to do so but in my opinion, right now we are simply absolutely not ready for it. It is not possible." He suggested the texts be displayed at the Jewish Museum and Tolerance Centre, which opened in November and is one of the world's largest Jewish museums. The archive -- referred to in Russia as the Schneersohn Library in honour of its original owner Rabbi Joseph Isaac Schneersohn -- was split up and partially nationalised by the Soviet Union in 1918. The other part was taken out of Russia and ended up in Germany where it was seized by Soviet troops at the end of World War II in 1945. Most of the 12,000 texts and 50,000 documents it contains have since been transferred to the Russian military archive and state library. Officials there said last month that they had no intention of parting with a collection gathered in the 18th century and regarded with veneration by Hasidic Jews who populated eastern Europe and have since largely settled in New York. The dispute has frozen cultural exchange programmes between the two old Cold War rivals and as a result, touring exhibitions of such great museums as the Hermitage and the Tretyakov have bypassed the United States. The US State Department has argued that decisions of the kind issued by the District Court complicated both the case and bilateral ties. Since Putin's return to the Kremlin for a third term in May, Russia and the United States have been at odds over a growing number of issues.
© 1994-2013 Agence France-Presse

Man arrested in New York Dali heist

NEW YORK (AFP).- US authorities said Tuesday they have arrested a Greek man for making off with a Salvador Dali watercolor and ink painting worth about $150,000 from a New York private art gallery in June. Phivos Istavrioglou, 29, was arrested Saturday at JFK international airport in a sting that lured him to the United States from Italy, Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance announced. "After surveillance images of a suspect were released to the public, the drawing ... was anonymously mailed back to the gallery from Greece. "A subsequent investigation led to the arrest and indictment of the defendant, who is charged in New York State Supreme Court with Grand Larceny in the Second Degree," Vance said in a statement. Famously mustachioed Spanish surrealist painter Salvador Dali's 1949 "Cartel de Don Juan Tenorio" was on display as part of the Venus Over Manhattan gallery's debut exhibition, which opened in May. Surveillance video showed the suspect, wearing a black and white shirt and jeans, casually walking out of the Upper East Side art gallery with the painting sticking out of a shopping bag.
© 1994-2013 Agence France-Presse

Romanians arrested over Dutch art heist claim innocence; court denied the suspects bail

BUCHAREST (AFP).- Three Romanians arrested last week in connection with the theft of seven masterpieces from a Rotterdam museum, including works by Monet and Picasso, claimed their innocence in court Friday. The men, charged with conspiracy and aggravated theft, have been linked to at least two of the artworks -- a Matisse and a Gauguin -- which they allegedly tried to sell in Romania. Their defense lawyers told the court during a bail hearing Friday that they were innocent even though one of them twice visited the museum where the seven masterpieces, estimated at between 100 and 200 million euros ($135 million and $270 million), were stolen. However, the court denied the suspects bail. Eugen Darie, dressed in sweatpants and anorak, told the court he visited Rotterdam Kunsthall museum at around the time of the theft last October but never laid eyes on the stolen paintings he and his co-defendants allegedly tried to sell. "I didn't see the paintings," he said. "I only looked at bronze statues. I am innocent." Fellow suspect Radu Dogaru also told the court he had nothing to do with the heist, one of the most spectacular in the art world in the last 20 years, even though prosecutors says he was present when two of the works were offered to a Romanian businessman in the presence of an art expert. Mihai Alexandru Bitu, the third suspect, also denied involvement. His lawyer, Daniela Dede, told AFP that her client "just received a call from his co-defendant Dogaru who asked him to find a buyer for some objects. He didn't know it was these paintings." The suspects, all in their 20s, have been detained for questioning since their arrest on January 22. Under Romanian law, they can be held for 29 days. All three of them have been under investigation for violent offences in the past. Romania's police chief Petre Toba said Thursday that investigators had evidence leading them to believe that several other people had taken part in the theft. A person from Moldova is said to have been present when the paintings were offered for sale, one of the defence lawyer told AFP. Investigators also believe that an Albanian man investigated for murder in Romania may have helped the suspects in The Netherlands, sources close from the investigation told Mediafax news agency. The heist gripped the Netherlands and the art world as police apparently struggled to piece the crime together, despite putting 25 officers on the case. Dutch police released grainy security camera footage of the theft, which took place around 3:00 am. The footage showed two apparently young males entering and leaving the museum in central Rotterdam within barely 90 seconds. The works stolen include Picasso's "Tete d'Arlequin", Monet's "Waterloo Bridge" and Lucian Freud's "Woman with Eyes Closed".

© 1994-2013 Agence France-Press More Information: http://artdaily.com/index.asp?int_sec=2&int_new=60361#.UQbaF2egQg8[/url] Copyright © artdaily.org

Stolen Matisse turns up in Britain; to be returned to Museum of Modern Art in Stockholm

LONDON (AFP).- A Matisse painting stolen 25 years ago from the Museum of Modern Art in Stockholm has turned up in Britain, where a dealer had hoped to sell it on behalf of an elderly Polish client, it emerged on Monday. Henri Matisse's "Le Jardin", an oil on canvas from 1920 which is now worth about $1 million (760,000 euros), was found when art dealer Charles Roberts ran it through a global database of stolen art -- standard practice before a sale. The team at the Art Loss Register quickly identified the painting as the one stolen from the Swedish museum on May 11, 1987, when a burglar broke in with a sledgehammer and made off with the artwork in the early hours of the morning. Several attempts were made to ransom the painting or sell it back to the museum for a huge sum, according to reports at the time, but the museum refused, and the trail went cold -- until last month. Within a few days of matching the Matisse with the stolen painting on the database, a specialist had taken possession of the work and put it in his safe, where it is now awaiting delivery to the Swedish museum. Roberts, who runs Charles Fine Art in Essex, east of London, said he had been asked to sell the painting by an elderly man in Poland who had owned it since the 1990s and now wanted to raise money for his grandchildren. Given that the dealer did not know who owned the Matisse before that, Roberts ran it through the Art Loss Register to check its provenance. "I didn't anticipate hearing that it had been stolen. It came as quite a shock to find that out," Roberts told AFP. "It would have been good all round, but unfortunately it wasn't to be. As soon as I was informed of its status there was no question about doing anything but returning it." The Polish man had bought it "in good faith", Roberts said, and when he told him it was stolen and could not be sold, the man "was bewildered, taken aback, although he did say, 'So it definitely is a real one?'" The director of the Swedish museum at the time of the theft had told reporters that the painting was too well-known to sell on the open market, and this is likely why it had been missing for so long. Christopher A. Marinello, the art recovery specialist and lawyer who has locked the work in his safe, said: "Stolen artwork has no real value in the legitimate marketplace and will eventually resurface.... It's just a matter of waiting it out."

© 1994-2012 Agence France-Presse More Information: http://artdaily.com/index.asp?int_sec=2&int_new=60005#.UOyPUnegQg9[/url] Copyright © artdaily.org