South Korea prosecutors say artist's 'fake' work is genuine

In this picture taken on December 19, 2016, members of the prosecutors' team hold a copy of the painting "Beautiful Woman" by Chun Kyung-Ja, which has been the focus of a bizarre, decades-long dispute over its authenticity, at the Prosecutors' Office in Seoul. A painting attributed to one of South Korea's most renowned artists has been declared genuine by state prosecutors, despite the insistence of the late artist herself that it was a fake. YONHAP / AFP.

SEOUL (AFP).- A painting attributed to one of South Korea's most renowned artists has been declared genuine by state prosecutors, despite the insistence of the late artist herself that it was a fake. The painting "Beautiful Woman" by Chun Kyung-Ja has been the focus of a bizarre, decades-long dispute over its authenticity, and Monday's announcement by the prosecutors looks unlikely to end the matter, with Chun's family vowing to pursue efforts to have it declared a forgery. Born in 1924 in a small town in the southern part of the Korean peninsula, Chun Kyung-Ja was best known for her paintings of female figures and flowers using vivid primary colours that broke with traditional South Korean styles.

Her works have recently sold at auction for between $700,000 and $1 million. Before her death last year at the age of 91, Chun had repeatedly insisted that "Beautiful Woman" -- a 1971 portrait owned by the South's National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art (MMCA) -- was not one of hers. "Parents can recognise their children. That is not my painting," she insisted. The museum was equally adamant that it was, and in April a prosecutorial probe was launched after one of Chun's daughters filed a complaint, accusing former and current MMCA officials of hurting the artist's reputation by promoting the painting as authentic. But in their report on Monday, the prosecutors found in favour of the museum, citing forensic evidence and the opinion of local art experts.

They also clarified the provenance of the painting, saying it was once owned by the former head of the South Korean spy agency and was appropriated by the government after he was executed for assassinating then-president Park Chung-Hee in 1979. "We tried to uncover the truth by using all possible technologies available for authentic assessment of arts," a member of the prosecutors' team said. Chun's family on Tuesday rejected the conclusion and accused the prosecutors of seeking to help the state museum authorities save face.

"The prosecutors conspired with the MMCA to ignore the scientific opinion of a world-class imagery assessment firm and... produced this ridiculous result," the family's lawyer said in a statement. The statement referred to the French imagery analysis firm Lumiere Technology that had earlier estimated the possibility of the painting being authentic at less than 0.0002 percent. "We wonder if the prosecutors... caved in to political pressure," the statement said, adding that Lumiere Technology would hold a press conference in Paris on Wednesday to refute the prosecutors' findings.

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French museum employee sold stolen fossils online

ORLÉANS (AFP).- A French employee at the Orleans museum of natural history was found guilty and handed a three-month suspended sentence for stealing hundreds of stones and fossils dating back to the Neolithic era and selling them on eBay. The man was sacked on November 14, after being detained for the theft of 666 archaeological treasures from the museum in the city of Orleans, which is located to the south of Paris.

The 56-year-old museum employee had been a civil servant working for the city of Orleans for 28 years. The stolen stones and fossils were all part of a collection donated to the museum in 1983. Most of the items came from Mauritania. Investigators found 364 items at the employee's home. Another 100 were returned by their buyers -- after they purchased them on eBay for 10 to 20 euros each.

The elaborate scheme was discovered thanks to one of the buyers, who was keen to find out whether the pieces were authentic. Museum staff had noticed that parts of the collection had gone missing, and were able to identify the thief after the buyer contacted them. The museum has been shut for renovation since August 2015.

The man admitted his guilt, and told the judges that his "financial situation had become catastrophic" ever since his divorce in 2013. "I couldn't pay off my debts to the bank. I panicked at the thought of finding myself living on the streets, and of never seeing my children again. I lost my head," he said. While the museum had asked for 10,000 euros ($10,400) damages, the court ordered the employee to pay a symbolic sum of just one euro.

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Court clears Swiss museum to inherit Nazi-era art hoard!

Christopher Marinello, lawyer representing the heirs of Paul Rosenberg, looking at Henri Matisse’s ‘Femme Assise’ ("Seated Woman") painting on May 15, 2015 in Munich, Germany. The painting, looted by the Nazis and found last year in a flat of Cornelius Gurlitt, son of a Nazi-era art dealer, was handed back to the Rosenberg family today. AFP PHOTO / ART RECOVERY / WOLF HEIDER-SAWALL.

MUNICH (AFP).- A German court Thursday threw out a challenge to the will of collector Cornelius Gurlitt, clearing the way for a spectacular Nazi-era art hoard found in his home to go to a Swiss museum. The superior regional court in the southern city of Munich ruled that collection, including pieces by Cezanne, Beckmann, Holbein, Delacroix and Munch, could be inherited by the Museum of Fine Arts in Bern. Gurlitt died in May 2014 aged 81 and named the museum as the sole heir of the hundreds of works, found in his cluttered Munich apartment and valued at millions of euros.

But a cousin, Uta Werner, challenged the will and staked a claim to the collection, arguing that Gurlitt was not mentally fit to stipulate what would happen with the art. The Munich tribunal rejected her argument. "An incapacity to make a will on the part of the deceased person at the time it was written has not been proved in the opinion of the court," it said in a statement. Gurlitt, described in media reports as an eccentric recluse, hid the paintings, drawings and sketches in his Munich home for decades and another 239 works at a house he owned in Salzburg, Austria.

His father was one of four art dealers during the Third Reich tasked by the Nazis with selling art stolen from Jews or confiscated as "degenerate" works. Although German authorities discovered the collection during a tax probe in 2012, they kept it under wraps for more than a year until it came to light in a magazine article. Gurlitt struck an agreement with the German government in April 2014 stipulating that any works that were plundered by the Nazis would be returned to their rightful owners and the Bern museum said it would honour that wish. But the heirs of collectors stripped of their assets by the Nazis, many of whom would later be killed in the death camps, have complained that restitution has been woefully slow in coming.

German Culture Minister Monika Gruetters welcomed the court's ruling, saying it provided needed "clarity" on the fate of the collection and would allow a planned joint exhibition of the works by the Bern museum and the Bundeskunsthalle in Bonn next year to take place. "This decision will help us to continue to clarify the provenance of the trove quickly and transparently," she added.

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Check out this story: "The mystery of the stolen Klimt." Will it be returned by the 20th anniversary of the theft? We shall see next February!

Click Here: http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-38242917

"The mystery of the stolen Klimt." By Max Paradiso Piacenza

Stefano Fugazza with Claudia Maga and the Portrait of a Lady before the theft

http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-38242917

Swiss seize artefacts looted from Syria's Palmyra

This file photo taken on March 27, 2016 shows a view of the remains of Arch of Triumph, also called the Monumental Arch of Palmyra, that was destroyed by Islamic State (IS) group jihadists in October 2015 in the ancient Syrian city of Palmyra, after government troops recaptured the UNESCO world heritage site from the Islamic State (IS) group. Fifty-five sites out of a total of 1,052 heritage sites around the world, are currently on the UN cultural organisation's list of World Heritage in Danger. Maher AL MOUNES / AFP.

GENEVA (AFP).- Swiss authorities said Friday they had seized cultural relics looted from Syria's ancient city of Palmyra, as well as from Libya and Yemen, which were being stored in Geneva's free ports. The free ports provide highly secured warehouses where basically anything can be stashed tax-free with few questions asked. The confiscated objects, from the third and fourth centuries, include a head of Aphrodite and two funereal bas-reliefs.

Most of the items reached Switzerland via Qatar and were taken by looters, Geneva's public prosecutor said in a statement. They were deposited at the free ports in 2009 and 2010 and the alarm was first raised in April 2013 during a customs inspection, prosecutors added. It was not immediately clear when they were seized. The customs office contacted the cultural authorities in Bern whose expert confirmed the artefacts were genuine, prompting the start of criminal proceedings in February. Three of the pieces came from Palmyra, a UNESCO world heritage site devastated by Islamic State group jihadists who seized it in May 2015. The Islamists sent shock waves around the world as they systematically destroyed the central city's monuments. Five of the confiscated objects were from Yemen.

Last year the UN cultural agency placed two ancient cities in conflict-torn Yemen, Sanaa and Shibam, on its list of endangered World Heritage sites. UNESCO said Sanaa, known for its many Islamic sites and multi-storey rammed earth houses, "sustained serious damage due to armed conflict" between Iran-backed rebels and the beleaguered Saudi-supported government. The Aphrodite relic was from Libya and characterised "the Hellenisation of north Africa" the statement said. While awaiting return to their countries of origin the archaeological contraband is being looked after by the Geneva Museum of Art and History where the relics will be put on public display. Last month French Finance Minister Michel Sapin complained that Swiss, and other, free ports were a "weak link" in countering terrorist financing.

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