Bangladesh reinstalls controversial statue after outcry

A statue denounced by religious hardliners as "un-Islamic" is pictured on the grounds of the Supreme Court in Dhaka after it was reinstalled on May 28, 2017. Bangladesh on May 28 reinstalled a controversial statue deemed un-Islamic by religious hardliners on the grounds of the Supreme Court, just days after its removal had sparked angry protests by secular groups. AFP.

DHAKA (AFP).- Bangladesh on Sunday reinstalled a controversial statue deemed un-Islamic by religious hardliners on the grounds of the Supreme Court, just days after its removal had sparked angry protests by secular groups. The sculpture of a blindfolded, sari-clad woman holding scales had been in place for less than six months when authorities removed it early Friday under pressure from hardliners, who said it was based on the Greek goddess of justice.

Its removal from the front plaza of Bangladesh's top court triggered violent clashes between police and secular groups, who saw the move as further evidence of creeping Islamisation in the officially secular country. But the sculpture's creator Mrinal Haque, who had accused authorities of bowing to hardline groups, said he was asked to reinstall the statue at a different location on the court grounds.

"We have just placed the sculpture in front of the Annex Building of the Supreme Court," Haque told AFP on Sunday. "I wasn't given any clarification but was only ordered to relocate it," he said, adding the new location was at the back of the court where hardly anyone could see it. Opponents of the statue -- who have been demanding for months that it be destroyed and replaced with a Koran -- gathered outside the courthouse Sunday to protest against its return.

Several were arrested by police, Islamist groups said, drawing hundreds of protesters to Dhaka's main mosque to demand their release. "Police arrested nine of our peaceful activists. If they are not released immediately, we will call for a stronger countrywide movement," said Hasibul Islam, spokesman for the student-based Islamist party Islami Shasantantra Chhatra Andolan. The government risked "falling into danger" by trying to balance the interests of Islamist and secularist groups, he added. Islamist groupsheld months of mass protests demanding the statue be removed.

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, who leads the secular Awami League party, initially kept her distance from the affair. But she broke her silence last month to describe the statue as "ridiculous" after inviting top Islamist leaders to her residence. Analysts say Hasina's stand was intended to woo Islamists and conservative rural voters, before a general election expected next year. Bangladesh has seen increasing tensions between hardliners and secularists in recent years, with a number of atheist bloggers, religious minorities and foreigners murdered by extremists.

© Agence France-Presse

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United States returns stolen artifacts to Italy

A Greek bronze Herakles holding the horn of Achelous, dating to the 3rd or 4th century B.C., and valued at $12,500.

NEW YORK (AFP).- The United States on Thursday returned to Italy stolen artifacts worth at least $90,000, dating back as far as the 8th century BC but looted and trafficked overseas, officials said.

The items include a Sardinian bronze ox and Sardinian bronze warrior from the 8th century BC, a Greek bronze Heracles from the 3rd or 4th century BC and a 4th-century BC drinking cup depicting two goats butting heads. There was also a wine jug decorated with rams and panthers dated 650 BC, a 340 BC oil flask depicting a man holding a plate of fruit and a similar flask decorated with a man holding a lyre, dating back to 430 BC.

Six of the items were seized from a Manhattan gallery in April as part of an ongoing investigation into international antiquities trafficking. The seventh object was seized from a different gallery in another part of Midtown Manhattan, US officials said. The antiquities were stolen in the 1990s from burial sites and places of archaeological significance in Italy before they were smuggled overseas, one official said.

New York, America's cultural and financial capital, is a major hub in the international art market, packed with galleries and auction houses. "Art galleries, auction houses, academic institutions and collectors must be vigilant about recognizing and identifying signs of theft and trafficking," Manhattan district attorney Cyrus Vance said.

Italy's consul general in New York, Francesco Genuardi, welcomed the return of what he called "seven marvelous and valuable objects." The returned artifacts will go on display in museums.

© Agence France-Presse

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Junk sale diamond ring bought for £10 worth a fortune

A member of Sotheby's staff poses holding a 26.27 carat, cushion-shaped, white diamond, for sale at Sotheby's auction house in London on May 22, 2017. The large diamond is expected to fetch around 350,000 GBP (405,000 euro; 456,000 USD) at auction 30 years after its owner paid 10 GBP for it at a car boot sale, thinking it was a costume jewel. Justin TALLIS / AFP.

LONDON (AFP).- A diamond ring bought for next to nothing in a London junk sale is expected to fetch up to £350,000 ($455,000, 405,000 euros), Sotheby's auction house said Monday. The owner bought the 26-carat, white diamond ring for £10 in the 1980s and wore it while doing shopping and chores, thinking it was costume jewellery, Sotheby's said. "The owner would wear it out shopping, wear it day-to-day. It's a good-looking ring," said Jessica Wyndham, head of Sotheby's London jewellery department. "No one had any idea it had any intrinsic value at all. "The majority of us can't even begin to dream of owning a diamond that large."

The diamond is thought to have been cut in the 19th century, when the style was to cut to conserve the weight rather than to make it as sparkly as possible, hence its relatively dull brilliance. "It could trick people into thinking it's not a genuine stone," said Wyndham. She said the owner, who does not want to be named, brought the ring in after a jeweller told them it could be worth something. She said the owner was "incredibly excited. Anyone would be in this position: it's a life-changing amount of money. "This is a one-off windfall, an amazing find."

The ring will be auctioned on June 7 and is expected to fetch between £250,000 and £350,000. Sotheby's said the owner came forward in the past few months seeking a valuation. "Much to the owner's surprise, the ring turned out to be a genuine cushion-shaped diamond weighing 26.27 carats with an attractive colour grade of I and impressive clarity grade of VVS2," the auctioneers said. The clarity grade "Very, very slightly included 2" is the fourth-highest out of 11, while a colour grading of I means it is near colourless, on the scale from D to Z.

© Agence France-Presse
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Nicosia convention targets trade in 'blood antiquities'

(L to R) Secretary General of the Council of Europe Thorbjorn Jagland, Cyprus' Minister of Foreign Affairs Ioannis Kasoulides and Czech Foreign Lubomir Zaoralek attend a joint press conference in the Cypriot capital Nicosia on May 19, 2017. Iakovos Hatzistavrou / AFP.

NICOSIA (AFP).- Six countries on Friday signed a Council of Europe convention which criminalises the illegal trade in "blood antiquities" that can be used to finance terrorism, officials said. The initiative, which was launched at a CoE ministerial meeting in Nicosia, comes after jihadists in war-torn Syria and Iraq have looted and sold ancient artefacts to fund their rule.

"Today, the international community takes a crucial leap forward in the protection of our cultural heritage, especially in the efforts to combat the trade in blood antiquities by trans-national organised crime and terrorist networks," said Cypriot Foreign Minister Ioannis Kasoulides. He said it was the only international treaty that deals specifically with the criminalisation of the illicit trafficking of cultural property. The Nicosia Convention outlaws unlawful excavation, the importation and exportation of stolen antiquities, and their illegal acquisition.

It comes as signatories are "concerned that terrorist groups are involved in the deliberate destruction of cultural heritage and use the illicit trade of cultural property as a source of financing", its text reads. Since taking over large swathes of Syria and neighbouring Iraq in 2014, the Islamic State jihadist group has destroyed and looted archeological sites in both countries to sell valued artefacts on the black market.

These include the UNESCO world heritage site of Palmyra in Syria and the Assyrian site of Nimrud in Iraq. Kasoulides said IS and other extremist organisations had raised an estimated $150 million from the trafficking of stolen heritage. The convention also promotes international cooperation aimed at enhancing international legal frameworks against cultural trafficking. "I would also like to thank Armenia, Greece, Portugal, San Marino and Mexico for signing the convention today" along with Cyprus, said Kasoulides. "I call on states to sign and ratify the Nicosia Convention as soon as possible; we have a collective responsibility to protect our cultural heritage and the heritage of mankind."

The convention will come into force after its ratification by national parliaments. A key clause of the convention puts the burden of proof on buyers to demonstrate that a purchased item was not illicitly acquired. Ministers at the Nicosia meeting also adopted guidelines to improve support and compensation to the victims of "terrorist attacks". "The threat of terrorist attacks in Europe remains acute, but victims are not always getting the care and attention they need," CoE Secretary General Thorbjorn Jagland said in a statement. "Governments need to do more to make sure that victims of terrorism are not forgotten and to help them benefit from assistance and compensation."

© Agence France-Presse

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Provenance exhibition shows challenges of tracing the path of ownership of artwork

Bartolomé Esteban Murillo, Christ After the Flagellation, ca. 1670. Oil on canvas. Gift of Ellnora D. Krannert 1960-4-1.

CHAMPAIGN, ILL.- Nancy Karrels relishes solving the mysteries behind the paintings and objects we see in art museums. Karrels – a doctoral student in art history at the University of Illinois who also has two law degrees – investigates the backgrounds and histories of objects to trace their path from creator through each owner. She has created an exhibition for Krannert Art Museum on provenance research and her efforts to document the history of ownership of several of the museum’s works. “Provenance: A Forensic History of Art” opened May 13 and runs through June 2018.

Provenance, or the history of ownership of a historical object or work of art, is important to museums and private collectors, both to authenticate the object and to ensure that ownership is legal and the object was not looted. The practice has drawn more attention in the last couple of decades as artwork stolen by the Nazis before and during World War II has been identified and returned to its owners or their heirs. U.S. museums, including Krannert Art Museum, voluntarily put information online on the Nazi-Era Provenance Internet Portal about any works that lack an unbroken provenance for the Nazi era. The database helps people searching for stolen art.

“Most are not looted artworks. There are almost 30,000 objects on the list,” said Maureen Warren, Krannert Art Museum’s curator of European and American art, who worked with Karrels on the provenance exhibition. Of the thousands of works in Krannert’s collection, 24 are listed on the database. That doesn’t necessarily mean there are problems with the ownership of the items, but that there is a gap in the paper trail of ownership that requires closer scrutiny. “It’s our ethical obligation to conduct this research,” Warren said. “All of our curators make it part of their regular practice, with both new acquisitions and our existing collection. We will not acquire something that is questionable with regard to export laws and other regulations. We have declined to accept gifts that could be suspect in that regard. That doesn’t mean we won’t take things that have gaps (in documentation), but we consider the appropriate legal framework and try to err on the side of caution.”

Karrels has been looking at artwork in the museum’s foundational collection of European paintings that was created after 1932 and traded before 1946 – items that might have changed hands during the time period when the Nazis were stealing artwork. She looked at 28 paintings and established an unbroken line of ownership for four paintings, and she is close to doing so for a fifth. “Often you know where something was, but there’s a lack of evidence to prove it. You strive to build an airtight case,” she said. The exhibition shows the methods provenance researchers use to trace the history of a painting. First, there is physical evidence in the form of stamps or labels on the back of paintings – an export stamp or a label from a museum, auction house or exhibition. A researcher can then study catalogs for museums or auction houses, customs receipts, ship manifestos, wills and other documents for more information about the artwork.

The work at the center of the exhibition is a painting by Moretto da Brescia titled “Portrait of an Unidentified Man.” Visitors will be able to see the Austrian export stamp on the back of the painting. The stamp was used between 1934 and 1938, including a five-month period during which the Nazis occupied the country and were looting artwork. Karrels has been working with the Austrian office of cultural exports, trying to locate the export document, but so far has been unable to match a file to the painting. The exhibition also includes a Flemish painting attributed to the Master of the Saint Ursula Legend. Paperwork associated with the painting has the names of several women, and they are similar enough that Karrels initially thought it might be successive generations of women from the same family. After searching genealogical records and the society pages of a New York newspaper, Karrels discovered the names referred to one woman who changed her name several times through marriage. That painting now has an unbroken provenance during the Nazi era and has been removed from the Nazi-Era Provenance Internet Portal database.

Similar issues can arise when a painting is thought to be the creation of one artist but is later attributed to a different artist, or when the title or description of the painting changes over the years. The dimensions of a painting can even change. Collectors sometimes cut down a work of art to make it fit better on a wall or because they don’t like a portion of the composition, Warren said. “I’m fascinated by how provenance research brings together scholarship and detective work,” Karrels said. “There’s also a certain amount of creativity. Where can I find the sources of information I need? And finally, there is a great deal to be said for the network of scholars that collaborate across disciplines and geographic boundaries with the mutual objectives of reconstructing provenances in museum collections and fulfilling ethical obligations. “One thing I especially wanted to convey with this exhibition is the ambiguity inherent in provenance research. Most of the time, as hard as we try, we cannot resolve issues of provenance because vital documents don’t exist or aren’t accessible,” Karrels said. “This whole subject is much more nuanced than how it’s represented in the press and in film. I think our exhibition gives viewers a greater understanding of the complexities and uncertainties in provenance research, and why those exist."

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Art community remains divided over Caravaggio found in French attic

French art expert Stephane Pinta shows a radiography of the painting entitled "Judith cutting off the head of Holofernes", presented as being painted by Italian artist Caravaggio (1571-1610), while experts are still to determine its authenticity. The painting was found out in an attic of a house near Toulouse, southwestern France. PATRICK KOVARIK / AFP.

by Antoine Froidefond

PARIS.- An original Caravaggio or a master fake? This is the question that continues to befuddle art historians and experts about a painting discovered in a French attic three years ago. The 400-year-old canvas -- depicting the beheading of an Assyrian general, Holofernes, by Judith from the biblical Book of Judith -- was found in 2014 when the owners of a house near the southwestern city of Toulouse were investigating a leak in the ceiling. Discovered in remarkably good condition, the work was painted between 1600 and 1610, specialists believe, and could be worth as much as 120 million euros ($132 million). But whether the spectacular large-format canvas is the long-lost masterpiece by Italian Renaissance master Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio or the work of Louis Finson, a Flemish painter and disciple of Caravaggio who died in 1617, has the art community divided.

Art historian Giovanni Agosti even resigned in protest over the issue when Milan's Brera Art Gallery, where he was a board member, decided last year to put the painting on display alongside authenticated works by the Renaissance master. The disputed painting hung next to the authenticated copy of the same scene by Finson from around 1607. The museum hedged its bets by including an asterisk on its caption attributing the work to Caravaggio but referring viewers to notes on its history in the exhibition catalogue, but that wasn't good enough for Agosti. Eminent French art expert Eric Turquin -- who has the backing of Caravaggio specialist Nicola Spinosa and has been entrusted with the painting -- believes however that the tableau is the true work of Caravaggio. It perfectly captures "the energy that radiates from the artwork and the expression on Judith's face," he said.

Biggest such discovery? Turquin, who has kept the painting tucked away in a vault at his offices, pointed to the artist's rendering of the fabrics -- the drapes in the background, the red knot near the left corner. The very creamy texture of the painting is typical of Caravaggio's pictorial style, he said. Turquin also highlighted the painter's brush strokes -- he did not draw or outline his images in advance -- noting the detailed depiction of Holofernes's short nails which he said is characteristic of Caravaggio's skill. Regardless of its authenticity, France slapped an export ban on the canvas last April after experts from the Louvre museum in Paris spent three weeks studying it. The ban is in place until November 2018. If France then wants to keep the painting out of the hands of collectors, the government will have to shell out the suggested going rate of 120 million euros. The painting should stay on French soil "as a very important Caravaggian landmark, the history and attribution of which are still to be fully investigated," the culture minister said at the time. If the painting -- which measures 144 cm by 175 cm (57 inches by 69 inches) -- is ever confirmed as an original, it would count as the biggest such discovery since another Caravaggio was discovered in Dublin in the early 1990s.

'Painted together' Caravaggio may have painted the gruesome scene, which also features a haggard old lady with goiters -- an abnormal enlargement of the thyroid gland -- in Naples while he was on the run from a murder charge in Rome. His first version of Judith -- where the positions of Judith, in white, and the old lady are reversed -- was painted there around 1598 and now hangs in the National Gallery of Ancient Art in the Italian capital. A note addressed to the Duke of Mantua a few months after Caravaggio left Naples for Malta mentioned a painting of Judith and Holofernes, with an asking price of 300 ducats, a considerable sum at the time, which could lend further weight to the French painting's authenticity. The note also cited another Caravaggio painting, "The Madonna of the Rosary," now hanging in Vienna's Museum of Fine Arts. But Caravaggio's second Judith composition has been missing since 1617, the last time a reference to it was made.

A scientific study conducted in Milan, where Caravaggio scholars gathered for a day-long conference in February, showed that the French Judith and the authentic Finson were painted using the same techniques, with the same fabrics on canvas and exhibited the same subtle changes to the original idea, visible by x-ray. These features "can be explained only if the works were painted together, side by side in the same studio" by two different painters, said a summary of the study. The report concluded that the French Judith was indeed an original, not a fake, but the burning question still remains -- was it painted by Caravaggio?

© Agence France-Presse

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Pissarro painting seized in WW II turns up in exhibition at the Marmottan Museum

Camille La Cueillette des pois, 1887. Gouache, 53,3 x 64,4 cm. Bruce et Robbi Toll – Archives du musée Camille-Pissarro, Pontoise / droits réservés.

PARIS (AFP).- A painting by impressionist master Camille Pissarro seized from a Jewish collector in France in WWII has turned up in an exhibition in Paris, where relatives are seeking its return from a US couple who have loaned it. "La cueillette des pois" ("Pea Harvest") painted with gouache by Pissarro in 1887, has been found on display at the Marmottan Museum in the French capital. Simon Bauer was among Jews rounded up in the Drancy internment camp outside Paris in 1944, but he escaped being deported to the Nazi death camps because of a train drivers' strike.

A year earlier his art collection, including the Pissarro, had been confiscated and sold by an art dealer designated by officials from France's war-time Vichy regime. On being released in September 1944, Bauer immediately began looking for his paintings, but he had only recovered a small part of his collection of 93 canvases by the time he died in 1947. His relatives have continued the search, and his grandson Jean-Jacques Bauer, now 87, recently learned that "Pea Harvest" was on display at the Marmottan as part of a Pissarro retrospective.

The painting is on loan from a US couple named Toll who bought it at Christie's in New York in 1995. Bauer's descendants had lost the trail of the canvas for half a century.

In 1965 they heard about an under-the-counter sale involving it and another painting, but the American dealer who had just bought them got away when a judge ordered their release. The paintings were then sold again at Sotheby's in London in 1966. On Friday Bauer asked a top Paris court to order that the painting not be allowed to move, pending further action to determine its ownership. In the meantime, "this picture must remain in France," said his lawyer, Cedric Fischer, whose great-grandfather advised Simon Bauer. Faced with this "complicated historical, factual and legal situation ... the French judge must be able to rule calmly, without haste," he added.

The US couple have opposed the request to block movement of the painting. The court has said it will rule on May 30. The Marmottan has agreed to keep the canvas until the end of the Pissarro retrospective on July 2, said the museum's lawyer Eric Andrieu.

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Naked man in a box who crashed the Met gala is arrested

The Russian performance artist targets high-profile art events in his Foundling series
by HELEN STOILAS | 2 May 2017

A still from a video by Lavoisier Clemente showing Fyodor Pavlov-Andreevich at the 2017 Met gala

A naked Russian performance artist had himself encased in a transparent plastic box and dropped on the steps of the Metropolitan Museum last night while celebrities arrived on the red carpet for the Costume Institute’s annual gala. He was arrested by polices and is facing charges of public lewdness, obstructing governmental administration, criminal trespass and disorderly conduct, according to the New York Daily News.

In a video posted on his Facebook profile, Fyodor Pavlov-Andreevich is shown being bolted into the clear case, lifted out of the backseat of an SVU and left at the entrance to the museum fundraiser, while a pack of well-dressed but utterly bemused guests look on. Guards quickly covered the box with a white sheet and dragged it away, while firefighters later arrived to cut Pavlov-Andreevich out of the container. The piece was the fifth in a series of performances called Foundling, which the artist has previously realised at high-profile art events, including during the Venice Biennale at the Palazzo Cini, the opening of Garage Museum of Contemporary Art’s new building in Moscow, a Christie’s Vanity Fair party in London and the São Paulo Bienal opening dinner. Some of those performances also resulted in arrests.

According to friends posting on the artist’s Facebook page, Pavlov-Andreevich is still awaiting a court hearing to see what he will be charged with. “If anyone cares about the box’s fate, it’s under arrest as well,” the post reads. “After all, it took part in all five performances and has quite travelled around the world.”

Fyodor Pavlov-Andreevich at MET GALA 2017 / video by Lavoisier Clemente from fyodor pavlov-andreevich on Vimeo.

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Hitler's Aphrodite 'gift' back on display in Austria

The bronze work by the Nazi sculptor Wilhelm Wandschneider was brought to Linz in 1942 as a "personal gift" from Hitler. Photo: NORDICO Stadtmuseum.

VIENNA (AFP).- The Austrian city of Linz, where Adolf Hitler spent several years as a teenager, will once again display an Aphrodite sculpture offered by the Fuehrer after keeping it in storage for years. The bronze work by the Nazi sculptor Wilhelm Wandschneider was brought to Linz in 1942 as a "personal gift" from Hitler, who wanted to make the city the "cultural capital" of the Third Reich.

For 65 years it stood in the rotunda of a park overlooking the city, where the German dictator lived between 10 and 18 years old. But it was quickly removed in 2008 after a group of art students revealed its unsavoury origins.

Linz's Nordico museum, which had stored the work, will now add it to its collections, Doris Lang-Mayerhofer, who heads the city's culture and tourism committee, said Tuesday. A detailed explanation will accompany the Aphrodite, she said, adding that the city wanted to make an "active effort at remembrance" rather than "dismantle history".

Lang-Mayerhofer, a conversative OVP lawmaker, said the decision garnered unanimous support of parties represented on the city council, as well as the backing of the federal chancellery. The Greens backed the museum option since it would keep the statue from becoming a beacon for neo-Nazi pilgrimages, while the far-right FPO said it would protect the work from "political vandalism". Despite Linz's relative insignificance for Nazi Germany, Hitler named it one of his "Fuehrer cities" alongside Berlin, Hamburg, Munich and Nuremburg. Linz had organised in 2008 an exposition delving into this cumbersome heritage.

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1.5 million euro painting 'forgotten' in Paris taxi is returned

Lucio Fontana photographed by Lothar Wolleh. Photo: Wikipedia.org.

PARIS (AFP).- A painting worth 1.5 million euros ($1.64 million) that a Paris art dealer left in a taxi's boot has been handed over by the cab's driver, the police said Tuesday. The dealer, who was not identified by the police, had filed a complaint for theft after he "forgot" about the work after hailing the cab to meet a collector last Thursday. Unable to locate the taxi, he filed his complaint Saturday. "The taxi has been found, he brought back the painting," a police source said.

The artwork is by Argentina-born Italian sculptor and painter Lucio Fontana (1899 - 1968), entitled "Concetto spaziale" (Spatial concept), with an estimated value of 1.5 million euros, police said. The work is one of a series of abstracts Fontana made featuring the piercing of the canvas to create an actual dimension of space and using light. He became known for founding the spacialist movement, according to the Tate museum website.

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