France to return Benin artworks by 2021: minister

French Culture Minister Franck Riester (L) speaks with Benin President Patrice Talon during a meeting on December 16, 2019 in Cotonou. Yanick Folly / AFP.

COTONOU (AFP).- France will return artworks taken from Benin during the colonial conquest of the region by the start of 2021, culture minister Franck Riester said Monday on a visit to the West African country.

President Emmanuel Macron pledged last year to hand back 26 artefacts "without delay" in a landmark decision that has piled pressure on other former colonial powers to restore looted artworks to their countries of origin.

The pieces -- including a royal throne -- were seized by French troops over a century ago and have been housed at the Quai Branly museum in Paris.

Riester said the artworks would be returned "in the course of 2020, perhaps at the beginning of 2021" as he met with Benin's president Patrice Talon in Cotonou. Benin has welcomed France's decision to return the objects, but has warned against doing so too quickly as it works to build a proper facility to showcase the heritage.

Benin's culture minister Jean-Michel Abimbola told a joint press conference that the two countries had agreed that the artworks would be handed back "in several stages". He welcomed "the commitment of the French President to return these works" and "the opening of a broader discussion" concerning other artefacts.

The Kingdom of Dahomey -- in what became modern-day Benin -- reached its peak in the 18th and 19th centuries and became a major source of slaves for European traders before conquest by Paris in the 1890s ended its rule.

© Agence France-Presse
https://artdaily.cc/news/119274/France-to-return-Benin-artworks-by-2021--minister#.XfkqDmRKiUk

The US Treasury Department Sanctioned Dealer Nazem Ahmed for Allegedly Using His Gallery to Fund a Terrorist Group

The Lebanese collector, fond of works by Warhol and Picasso, is under fire from the Treasury Department.

Nazem Said Ahmad in his Beirut apartment. Image via the US Treasury Department.

In a press release issued Friday by the Department of the Treasury, the US government announced sanctions on diamond dealer and prominent art collector Nazem Said Ahmad, in an effort to fight money-laundering that supports Hezbollah—the Lebanon-based political faction categorized as a terrorist movement by American officials.

The government’s statement asserts that Ahmad, whose links to Hezbollah date as far back as 2001, established the Artual Gallery in Beirut as a front to “launder substantial amounts of money bound for the terrorist group,” for which he is a “significant financier,” having at one point even “personally” provided funds to Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah.

Despite his alleged role adjacent to a designated terrorist organization, the businessman has also managed to carve out a second reputation for himself: that of a notable art collector for nearly 30 years, whose collection includes works by Andy Warhol, Pablo Picasso, and Jean-Michel Basquiat (with the full bounty worth, per the Treasury, “tens of millions of dollars”).

A profile of Ahmad published earlier this year (and later removed) by the online magazine Selections Arts included an exhaustive list of big-name contemporary artists whose work he proudly owns, including the likes of Antony Gormley, Barbara Kruger, Gerhard Richter, Yayoi Kusama, Lucio Fontana, and Ai Weiwei. During the interview, he reflected upon his first-ever purchase: a work on paper by Pablo Picasso, which he bought in the early 1990s.

According to officials, in addition to using his gallery to conceal money-laundering, Ahmad also used his extensive collection to advance his illicit activities by storing “some of his personal funds in high-value art in a pre-emptive attempt to mitigate the effects of U.S. sanctions.”

Ahmad has officially been considered a “major Hezbollah financial donor” by US agents since late 2016, with the sanctions coming as a result of years-long investigations conducted in collaboration with Homeland Security and the Drug Enforcement Administration.

The move is part of the Trump administration’s ongoing fight against terrorist financing, with Friday’s statement also naming another man, Saleh Assi, as the subject of sanctions. “This Administration will continue to take action against Hizballah financiers like Nazem Said Ahmad and Saleh Assi,” said Secretary of the Treasury Steven Mnuchin in a statement, using the alternate spelling of the group’s name, “who have used money laundering and tax evasion schemes to fund terrorist plots and finance their own lavish lifestyles as the Lebanese people suffer.”

Deputy Secretary Justin G. Muzinich also added a comment directed specifically towards “art and luxury goods dealers,” warning them to “be on alert to the schemes” crafted by criminals such as Ahmad.

Artnet News did not receive a response to a request for comment from Ahmad via the Artual Gallery. However, Ahmad is apparently still active on social media: Earlier today, he uploaded three posts to his Instagram account, two of which are portraits of Andy Warhol and Jean-Michel Basquiat.

Caroline Elbaor, December 16, 2019
https://news.artnet.com/art-world/sanctions-nazem-ahmad-art-collector-1734558?utm_content=from_&utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=US%20News%209:30%20am%20for%2012/17/19&utm_term=New%20US%20Newsletter%20List

Stolen 'Klimt' found hidden in a wall will take a month to authenticate, officials say

Gustav Klimt's Portrait of a Lady (1916-17)

Gardener discovered the painting behind a metal plate on an exterior wall at Italy's Ricci Oddi gallery

A Gustav Klimt masterpiece stolen 22 years ago from an Italian gallery appears to have been discovered hidden within the institution walls, officials say. Portrait of a Lady was taken on 22 February 1997 from the Ricci Oddi gallery in the northern city of Piacenza. A gardener found the painting earlier this week, after removing a metal plate on an exterior wall. The work was concealed in a bag buried within a cavity.

The painting will take up to a month to authenticate, the gallery vice president Laura Bonfanti tells The Art Newspaper. Massimo Ferrari, the gallery director, told the BBC that the stamps on the back of the canvas are original and linked to the Klimt piece. Bonfanti adds that an inventory number also needs to be checked.

Asked if the gallery had received an insurance payout for the work, Bonfanti says: “I don’t know at this point. We’d need to check the documents from 22 years ago.” The work is in very good condition as it has not been outside, she adds. “We don’t know anything about how it was put there [in the hidden recess]”.

Reports speculate that the thieves deposited the work in the wall after using a fishing line to hook and remove the Klimt from display (the frame was found on the gallery roof after the theft).

Jonathan Papamerenghi, a member of the Piacenza council responsible for arts and culture, told local press: “If the findings confirm the authenticity of the painting, it would be a sensational discovery and we would be ready to exhibit it in the gallery as early as January. We are talking about the most sought after stolen painting in the world after Caravaggio’s Nativity with St Francis and St Lawrence.”

https://www.theartnewspaper.com/amp/news/missing-klimt-turns-up-in-hidden-wall-cavity-in-good-condition?__twitter_impression=true

Gareth Harris 12th December 2019 11:31 GMT

German police offer half a million euro reward for stolen jewels

Passers-by and journalists stand in front of the cordoned off Royal Palace that houses the historic Green Vault (Gruenes Goelbe) in Dresden, eastern Germany on November 25, 2019, after it was broken into. A state museum in Dresden containing billions of euros worth of baroque treasures has been robbed, police in Germany confirmed on November 25, 2019. The Green Vault at Dresden's Royal Palace, which is home to around 4000 precious objects made of ivory, gold, silver and jewels, was reportedly broken into at 5am on early morning. Sebastian Kahnert / dpa / AFP.

BERLIN (AFP).- Investigators in Germany on Thursday offered a half-a-million-euro reward for information about the spectacular heist in which robbers snatched priceless diamonds from a state museum in Dresden.

Police said the reward ($550,000) was being offered to anyone providing information "which could lead... to the capture of the perpetrators or the recovery of the stolen items".

Police across eastern Germany are continuing their search for the thieves who launched a brazen raid on the Green Vault museum in Dresden's Royal Palace on Monday.

Having initiated a partial power cut and broken in through a window, the thieves stole priceless 18th-century jewellery from the collection of the Saxon ruler August the Strong. They stole objects encrusted with hundreds of diamonds, including the famous 49-carat Dresden white, the museum said on Wednesday.

Police are hunting four suspects in the theft and have released dramatic CCTV footage which showed one of them breaking into a display case with an axe. Aside from a burnt out car that they identified as the initial escape vehicle, investigators are yet to find a significant trace of the thieves.

Dresden police said they were also in contact with colleagues in Berlin to explore possible connections to a similar heist in the capital two years ago.

In 2017, a 100-kilogramme (220-pound), 24-karat giant gold coin was stolen from Berlin's Bode Museum. Four men with links to a notorious Berlin gang were later arrested and put on trial.

On Thursday, police said the Dresden investigations were now being led by the state prosecutor's department for organised crime. The special commission set up to investigate the theft has also doubled in size to involve a staff of 40.

"We will leave no stone unturned to solve this case," said regional police president Horst Kretzschmar.

Picture taken on April 9, 2019 shows one of the rooms in the Green Vault (Gruenes Gewoelbe) at the Royal Palace in Dresden, eastern Germany. Sebastian Kahnert / dpa / AFP.

https://artdaily.cc/news/118798/German-police-offer-half-a-million-euro-reward-for-stolen-jewels#.XeFM6uhKiUk
© Agence France-Presse

French court confirms sentence for Picasso's electrician over hoarded art

In this file photo Claude Picasso, son of late Spanish artist Pablo Picasso, waits before for the appeal trial of Pierre Le Guennec (not pictured), accused of receiving stolen goods after being found in possession of paintings by Picasso, at the court in Aix-en-Provence, southeastern France on October 31, 2016. BORIS HORVAT / AFP.

LYON (AFP).- A French court on Tuesday confirmed the two-year suspended jail terms given to Pablo Picasso's former electrician and his wife, who hoarded 271 of the great painter's works in a garage for four decades. The verdict by the Lyon court is the latest twist in a decade-long legal saga, which took the couple, who claim the works were a gift, all the way to France's top appeals court.

Pierre and Danielle Le Guennec were first given two-year suspended terms in 2015 after being convicted of possession of stolen goods over the huge trove of works by Picasso, including nine rare Cubist collages and a work from his famous Blue Period. That verdict was upheld in 2016 by a higher court but then quashed by the Cour de Cassation, which ordered a retrial.

The former electrician, 80, and his wife, 76, were not in court Tuesday when they were found guilty for a third time.

"It is a triumph of truth and marks the end of a cover-up", said Jean-Jacques Neuer, lawyer for Picasso's son Claude Ruiz-Picasso. He accused Pierre Le Guennec of playing for art dealers "the role that drug mules play in drug-trafficking", alleging that rich art dealers had sought to exploit the couple. The Le Guennecs have always denied stealing the works.

At his original trial Pierre Le Guennec claimed that Picasso had presented him with the artworks towards the end of his life to reward him for his loyal service. But he later changed his account, telling an appeal court that the works were part of a huge collection that Picasso's widow Jacqueline asked him to conceal after the artist's death in 1973.

Le Guennec said he stored more than a dozen garbage bags of unsigned works which Jacqueline later retrieved, except for one bag which she left him saying: "Keep this, it's for you." The affair came to light when Pierre Le Guennec attempted to get the works authenticated by Claude Ruiz-Picasso in 2010. The artist's heirs promptly filed a complaint against him, triggering an investigation.

Commenting on the latest ruling, Neuer said: "If you have 271 works by Picasso and you want to put them on the international market you need a certificate of authenticity. "If you see the Picasso estate and tell them these works fell from the sky or you picked them up from the bric-a-brac market, there is little chance anyone will believe you."

© Agence France-Presse
https://artdaily.cc/news/118450/French-court-confirms-sentence-for-Picasso-s-electrician-over-hoarded-art#.XdV2alepGUk

European police bust gang looting artifacts in Italy

The gang used bulldozers and metal detectors to loot objects as old as 400 BC from the Calabria region -- the "toe" of Italy -- before selling them across Europe. Photo: Europol.

THE HAGUE (AFP).- European police have busted an international crime gang involved in trafficking tens of thousands of Greek archaeological artefacts looted from illegal excavations in Italy, law enforcement agencies said Monday.

Police from Italy, Britain, France, Germany and Serbia arrested 23 suspects and carried out 103 searches in the investigation that started in 2017, the EU police agency Europol and Eurojust said. The gang used bulldozers and metal detectors to loot objects as old as 400 BC from the Calabria region -- the "toe" of Italy -- before selling them across Europe.

"Illegal excavations were managed by a well-structured organised crime group... led by two Calabrians" living in the southern province of Crotone, the agencies said in a combined statement. In Calabria "the cultural heritage includes important traces from the Greek and Roman period", Europol said.

Italian media said two Calabrian men aged 59 and 30 were arrested. The gang also included "fences, intermediaries and mules operating out of different Italian regions" with the looted artefacts then going through contacts in Dijon, Munich, London and Vrsac in northeastern Serbia.

Some of the stolen objects is said to date as far back as the fourth and third centuries B.C. and include five terracotta vases and oil lamps, plates depicting animal scenes, brooches and various jewels, Italian media reports said.

The looters used bulldozers to dig craters, before sifting through the earth and passing it through metal detectors, the reports added, quoting police sources. "The looting carried out over the course of several years caused considerable damage to Italian cultural heritage," Europol and Eurojust added. Coordination between the two agencies enabled "arrests, searches and seizures immediately and simultaneously in the five countries," they added.

Italian and Swiss police in 2016 recovered a haul of archaeological artefacts stolen from Italy and stored by a notorious British antiquities dealer. The haul, worth nine million euros ($10 million), was discovered in 2014 in a storage unit at the Geneva Freeport rented by Britain's disgraced Robin Symes, a giant in the illegal antiquities trade with ties to Italian tomb raiders.

At the time it was regarded as one of the most important recoveries of the last few decades.

© Agence France-Presse
https://artdaily.cc/news/118455/European-police-bust-gang-looting-artifacts-in-Italy#.XdV1QlepGUk

What Makes Someone Attack a Work of Art? Here Are 9 of the Most Audacious Acts of Art Vandalism—and What Inspired Them

Conservators, here is your trigger warning.
Caroline Goldstein & Katie White, October 2, 2019

Vandals are afoot! What could possibly motivate someone to try and destroy a work of art? One might imagine that art vandals must be suffering from some form of mental instability, but in many cases works are targeted for a reason, often political, and the aesthetic aggressors aim to get their cause in the headlines by trashing a cultural treasure. (They might succeed with the latter, but we don’t yet know of any acts of art vandalism that have changed public policy.)

Here, we’ve outlined nine of the most egregious art attacks and rated them on a scale of one to five, taking into account the severity of the attack, the likelihood of successful restoration, and the perpetrator’s audacity.


1. Barnett Newman’s Who’s Afraid of Red, Yellow, and Blue III (1967–68)

When and Where: 1986 and 1997; the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam

Whodunit? A disgruntled 31-year-old painter named Gerard Jan van Bladeren

What and Why? The story of this painting’s multiple attacks has been so widely publicized it has spawned both a documentary, titled The End of Fear, and an episode of Roman Mars’s podcast “99 percent Invisible.” The painting itself shocked audiences when it first debuted at the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam—the massive size (almost 18-feet wide and eight-feet tall) was compounded by the fact that the seemingly endless red canvas is interrupted by just two lines of colors, blue and yellow, that Newman called “zips.” The museum received letters describing visitors’ disgust and dismay that the institution would deign to show such a work, which in their opinions fell firmly into the category of “my kid could do that.”

The painting was the pièce de résistance in a show in 1986 that purported to pose questions about what, in fact, does constitute art. One man in attendance, Gerard Jan van Bladeren, was adamant that this painting did not. He stormed into the museum with a box cutter and ravaged the canvas. He was sentenced to five months in prison, but some in the community agreed with him, with one writing to the museum that “this so-called vandal should be made the director of modern museums.”

Aftermath and Legacy: Conservator Daniel Goldreyer, who had worked with Newman during his life, spent four years restoring the canvas—but he actually ruined it by painting over the entire thing with house paint.

In 1997, van Bladeren returned to the museum and when he couldn’t find Red, Yellow and Blue III, he turned to the closest Newman he could find, Cathedra, and slashed it with a small blade. The museum’s press office said van Bladeren didn’t like “abstract and realist art,” but in interviews with Dutch radio, he claimed that he was just returning to finish the job he had started 11 years earlier.

Vandalism Rating: 🧨🧨🧨🧨🧨 This painting has suffered enough.


2. Auguste Rodin’s The Thinker (1881)

When & Where: 1970, outside of the Cleveland Museum of Art

Whodunit? No one was ever arrested for the crime, but there were rumors that it was the work of the radical activist group Weather Underground.

What and Why? In the early morning hours of March 24, 1970, an explosion shook the large cast of Rodin’s most famous sculpture, knocking off the lower legs and damaging the statue’s base with the force of what authorities imagined to be three sticks of dynamite.

Though no one was injured in the blast, the brazen act of violence brought the community, like the sculpture, to its knees. If Weather Underground is to blame—and we’re just guessing here—then perhaps the radicalized group of students protesting the war in Vietnam targeted the work as a symbol of the elitism of those in power.

Legacy and Aftermath? Officials at the museum considered a few options after the bombing, but since it was damaged to such an extent, any alterations would have compromised the artist’s original intent. In the end, the museum opted to keep what was left of the work on display without repairs—ensuring that anyone who visited would know the sad history of the pensive figure.

Vandalism Rating: 🧨🧨🧨🧨🧨


3. Anish Kapoor’s Dirty Corner (2011)

When and Where: Once, twice, maybe three times in 2015 and 2016, but it depends on who’s counting; The lawn of Versailles

Whodunit? We don’t know, but Anish Kapoor called one of the vandalizations an “inside job”

What and Why: The cavernous sculpture, which is shaped like the mouth of a French horn, became the center of controversy for its possible anatomical associations, earning the unflattering nickname the “queen’s vagina” (Marie Antoinette’s, we guess?). Kapoor assured an incensed French public that there were a variety of interpretations, but to no avail. After cleaning up a first attack where the work was splattered with yellow paint, it was later scrawled with numerous anti-Semetic slurs (Kapoor’s mother is Jewish).

Aftermath and Legacy: Kapoor controversially insisted that the hate-filled graffiti should not be removed from the sculpture and instead serve as a reminder of intolerance and racism. But after a court case instigated by the Councillor of Versailles—against the artist’s wishes—Dirty Corner was ultimately covered in gold-leaf.

Vandalism Rating: 🧨🧨🧨🧨


4. Rembrandt’s The Night Watch (1642)<

When & Where: 1911, 1975, 1990; the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam

Whodunit? An unemployed chef, a former school teacher, and an escaped psychiatric patient

What and why? Rembrandt’s colossal depiction of the Militia Company of District II under the command of Captain Frans Banninck Cocq is by all accounts an exceptional work of Dutch Golden Age painting that defies earlier, more boring compositions. Rembrandt was able to capture the feeling of excitement within the company using dramatic light and shadow, and its grand scale makes it an imposing figure in the country’s history.

Alas, with great prominence comes misguided attention, and this painting has become the repository of aggression for many disgruntled museum goers. In 1911, an unemployed Navy chef attacked the painting with a knife, but ultimately failed to pierce the thick varnish. (Perhaps, as artnet’s Tim Schneider posited, his lackluster cutting abilities factored into his joblessness.)

The second attack came on September 14, 1975, when former schoolteacher William de Rijk walked up and began slashing at the work before being overpowered by guards. Why, you ask? The man shouted that he “did it for the Lord.” And he was especially angry because he had attempted to visit the museum the night before, but arrived after closing. De Rijk was committed to a psychiatric institution, where he died by suicide just one year later. His was the most effective attack on the Rembrandt, resulting in a six-month restoration process that could not undo the deep gashes in the canvas.

The last (and hopefully, final) incident to befall The Night Watch was in 1990, when an escaped mental patient concealed sulfuric acid in a spray bottle and aimed it at the painting. Luckily, guards were able to quickly douse the work in water and the acid did not damage any paint below the varnish.

Vandalism Rating: 🧨🧨🧨🧨


5. Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa (1503)

When and Where: Twice in 1956, 1974, 2009; The Louvre and the Tokyo National Museum

Whodunit? A homeless man, a vandal, and a Russian émigré

What and Why? Her enigmatic smile and knowing eyes have beguiled adoring viewers for centuries, but the Mona Lisa has been on the receiving end of her fair share of hatred as well. The first attack came in the winter of 1956 when a homeless man named Hugo Unzaga Villega hurled a rock at the masterpiece. Why? He wanted to go to prison for the warm bed. Meanwhile, a few months prior, a vandal had tossed acid at the iconic visage while the painting was on view in a museum in Montauban, France. Eighteen years later, in 1974, a disabled woman doused the painting in red spray paint when it was on loan to the Tokyo National Museum, purportedly because she disagreed with the museum’s accessibility policies. The painting’s most recent assault came at the Louvre in 2009, when a Russian woman, apparently fuming over having been denied French nationality, flung a coffee mug at the serenely unflinching Mona Lisa.

Aftermath & Legacy: The addition of a case of bulletproof glass shielded the painting from the 1974 and 2009 attacks. And in part due to its theft in 1911 (which launched her to international super-stardom) Mona Lisa reigns unperturbed by would-be destroyers as the world’s most famous artwork.

Vandalism Rating: 🧨🧨🧨


6. Michelangelo’s Pieta (1498–99)

Michelangelo’s Pietà (ca. 1488-89) in St. Peter’s Basilica. Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

When and Where: Pentecost Sunday, May 21, 1972; The Vatican

Whodunit? Laszlo Toth, a Hungarian-born Australian geologist

What and Why? Toth was 33 years old at the time of the incident—the same age as Jesus at the time of his death. According to bystanders, the unwell geologist shouted “I am Jesus Christ—risen from the dead“ before leaning over the protective railing and striking the sculpture of the Virgin Mary and figure of Christ with a dozen blows of a hammer. The damage was swift and severe. The tip of Virgin’s nose was shattered into three parts. Her left arm was snapped off and she suffered damage to her cheek and left eye.

Aftermath and Legacy: Toth was not criminally charged for the offense, but was declared “socially dangerous” and hospitalized in Italy for two years before being deported to Australia. After some discussion, the sculpture was restored in a grueling 10-year process. But it was not without a silver lining: During the restoration, Michelangelo’s hidden signature was discovered. Today, the work is shown behind bulletproof glass.

Vandalism Ranking: 🧨🧨


7. Diego Velázquez’s Rokeby Venus (1651)

When and Where: 1914; The National Gallery of Art in London

Whodunit? A Canadian woman named Mary Richardson, who was active in Emmeline Pankhurst’s Women’s Social and Political Union, walked into London’s museum with a concealed meat cleaver. She attacked the canvas, successfully slashing the exposed backside of the Venus.

What and Why? The attack was meant to draw attention to the violent arrest of the suffragette Emmeline Pankhurst, leader of the Women’s Social and Political Union, which had taken place the previous day. Richardson, a student of art, had wrestled with her choice, but ultimately felt that targeting this representation of female beauty was necessary and that any outrage felt about the destruction of the representation of a woman should be outweighed by the violence against a living one. “You can get another picture, but you cannot get a life,” she said.

Aftermath and Legacy: The painting was successfully restored and Richardson was sentenced to a (maximum) six-month imprisonment.

Vandalism Ranking: 🧨


8. Pablo Picasso’s Guernica (1937)

When & Where: 1974; the Museum of Modern Art in New York

Whodunit? Art dealer and collector Tony Shafrazi

What and Why? Before he became a world-class art collector, Tony Shafrazi was a gimlet-eyed artist with dreams of changing the world. On the afternoon of April 30, he ran into the Museum of Modern Art wielding a canister of red spray paint and scrawled the words “KILL LIES ALL” across the Picasso masterpiece in broad daylight, to the astonishment of visitors and museum guards. In his fervor, he shouted “I’m an artist” to stunned onlookers and then implored the group to “call the curator!”

As luck would have it, a conservator from the Brooklyn Museum had been dining in the museum’s restaurant and was quickly dispatched from her niçoise salad to assist.

Aftermath & Legacy: In just under an hour, the team was able to remove the paint. A layer of varnish had “acted as an invisible shield,” meaning that conservators were able to erase Shafrazi’s frenzied, foot-sized lettering swiftly. Shafrazi was arrested on charges of criminal mischief, but still managed to become a successful art collector and gallery owner in New York.

Vandalism Ranking: 🧨


9. Ai Weiwei’s Colored Vase (2013)

When and Where: Pérez Art Museum in Miami, February 2014

Whodunit? Maximo Caminero, 51, a local artist and, according to the Miami New Times, a pretty well-known one at that.

What and Why? A spokesperson from the recently inaugurated museum said that 51-year-old Caminero strode into the gallery and picked up one of the many color-dipped vases by Ai Weiwei (worth about $1 million, according to the museum) and, when a guard asked him to put it back, Caminero threw the vase to the ground, shattering it.

Caminero told the New Times that he “did it for all the local artists in Miami that have never been shown in museums here.” He added that the museums “have spent so many millions now on international artists.” Caminero, upon learning the value of the vase, said it was a spontaneous protest, in part inspired by Ai’s own art: One of the artist’s most famous works, Dropping a Han Dynasty Urn (1995), involved smashing a 2,000-year-old vase, a cultural object he said is “powerful only because someone thinks it’s powerful and invests value in the object.” The vases in Miami, too, were themselves the victims of vandalism of sorts. Ai had acquired 51 vases dating from the Neolithic Age and then dunked them in common paint.

Aftermath and Legacy: Caminero pled guilty to criminal mischief and paid insurers $10,000 in restitution. Surprisingly, many people in the community praised his deed, drawing parallels between Ai’s political troubles in China and those Caminero experienced as a native of the Dominican Republic. Ai himself wasn’t pleased by the vandalism, but said “I’m OK with it, if a work is destroyed,” he says. “A work is a work. It’s a physical thing. What can you do? It’s already over.”

Vandalism Ranking: 🧨

https://news.artnet.com/art-world/9-acts-of-art-vandalism-1630771

Man threatening to make French museum 'hell' taken into psychiatric care

Police officers and journalists stand in front of the archeology museum in Saint-Raphael, southern France on October 23, 2019 after a man who had broken into the museum and threatened to turn it into a "hell", provoking a four-hour standoff, has been detained. Police had surrounded the site, where several messages in Arabic had been scrawled on the walls, including: "The museum is going to become a hell". Valery HACHE / AFP.

SAINT-RAPHAEL (AFP).- Police in southern France on Wednesday detained a man who had broken into a museum overnight and threatened to turn it into "hell", before admitting him to a psychiatric hospital, authorities said.

The man, who had provoked a four-hour standoff with police, was "mentally disturbed", regional prosecutor Patrice Camberou said. He was "a very mentally disturbed person, he was totally delusional, it was impossible to question him," said Camberou.

The museum, a historic monument, includes a medieval stone church and a vast collection of amphoras and other items from the region's Roman history.

"Some amphoras dating from the Roman period have been destroyed," Saint-Raphael's mayor, Frederic Masquelier, said at a press conference.

The man was about 18 years old but gave officers several identities, including that of the fictional "Aladdin". The man was seized "without resistance and without violence" in the gardens of the archeology museum in the Mediterranean town of Saint-Raphael shortly after 11:00 am (0900 GMT), the government's top regional official Eric de Wispelaere said.

Officers from the elite RAID crisis intervention unit as well as a bomb disposal squad surrounded the site, where several messages in Arabic, including "The museum is going to become a hell," had been scrawled on the walls, according to police sources. De Wispelaere said the man had acted alone and no explosives were found.

The standoff led officials to lock down a large part of the historic centre of the resort town of some 35,000 people, tucked between Cannes and Saint-Tropez. "There are barricades everywhere, the street is completely blocked off," Sebastian Belkacem, who owns the Duplex restaurant opposite the museum, told AFP by telephone.

https://artdaily.cc/news/117786/Man-threatening-to-make-French-museum--hell--taken-into-psychiatric-care © Agence France-Presse

F.B.I. Recovers Nazi-Looted Painting From New York Museum

The Arkell Museum had no inkling of the early 20th-century canvas’ dark past Winter

The Nazis seized Winter, an early 20th-century painting by American artist Gari Melchers, in 1933. (U.S. Attorney's Office)

By Jason Daley smithsonian.com October 28, 2019

Soon after Adolf Hitler’s rise to power in 1933, his Nazi propaganda machine singled out the Berliner Tageblatt, a liberal-leaning newspaper known for its criticism of the far-right party, as a symbol of the so-called “Jewish press.” That same year, the paper’s publisher, Hans Lachmann-Mosse, fled to Switzerland with his wife Felicia. The Nazis, in turn, quickly seized the family’s art collection—a trove including, among others, a painting titled Winter by American artist Gari Melchers.

Eighty-five years later, the Associated Press reports, authorities have finally found this looted work of art. As court documents obtained by the AP reveal, the early 20th-century scene has long been hidden in plain sight, albeit in an unexpected locale: namely, the Arkell Museum in Canajoharie, New York. The upstate museum, unaware of the painting’s provenance until contacted by agents from the Federal Bureau of Investigation, surrendered the work in mid-September.

As Suzan D. Friedlander, the museum’s executive director and chief curator, tells the AP, staffers were “of course very upset to learn the history of the painting’s seizure from the Mosse family by the Nazis in 1933.” Winter will remain stored in the F.B.I.’s Albany office until it can be returned to the family’s descendants.

According to the AP, businessman and philanthropist Rudolf Mosse—known for building a German media empire comprised of some 130 newspapers and journals—purchased the painting at the Great Berlin Art Exhibition in 1900. Following his death in 1920, Mosse’s daughter and sole heir, Felicia, inherited both the family business and her father’s extensive art collection. Her husband, Hans, meanwhile, became publisher of the Mosses’ flagship publication, the Berliner Tageblatt.

Per the Albany Times Union’s Brendan J. Lyons, the Nazis relied on collaborator and art dealer Rudolph Lepke to sell Winter and similarly looted paintings following their seizure from Jewish families. Lepke sold the painting to an unknown buyer in May 1934, and five months later, Bartlett Arkell, co-founder of the Beech-Nut Packing Company, purchased the work for his personal collection during a sale at Manhattan’s Macbeth Art Gallery.

“The Macbeth Gallery was a popular gallery where Mr. Arkell purchased a number of his paintings that he eventually donated to the Arkell Museum,” museum trustee Charles J. Tallent tells Lyons. “The painting was with the museum since 1934, until it was reclaimed by the Mosse family.”

Arkell, who was by all accounts unaware of Winter’s unsavory past, later donated the painting to the New York museum that bears his name.

As Kate Brown writes for artnet News, the Arkell Museum immediately waived its legal rights to the painting upon learning of the work’s Nazi ties. “We have been part of making something right, at long last, and take that responsibility very seriously, and to heart,” Friedlander, who says she’d like to be present when the painting is returned to the Mosses, tells Brown.

The looted work of art’s rediscovery is no fluke, but rather the product of a fruitful collaboration—fittingly dubbed the Mosse Art Research Initiative—between the family’s descendants and the Free University of Berlin. According to Colin Moynihan of the New York Times, five university researchers have combed through correspondence, auction catalogs and Nazi-era records to identify art once owned by Mosse and his heirs. Although the team suspects the Nazis took 4,000 items from the family, the project has only identified 1,000 by name to date.

The Mosse heirs, meanwhile, have spent the last seven years working to recover their stolen art. In addition to Winter, they have successfully reclaimed a lion sculpture by August Gaul, an Egyptian sarcophagus dating to 200 A.D., and a drawing by artist Adolph Menzel.

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/fbi-seizes-nazi-looted-painting-new-york-museum-180973411/

Looted coffin acquired by Metropolitan Museum is headed back to Egypt

US and Egyptian officials presided over handover at a repatriation ceremony in New York

From left in foreground, US Homeland Security Investigations special-agent-in-charge Peter C. Fitzhugh; the Egyptian minister of foreign affairs, Sameh Hassan Shoukry; Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus R. Vance Jr.; and Assistant District Attorney Matthew Bogdanos witness the handover of an ancient Egyptian coffin at a repatriation ceremony in New York AP Photo/Michael R. Sisak

NEW YORK - A looted gilded coffin that was removed from display this year at the Metropolitan Museum of Art is headed back to Egypt after a repatriation ceremony in New York attended by an Egyptian minister and a US Department of Homeland Security Investigations agent.

The Manhattan district attorney, Cyrus Vance Jr, announced the handover on Wednesday, which was the result of an investigation by his office’s antiquities trafficking unit in cooperation with law enforcement agencies in Egypt, Germany and France.

Vance’s office and Homeland Security officials had executed a search warrant in February and confiscated the coffin from the Met, where it had been on view as the centerpiece of an exhibition. The coffin was crafted in Egypt between roughly 150 and 50BC and is thought to have once held the remains of a high-ranking priest, Nedjemankh.

The museum had acquired the coffin in July 2017 from what it described as a private collection under the understanding that it had been legally exported from Egypt in 1971. It turned out that the museum had been given fraudulent documents: the gilded coffin had actually been looted in the Minya region of Egypt in 2011 and then smuggled out of the country.

After leaving Egypt, Vance’s office said, the coffin was transported through the United Arab Emirates to Germany, where it was restored before travelling to France. The Met has said that it purchased the coffin from the Paris-based dealer Christophe Kunicki for €3.5m. Vance’s office said that the Met had “fully cooperated” with law enforcement agents once museum officials learned that it had been stolen.

A Homeland Security official said that such investigations had strengthened his department’s relationships and connections with the art world. “The high profit business of smuggling and trafficking antiquities has been around for centuries,” said Peter C. Fitzhugh, special agent-in-charge for the department in New York. “But it is the responsibility of a buyer to confirm the proper provenance of a piece of art or antiquity.”

“The tremendous collaboration between HSI New York and the Manhattan DA in building art cases has allowed us to strengthen relationships within the art world, both domestic and global; develop investigations to track the illicit movement of stolen art and locate its final destination; and, return the priceless cultural property to its rightful homeland for its citizens to enjoy,” added Fitzhugh, who attended the repatriation ceremony with the Egyptian minister of foreign affairs, Sameh Hassan Shoukry.

The district attorney’s office has declined to say whether it anticipates imminent arrests in connection with the looted coffin. To date, it says, its antiquities trafficking unit has recovered several thousand stolen antiquities jointly valued at more than $150m, many of which have been returned to their rightful owners.

NANCY KENNEY, 26th September 2019 23:09 BST
https://www.theartnewspaper.com/news/looted-coffin-acquired-by-metropolitan-museum-is-headed-back-to-egypt

Thieves Used Neckties to Steal $2.2 Million in Loot From a French Castle That Helped Inspire Versailles

Christina and Patrice de-Vogüé outside the chateau. Courtesy of the Château de Vaux-le-Vicomte.

Caroline Goldstein, September 23, 2019

Chateau de Vaux-le-Vicomte, Maincy, Seine et Marne, France. Photo by Alain KUBACSI/Gamma-Rapho via Getty Images. Last week, in the hours before dawn, six masked thieves crept into the private quarters of the lavish 17th-century chateau Vaux-le-Vicomte. There, the robbers tied up 90-year-old Patrice de Vogüé and his 78-year-old wife, Cristina, with neckties, according to local police. The couple were otherwise uninjured—chateau management told artnet News that they are now “doing fine”—but the thieves made off with €2 million ($2.2 million) worth of loot.

Despite making off with an impressive haul of emeralds, the thieves didn’t attempt to take any of the tapestries, bronze sculptures, or paintings that adorn the lavish buildings. As of press time, they have yet to be caught.

The estate is often used as a stand-in for Versailles on movie sets, like the 1979 James Bond film Moonrake and Sofia Coppola’s Marie Antoinette. The dramatic landscape is also used as an event space for lavish gatherings like the 2007 nuptials of Eva Longoria and Tony Parker and yearly Grand Siècle events, where costumed enthusiasts gather to frolic on the expansive lawns in 17th-century garb.

The baroque chateau was built over the course of 20 years under the direction of Nicolas Fouquet, Louis XIV’s finance minister as he was quickly ascending the social strata of the monarchy. Fouquet’s design was revolutionary for uniting the various aspects of the estate: Louis Le Vau was brought on as architect, along with landscape gardener André Le Notre, and renowned painter Charles Le Brun, who together created a harmonious mise-en-scene that would become the hallmark of Louis XIV’s style.

The recent theft wasn’t the first time trouble hit came to the palace, however. Shortly after its completion in 1661, Fouquet was arrested for allegedly embezzling from the king. But even though it turned out to be a ruse concocted by Jean-Baptise Colbert, who took Fouquet’s place as finance minister, in the aftermath of the scandal, Voltaire wrote: “on 17 August at six in the evening Fouquet was the King of France: at two in the morning he was a nobody.” Louis XIV responded by ordering his own bigger and better version of Vaux-le-Vicomte, thus heralding the considerably larger palace Versailles.

Artnet: https://news.artnet.com/art-world/thieves-rob-french-chateau-1658332?utm_content=from_&utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=US%204%3A55%20p.m.%20afternoon%20newsletter%20for%209%2F23%2F19&utm_term=NEW%20US%20NEWSLETTER%20LIST%20%2890%20DAY%20ENGAGED%20ONLY%29

Knife attack badly damages work by top French modern artist

Daniel Buren (1938 - ), Peinture [Manifestation 3] © Philippe Migeat - Centre Pompidou, MNAM-CCI /Dist. RMN-GP © DB - Adagp, Paris.

PARIS (AFP).- An attacker wielding a utility knife has badly damaged a work by the celebrated French conceptual artist Daniel Buren at the Pompidou Centre in central Paris, the museum said on Friday. The work, "Peinture [Manifestation 3]", suffered "serious deliberate damage" in Thursday afternoon's attack by the man, the museum said in a statement. It said that a museum attendant alerted security, and video cameras allowed the rapid finding of the suspect. "He made no claim (over the attack) and was handed over to the police," it said.

An investigation has been opened by the judicial authorities after the museum filed a complaint to police. The artist, 81, has been informed of the incident and the work itself transferred to the stores of the Pompidou Centre to estimate the damage and restoration needed. It will be replaced on public display by another work from the artist. The Pompidou Centre said it understood the suspect was no longer in detention and had been transferred to a psychiatric unit.

"Peinture [Manifestation 3]" was created by Buren in 1967 and shows red and white stripes. It was purchased for the museum's collection in 1986. Buren is perhaps best known for the succession of black-and-white columns he inlaid into the inner courtyard of the Palais Royal complex in central Paris in a hugely controversial installation that opened in 1986.

The damage to the work comes just over a week after a stencilled work by the elusive British street artist Banksy was stolen from outside the Pompidou Centre. The Pompidou, which houses Europe's biggest collection of contemporary art but does not own the Banksy work, filed a police complaint for destruction of property.

© Agence France-Presse
http://artdaily.com/news/116787/Knife-attack-badly-damages-work-by-top-French-modern-artist#.XX_p3ShKiUk

Court’s New Morrisseau Forgery Decision a “Big Warning to Art Dealers”

Art dealing in Canada may become more transparent, some people hope, in the wake of a groundbreaking court decision issued this week.

Art dealer Donald Robinson of Kinsman Robinson galleries examines the painting at the centre of a Norval Morrisseau forgeries case in a scene from the new documentary There Are No Fakes. https://canadianart.ca/news/courts-new-morrisseau-forgery-decision-a-big-warning-to-art-dealers/?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Weekly%20September%205%202019&utm_content=Weekly%20September%205%202019+CID_4897313ce52e65c08a0bb3db20b7c7ca&utm_source=E%20Weekly%20Campaign&utm_term=Courts%20New%20Morrisseau%20Forgery%20Decision%20a%20Big%20Warning%20to%20Art%20Dealers

Egypt asks Interpol to trace Tutankhamun relic over ownership docs

An Egyptian brown quartzite head of Tutankhamen as the God Amen. Estimate on request. © Christie's Images Ltd 2019.

CAIRO (AFP).- Egypt has asked international police agency Interpol to track down a 3,000-year-old Tutankhamun artefact that was sold in London for $6 million despite fierce opposition from Cairo, government officials said. Christie's auction house sold the 28.5-centimetre (11-inch) relic for £4,746,250 ($5,970,000, 5,290,000 euros) to an unknown buyer in early July at one of its most controversial auctions in years. But less than a week after the sale, Egypt's National Committee for Antiquities Repatriation (NCAR) said after an urgent meeting that national prosecutors had asked Interpol "to issue a circular to trace" such artefacts over alleged missing paperwork. "The committee expresses its deep discontent of the unprofessional behaviour of the sale of Egyptian antiquities without providing the ownership documents and the evidences that prove its legal export from Egypt," the NCAR said in a statement.

The committee -- headed by Minister of Antiquities Khaled El-Enany and attended by his predecessor Zahi Hawass as well as officials from various ministries -- also called upon Britain to "prohibit the export of the sold artefacts" until the Egyptian authorities were shown the documents. It suggested the issue could have an impact on cultural relations, by referencing "the ongoing cooperation between both countries in the field of archaeology, especially that there are 18 British archaeological missions are working in Egypt". The NCAR added it had hired a British law firm to file a "civil lawsuit" although no further details were given.

'Stolen from Karnak'
The London sale of the head of "Boy King" Tutankhamun angered Egyptian officials at the time and sparked a protest outside Christie's by about a dozen people who held up signs reading "stop trading in smuggled antiquities". Hawass told AFP that the piece appeared to have been "stolen" in the 1970s from the Karnak Temple complex just north of Luxor and the Egyptian foreign ministry asked the UK Foreign Office and the UN cultural body UNESCO to step in and halt the sale. But such interventions are rare and made only when there is clear evidence of the item's legitimate acquisition by the seller being in dispute.

Christie's argued that Egypt had never before expressed the same level of concern about an item whose existence has been "well known and exhibited publicly" for many years. "The object is not, and has not been, the subject of an investigation," Christie's said in a statement to AFP. The auction house has published a chronology of how the relic changed hands between European art dealers over the past 50 years and told AFP that it would "not sell any work where there isn't clear title of ownership".

© Agence France-Presse

http://artdaily.com/news/115087/Egypt-asks-Interpol-to-trace-Tutankhamun-relic-over-ownership-docs#.XSdtq-hKiUk

Trump star vandal arrested for Marilyn statue theft in Hollywood

The "Ladies of Hollywood Gazebo" is seen on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in Hollywood, California, June 18, 2019. Robyn Beck / AFP.

LOS ANGELES (AFP).- A man convicted of vandalizing President Donald Trump's sidewalk star in Hollywood last summer has been arrested for stealing a statue of Marilyn Monroe from a nearby monument.

Austin Clay, 25, was identified by police from video surveillance footage. Having discovered that he was on parole after a conviction for damaging Trump's star on the famous Hollywood "Walk of Fame," investigators searched his home Friday. According to local media reports, they found evidence linking him to the theft of the statue.

The statue itself -- showing Monroe in her famous flying skirt pose from "The Seven Year Itch" (1955) -- has not been found.

It had been perched atop a small gazebo at the beginning of the "Walk of Fame", part of a monument dedicated to Hollywood's most famous actresses. According to authorities, a witness saw a man climbing the structure on the night of June 16 and using a saw to remove the statue.

Police fear the statue may have been damaged during the theft. "Looking back at the (security) video, it would be reasonable that the statue broke and could be in multiple pieces," LAPD detective Douglas Oldfield told NBC4 television. The suspect was arrested and detained over the weekend.

Clay made headlines in July 2018 when he vandalized Trump's star on the Hollywood sidewalk with a pickaxe he had hidden in a guitar case. He was sentenced at the time to one day in prison, three years' probation and 20 days of community service, and ordered to attend psychological counselling.

© Agence France-Presse
http://artdaily.com/news/114668/Trump-star-vandal-arrested-for-Marilyn-statue-theft-in-Hollywood#.XRJYQehKiUk

London gallery chief quits after Israel spyware report

In this file photo taken on November 4, 2018, Hans Ulrich Obrist (L) and Yana Peel attend the 2019 Breakthrough Prize at NASA Ames Research Center in Mountain View, California. The head of London's Serpentine Galleries, Yana Peel, resigned on June 18, 2019 following a newspaper report about her links to a controversial Israeli spyware firm. Miikka Skaffari / GETTY IMAGES NORTH AMERICA / AFP.

LONDON (AFP).- The head of London's Serpentine Galleries, Yana Peel, resigned on Tuesday following a newspaper report about her links to a controversial Israeli spyware firm.

The board of trustees of the contemporary art galleries announced "with a mix of gratitude and regret" that it has accepted Peel's resignation, adding that she would be "sorely missed". In a separate statement carried by The Guardian newspaper, Peel referenced a "concerted lobbying campaign against my husband's recent investment".

The Guardian reported last week that Yana Peel co-owns NSO Group, a spyware company based in the Israeli seaside high-tech hub of Herzliya, near Tel Aviv. It has faced questions over its Pegasus software, which can reportedly switch on a target's cell phone camera and microphone, and access data on it, effectively turning the phone into a pocket spy. Security researchers believe it was used in an attack on the WhatsApp messaging app in May.

The company has also been forced to deny it was used against Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi before he was killed last October in Istanbul. "The work of the Serpentine -- and its incomparable artistic director -- cannot be allowed to be undermined by misguided personal attacks on me and my family," Peel said, according to the statement. "These attacks are based upon inaccurate media reports now subject to legal complaints."

Peel said she was saddened to leave the role, which she started in 2016, adding: "The world of art is about free expression. "But it is not about bullying and intimidation. I welcome debate and discussion about the realities of life in the digital age.

"There is a place for these debates, but they should be constructive, fair and factual -- not based upon toxic personal attacks."

© Agence France-Presse

http://artdaily.com/news/114503/London-gallery-chief-quits-after-Israel-spyware-report#.XRJWGOhKiUk

Art-World Scammer Anna Delvey Has Been Sentenced to Four to Twelve Years in Prison

The sentence comes after a dramatic, 22-day trial, during which she was found guilty on nearly all counts.

Fake German heiress Anna Sorokin is led away after being sentenced in Manhattan Supreme Court May 9, 2019. Photo by TIMOTHY A. CLARY / AFP.

Anna “Delvey” Sorokin—the woman found guilty late last month of orchestrating a complex scheme to defraud a group of friends and investors, whom she told she was a German heiress about to inherit €60 million—was sentenced this afternoon to four to 12 years in prison by the New York State Supreme Court. This includes 561 days already served on Riker’s Island.

Sorokin faced a maximum of 15 years in jail, and according to some reports, could have gotten off with as little as one year if she had accepted a plea deal months ago. She was also ordered this afternoon to pay $198,956 in restitution and $24,000 in fines.

Judge Diane Kiesel, noting that Sorokin exhibited no signs of remorse throughout the trial, said she was “stunned at the extent of the defendant’s deception. Even when it came crashing down on her like a house of cards, she was running from one luxury hotel to another, one step ahead of the law.”

Noting that Sorokin’s attorney, Todd Spodek, opened his arguments with a reference to Frank Sinatra’s song “New York, New York,” Judge Kiesel said: “I heard a different song in over 22 days of trial. It was more like ‘Blinded by the Light.'”

Judge Kiesel said the purported arts club that Sorokin told everyone she was creating on Park Avenue actually sounded like it was a good addition to New York City had it been true. But instead of the serious work involved in creating such a legitimate project, Sorokin was caught up in a “big scam” with her efforts focused solely on designer clothes, exotic travel, and staying in boutique hotels.

Assistant district attorney Catherine McCaw also emphasized Sorokin’s lack of remorse and vanity. “She repeatedly delayed proceedings because she was unhappy with the clothing on offer,” McCaw said, adding: “during victims’ testimony, she laughed as if she was reliving fond memories.” Sorokin “didn’t want an ordinary life, and was willing to steal” in order to get the life she desired, McCaw added.

Before the sentencing, Sorokin was asked if she had any comments. “I apologize for my mistakes,” she said.

Following the sentencing, Spodek said his client was “holding up okay. She’s a tough woman and a strong woman. She’s been incarcerated for almost two years at Riker’s Island,” and will be moved to a prison upstate at some point, he said.

After a dramatic trial, Sorokin was found guilty in late April on nearly all the charges filed against her. She was convicted on a total of eight counts, including grand larceny in the first, second, and third degrees, and theft of services. Jurors found her not guilty on two other charges: allegedly stealing $60,000 from a friend who paid for a luxurious trip for four to Morocco; and a second count of attempted grand larceny, related to her effort to secure a $22 million bank loan.

The trial presented testimony from dozens of witnesses, including bankers, architects, law enforcement officials, hotel security personnel, and former friends. She told them all the same story: that she stood to inherit a trust fund worth €60 million on her 25th birthday.

A focal point of Delvey’s grand plans involving pitching herself as the developer of a lavish luxury arts club. In a detailed, 80-page brochure aimed at potential investors in the “Anna Delvey Foundation,” revealed as part of the trial, Delvey boasted of being a lifelong art collector. Witnesses at the trial outlined her efforts to secure loans of upwards of $20 million for the purported arts club in a massive building on Park Avenue South that is now occupied by Swedish photography institution Fotografiska.

https://news.artnet.com/art-world/anna-delvey-sorokin-sentenced-1541524?utm_content=from_&utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=US%20News%20Afternoon%204%3A30%20p.m.%20for%205%2F9%2F19&utm_term=NEW%20US%20NEWSLETTER%20LIST%20%2890%20D AY%20ENGAGED%20ONLY%29
Eileen Kinsella, May 9, 2019
Senior Market Editor for artnet

Stolen Picasso Painting Is Recovered in Amsterdam, Investigator Says

The Dutch art detective Arthur Brand posing with Pablo Picasso’s “Portrait of Dora Maar” this month in his home in Amsterdam. Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

By Nina Siegal
March 26, 2019

AMSTERDAM — An art crimes investigator in the Netherlands said Tuesday that he had recovered Pablo Picasso’s 1938 painting “Portrait of Dora Maar,” which was stolen from the yacht of its Saudi Arabian owner in the south of France in 1999. Arthur Brand, an independent art detective based in Amsterdam, handed the painting over to an insurance company two weeks ago, he said. Mr. Brand had been trying to track down the Picasso painting since 2015, but all of his leads went nowhere.

Earlier this month, he said, he was contacted by “two persons with good contacts in the underworld,” who said the painting was in the Netherlands. “They told me, ‘It’s in the hands of a businessman who got it as payment, and he doesn’t know what to do with it,’” Mr. Brand said in an interview. “I talked to the two guys and we made a plan to get it out of his hands.”

The two contacts, whom Mr. Brand declined to name, dropped the painting off at Mr. Brand’s house in Amsterdam in two plastic garbage bags, he said. “They delivered it right to my door,” he said. Mr. Brand said they drank a toast to the painting and, after that, he hung the Picasso on his wall. “The urge was too great; I couldn’t resist,” he said. The next day, a Picasso specialist from the Pace Gallery in New York flew to the Netherlands to check the painting, and verified its authenticity, Mr. Brand said. (A spokesman for Pace declined to comment.)

Mr. Brand turned the painting over to a retired British detective, Dick Ellis, the founder of Scotland Yard’s art and antiquities squad, who is now a representative for an insurance company that Mr. Brand declined to name. Mr. Ellis, who did not respond to requests for comment, told Agence France-Presse, “There is no doubt that this is the stolen Picasso.”

The subject of Picasso’s portrait, Dora Maar, was a French photographer, painter, poet and one of the artist’s lovers. He portrayed her in many paintings and drawings. This one, painted in 1938, was apparently one of his favorites, which he kept in his private collection until he died. Mr. Brand said that was part of the reason that it had been difficult to recover. “It was never published, there were almost no pictures of it, and it had never been in a museum,” he said. “Picasso is one of the most stolen artists.”

The owner in 1999 was a Saudi Arabian billionaire, Sheikh Abdul Mohsen, who had it on his luxury yacht at Antibes, France, when it was stolen. Mr. Brand said it probably came into the Netherlands as “payment for drugs or for arms deals.”

Mr. Brand said that he will probably receive no payment for recovering the artwork. “At the time there was a reward offered of 400,000 euros and I don’t know if the reward will be paid,” he said. “If there is a reward, it should go to the people who brought it in. My reward was to have a Picasso on my wall for one night. I can tell you, it was great.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/26/arts/design/stolen-picasso-dora-maar-amsterdam.html

Thieves Stole a $3.4 Million Brueghel From a Remote Italian Church—or So They Thought. Here’s How the Village Tricked Them

The town's mayor was one of the few people who knew that the real painting was somewhere safe but locals had their suspicions something was up. Nan Stewert, March 13, 2019

The Crucifixion by Pieter Brueghel the Younger was lifted from a church in northern Italy on Wednesday. The Crucifixion by Pieter Brueghel the Younger that thieves tried to lift from a church in northern Italy on Wednesday. An audacious group of robbers made off with a prized 17th-century painting by Flemish painter Pieter Brueghel the Younger from a Church in Northern Italy on Wednesday—or so they thought.

After a tip-off, Italian police covertly switched the Crucifixion for a copy in the church of Santa Maria Maddalena in Castelnuovo Magra, about an hour and a half’s drive from Genoa. The mayor of the small town of around 8,500 residents was in on the secret and a few vigilant members of the congregation, who noticed the picture looked out of place, are reported to have kept silent.

Using a hammer to break the case, the thieves lifted the worthless copy picture and made off in Peugeot car. Police believe two people were involved in the attempted heist. The town’s mayor, Daniele Montebello, originally stuck to the story that the real painting had been stolen but on Wednesday he revealed that after rumors began circulating that someone could steal the work, the police decided to put it in a safe place, replacing it with a copy and installing some cameras. Montebello told the Guardian: “I thank the police but also some of the churchgoers, who noticed that the painting on display wasn’t the original but kept up the secret.”

Among other artworks housed in the church are sculptures fashioned from Carrara marble, a material made famous by Michelangelo. The targeted painting, which shows the Crucifixion from above, is similar in composition to another work by Brueghel (1564–1636) that belongs to the Philadelphia Museum of Art. That picture, which is thought to be from around 1617, may be based on a work done by the artist’s father, Pieter Brueghel the Elder (1525–1569).

The younger Brueghel’s auction record stands at $10.7 million, set at Christie’s in 2011 for The Battle Between Carnival and Lent. According to the Guardian, art crime has fallen in Italy from a reported 906 incidents in 2011 to 449 in 2016. But the country remains a popular destination for thieves because of its rich cultural heritage and plethora of churches filled with art that remain open free and open to the public.

UPDATE, March 14: This story has been updated to include new details that emerged about the police replacing the original work with a copy.

https://news.artnet.com/art-world/pieter-brueghel-theft-1487668?utm_content=from_&utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=US%209%3A53%20a.m.%20newsletter%20for%203%2F14%2F19&utm_term=New%20US%20Newsletter%20List

Algeria museum vandalised during protests: ministry

ALGIERS- The National Museum of Antiquities and Islamic Arts was vandalized Friday by a group of offenders who stole a number of valuables objects after having burned the administrative premises, which led to the destruction of documents and records, the Ministry of Culture said.http://www.aps.dz/en/algeria/28276-national-museum-of-antiquities-and-islamic-arts-vandalized

ALGIERS (AFP).- Algeria's oldest museum, home to some of the country's most valuable art, was vandalised during protests against President Abdelaziz Bouteflika's bid for a fifth term, the culture ministry said Saturday. "Criminals" took advantage of thousands-strong demonstrations on Friday to break into the National Museum of Antiquities and Islamic Arts in Algiers, founded in 1897, the ministry said in a statement. "Part of the museum was ransacked, objects stolen and administrative offices burned, as well as documents and records being destroyed," the ministry said.

Firefighters arrived promptly and prevented the blaze from spreading, while police had managed to retrieve a sabre dating from the time of the Algerian resistance to the French conquest of Algeria in the early 19th century, it said. Tens of thousands protested across Algeria on Friday in the biggest rallies yet against ailing Bouteflika's bid for a fifth term in April polls. The police fired tear gas and stun grenades to disperse those who tried to force their way through a police cordon, but most demonstrators dispersed calmly as darkness fell.

The ministry called the acts at the museum "a crime against a historical heritage that covers several important stages of Algerian popular history". Founded during the French occupation of Algeria, which lasted from 1830 to 1962, the museum is one of the oldest in Africa and covers over 2,500 years of history and art.

Police had not yet identified those responsible, the ministry said, adding that security had been reinforced Saturday and that "criminals" had already attempted to enter the site during a previous protest on March 1. The museum lies at a major crossroads close to the presidential palace in Algiers. The junction was the scene of clashes Friday between young protesters and police, while demonstrations elsewhere in the city passed off in relative calm.

© Agence France-Presse

http://artdaily.com/news/111915/Algeria-museum-vandalised-during-protests--ministry#.XIZ-syhKiUk

New York museum says ancient coffin was looted, will go back to Egypt

Gilded Coffin Lid for the Priest Nedjemankh (detail) Late Ptolemaic Period (150–50 B.C.) Cartonnage, gold, silver, resin, glass, wood The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Purchase, 2017 Benefit Fund; Lila Acheson Wallace Gift; Louis V. Bell, Harris Brisbane Dick, Fletcher, and Rogers Funds and Joseph Pulitzer Bequest; Leona Sobel Education and The Camille M. Lownds Funds; and 2016 Benefit Fund, 2017 (2017.255b) Image: © The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

NEW YORK (AFP).- The Metropolitan Museum of Art will return an ancient gilded coffin to Egypt after New York prosecutors determined that it had been looted from that country, the museum said. The museum had purchased the prized coffin, dating from the first century BCE, in July 2017 from a Paris art dealer for a price of nearly four million dollars. But the Manhattan district attorney's office determined that the mummy-shaped golden coffin had been sold with fake documentation, including a forged 1971 Egyptian export license.

It was not clear what had sparked the district attorney's investigation. The statement Friday quoted Met CEO Daniel Weiss as apologizing to the Egyptian people and specifically to Antiquities Minister Khaled El-Enany. "After we learned that the Museum was a victim of fraud and unwittingly participated in the illegal trade of antiquities, we worked with the DA's office for its return to Egypt," Weiss said.

The museum said it would "consider all available remedies to recoup the purchase price of the coffin" and would commit itself "to identifying how justice can be served, and how we can help to deter future offenses against cultural property." The museum vowed to "review and revise its acquisitions process."

The elaborately decorated coffin, viewed by nearly a half-million visitors since it was made the centerpiece of a major exhibition in July, is sheathed in gold, which the ancient Egyptians associated with the gods. It is inscribed with the name of Nedjemankh, a high-ranking priest of the ram-headed god Heryshef of Herakleopolis. The Met took the coffin off view this week to deliver it to the district attorney's office for its eventual return to Egypt.

© Agence France-Presse
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'Fake' still life in US museum confirmed as real Van Gogh

Vincent van Gogh (Dutch, 1853–1890), Still Life with Fruit and Chestnuts, 1886. Oil on canvas, 10 5/8 x 14 in. (27 x 35.6 cm) Gift of Bruno and Sadie Adriani 1960.41 Courtesy of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco.

THE HAGUE (AFP).- Art experts have confirmed that a small still-life at a US museum once dismissed as a fake is in fact by Vincent van Gogh, the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam said Wednesday. The painting, "Still Life with Fruit and Chestnuts", was donated by a couple to the Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco in 1960 and suspected to be by the Dutch master.

Several experts had previously said that the painting dated to 1886 was not a real Van Gogh, and it was not included in previous official catalogues of works by the painter, who committed suicide in 1890. "It is true that at the end of last year, experts from the Van Gogh Museum attributed a painting from the collection of the Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco as a Vincent van Gogh painting," press officer Milou Bollen told AFP. "There was always a question whether the painting was or was not made by Van Gogh."

In a further discovery, the experts found that there was a portrait of a woman hidden underneath the still life, the Van Gogh museum said. Van Gogh often reused his canvases as he found himself working in poverty, managing to sell only a few of his paintings during his troubled life.

The Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco was not immediately available for comment. It already lists the painting as being by Van Gogh on its website.

Van Gogh is better known for his vibrant renderings of sunflowers but he also painted a series of lesser, often darker still lifes including the one now officially attributed to him. "Still Life with Fruit and Chestnuts" is believed to have been painted in Paris in the autumn of 1886, the Dutch newspaper Volkskrant reported.

It was at one point owned by the mother of French painter Emile Bernard, who was friends with Van Gogh. The Van Gogh Museum is asked to examine 200 works a year to see if they are really by the artist, but since 1988 it has only added 14 to the official oeuvre, Volkskrant said.

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'Indiana Jones of art' finds stolen Spanish carvings in English garden

Dutch art detective Arthur Brand (L) and an assistant remove two 7th century limestone Visigoth reliefs from a van in north London on January 20, 2019, the reliefs, depicting evangelists, where both stolen from the Maria del Lara Church in Spain. Two priceless stone reliefs stolen from a mysterious ancient Spanish church in 2004 were handed back after they were traced to an English garden where they were displayed as ornaments. Dubbed the "Indiana Jones of the art world" because of his exploits, Dutch art detective Arthur Brand said he handed the carvings back to the Spanish embassy at a private ceremony in London. NIKLAS HALLE'N / AFP. by Jan Hennop

THE HAGUE (AFP).- A Dutch art detective has returned two priceless stone reliefs stolen from an ancient Spanish church after tracing them to an English nobleman's garden where they were displayed as ornaments. Arthur Brand, dubbed the "Indiana Jones of the art world", said he handed over the centuries-old carvings to the Spanish embassy in London at a private ceremony on Monday.

It was the culmination of a long search for the artworks, which were snatched in 2004 from the Santa Maria de Lara church in northern Spain, believed to be at least 1,000 years old. They turned up in the garden of an aristocratic British family who had unwittingly bought them, and it was there that Brand found them covered in mud and leaves.

"These artworks are priceless. To find them in a garden after searching for eight years is just incredible," the art sleuth told AFP. "You can imagine how horrified they were to learn that their garden ornaments were in fact priceless stolen Spanish religious art." The private investigator showed AFP the stone carvings -- one of which depicts John the Evangelist, author of one of the Gospels -- hours before they were handed back.

The reliefs, said to weigh 50 kilos (110 pounds) each, were then handed to representatives of Spain's Guardia Civil police force, who are collaborating in the case, and two museum curators from the northern city of Burgos. The Spanish embassy in London declined to comment.

'World heritage' The hunt for the artworks could come straight from a detective novel. The church from which they were stolen is believed to date from the era of the Visigoths, with experts dating it between the seventh and eleventh centuries. But in a huge blow the reliefs were snatched by professional art thieves in 2004, Brand said.

In 2010 the intrepid sleuth first received word from an unnamed British informant that "something strange" had popped up in London, which eventually pointed him to a shadowy man Brand referred to as 'Mr X'. "It turns out 'Mr X' saw a French dealer arriving with the reliefs by truck in London. They were put on offer as garden ornaments -- but Mr X recognised them as possible Visigoth religious artworks," Brand said. "The guys who stole these wanted to sell it for a couple of millions or whatever, but they have soon find out that you can not sell these, so to make at least a little bit of money, they sold them as garden ornaments," he said, adding that they were probably sold for around 50,000 pounds each.

Brand then tracked down the French dealer, who pointed them towards an unnamed British aristocratic family living north of London. "It ended up in the garden of an English nobleman, who did not know that it was world heritage, where they would stay like 15 years," he said. The owners were so shocked when told the truth that "they wanted to throw the artworks into a river and let them disappear forever. Fortunately we managed to convinced them not to," said Brand.

It was yet another success for Brand, who was in the headlines last year for returning a stolen 1,600-year-old mosaic to Cyprus that was found in the possession of a similarly unwitting British family. He won world fame in 2015 after finding "Hitler's Horses", two bronze statues made by Nazi sculptor Joseph Thorak.

'Worthy of Dan Brown' The recovery of the artworks could also play an important role in revealing more about the mysterious Santa Maria de Lara church near Burgos. The church was effectively lost for centuries before being rediscovered in 1921 by a local priest and declared a national monument in 1929.

Inside, the church has Christian, but also pagan, Roman symbols and Islamic influences -- "worthy of a Dan Brown novel," Brand quipped. The stone reliefs "are of huge value," said Rene Payo, art history professor at the University of Burgos. "They are important because not many exist today. There are very little... quantities of Visigoth figurative sculptures," he told AFP. The Visigoths settled in Spain between the fifth and eighth century after driving out the Romans, but were themselves overthrown by the Moors in 711.

The looted artworks could also be "essential" evidence in a debate raging among scholars about the exact age of the church, said Oxford University researcher David Addison. Addison said some believed it was a 7th century building while others dated it to the 10th or 11th centuries. Brand's return of the artifacts "would be a great service in this regard," Addison said.

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