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
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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
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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