Qatari-owned jewels stolen in audacious heist in Venice: Two thieves steal $1.2m in earrings and a brooch, according to Italian authorities

Jewelled objects from al-Thani collection on display (AFP)

Thieves made off with several items of Indian treasures owned by the Qatari royal family in an audacious heist on Wednesday at the Doge's Palace in Venice, Italy, police said.

At least two thieves are thought to have entered the exhibition, mixing with other visitors. Then, while one kept watch, the other opened a display case and grabbed a jewelled golden brooch and a pair of earrings.

Italian authorities investigating the theft put the value at about $1.2m.

The thieves got away with the jewels on the final day of a four-month exhibition, Treasures of the Mughals and the Maharajas: the Al Thani Collection, which included about 270 items showcasing five centuries of Indian craftsmanship. The stolen jewellery was made of diamonds, platinum and gold, according to a Guardian report.

Investigators said the pair took the items from a reinforced display case after deactivating the alarm system, before melting into the crowd and making good their escape.

The alarm was raised only several hours later at the palace, known as the Palazzo Ducale in central Venice at one end of Saint Mark's Square.

"We are clearly dealing here with two skilled professionals who managed to pull off their feat despite all the display rooms being fitted with technologically highly sophisticated (alarm) systems," chief police commissioner Vito Gagliardi said.

The Venice Foundation of Civic Museums said in a statement that the stolen items were “contemporary pieces and consequently are of less historical value than other items in the collection”.

The collection was assembled by Sheikh Hamad bin Abdullah al-Thani and now belongs to Qatar's ruling family.

http://www.middleeasteye.net/news/qatari-owned-jewels-stolen-audacious-heist-venice-798837371

MEE and agencies, Thursday 4 January 2018 00:58 UTC

Wine about it: Disaster date ends with $1.5 mn in art ruined

Lindy Lou Layman mugshot. Photo: Houston Police Department.

CHICAGO (AFP).- First dates can be awkward, even nerve-wracking. But the last thing a Texas attorney expected when he went out with a freelance court reporter was that the evening would end with red wine splashed across valuable paintings in his home, including a work by pop artist Andy Warhol.

Anthony Buzbee's date with Lindy Lou Layman was by any measure a disaster. The 29-year-old woman had become "heavily intoxicated" while at Buzbee's home in the city of Houston, according to a prosecutor's account in court.

"(Buzbee) called for an Uber driver," but Layman went back into Buzbee's home and shouted, "I'm not leaving," the prosecutor told a judge over the weekend while Layman, appearing in an orange jail uniform, stood listening.

After walking back into Buzbee's mansion, Layman poured wine on three paintings before tearing them down, and threw two abstract sculptures across the room, shattering them, according to prosecutors. At least one of the paintings was by Warhol and the total cost of the damage was more than $1.5 million, Houston TV station KHOU reported.

Layman was arrested a little after midnight on Saturday and charged with a felony count of criminal mischief. The original charging documents stated she was arrested for damaging artworks of $300,000 in value or greater. She posted $30,000 bail on Christmas Day and was expected back in court Thursday.

© Agence France-Presse
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Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum $10mn art reward deadline reverts to $5 million on January 1st

Guests view art displays at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum on December 27, 2017 in Boston, Massachusetts. It is the largest property crime in US history: the three-decade-old theft of Rembrandt and Vermeer masterpieces from a Boston museum by thieves disguised as police officers in the dead of night. But as the clock ticks toward midnight on New Year's Eve, one detective sits patiently by the telephone and computer screen: could the next call or email finally lead to their recovery and the payout of a $10 million reward? I'm very hopeful," says Anthony Amore, director of security at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, who worked previously for Homeland Security and likens his current role to that of a private detective. Ryan McBride / AFP.

BOSTON, MASS.- It's the largest property crime in US history: the three-decade-old theft of Rembrandt and Vermeer masterpieces from a Boston museum by thieves disguised as police officers in the dead of night. But as the clock ticks toward midnight on New Year's Eve, one detective sits patiently by the telephone and computer screen: could the next call or email finally lead to their recovery and the payout of a $10 million reward?

"It's hard to be confident. I'm very hopeful," said Anthony Amore, director of security at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, who worked previously for Homeland Security and likens his role to that of a private detective. "One hundred percent of our focus is following up on leads we have received."

Anthony Amore, the director of security at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, stands inside of the courtyard on December 27, 2017 in Boston, Massachusetts. It is the largest property crime in US history: the three-decade-old theft of Rembrandt and Vermeer masterpieces from a Boston museum by thieves disguised as police officers in the dead of night. But as the clock ticks toward midnight on New Year's Eve, one detective sits patiently by the telephone and computer screen: could the next call or email finally lead to their recovery and the payout of a $10 million reward? I'm very hopeful," says Anthony Amore, director of security at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, who worked previously for Homeland Security and likens his current role to that of a private detective. Ryan McBride / AFP.

In May, the museum temporarily doubled to $10 million a long-standing reward for information leading to the recovery of all 13 works in good condition, hoping that a deadline of midnight on December 31, 2017 would concentrate minds. It is, in the words of the museum, the "biggest private reward ever offered" for stolen property, and backed by the institution and its board of directors. In the final countdown to the deadline, US press attention sparked an uptick in calls. "Attention is really snowballing," Amore told AFP. "A lot of calls and emails have been coming in."

In perhaps the world's biggest unsolved art theft, the thieves walked into the museum in the early hours of March 18, 1990 and stole 13 works of art in 81 minutes, after handcuffing and tying up two security guards in the basement. The stolen art includes three Rembrandts, a Vermeer, and five sketches and watercolors by Degas, together estimated to be worth more than half a billion dollars.

'What's time off?'
Last month's record-breaking auction of Leonardo da Vinci's "Salvator Mundi" for $450 million in New York has probably made the missing masterpieces only more valuable. Investigators worked tirelessly, but the artwork has never been recovered. Isabella Stewart Gardner, the wealthy collector who endowed the museum, stipulated in her will that nothing should be changed. To that end, the empty frames of the pilfered art still hang in the same spots.

In March 2013, the FBI identified the thieves publicly as a criminal organization based in the mid-Atlantic states and New England. But the statute of limitations ran out in 1995, meaning they can no longer be prosecuted. The FBI in Boston urges anyone with information to come forward as soon as possible. "The investigation has had many twists and turns, promising leads and dead ends," spokesperson Kristen Setera said in a statement. "The investigation has led to Europe and Asia. There is no part of the world the FBI has not scoured following up on credible leads." As millions of Americans took time off over the holiday season, Amore stayed wedded to the job in hand. "What's time off?" he quipped. "We have paintings to find." But do rewards even work? Have the paintings not been damaged in the intervening years?

'Incentive'
"In my experience they do work, and this $10 million reward is certainly a significant incentive for anyone with even an inkling of the whereabouts of the pictures to come forward," says Christopher Marinello, a world expert in recovering stolen art. "I still believe, and many people believe these will resurface one day," he told AFP. If experts were to hazard a guess, they would say the art is still in the wider Boston area. Stashed in the attic, hidden in the basement or shoved under a bed. "You can't hang it on the wall," said Amore. "They are the true definition of pricelessness," he added. "They can never be sold or moved."

While anyone found in possession could still be prosecuted for criminal liability, prosecutors have previously touted potential immunity as bait. "Our focus is not on prosecution. It's totally on recovery," said Amore. But while the reward led to calls, he is tight-lipped on the potential significance of any leads. Only "a few of them," he said, had been "very valuable."

And while the $10 million reward officially reverts to $5 million on January 1, Amore refused to be drawn on whether it could be extended. "I'm really not thinking about post-deadline," he said.

© Agence France-Presse

by with Jennie Matthew in New York / Ryan McBride
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Vatican returns shrunken 'warrior' head to Ecuador

Pope Francis (R) exchanges gifts with the President of Ecuador Lenin Moreno (C) and his wife Rocio Gonzalez Navas during a private audience on December 16, 2017 in Vatican. Andreas SOLARO / POOL / AFP.

VATICAN CITY (AFP).- The Vatican museum has returned a shrunken head to Ecuador, relinquishing the wizened cranium of an Amazon warrior nearly 100 years after it was taken by a missionary. The grisly body part -- which belonged to the Shuar indigenous people -- was handed over during Ecuadorian President Lenin Moreno's visit to Pope Francis on Saturday after months of negotiations, the Vatican said.

It is very rare for a historical artifact to be returned by the Vatican museums, which boast one of the largest collections of art and archaeology in the world.

The fist-sized capitulum, which never went on show, is believed to have been a war trophy for the Shuar, who mummified and kept the heads of their warrior enemies, as well as their heroes. The Shuar are still one of the most important ethnic groups in the Amazon region. In recent years they have hit the headlines for attempting to resist government-authorised large-scale mining on land they claim as their own.

They used to be best known in the West for their shrunken heads -- called "tsantsa". Removing the skull, boiling the flesh then sowing up the eyes, nose and mouth is believed to have trapped avenging souls inside, or stored the wisdom of their elders. The head, brought to the Vatican by a missionary in 1925, will be given to the Pumapungo ethnographic museum in Cuenca.

© Agence France-Presse http://artdaily.com/news/101052/Vatican-returns-shrunken--warrior--head-to-Ecuador#.WjrFA1WnGUk

A $5 Million Art Fraud

A suit filed in Quebec Superior Court claims that Phi Centre's former president defrauded it—and its founder Phoebe Greenberg—of some $5 million
November 23, 2017 BY Leah Sandals

The Centre Phi on rue St-Pierre in Montreal. Photo: Jeangagnon via Wikimedia Commons.

Since its founding in 2012, the Phi Centre in Montreal has done a lot of great things: hosted a talk by Michel Gondry, organized virtual reality programming in partnership with the New York Times, and snagged the exhibition “Bjork Digital,” just to name a few. Yet there has also been upset behind the scenes. And this fall, that trouble has come to the surface in a suit filed in Quebec Superior Court.

As reported by La Presse and the Montreal Gazette, the legal suit claims that Phi Centre’s former president Penny Mancuso defrauded the institution—and its founder Phoebe Greenberg—of some $5 million. It’s a sum quite remarkable for fraud allegations in Canadian art circles.

Greenberg, who started out as an actor and is heir to a family fortune, might be best known for founding the DHC/ART Foundation, which is a few steps from the Phi Centre and recently celebrated its 10th anniversary of bringing leading contemporary art to the city. Highlights of the DHC’s past decade including a landmark North American show by Brits Jake and Dinos Chapman, the first Canadian survey of Ryoji Ikeda, and a solo show of American Jenny Holzer. (The Phi Centre, founded more as “a multidisciplinary arts and culture organization…at the intersection of art, film, music, design and technology” has, along with Greenberg, declined further comment on the court filing.)

Penny Mancuso, for her part, also spent parts of her early career in acting, with roles in the films Affliction (1997), Mambo Italiano (2003) and Oceans of Hope (2001). At Phi Centre, one of her responsibilities was representing its Phi Films arm during projects like Canada at Cannes. Phi Films’ notable productions melding art and cinema include Guy Maddin and Evan Johnson’s The Forbidden Room (2015) and Iain Forsyth and Jane Pollard’s 20,000 Days on Earth (2014), both of which showed at Sundance.

According to the Gazette, Greenberg covered the majority of the costs of opening and operating the [Phi Centre] venue. Mancuso was paid $409,000 per year, according to the claim cited by La Presse, on top of which Greenberg gave her an extra $200,000 per year to purchase clothing and beauty products, and paid for Mancuso’s children’s enrolment in private schools.

Last year, Phi Centre financial director Michel Bérubé noticed irregularities while going through the books. Of particular concern was $500,000 Mancuso had spent on clothing over the previous 13 months using Phi Centre credit cards. Mancuso was let go in April, with Greenberg initially agreeing to pay her three years of salary as compensation, beginning with an initial payment of $407,000. That all changed when it was discovered Mancuso had diverted $5.2 million from the Phi Centre between 2014 and 2017, via credit card payments to herself or her husband, Bayard Whittall, and his company, Two Monster Exotics. Greenberg is seeking repayment of the $407,000 already paid to Mancuso as part of her departure package, plus the $5.2 million taken from the Phi Centre.

Mancuso’s LinkedIn profile, which still mentions her past position at Phi, describes her as “currently exploring opportunities.” The Facebook page for her husband Bayard Whittall’s business Two Monsters Exotics, which specializes in captive breeding of boas, is no longer available, and calls to its Miami phone number have gone unanswered.

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Puma accused of defacing Indian heritage for shoe commercial

Puma in a statement said it was unaware that the building had heritage value, and has promised to restore the facades to their original condition.

NEW DELHI (AFP).- Global sportswear giant Puma was accused Tuesday of irreversibly damaging 17th-century architecture in Delhi's historic quarter as part of an advertising stunt to promote a new line of shoes. The facades of several buildings in Old Delhi have been spraypainted with large colourful murals for the shoe campaign that Puma said "captures the grit of Indian streets" on its website. But the stunt -- dubbed "Suede Gully" after the shoe material and the Hindi word for street -- had infuriated conservationists who accused Puma of defacing the centuries-old quarter built by Mughal emperor Shah Jahan.

"It's a heritage area. You can't just go and paint what you like," Swapna Liddle from the Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage told AFP. "Permanent damage has been done to the carved sandstone, limestone plaster and Lahori bricks. "Those who made and approved this advertisement, those who stood by while this was done, are all responsible for this insensitive treatment."

Puma in a statement said it was unaware that the building had heritage value, and has promised to restore the facades to their original condition. "The owner wasn’t aware that his property is protected as a heritage property and hence we were not made aware," a spokesperson said on Tuesday.

In an advertising video for the Puma campaign, Indian rappers and hip-hop dancers perform at graffiti-covered locations including trains in the financial capital Mumbai.

Rules to protect Delhi's neglected heritage sites from destruction are widely ignored, conservationists say. Laws specifically forbidding advertising on historic buildings is rarely enforced by Delhi's cash-strapped authorities, who struggle to uphold measures designed to conserve the city's crumbling icons.

The owner of one Delhi building spraypainted for the Puma campaign had defended the decision as his only to make. "This is a private property and the graffiti is making the area look more beautiful. The area is looking better now, it is more lively," Arun Khandelwal told the Indian Express.

© Agence France-Presse artdaily.com/news/100271/Puma-accused-of-defacing-Indian-heritage-for-shoe-commercial#.Wg0EnheQy9I

Thief steals Botero statue from France's most guarded street

A thief strolled out of a Paris gallery with the £500,000 bronze statue 'Maternity' (pictured) under his arm

PARIS (AFP).- French police are hunting a daring art thief who stole a bronze statue worth nearly half a million euros from a gallery within yards of the presidential palace in Paris. The thief simply walked into the gallery and helped himself to the statue of a mother and child by the Colombian artist Fernando Botero. He then coolly walked unchallenged down one of the most closely guarded streets in France, home to the British and Japanese embassies as well as French President Emmanuel Macron's official residence, the Elysee palace.

Security around the Elysee has been heightened as a part of France's state of emergency after the country was hit by a series of terror attacks over last two years. The gallery is also almost opposite the interior ministry, which is in charge of security and the police.

According security camera footage, the bearded thief caressed the 10-kilo (22-pound) statue of typically fleshy Botero figures, then looked around him before taking the statue from its plinth and discreetly making an exit. No alarms were set off. Staff at the Bartoux gallery only realised it was gone when the gallery closed on Saturday evening, police said.

Botero, 85, is Latin America's best known living artist, and is renowned for his slightly surreal and often comic fat figures, which have made his paintings hugely popular across the globe.

The stolen sculpture, which is worth at least 425,000 euros ($491,000), is one of eight made by the artist, all of different sizes. Botero, who divides his time between Paris and Italy, could not be contacted. "It's really a nightmare, we hope to get it back" staff at the gallery told French media.

© Agence France-Presse http://artdaily.com/news/100101/Thief-steals-Botero-statue-from-France-s-most-guarded-street-#.WgPU_heQy9I