French museum's collection mostly fake, but is it the only one?

Visitors look at the painting "Le clocher de Ria" (R) (The bell tower of Ria), next to "Portrait d'un inconnu". AFP/Getty Images. by Laure Moysset with Adam Plowright in Paris

ELNE (AFP).- Over decades, the small museum of Elne in southern France built up a collection of works by local painter Etienne Terrus, mostly oil and watercolours of the region's distinctive landscapes and buildings. But what was once a source of pride has turned to embarrassment after 60 percent were found to be fakes, providing a lesson about the dangers of buying art without expert skills and the ubiquity of counterfeit canvases. "Etienne Terrus was Elne's great painter. He was part of the community, he was our painter," lamented mayor Yves Barniol on Friday as he reopened the museum and its exhibition of Terrus paintings -- minus the forgeries.

"Knowing that people have visited the museum and seen a collection most of which is fake, that's bad. It's a catastrophe for the municipality," he added. Terrus (1857-1922) was born and died in Elne near the city of Perpignan where he painted the sun-baked Mediterranean coastline as well as the misty foothills of the Pyrenees mountains and local red-tiled homes. While once a friend of Henri Matisse, Terrus never reached the heights of fame achieved by his contemporary, but he earned a following in art circles and regionally with his Impressionist- and Fauvist-influenced production.

The Terrus Museum in Elne began collecting his work in the 1990s and went on a spending splurge over the last five years, acquiring 80 new canvases often thanks to local fund-raising drives. Devastated locals who helped with the effort now regret being so naive, having handed over tens of thousands of euros to local art dealers and private collectors. Out of 140 works owned by the museum, 82 were judged to be fakes by a panel of experts, causing an estimated loss to the town of 160,000 euros ($200,000).

A global problem
But art-testing expert Yan Walther says fake art being exhibited publicly is a problem worldwide and the case of Elne, though extreme, is not unique. "The fact that there are fakes and misattributed works in museum collections is something absolutely clear and nobody with an understanding of the field has any illusions about this," Walther told AFP.

"There are misattributed works in the Louvre (in Paris) in the National Gallery (in London), all museums in the world, but it is not in a proportion like 60 percent," he added. A state museum in the Belgian city of Ghent was accused of exhibiting fakes in January after it put 26 works supposedly by Russian avant-garde artists such as Kazimir Malevich and Wassily Kandinsky on display. Many experts questioned how the paintings -- the private collection of Russian businessman Igor Toporovski -- could have been amassed in secret and the museum had to cancel the show amid a police investigation.

Walther's company, Swiss-based SGS Art Services, is a world leader in using scientific methods such as X-rays and carbon-dating to help authenticate art works. SGS mostly tests high-end paintings worth between 50,000 and sometimes tens of millions of euros and Walther says on average a staggering 70-90 percent are found to be fake or misattributed.

Misattribution can mean, for example, that a painting was produced by the workshop or assistant to an artist. "When you acquire real estate or a car, there are a certain number of steps everyone would take: a technical assessment, background checks on the seller," he said. "For art work, very strangely it is still not in people's minds. You can buy an artwork for two million dollars and people hardly check anything. But it is starting to change."

Crude fakes
The fraud in Elne was discovered by local art historian Eric Forcada who said he had seen the problems immediately, with some of the paintings crude counterfeits. "On one painting, the ink signature was wiped away when I passed my white glove over it," he said.

In another painting, there was a building that was completed in the 1950s -- 30 years after Terrus's death -- while some of the canvases did not match those used by the original painter. Forcada alerted the region's top cultural expert and requested a meeting of a panel of experts to confirm his findings. A police investigation is now set to focus on local art dealers who were the source of many of the paintings.

"The whole of the local art market is rotten, from the unofficial street vendors who pitch to local private collectors up to the art dealers and the auction houses," Forcada said. Prior to the scandal, paintings by Terrus could fetch up to 15,000 euros ($18,200) and drawings and watercolours would sell for up to 2,000 euros, he said.

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Chagall painting recovered 30 years after theft from a New York couple's apartment

The oil painting, which shows Othello gazing at a sleeping Desdemona, was recovered last year after a man in the eastern state of Maryland contacted the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Photo: FBI.

WASHINGTON (AFP).- A painting by Marc Chagall stolen 30 years ago from a New York couple's apartment has been recovered and is being returned to the family's estate, the FBI said Thursday. The 1911 painting, "Othello and Desdemona," was stolen in 1988 along with other works of art -- by Renoir, Picasso and Hopper -- from the Manhattan home of Ernest and Rose Heller, the FBI said in a statement.

The oil painting, which shows Othello gazing at a sleeping Desdemona, was recovered last year after a man in the eastern state of Maryland contacted the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The FBI said the Maryland man got in touch with law enforcement after a failed effort to consign the painting to an art gallery in Washington. The gallery owner was "suspicious about the lack of paperwork supporting the painting's authenticity and provenance," the FBI said.

The Maryland man obtained the painting in the late 1980s or early 1990s from the man who stole it from the Heller's apartment, the FBI said. "It was an inside job," said special agent Marc Hess of the FBI's Art Crime Team. "A person who had regular access to the building was stealing from apartments while the tenants were away." "(The Hellers) went on vacation back in 1988," Hess said. "They returned, and this work of art -- along with several others -- was missing."

The FBI said the Maryland man kept the painting stashed in a makeshift box in his attic for years. It said no charges would be filed against him or the man who stole the painting because the statute of limitations has expired. The FBI said the Hellers, who bought the painting in the 1920s, have both died and their estate plans to put the art work up for auction.

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New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art returns stolen idols to Nepal

An 11th-century statue of the deity Shiva, known as the Uma Maheshwor idol, that was returned to Nepal from New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art, is pictured in its delivery crate at the Department of Archaeology in Kathmandu on April 4, 2018. A pair of rare idols stolen from Nepal three decades ago were returned to the country April 4 by New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art. The two statues -- one of the Buddha and the other of the Hindu god Shiva and his wife Parvati -- were stolen from Nepal in the 1980s when rampant looting saw many important artifacts whisked out of the country and into the hand of private collectors. Gopen RAI / AFP.

KATHMANDU (AFP).- A pair of rare idols stolen from Nepal three decades ago were returned to the country Wednesday by New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art. The two statues -- one of Buddha and the other of the Hindu god Shiva and his wife Parvati -- were stolen in the 1980s when rampant looting saw many important artifacts whisked out of Nepal and into the hands of private collectors.

"The government was unaware of the whereabouts of the statues until historian Lain Singh Bangdel mentioned (in a book) that the statues were on display at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York," Shyam Sundar Rajbanshi of Nepal's Department of Archaeology told AFP. The 11th-century Shiva statue, known as the Uma Maheshwor idol, was given to the Met in 1983 while the Buddha -- estimated to be around 700 years old -- was donated by a private collector in 2015.

The two statues were removed from display after the Met learned they were stolen, local media reported. The statues will now be showcased at the National Museum of Nepal in the capital Kathmandu, Rajbanshi confirmed.

Nepal's rich cultural heritage was ravaged by decades of theft from the 1960s to 1980s. Natural disasters and unchecked development also encroached on ancient sites. A devastating earthquake in April 2015 caused extensive damage in the Kathmandu Valley, home to hundreds of sacred Buddhist and Hindu sites.

The UN's cultural agency UNESCO warned if not properly conserved those sites could lose their coveted world heritage status.

A 700-year-old standing statue of the Buddha, that was returned to Nepal from New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art, is pictured in its delivery crate at the Department of Archaeology in Kathmandu on April 4, 2018. A pair of rare idols stolen from Nepal three decades ago were returned to the country April 4 by New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art. The two statues -- one of the Buddha and the other of the Hindu god Shiva and his wife Parvati -- were stolen from Nepal in the 1980s when rampant looting saw many important artifacts whisked out of the country and into the hand of private collectors. Gopen RAI / AFP.

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Antiques looted in Libya by IS sold in Spain, two experts arrested

Officers seized "numerous works of art", including seven mosaics and a sarcophagus. Photo: Policia Nacional Ministerio del Interior.

MADRID.- Two Spanish art experts suspected of running a ring that sold antiques looted from archaeological sites in Libya by groups linked to the Islamic State group have been arrested, police said Wednesday. Officers seized "numerous works of art", including seven mosaics and a sarcophagus, during raids carried out in five locations in Barcelona and the nearby town of Argentona as part of their operation, police said in a statement.

The works were stolen from archaeological sites in Libya's eastern coastal region of Cyrenaica and northern region of Tripolitania, which are home to some of the finest Roman and Greek ruins in existence. The two men who were arrested as part of the operation are both Spanish nationals aged 31 who are experts in ancient art.

Police said one of the men appeared regularly on TV to discuss ancient art and even took part in several academic conferences that discussed the destruction of historical sites by the Islamic State group. "They led a network that illegally bought works looted from archaeological sites by groups linked to the terrorist group Daesh, helping to finance its activities," police said in a statement, using the Arabic acronym for Islamic State. "Some of the pieces also showed imperfections, bumps and marks that indicated they underwent a violent extraction from the subsoil, without the use of adequate archaeological techniques," it added.

The two men are accused of selling the works, dubbed "blood antiques" on the black market according to Spanish police, at a gallery they run in Barcelona. They face charges of membership in a criminal organisation, document falsification, smuggling and financing terrorism. Spanish police said they sought the help of Libyan authorities to verify the authenticity of the works.

Conflict has left Libya with competing governments, hampering both national and international conservation efforts. UNESCO in 2016 added five of its World Heritage sites in Libya to its "World Heritage in Danger" list last year.

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Brazil museum selling prized Jackson Pollock to stay afloat

This work of Jackson Pollock is part of the MAM-Rio collection since 1952 and was donated by Nelson Rockefeller.

RIO DE JANEIRO (AFP).- Rio de Janeiro's Modern Art Museum is selling one of its most prized works, a Jackson Pollock painting, to help stay afloat. The private, not-for-profit museum said a sale of this type has never been done before in Brazil, although it is common in Europe and the United States. The Pollock painting in question is titled "No.16" and was completed in 1950.

Proceeds of the sale will be used to create a fund to keep the museum going for another 30 years, it said. The painting was donated by the late former US vice president Nelson Rockefeller in 1954, and is estimated to be worth around $25 million.

The Brazilian Museum Institute called on the Modern Art Museum to reverse course and try to come up with another way to raise money at a time of financial struggle for many of the South American country's museums. But the Culture Ministry said it supports the strategy, saying the Modern Art Museum will become less vulnerable to economic crises and less dependent on donations and sponsorships.

Rio de Janeiro has been mired in financial turmoil since it hosted the Olympic Games in 2016, mainly because of a fall in oil prices and as a hangover from the recession that all of Brazil endured in 2015 and 2016.

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Facebook apologises for censoring prehistoric Venus statue

This undated picture released on February 28, 2018 shows the prehistoric "Venus of Willendorf" figurine pictured at the Nature Historical Museum in Vienna, Austria. The "Venus of Willendorf" figurine, considered a masterpiece of the paleolithic era, has been censored by Facebook, drawing an indignant response Wednesday from the Natural History Museum in Vienna, where it is on display. Helmut FOHRINGER / APA / AFP.

VIENNA (AFP).- Facebook apologised on Thursday for censoring the prehistoric "Venus of Willendorf" figurine, considered a masterpiece of the paleolithic era. "Our advertising policies do not allow nudity or implied nudity but we have an exception for statues. Therefore, the ad with this image should have been approved," a spokeswoman for Facebook told AFP. "We apologise for the error and have let the advertiser know we are approving their ad,” she added.

The controversy began in December when Italian arts activist Laura Ghianda posted a picture of the artwork on the social networking site which went viral. After it was censored she said that "this statue is not 'dangerously pornographic'. The war on human culture and modern intellectualism will not be tolerated." Her outrage was echoed by Vienna's Natural History Museum, where the statue is displayed. "Let the Venus be naked! Since 29,500 years she shows herself as prehistoric fertility symbol without any clothes. Now Facebook censors it and upsets the community," the museum said in a statement.

The 11-centimetre (4-inch) statue was discovered in the Austrian village of Willendorf in the early 20th Century. It dates from the early stone age and is "the most popular and best-known prehistoric representation of a woman worldwide," according to the museum's director general Christian Koeberl.

Facebook is regularly criticised over content which it bans or indeed content it allows to be published. On March 15, a French court is due to pronounce on the decision by the California-based social networking site to close the Facebook account of someone who posted a photo of 19th century French painter Gustave Courbet's "Origin of the World" painting, which depicts female genitalia.

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'Stolen works' sentence of Picasso's electrician overturned

Pierre Le Guennec (R), who is accused of receiving stolen goods after being found in possession of paintings by late Spanish artist Pablo Picasso, arrives with his wife Danielle at the court in Aix-en-Provence, southeastern France on October 31, 2016 for their appeal trial. Le Guennec, a former electrician, and his wife were convicted to two years suspended sentence for receiving stolen goods regarding some 271 artworks by Picasso which Le Guennec claims were given to him by Picasso and his wife Jacqueline when he carried out work on their villa in Mougins in the 1970's. BORIS HORVAT / AFP.

PARIS (AFP).- France's highest appeal court has overturned the conviction of Pablo Picasso's former electrician and his wife, who were given suspended sentences for keeping 271 of his works in their garage for four decades. Pierre and Danielle Le Guennec were given two-year suspended jail sentences in 2015 for possession of stolen goods, in a case that made headlines worldwide.

A higher court upheld the verdict in 2016 but the Cour de Cassation, in a ruling seen by AFP Thursday, overturned it. Ruling there was insufficient evidence that "the goods held by the suspects had been stolen" the court ordered a retrial. The couple's lawyer Antoine Vey hailed the ruling. "It's a great decision which reinforces the line that Le Guennecs have always upheld -- that there was no theft whatsoever." The retrial will offer them "a huge opportunity to finally establish the truth", Vey said.

The collection, whose value has not been assessed, includes drawings of women and horses, nine rare Cubist collages from the time Picasso was working with fellow French artist Georges Braque and a work from his famous "blue period".

At his original trial Le Guennec, who is in his late seventies, 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 the appeal court that the works were part of a huge trove of art 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 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 Picasso's son Claude Ruiz-Picasso in 2010. The artist's heirs promptly filed a complaint against him, triggering an investigation.

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