Footnotes

The Dixie Brewery, 1979

• Five years after, is creativity saving New Orleans?
• Iraq is still "bleeding antiquities".
• The Art Newspaper is reporting that the Museum Wiesbaden has voluntarily returned a 17th century work to heirs of a Jewish art dealer after the painting was lost to Nazi spoliation, and also reports on the Kokoschka claim denied by the 5th Circuit.
• Also, a Nazi spoliation case against Spain can move forward in federal district court in Spain.
• The New York Times looks at the art theft "frustrating" France.   
• Via David Gill, a video lecture by Professor Richard vans at Cambridge on "Looted Art and its Restitution". 
•  Another motive for art theft, arranging for the return of art and valuables to avoid jail time.
• Boston FBI head says the Gardner theft will receive a "laser-like focus".   
• Craig Childs' new book may ask some pointed questions of archaeology. 

Using Google to Police Sites in Jordan (and elsewhere perhaps)

An Image of the MEGA database in action

Randy Kennedy has a fascinating piece in the NY Times detailing the Middle Eastern Geodatabase for Antiquities (MEGA), which uses google earth satellite images to catalog and crowdsource sites and the conditions which may be threatening them.  the Getty Conservation Institute with financial support from the World Monuments Fund has been building the system over the last for years.  Kennedy reports the project will "allow archaeologists and conservators there, for the first time, to gain access to decades’ worth of records about Jordan’s sites and to monitor the condition of those sites much more easily". 

Lest the website be used by looters to find sites, the information is currently restricted to a select group of individuals.  This project was originally designed to be implemented in Iraq, however "the chaos and violence in Iraq ultimately prevented the Getty from being able to work with officials there to create what was originally planned to be a local database program, not one that utilized the Web."  There are plans to implement the system in Iraq soon, and if this program works well in Jordan, and the middle east, this program could be implemented just about anywhere else in the world. 

1. Randy Kennedy, Getty Institute Project in Jordan Helps Track Antiquities, The New York Times, August 24, 2010, http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/25/arts/design/25getty.html?_r=1&emc=eta1 (last visited Aug 26, 2010).

Fanizzo on Property Management and the Antiquities Act

Via the Land Use Prof Blog I see that Kelly Y. Fanizzo (Temple) has posted Politics, Persuasion, and Enforcement: Property Management Under the Antiquities Act.  Here is her abstract:

Recognizing the tremendous loss to the nation that results from unchecked collecting and vandalism, Congress passed the Antiquities Act in 1906 to preserve threatened historic and scientific structures, ruins, and objects and protect against the loss of valuable scientific data. Granting considerable authority to the President, the Antiquities Act provides for the designation of national monuments through the withdrawal of public land. Over the past decades, numerous monument designations have raised questions about the limits of the President’s role in federal land management. But practical questions looming just beyond the President’s ability to designate a national monument only recently surfaced in a challenge to the Bureau of Land Management’s (BLM) grazing policies in the Sonoran Desert National Monument. This case before the Arizona District Court focused on the BLM’s management of the national monument, and not the process of its designation. This challenge sparked a discussion on how the protective intent of a monument proclamation can be best achieved. It asked what is the President’s authority to manage a national monument and when can a third party sue to force an executive agency to comply with the monument proclamation’s terms. This paper argues that consistent judicial review of an agency’s management of a monument can help national monument designations maintain their protective purpose. In the context of the Antiquities Act and more broadly, using this challenge as a case study allows us to consider what teeth are left in this law, now on the books for over a hundred years, to protect significant historic and scientific resources.

Fifth Circuit Rules for Current Owner in Nazi-era Claim

The 5th Circuit has held that Claudia Seger-Thomschitz is not entitled to regain the work Portrait of Youth by Oskar Kokoschka.  Sarah Blodgett Dunbar v. Claudia Seger-Thomschitz, No. 09-30717 (5th Cir. 2010).  The claimant, Seger-Thomschitz argued the work was confiscated in a forced sale from the Reichel family in 1939.  Sarah Blodgett Dunbar, a current resident of New Orleans, inherited the work in 1973 from her mother, who had purchased it in 1946 from a man named "Kallir" whom Seger-Thomschitz argued was a Nazi collaborator. 

The suit was instigated by Dunbar after she received a letter from Seger-Thomschitz seeking the return of the work of art.  Dunbar defended the action under Louisiana's limitations rules, arguing the claims were barred by prescription.  Louisiana Civil Code article 3491 gives title to a current possessor to "one who has possessed a movable as owner for ten years acquires ownership by prescription."  Seger-Thomschitz argued that "Louisiana law should not be applied at all" and that the Terezin Declaration, a non-binding document promulgated at the Prague Holocaust Assets Conference in 2009 preempts state law.  The court was not convinced:

Appellant has not met the burden of establishing extraordinary circumstances to justify consideration of a new legal theory for the first time . . .  Appellant offered no compelling reason why she failed to present this theory to the district court nor does it appear that a miscarriage of justice will result from our failure to address it. We are unpersuaded that this novel theory should be explored for the first time on appeal.

Ms.  Seger-Thomschitz was also unsuccessful in her bid to seek the return of another Kokoschka work from the MFA Boston in June of last year. 

Forgery Ring Discovered in Italy

The BBC and ANSA are reporting that a forged art ring has been discovered by authorities after an 18 month investigation.  The investigation was conducted by monitoring payment transfers and consulting art historians.  Works recovered include forgeries of works by Matisse and Magritte.  There are more than 500 counterfeit works, which may have cost buyers close to 9 million euros. 

1. Italy seizes counterfeit artwork, BBC, August 25, 2010, http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-11088475 (last visited Aug 25, 2010).

Theft of a Van Gogh in Cairo

"The Poppy Flowers" by Vincent Van Gogh

"[Y]ou've got two prime examples of people being indifferent to the need to protect their paintings".

So says Charles Hill in an interview with BBC Radio 4 on the theft of this work from the Khalil Museum in Cairo on Saturday, which bears similarities to the theft in Paris earlier this summer.  The thieves cut the work from the frame.  Though some early reports indicated that the work had been recovered, that now appears to be inaccurate.  Two Italians have been detained at the airport, they were among the ten people who apparently visited the museum on Saturday.  It seems only 7 out of 43 security cameras were functioning. 

The same work was stolen in 1978, and was apparently recovered in Kuwait soon after. 

1. Galleries warned after art thefts, BBC, August 23, 2010, http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-11058596 (last visited Aug 23, 2010).
2. Stolen Van Gogh painting still missing, the Guardian (2010), http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2010/aug/22/stolen-van-gogh-still-missing (last visited Aug 23, 2010).
3. Alaa Shahine, Van Gogh $55 Million `Poppy Flowers' Theft in Cairo Blamed on Lax Security, Bloomberg, , http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-08-22/van-gogh-55-million-poppy-flowers-theft-in-cairo-blamed-on-lax-security.html (last visited Aug 23, 2010).

No Real Decision yet in In re Fisk University

A decisions of sorts has been reached in the case remanded to Davidson County Chancery Court in Tennessee in which Fisk University sought permission to sell an interest in the Stieglitz Collection to the Crystal Bridges Museum.  Lee Rosenbaum has done some terrific reporting on this decision here and here, and posted the decision online (embedded below).  The end result? The court is open to the sale, but also wants to hear more about whether there is an option to keep the art in Nashville. 

Fisk/Crystal Bridges Decision