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The restitution debate: The international fight over the world's most famous artifactsby Brian Williams
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Since the end of the twentieth century, museums in the West have been under fire from the countries of the ancient world for their involvement in the illegal antiquities trade. These accusations have cast Western museums in an unflattering light. The scandals--and the ensuing legal battles--are focused almost entirely on ancient artifacts that have been smuggled out of their country of origin only to end up in well-lit, climate-controlled glass display cases in the most prestigious museums in Europe and the United States. These institutions dedicate millions of dollars to the protection, preservation and conservancy of ancient art and artifacts within their galleries, but their past actions in the antiquities market show that they do not act as responsibly in their efforts to acquire these objects for their collections. Some museums have been shown to conduct business in direct violation of not only their lofty, philanthropic mission statements, but also international law. What these cases have proven, and what is most distressing to those who fight to restrict the illegal exportation of ancient artifacts, is that these museums are knowingly and willfully violating ethical standards in order to obtain highly sought after antiquities. And, as if this hypocritical conduct is not bad enough, their actions encourage the continued plunder and robbery of ancient archaeological sites by generating a profitable market for ancient artifacts.
The art and antiquities market is currently the world's largest unregulated industry, often described by experts as a "grey" market: not fully illegal, but not completely legit either (Bowman, 2008, p.226). Blythe Bowman's article "Transnational Crimes Against Culture: Looting at Archaeological Sites and the 'Grey' Market in Antiquities" reveals the complex problem experts face when trying to protect illegally excavated artifacts in the open market. Buying or owning antiquities is not illegal--unlike other black-market commodities--so the illegitimacy of the artifact is determined by how it was introduced into the market. Artifacts that have been legally introduced into the market constitute a "minute component of objects on the market" (Bowman, 2008, p.227). Legitimacy can vary among different objects in the same auction; a looted artifact may be on the auction block next to an object that was legally exported. Most of the objects in the antiquities market fall into the "grey" category--illegally acquired, but bought and sold by enough collectors that they now have an "official" status. In other words, artifacts which enter the market as illegally-excavated objects taken by grave diggers eventually earn their legitimacy by being auctioned and traded between collectors and gallery owners throughout the years. If an artifact is eventually purchased by a museum, its origin as an illicit artifact is masked by the provenance (1)--or paper trail of transactions--it collected.
Some artifacts purchased by museums have been so "hot" that they had no provenance; they arrived at the institution freshly dug from a tomb. Between 2006 and 2007, the J. Paul Getty Museum (2) in Los Angeles returned a total of 66 artifacts to Italy in order to avoid a protracted legal battle with the Italian government over the legitimacy of the objects. In 2005, the Italian government arrested world-famous art dealer Giacomo Medici for trafficking in stolen antiquities. Medici had been the primary antiquities dealer for the Getty as well as the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. Among evidence the government seized from Medici's warehouse in Geneva, Switzerland, were photographs of the Getty's artifacts as they looked when they were dug up by the tombaroli (Italian tomb robbers), in fragments and still covered in dirt (Watson & Todeschini, 2006, p.68).
As bad as it is for museums and other collectors to trade in illegitimate artifacts, experts are more concerned with how these sales are furthering the destruction of ancient archaeological sites. Archaeologists in Egypt, Peru, Greece, Italy, Turkey, and Southeast Asia are desperately fighting the illegal excavation of ancient sites within their borders, and they place blame squarely on antiquities dealers and their clients--namely museums and collectors in Europe and the United States--who create demand for the objects taken from the sites. In Stealing History (2008), Robert Atwood describes the daunting task Peruvian archaeologist Dr. Walter Alva faces trying to protect his country's ancient sites from the looter's shovel. "If you have objects looted from a tomb, it's as if you have the mutilated parts of a body--the hands, the feet--but no idea what the body was like. This is what the antiquities trade does to us," Alva said. "Once the history of humanity is gone, it's gone forever" (Atwood, 2004, p.53-54).
Many investigations of illegal antiquities purchases focus on looted artifacts that have ended up in museum collections in latter half of the twentieth century, but other battles are being waged over historically significant objects that have been in the possession of the museum in question since the Colonial Era. Why is the passage of time a factor in the debate? Does the country of origin have less claim of ownership if an artifact was taken from its borders hundreds of years ago? Many of these artifacts--such as the Rosetta Stone (above) at the British Museum (3) or Nefertiti's Bust (right) in the Egyptian Museum of Berlin (4)--have been in Europe since their discovery and have never been displayed in their country of origin. Visitors can read about the significance of these relics of the ancient world in the galleries and on the museums' Web sites, but nothing is written about how the objects came to be part of these museum collections during the frenzied early days of European archaeological exploration. The British Museum and Berlin's Egyptian Museum are hardly the only institutions that fail to publicly disclose the modern history of their artifacts. "Like most of the great Western museums, the Louvre has chosen the history that suits it," writes journalist Sharon Waxman after visiting the Louvre's Web site (2008, p.67-68). These objects are the focus of the fiercest debates, and not surprisingly, are the ones that Western museums are the most reluctant to return. The Rosetta Stone and Nefertiti's bust are archaeological celebrities, bringing millions of tourists to these institutions every year, so naturally, neither museum is willing to return them.
In the following sections I will discuss three major cases involving the Met, the Louvre, and the British Museum, where a renowned and world-famous museum was caught purchasing illegal artifacts and how they conducted themselves after the truth was exposed.
Italy vs. the Met
On Friday, January 18, 2008, at the Italian attorney general's office in Rome, authorities held a press conference (5) to announce the end of their thirty-six-year fight with the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City to recover the famous, highly controversial Sarpedon krater (left) by ancient Greek ceramicist Euphronios. In 1972, the museum had purchased the illicit krater fully aware that it had been taken from an undiscovered tomb in Italy by tombaroli. Enough evidence has surfaced over the past thirty years to convince the Italians that the Met's director at the time, Thomas Hoving, curator Dietrich von Bothmer, and the antiquities dealers who brokered the deal with the museum--Robert Hecht and Giacomo Medici--knew the vase's illicit origins. So when Medici and Hecht were charged with illegal antiquities trafficking in 2005, the Italian government opened negotiations with the museum to return not only the Sarpedon krater, but also many other looted objects Medici and Hecht sold to the museum. By 2006, the Italian government had finally convinced the Met to return the famous krater without having to resort to legal action. Despite being relieved the museum would avoid a trial, "the whole process of how Italy prosecuted its case in the United States is shabby," said Met director Philippe de Montebello in 2008. He criticized the Italians for not communicating directly with the Met but instead voicing their accusations of antiquities trafficking to the press. The museum did not want to be dragged into a potentially humiliating public trial, so--despite de Montebello's claim that the Italians had only "circumstantial evidence"--they acquiesced (Waxman, 2008, p.198). The krater would be given back.
In defense of his museum's past actions, De Montebello said that there is no connection between the purchase of looted art and the continued looting of archaeological sites (Waxman, 2008, p.198). He says that looting has occurred since antiquity and it continues even after museums stop purchasing unprovenanced artifacts. Although he is right about the history of looting and the fact that there is still a market for illicit antiquities even without the collaboration of museums, he is wrong to believe there is no cause/effect relationship between buying looted objects and the further destruction of ancient sites.
When archaeologist Dr. Walter Alva spoke to the Peruvian Congress in 2000, he estimated that Peru had lost more of its archaeological heritage in the previous twenty years than in the four and a half centuries since the Spanish conquest (Atwood, 2004, p.216-217). "Invasions of archaeological sites go on with impunity," he said. "At this rate, we can be sure that within five years we will have lost eighty percent of our surviving patrimony..." (Atwood, 2004, p.216). And after the Met purchased the Sarpedon krater for a record price in 1972, the plundering of archaeological sites in Italy increased dramatically. "We were told that the tombaroli of Italy 'went crazy' when they heard the price that had been paid for the Sarpedon krater and redoubled their efforts to search out whatever loot they could find--just in case," said Peter Watson and Cecilia Todeschini, authors of The Medici Conspiracy (qtd. in Waxman, 2008, p.198). Watson and Todeschini also noted a marked increase in the antiquities market of ancient pottery created by Euphronios in the years immediately following the Met purchase.
In 1972 the authorities discovered the ancient Etruscan tomb near modern-day Cerveteri, Italy, where Euphronios' Sarpedon krater had lain undisturbed for 2,500 years. They saw the damage done by the tombaroli in their frenzy to extract all the objects of value. The tombaroli had destroyed carved ancient stone reliefs, mistaking them for doors behind which more piles of treasure might lie. Then they hastily reburied the tomb, throwing back down into the tomb objects that were too large to carry.
The tombaroli had taken the Sarpedon krater to Giacomo Medici in Rome. As soon as he saw the unusually well preserved, almost complete artifact, Medici knew it would earn quite a profit on the market, and did not want to "pass up what would be the greatest purchase of his career" (Silver, 2009, p.50). He paid the tombaroli 50 million lire, or about $88,000 (Silver, 2009, p.50), and then sold the krater to Robert Hecht for $350,000 (Silver, 2009, p.52), who in turn sold it to the Metropolitan Museum for $1 million (Silver, 2009, p.67). From the very beginning of the Met's negotiations with Hecht, it is clear that all parties knew the krater had been freshly dug from an ancient site in Italy and was illicit. Thomas Hoving--the Met's director in 1972--describes his reaction to Hecht's offer to sell the artifact to the museum in his 2001 article (6) about the krater, titled, appropriately, "The Hot Pot":
...Hecht seemed to actually have gotten his hands on a complete krater by Euphronios. None existed amongst Euphronios' surviving 27 vases.
First thing into my mind was, "If so, then the thing had been illegally dug up and smuggled."
I zapped "BVDs" [Hoving's nickname for Dietrich von Bothmer, the Met's Greek and Roman curator] with my belief that the Hecht vase HAD to have been found in an Etruscan tomb near Rome. Etruscan tombs were often filled with Greek goodies. The Greeks disdained being buried with their stuff. He smiled patronizingly and said, "Oh, Tom, Cervetri and the other Etruscan sites are carefully guarded nowadays and what's more they've been plundered dry years ago."
Bullshit I thought, but didn't say so to Dietrich (Part 1).
Egypt vs. the Louvre
It goes without saying that the Louvre Museum in Paris, France, is regarded by the public as number one on the list of the world's greatest museums. But even the renowned and esteemed Louvre has been targeted in recent years by restitutionists, such as Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities chief, Zahi Hawass. He has been fighting the French museum for years, sometimes asking, but often demanding, the return of artifacts in the museum's collection he believes were wrongly taken from his country. Some were taken during the early explorations of Egypt by Europeans during the nineteenth century, like the Zodiac Ceiling (7) from the Temple of Hathor in Dendera, Egypt, removed from the temple and shipped to France in 1822 (Waxman, 2008, p.93), but others showed up in the Louvre's massive art collection more recently. No matter when the artifacts in question were removed, Hawass will fight for them regardless.
In an October 2009 Associated Press article (8), journalist Angela Charlton describes the latest battle Hawass has waged against the museum. That month France's culture minister Frederic Mitterrand agreed to return five painted wall fragments to Egypt after it was discovered they had been hacked from a tomb wall in Egypt's Valley of the Kings sometime in the 1980s. What had prompted the return was Hawass' declaration that he was severing all ties with France and would not allow the country to carry out any archaeological excavations in Egypt until the painted wall fragments were returned. After being smuggled from the tomb, the wall fragments somehow made it to France and were purchased by the Louvre in 2000. France obviously took Hawass' threat seriously; it prompted immediate action from the culture minister and the museum. But despite the French agreeing to return the looted wall fragments, "the Culture Ministry would not comment on another piece held by the Louvre that Hawass has said he wants back: the painted ceiling of a temple at Dendera showing the Zodiac" (Charlton, 2009). So despite this recent victory for Hawass, the relationship between Egypt and France remains tenuous.
The Louvre's dominion in the art world is coming to an end, and the people most surprised at this change are perhaps the Louvre curators themselves. "Never before had they been asked to justify themselves in this way," said Waxman (2008, p.65). The demands of countries like Egypt and Greece to return ancient objects taken from their countries has left many curators feeling bitter. "You end up thinking we're all a bunch of looters, thieves, exploiters, that we're some kind of criminals," said the museum's press attaché Aggy Lerolle, "but who would be interested in Greek sculpture if it were all in Greece? These pieces are great because they are in the Louvre" (Waxman, 2008, p.65). Lerolle has nothing nice to say about Zahi Hawass either. She even refuses to speak his name: "The Egyptian keeps coming to ask for more things, through the media. Legally he has no right to ask for anything before 1983 [when Egypt enacted laws prohibiting the export of artifacts excavated after that date]," she said (Waxman, 2008, p.65). This likely explains why the painted wall fragments purchased by the Louvre in 2000 are being returned, but the Zodiac Ceiling is not. This law may be the only legal grounds the museum has in its fight to keep the ceiling. The fact that the ceiling was removed in the exact same fashion as the painted wall fragments--hacked from an ancient monument by amateurs with complete disregard for the preservation of the site and smuggled out of Egypt to be sold for profit--is seemingly not a jarring coincidence in the minds of the French.
Greece vs. the British Museum
The much-anticipated New Acropolis Museum (9) in Athens, Greece, opened to the public on June 21, 2009. Its four floors display the treasures of the Athenian Acropolis, from the Archaic age to ancient Greece's Classical era to the Roman conquest and the Byzantine Empire. There is one room devoted solely to the marble statues and reliefs of the Parthenon, the building on the Acropolis that has come to symbolize the pinnacle of Greek civilization. The museum's Parthenon gallery is designed to match the size and shape of the original monument, and through the floor-to-ceiling windows visitors can see the Parthenon itself atop the Acropolis a few hundred yards away. But the gallery is only half-full; of the 189 surviving statues and reliefs that once adorned the Parthenon, 90 are in the British Museum in London (Waxman, 2008, p.238). White plaster casts of the London marbles have been installed next to the originals still in Athens, and the stark contrast between the originals and the reproductions has been deliberately played-up (10) (Sherr, 2009). A few years before the museum opened, then-Greek Culture Minister Evangelos Venizelos declared that the gallery would remain empty "as a constant reminder of this unfulfilled debt to world heritage" (Waxman, 2008, p.244).
The Greeks have since changed their stance regarding the empty Parthenon gallery, but they have reason to be angry. The Parthenon marbles that reside in London today were spirited away when the country that invented democracy was under occupation by the Ottoman Turks. It was at the beginning of the nineteenth century when Thomas Bruce, 7th Earl of Elgin (11), the British ambassador to the Ottoman Empire, visited Athens and requested permission from the sultan to visit the Acropolis and make sketches of the monument. But at the Acropolis, he decided not to sketch but instead to arrive with a demolition crew and proceed to remove the best surviving sculptures from the Parthenon's pediment and half of the carved reliefs of the frieze. His removal of the marbles left gaping holes in the structure, compelling another British tourist to write in 1819: "I had the inexpressible mortification of being present when the Parthenon was despoiled of its finest sculpture. Instead of the picturesque beauty and high preservation in which I first saw it, it is now comparatively reduced to a state of shattered desolation" (Waxman, 2008, p.227). In 2009, Greek Culture Minister Antonis Samaras was similarly expressive in his judgment of Lord Elgin's actions. "Archaeologically, it is tantamount to murder," he said (Sherr, 2009).
Greece has been lobbying to get England to return the wayward Parthenon marbles for years, but the English have not budged. They claim Lord Elgin rescued the marbles from neglect during the Turkish occupation and from air pollution and acid rain that has weathered Athens' monuments in the latter half of the twentieth century. Of course, Lord Elgin could not have possibly foreseen what pollution would do to the ancient monuments two hundred years later. As for the Turks, they required advance written permission from the sultan before they allowed anybody to visit the Acropolis; one could not simply walk up there and wander around. In 1800 it was not the tourist destination it is today. And until 2009, the British Museum's primary argument against returning the sculptures to Greece has been that it is better equipped to care for them, and that Athens has no suitable space to display the marbles (Sherr, 2009; Waxman, 2008, p.240). This is no longer a valid argument: Greece just spent six years and $100 million to refute London's claim. It also came out that the British Museum covered up (12) a serious incident in the 1930s when they caused further damage to the sculptures when they attempted to clean them. So even London's claim of being the superior authority regarding preservation was undercut by their own negligence.
The New Acropolis Museum is complete and waiting to reunify the Parthenon's ancient masterpieces, statues that have not been seen together, as they were in antiquity, for more than two hundred years. But even after the New Acropolis Museum opened, the British Museum still has not begun negotiations with Greece. "There are no plans to return the sculptures," the museum said in a written statement to Sherr in 2009.
Among the public, museums enjoy a prestigious reputation. They are seen as the centers of art and culture, where people can spend an afternoon exploring the galleries, listening to a lecture or concert, or just sitting and absorbing the ambience. Museums are also dedicated to introducing the public to the objects in their collections and how these objects tell the story of human civilization and society. Most medium- and large-sized museums have education departments dedicated to enlightening people of all ages about the cultural significance of the treasures in their buildings. As institutions that are non-profit and often under-funded by the government, museums must raise millions of dollars each year in the form of donations to protect, preserve, restore, and exhibit these sometimes fragile and often priceless works of art. In short, museums spend massive amounts of time and money to uphold their promise--and their reputation--in the eyes the public.
So it comes as a surprise when a highly regarded public institution is caught in a scandal that shows it is not living up to its promise to protect and preserve the relics of our past. Museums go to great lengths to educate the public about the important historical artifacts in their care, but it has been shown that these same institutions go to equally great lengths to obscure, whitewash, or deny the history of how they came to possess these objects. The museums of the West once acted with total autonomy in the art and antiquities market, but recent laws and legal cases brought against them have humbled them, restricting their centuries-long artifact shopping spree. The world has changed considerably since many of these museums were founded; no longer are they the premier institutions in the capitals of the Western colonial empires. They must now learn to conduct their business in a democratized community where the West's former colonies are empowering themselves to take back what they believe is rightfully theirs.
References:
Atwood, R. (2004). Stealing History: Tomb Raiders, Smugglers, and the Looting of the Ancient World. New York: St. Martin's Press.
Bowman, B. A. (2008, August). Transnational Crimes Against Culture: Looting at Archaeological Sites and the "Grey" Market in Antiquities. Journal Of Contemporary Criminal Justice 24.3. 225-242.
Charlton, A. (2009, October 9). France to Return "Stolen" Egyptian Art After Louvre Row. Retrieved on April 24, 2010, from www.huffingtonpost.com.
Hoving, T. (2001). The Grand and Glorious "Hot Pot"--Will Italy Snag It? Artnet. Retrieved on April 24, 2010, from www.artnet.com.
Sherr, L. (2009, September 15). Greeks lobby for return of Parthenon marbles to Athens. World Focus. Retrieved on April 24, 2010, from worldfocus.org. Interview.
Silver, V. (2009). The Lost Chalice: The Epic Hunt for a Priceless Masterpiece. New York: HarperCollins.
Watson, P. & Todeschini, C. (2006). The Medici Conspiracy: The Illicit Journey ofLooted Antiquities--from Italy's Tomb Raiders to the World's Greatest Museums. New York: PublicAffairs.
Waxman, S. (2008). Loot: The Battle over the Stolen Treasures of the Ancient World. New York: Henry Holt and Company.
More articles:
www.greece.org: The Parthenon Marbles (13)
The British Museum's defense (14)
bbc.com: Lord Elgin - Saviour or Vandal? (15)
Links:
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 10: Retrieved April 24, 2010.
9, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15: Retrieved January 27, 2009.
Mona Lisa (La Gioconda), Leonardo da Vinciby Brian Williams
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On August 21, 1911 Vincenzo Peruggia, a former employee of the Louvre, swiped the Mona Lisa off the wall and ran out of the museum with it tucked under his coat. It wasn't discovered missing until the next day when a museum visitor asked a guard what happened to the painting. The guard simply assumed the painting had been taken down to be photographed, but it wasn't until a few hours later that the guard found out the painting was not with the photographers. By the time the police were called the painting had been missing for more than 24 hours.
The theft caused a world-wide sensation, and when the Louvre reopened - with added security measures - it received a record number of visitors coming just to see the blank wall where the Mona Lisa once hung.
Peruggia hid the Mona Lisa in his Paris apartment for two years before he was caught trying to sell it to the Uffizi gallery in Florence, Italy. Naturally, the painting was recognized and Peruggia was arrested (1). (Incidentally, the police spelled Peruggia's name on his mug shot as "Perruggia." Some historians spell his name "Perugia.")
Peruggia claimed he stole the painting to return it to its native Italy, but his patriotic gesture was called to question at his trial when prosecutors asked him why he tried to sell it to art dealers and collectors in the United States, England and finally Italy. Later a sensational theory surfaced suggesting the true motive for the theft; supposedly Peruggia was hired by Eduardo de Valfierno (2), an Argentine con man who called himself "the Marques." According tho the story, de Valfierno hired art-restorer-turned-forger Yves Chaudron to make six copies of the Mona Lisa which he was going to sell to collectors as the original as soon as Peruggia stole the original from the Louvre and the theft made the papers. This story was never verified, and Peruggia, the "patriot," spent only a few months in jail.
For more information about the de Valfierno case, visit the Forged Gallery.
References:
Scotti, R.A. (2009). Vanished Smile: The Mysterious Theft of the Mona Lisa. New York: Alfred A. Knopf.
More articles:
Time.com: Top 25 Crimes of the Century (3)
pbs.org: ...Finding that Mona was Missing (4)
Mona Lisa, c'est partie! (5)
Links:
1, 2: Retrieved February 1, 2009.
3, 4: Retrieved August 2007.
5: Retrieved July, 19, 2009.
Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire, Thomas GainsboroughClick on image to enlarge.
Coming Soon. We're all busy grad students. Thank you for your patience.
Jacob de Gheyn III, Rembrandt van Rijn, a.k.a. "The Takeaway Rembrandt"Click on image to enlarge.
Coming Soon. We're all busy grad students. Thank you for your patience.
Backflap, Moche culture, ca. 100 B.C.E. to 700 C.E.by Brian Williams
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The FBI's Art Crimes Task Force (1), headed at the time by Robert Wittman, were instrumental in recovering a solid gold, ancient artifact that had been looted from a Peruvian archaeological site in 1987 and smuggled into the U.S. The existence of the artifact, called a "backflap", had only been speculated by archaeologists in the decade following the plunder of the site before antiquities smugglers working out of Miami, Florida approached dealers in New York in 1997 looking for a buyer (Atwood, 2005; fbi.gov). Looters had uncovered the backflap while plundering an ancient Moche burial site located just outside the Peruvian village of Sipán. The Sipán site is a tomb complex built for three rulers of the ancient Moche culture, which flourished on the northern coast of Peru between 100 B.C.E. and 700 C.E., and is one of the greatest archaeological discoveries of the twentieth century, comparable to the discovery of King Tutankhamen's tomb in Egypt (fbi.gov). Unfortunately, looters had discovered the site before archaeologists did, and in the process of extracting all the gold, they destroyed objects that they perceived as worthless, including ceramic pottery, textiles and human remains.
The Moche backflap, the largest pre-Columbian gold artifact in existence, followed a long trail through the underworld of antiquities smugglers and dealers before it surfaced in the United States in 1997 (Atwood, 2005). At first the looters who dug it up--brothers Ernil, Samuel, Juan, and Emilio Bernal--had trouble finding an interested buyer, despite showing it to Peru's most insatiable antiquities dealers and collectors (Atwood, 2005). "It was spectacular, but it was too well known by then," said the wife of a textile industrialist in Peru. She added, "It wasn't the sort of piece you could put in your dining room and show your friends" (Atwood, 2005, p. 78). It was finally sold in 1992 through a dealer who had been consigned by the Bernal brothers to Manuel Bacigalupo, a hotel owner in Chiclayo, Peru, for the rumored price of $80,000 (Atwood, 2005). Manuel gave it to his brother Luis in Lima, who stashed it in his factory. The factory closed in 1993, but the backflap stayed hidden inside the empty factory, its whereabouts unknown to the outside world (Atwood, 2005).
Luis Bacigalupo was heavily in debt, and in 1994 decided to settle his debts by giving the backflap to Jorge Ramos Ronceros, a Peruvian bureaucrat and family friend. Bacigalupo also introduced Ramos Ronceros to Denis Garcia, a dealer working out of Miami, in order to ensure a sale to a buyer in the United States, since looted Sipán artifacts were notoriously too difficult to sell in Peru (Atwood, 2005). Right away Garcia and his associates began passing around photos of the backflap to prospective buyers. A man named Robert Bazin came forward expressing interest in the artifact, so Garcia scheduled a meeting. Garcia could only show Bazin photos of the backflap, since it was still in Ramos Ronceros's possession in Peru, and they had not yet figured out how to smuggle such a large artifact out of the country. Regardless, Bazin and Garcia agreed on a price of $1 million for the artifact (Atwood, 2005).
It wasn't until 1997 that Garcia finally called Bazin back. Bazin, angry at Garcia for taking so long to get back to him, told him he was no longer interested in the deal, but agreed to pass Garcia's name on to an associate of his (Atwood, 2005). Bazin's associate Bob called Garcia and eagerly agreed to do business with him. To Garcia's delight, Bob already had a buyer interested in the backflap; a man Bob jokingly called "el Hombre de Oro"--the Gold Man--because he was so interested in purchasing gold artifacts (Atwood, 2005). What Garcia did not know, though, was that he was dealing with undercover FBI agents: Bob was Art Crimes Task Force Agent Robert Wittman. Bazin was also an FBI agent, but he had retired from the Bureau in 1997, which is why, when Garcia finally called him back, he directed Garcia to Wittman (Atwood, 2005). And Bob's buyer, "the Gold Man," was none other than U.S. Assistant District Attorney Robert Goldman.
On September 5, 1997, Garcia and his young associate Orlando Mendez met Bob and his "associate" Aníbal Molina--another undercover FBI agent brought into the investigation because he spoke fluent Spanish--at a rest stop off the New Jersey Turnpike, halfway between New York and Philadelphia (Atwood, 2005; fbi.gov). The two smugglers told the undercover agents that they would have the backflap in the U.S. in a matter of weeks. The plan was to fly the artifact from Lima to Panama, where another man, Frank, would escort the backflap the rest of the way (Atwood, 2005). Both parties agreed the new price for the backflap would be $1.6 million (Atwood, 2005; fbi.gov).
After the meeting, Garcia and Mendez flew south to Peru to finalize the deal with Ramos Ronceros. After paying Ramos Ronceros $100,000 (transferred from Mendez's bank account to Ramos Ronceros's account in New York), Garcia enlisted the help of an old friend and ex-policeman to get the illicit artifact through Peruvian customs and onto the plane bound for Panama (Atwood, 2005). Once in Panama, Garcia and Mendez met up with Frank for the journey back to the United States. Frank was in fact Francisco Iglesias, the Panamanian Consul General in New York. Using his credentials and influence as a diplomat, he escorted Garcia and Mendez--with the backflap stuffed into a suitcase--right past the customs agents (Atwood, 2005).
Back in the United States, Garcia and Mendez contacted Wittman to finalize the plan for the trade. Iglesias wanted to do business at the Panamanian consulate in New York, but Wittman, thinking on his feet, had to convince them otherwise. As a federal agent, Wittman would not be able to enter the consulate without written permission from the Panamanian government, and doing so could undermine the entire investigation (Atwood, 2005). So a deal was reached where both parties would meet again at the same rest stop in New Jersey.
On October 7, 1997, back at the rest stop, Wittman and Molina were surprised to see Garcia and Mendez arrive in a gold sedan with diplomatic license plates. When Iglesias got out, he gave the undercover agents his diplomatic business card (Atwood, 2005). The agents were surprised; they had already guessed that Garcia and Mendez had enlisted the help of somebody at the consulate to get the artifact into the country, but they were not expecting it to be the Consul General himself (Atwood, 2005). The three smugglers showed Wittman and Molina the backflap in the suitcase. The undercover FBI agents said they wanted to authenticate the artifact with an expert in Philadelphia before handing over the money; Garcia and Mendez--anxious to finish the deal--reluctantly agreed to follow them (Atwood, 2005).
In Philadelphia, the two undercover agents pulled into a hotel parking lot, followed closely behind by the smugglers and the backflap in the diplomat's car. Once out of the car, the three smugglers were surrounded by police and U.S. Customs agents, thrown to the ground, and handcuffed. Garcia and Mendez were taken into custody, but Iglesias was released. At the time, the FBI did not have proof that it was Iglesias--and not, perhaps, a lower-ranking consulate secretary--who smuggled the artifact into the country (Atwood, 2005). Iglesias fled to Panama and has never returned to the United States. A warrant was eventually issued for his arrest on charges of conspiracy, smuggling and interstate transportation of stolen property, but because the U.S. has no extradition policy with Panama, Iglesias has not been brought to trial (Atwood, 2005, p.182). The case, though, created a scandal in Panama, and the Panamanian government stripped Iglesias of his diplomatic title (Atwood, 2005).
Back in the U.S., Garcia and Mendez were shown the evidence against them: videotapes and audio recordings of every conversation they had with undercover officers since 1994. Both men pled guilty to conspiracy, smuggling and interstate transportation of stolen property and were sentenced to nine months in jail (Atwood, 2005).
On July 15, 1998, the backflap--illegally excavated in 1987 and in the possession of looters, smugglers and disreputable art dealers for a decade--was handed over to Peruvian archaeologist Dr. Walter Alva during an official ceremony and press conference in Philadelphia (Atwood, 2005). Dr. Alva thanked the FBI agents who recovered the backflap and took it home with him to Peru, to display it in the museum he built (2) to protect and display the artifacts of Sipán.
References:
Atwood, R. (2004). Stealing History: Tomb Raiders, Smugglers, and the Looting of the Ancient World. New York: St. Martin's Press.
FBI - Art Theft Program: Recovery - Peruvian Backflap. Retrieved on May 12, 2010, from http://www.fbi.gov/hq/cid/arttheft/southamerica/peru/peruvian.htm
Links:
1, 2: Retrieved July 11, 2010.
1990 Robbery of the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museumby Brian Williams
Click on images to enlarge.
This account of the Gardner Museum heist begins as many others do: in the early morning hours of March 18, 1990, two men dressed as police officers approach the side door of Boston's Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum (1). At the door, the men identify themselves as policemen to a museum guard over the intercom and tell him they are responding to a call about a "disturbance in the courtyard" (Boser, 2008, p.3; Esterow, 2009; Kurkjian, 2005). The guard buzzes them in. Once inside, the men shove the two young guards on duty against the wall and handcuff them. "Why are you arresting me?" one asks. "You're not being arrested. This is a robbery," answers one of the thieves. "Don't give us any problems and you won't get hurt" (Boser, 2008, p.5; Esterow, 2009; Kurkjian, 2005).
After the thieves restrain the guards in the basement--where they were found the next morning, cuffed to pipes with their eyes and mouths duct-taped shut (McCarthy et al., 1990)--they ascend the stairs and head to the galleries. The thieves take their time: they spend more than an hour moving through the dark building, taking paintings off the wall and ripping them from their frames, leaving shreds of canvas and paint chips in their wake. Eighty-one minutes later, they walk out of the museum with thirteen works of art worth, at the time, $300 million. Today, twenty years after the theft, the stolen Gardner art is estimated to be worth a half-billion dollars (Boser, 2008, p.9, 68-69; Esterow, 2009).
Despite the boldness of the crime and the international attention it has received, the trail leading to the robbers and their prize is cold. The FBI has received thousands of tips over the years, interviewed hundreds of suspects, and followed leads all over the world. Even with a $5 million reward (2) for information about either the stolen art or the thieves, the FBI still has yet to uncover a single solid lead. The suspect list has been whittled down over the course of the investigation, but it is still frustratingly inconclusive. Dozens of theories have been formulated over the years--the art is sitting in a warehouse somewhere in Boston, it was hidden in a wall inside the museum itself, it was stolen by agents of the IRA and taken to Ireland--but all have led nowhere. This is a crime with a woeful lack of physical evidence. We have none of the surveillance video shot by the museum's security cameras during the robbery; the thieves took the tapes with them (McCarthy et al., 1990). Investigators found a few fingerprints on the frames, but these could have been left by any number of museum staff members before the robbery. The thieves didn't leave a single footprint or even a discarded cigarette butt at the scene (Boser, 2008, p.97). But investigators have in their possession a few tantalizing clues. The following two sections summarize what we know and what we don't know about the greatest theft in history (Boser, 2008, p.9; Kurkjian, 2005).
What We Know
The thieves had knowledge of the museum's layout and security system
The men who broke into the museum the night of March 18 came prepared. Judging by the guards' accounts of the robbery in the police report, it appears the thieves knew there was an alarm button under the security desk at the side door. When they entered, they asked the guard to step out from behind the desk to show them his I.D., thus separating him from the alarm button. That alarm was the museum's last line of defense and the only way outside authorities could be alerted that the museum was being robbed. They knew that the museum's motion detectors were tracking their movements: they took the computer printout from the security office that had recorded their path through the galleries (Boser, 2008, p.9; Kurkjian, 2005). They also knew that the museum's security system was not wired to a nearby police station. This is evident in the fact that they spent almost an hour and a half in the museum. The thieves knew they had no need to hurry.
Was it an inside job? Or perhaps the museum guards were accomplices? According to the police report, the thieves promised the guards a reward if they kept quiet (McCarthy et al., 1990). The thieves checked on the trussed-up guards in the basement before they left, asking if they were comfortable, or if the handcuffs were too tight (Boser, 2008, p.9, Esterow, 2009). Both guards were given polygraph tests; one passed. The other guard--the one who let in the thieves--scored an inconclusive (Boser, 2008, p.94). This guard was also unwilling to discuss details of the descriptions of the thieves with police (McCarthy et al., 1990). But investigators never uncovered solid evidence to implicate the museum guards. What is obvious, though, is the Gardner Museum's security staff was inadequate in their role as the museum's primary defense. Young, inexperienced, and underpaid, they were wholly unprepared to protect the museum in the event of a break-in. Despite being instructed that they were to never let anybody inside for any reason, they assumed that this rule did not apply to police officers (Kurkjian, 2005). Nevertheless, the guards admitted to sneaking their friends in late at night, drinking on the job, and coming to work high (Boser, 2008, p.4). Since the robbery, the Gardner Museum has invested in training and strengthening the guard staff and upgrading their security system (Mashberg, 2008).
We know the path the thieves took through the museum
As previously mentioned, the thieves were aware the museum's security cameras and motion detectors were tracking their movements through the building. They took the surveillance videos and computer printouts with them, but were not aware this information was also stored on the system's hard drive, which is how investigators know the order in which the paintings were stolen and the exact time of the thieves' entrance and exit. One curious detail that investigators noticed while studying the motion detector data: Manet's Chez Tortoni was among the paintings stolen that night, but the thieves never entered the Blue Room, where the painting had been hung (Boser, 2008, p.94; Figure 1). According to the data, the last person who entered that room was one of the guards during their rounds. Is this further evidence that one or both of the guards on duty that night were involved in the crime?
Witnesses saw the thieves outside the museum before the robbery
On the night of the robbery, the two thieves were spotted sitting in a car on Palace Road, near the museum (Boser, 2008, p.1). The witnesses, high-school student Jerry Stratberg and a female friend, had just left a St. Patrick's Day party in one of the college dorms near the museum when they spotted two men sitting in a car, dressed as police officers. Stratberg approached the car to get a better look. He made eye contact with the one he later described as having Asian eyes (Boser, 2008, p.2). They had been drinking, and being under-age, were immediately wary of the presence of police officers, so they wandered back over to their group of friends and walked away. When Stratberg heard about the robbery at the museum, he and his friends went to the police station to report what they saw, but Stratberg didn't think the police took him seriously. "They made it clear that they were talking to minors who had been drinking, and it seemed like they kind of discounted what we said," said Stratberg (Boser, 2008, p.194). Stratberg said that the police never followed up with him or showed him mug shots of the suspects. Incredibly, the police did not show the two museum guards on duty the night of the robbery any suspect photos either. One of the guards went as far as to discredit the police sketch of the suspects that was drawn according to his description. "It was awful," he said (Kurkjian, 2005). Not a single eyewitness to the biggest art theft in history was shown photos of the suspects.
What We Don't Know
Whodunit?
In the twenty years since the robbery, the FBI has yet to bring indictments against any of the individuals on their suspect list. Although the actions of the museum guards on the night of the robbery aroused suspicions, investigators ultimately concluded that they were not capable of planning such an audacious crime (Boser, 2008, p.94). Geoffrey Kelly, the FBI agent currently tasked with solving the Gardner case, described the thieves' actions as "professional" (Esterow, 2009). So authorities have focused their efforts on investigating the professionals, the big-name career criminals in Boston at the time of the theft.
The biggest name in Boston's underworld was James "Whitey" Bulger (3). For thirty years, Bulger controlled every major criminal enterprise in the city, from loan-sharking and fixing horse races, to drug dealing and contract-killing. Given his influence in Boston's underworld, it is very likely that he knows who committed such a high-profile crime as the Gardner theft. "Nothing would have happened at the Gardner without Whitey Bulger having a hand in the crime somewhere," said Charley Hill, former Scotland Yard investigator. "It's as simple as that" (Esterow, 2009). But so far no evidence has surfaced that proves he was at all involved in the robbery. Bulger has been a fugitive since 1995 and his current whereabouts are unknown.
Another person of suspicion is Myles Connor (4), a native Bostonian and convicted art thief who admitted he considered robbing the Gardner Museum in the late 1980s. Conner went as far as discussing with his associate Bobby Donati what they would take: Connor wanted Titian's Rape of Europa, Donati wanted the finial (Boser, 2008, p.141). Their plan involved dressing as police officers to get inside the museum, but Connor was arrested and sent to prison before they could commit the robbery (Boser, 2008, p.141). When interviewed in 2000, Connor named Donati and ex-con David Houghton as the men who robbed the museum. Connor said Houghton visited him in prison and told him about the heist (Boser, 2008, p.141). Connor suffered a stroke in 1998 and much of his memory of the events surrounding the robbery is lost.
The most likely suspect though is David Turner (5). Born and raised in suburban Braintree, Massachusetts, Turner did not grow up on the tough streets of blue-collar Boston, like Whitey Bulger. After high school Turner started spending time with Boston mobster Carmello Merlino, became a career criminal, and is currently serving 38 years in prison for armed robbery. He has been described by authorities and peers as very smart but also dangerously violent (Boser, 2008, p.104).
Turner's associate Merlino was arrested in 1992, and in an attempt to reduce his sentence, told authorities he could return the stolen Gardner art. Although investigators ultimately concluded that Merlino did not have control of the art, the investigation into Turner's possible involvement in the robbery heated up even more when an FBI informant said that Turner had been one of the thieves. What's more, according to this informant, Turner stood to receive 40 percent of the reward money if the paintings were returned (Boser, 2008, p.105).
More compelling evidence for Turner's involvement in the Gardner heist comes from one of the eyewitnesses. When Boser interviewed Jerry Stratberg for his book, The Gardner Heist (2008), he showed Stratberg photos of several of the men who had been suspects over the years. Stratberg pointed to the photo of David Turner, identifying him as the man he saw in the car on the night of the robbery. Stratberg noticed Turner's distinctive almond-shaped eyes as being similar to the eyes of the suspect he saw on the night of the robbery, which he had originally described as Asian. But Turner has never admitted to robbing the Gardner Museum or knowing where the art is hidden, even in an attempt to reduce his current prison sentence (Boser, 2008, p.107).
Why did they take what they did?
Anthony Amore, the Gardner Museum's current security chief, asks himself this question. "While one guy was stealing the Vermeer, another was in another gallery taking the Degas and the finial," he said. "Why Degas? I don't know. Maybe he enjoyed equestrian art or liked to go to the track" (Esterow, 2009). The thieves stole three of the four Rembrandts in the museum's collection as well as the only Vermeer, alone worth hundreds of millions of dollars. But there were many other valuable works left behind. In the Short Gallery, the thieves grabbed five sketches by Degas, but passed a Michelangelo drawing. They stole a finial from the top of a banner pole, but left behind two Raphaels and a Botticelli (Esterow, 2009). They also did not take Titan's The Rape of Europa, on display in a gallery on the third floor, which has been described by Peter Sutton, director of the Bruce Museum in Greenwich, Connecticut, as "arguably the greatest painting in America" (Esterow, 2009). At the beginning of the investigation, the FBI at first believed the art was stolen for ransom, and the few smaller pieces taken--such as the Chinese ku and the finial--were intended to be used as proof of possession (Boser, 2008, p.95). But after no ransom demand was received, investigators dropped this theory.
Where is the art?
This is the 500-million-dollar question. Although the artwork has not been seen in twenty years, the absence of evidence is sometimes just as informative. For example, the fact that not a single Gardner artwork has surfaced suggests that the collection is still together and has not been split up and sold individually. If that were the case, one of the works might have been recovered by now.
Furthermore, investigators believe that, considering how famous these paintings are, the thieves were either unaware or unconcerned with the difficulties they would face trying to sell them. These paintings--particularly the Vermeer and the Rembrandts--would be immediately recognized at auction, and trying to sell them on the black market is likely just as risky. The thieves could be sitting on their treasure, waiting all these years for the attention surrounding the heist to subside before they try to sell it. But the absence of Gardner art sightings might mean that the artwork was taken for an entirely different purpose. There are many cases of stolen art being used as collateral in the illegal drug and weapons trades, and so the artwork remains in the possession of criminal enterprises, being bartered back and forth for illegal goods, never to resurface in the legitimate market. The IRA, as one example, is a criminal group that uses stolen art in this fashion.
In 1994, the Gardner Museum received an anonymous letter from an individual claiming they would be able to return the paintings for $2.4 million and immunity from prosecution. The letter writer claimed that the paintings were being stored in archival conditions and had not been sold (Kurkjian, 2005). But although the museum complied with the letter writer's first request for cooperation, a second letter expressed the writer's frustration with the police's response to the first letter (Kurkjian, 2005). But, after promising to get in touch with the museum a third time, the individual was never heard from again.
So is the Gardner art is sitting in a hiding place somewhere while the thieves--or subsequent possessors of the art--wait for the chance to unload the works for a ransom or profit? Did it fall into the hands of Boston's Irish mob, who then shipped it to their IRA compatriots in Ireland? Or has the art has entered the black market trade? If the latter is true, then it will be far less likely, if not impossible, that they will be recovered.
References:
Boser, U. (2008). The Gardner Heist: The True Story of the World's Largest Unsolved Art Theft. New York: HarperCollins.
Esterow, M. (2009). Inside the Gardner Case. ARTnews. Retrieved January 20, 2010, from www.artnews.com.
Kurkjian, S. (2005, March 13). Secrets behind the largest art theft in history. The Boston Globe. Retrieved January 20, 2010, from www.boston.com.
Mashberg, T. (2008, March 18). Putting the pieces together. The Boston Herald. Retrieved January, 20, 2010, from www.bostonherald.com.
McCarthy, F. J., & Washington, C. (1990, March 18). Break & Entering of Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, 1 Palace Road, Roxbury [Police report].
Links:
1, 2, 3, 4, 5: Retrieved April 24, 2010.
Lady Writing a Letter with Her Maid, Johannes Vermeerby Brian Williams
Click on image to enlarge.
This Vermeer has had the honor of being twice stolen from Russborough House (1) in rural Ireland and twice recovered before it was permanently moved to the National Gallery in Dublin. Lady Writing a Letter with Her Maid was the most valuable painting owned by Sir Alfred Beit (2) and his wife Clementine, who bought Russborough in 1952 to house their substantial collection of paintings, antiques and furniture.
Lady Writing a Letter with Her Maid was first taken in 1974 by Bridget Rose Dugdale, English heiress-turned-IRA-freedom-fighter, her boyfriend and two other members of the Irish Republican Army. On the evening of April 26, Dugale knocked on the door at Russborough posing as a stranded motorist, allowing the men - armed with AK-47s - to rush in and overpower the servants and Sir Alfred and Lady Beit, who were reading in the library. They pistol-whipped Sir Alfred, calling him and his wife "capitalist pigs," and after the Beits and the rest of the household were tied up, Dugdale and the men marched through the house, cutting and prying paintings out of their frames. Along with Lady Writing a Letter, they took 2 paintings by Gabriel Metsu, 2 oils and a sketch by Rubens, a Hals, a Velásquez, Goya's Doña Antonia Zaraté, Madame Baccelli by Gainsborough and 9 others. In all, Dugdale's gang got away with IR£8 million worth or art; at the time, the greatest heist in history. A majority of that sum belonged to the Vermeer.
The police caught up with Dugdale about a month later and recovered the paintings she had stolen from Russborough. She pleaded "proudly and incorruptibly guilty" (3) in court and was sentenced to 9 years in prison.
The Beit collection was whole again, but only until 1986, when another Irish criminal set Russborough House in his sights. He was Martin Cahill (4), known in the papers as "The General" and by the 1980s was the leader of the Dublin criminal underworld. Sought by the police, hated by the IRA, and feared by everybody else, Cahill was on top of his game when he decided to take the Beit paintings for himself. At midnight on May 21, he brought sixteen of his henchmen out to the countryside and staged the heist. They entered the house in the rear, cutting a square of glass from a french door. As he stepped inside, Cahill set off a motion-activated alarm which rang at the police station in the nearest town. Amazingly, two police officers were driving past Russborough when the call came through. They turned up the front drive in minutes. They awoke a servant, who searched the room where the alarm was set off but he saw nothing, and the police left. Once the coast was clear, Cahill got to work. He was in and out in 10 minutes, stealing 18 paintings valued at IR£30 million, beating Dugdale's high score and capturing from her the record of the greatest heist in history. Lady Writing a Letter with Her Maid was once again on the run.
Cahill's crime was a greater challenge for police - they didn't catch up with the stolen paintings until 1993, and 2 are still missing. The remaining paintings, including Lady Writing a Letter, were finally recovered (5) in the trunk of a car in a parking deck in Antwerp following an undercover sting operation made possible by the collaborative effort of police departments from Ireland, England and Belgium.
After its Antwerp adventure, the Vermeer didn't return to Russborough. It traveled to the National Gallery in Dublin to become part of the permanent collection there. Sir Alfred had arranged to donate his collection to the National Gallery the year that it was stolen by Cahill. The paintings made their way to the museum singly and in groups, as they were recovered by police.
But Russborough wasn't left alone for long. It was robbed again in 2001 (6), and then a fourth time in 2002 (7). The five paintings taken in the 2001 theft were recovered only a week before the house was robbed again in 2002. The two paintings taken in 2002 were recovered soon after and were the last of the Beit collection to be given to the National Gallery.
References:
Hart, M. (2004). The Irish Game: A True Story of Crime and Art. New York: Walker & Company.
Links:
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7: Retrieved July 20, 2009.
The Scream, Edvard Munchby Brian Williams
Click on image to enlarge.
In the early morning hours of February 12, 1994, two men approached Oslo's National Museum of Art carrying a ladder. Propping the ladder against the side of the building, one of them climbed up to a second-story window and smashed it. Stepping inside, he emerged a few moments later carrying a large framed painting, and then slid it down the ladder to his partner. The two men sprinted to their getaway car with their prize: Edvard Munch's The Scream, one of the most recognizable paintings in the world, and perhaps the most famous object in Norway (Dolnick, 2005; Hart, 2004).
The museum's surveillance cameras recorded the entire robbery, which lasted less than a minute (Dolnick, 2005). The alarm went off when the thief on the ladder smashed the window, but, incredibly, the solitary guard in the museum's security office simply reached over and turned it off. He did not even glance up at the surveillance camera's video screen, which was showing the robbery as it was happening (Dolnick, 2005). A few moments later, a second alarm went off. As it happened, at that moment two police officers driving past the museum's front façade spotted the ladder still propped against the museum. A second look revealed the broken window. They immediately called for backup (Dolnick, 2005).
Inside the gallery, there was glass everywhere, and a telltale empty spot on the wall where The Scream had been hanging. It had previously been hung in a more secure spot on the third floor far from any windows, but the museum staff had moved it down to the second floor for a retrospective exhibition of Munch's paintings (Dolnick, 2005). Even though the window was alarmed, the painting itself was not wired to the security system (Dolnick, 2005). It was not even bolted securely to the wall; it was simply hung on a nail, as if it were on display in somebody's living room. To add insult to injury, the thieves had left a post card on the floor of the gallery, on which they wrote: "Thanks for the poor security" (Dolnick, 2005, p.8).
This crime brought to the public's attention the inadequacies of the museum's security system at a time when the world's media was focused on Norway. Norwegian authorities believed that it was no coincidence that the thieves chose the opening day of the 1994 Winter Olympics, hosted in Lillehammer, Norway, to steal the painting.
Leif A. Lier was the detective in charge of the investigation. The boldness of the crime led Lier and the Norwegian authorities to believe that it was a publicity stunt--an act intended to attract attention to an activist group--but a few promising leads soon led nowhere (Dolnick, 2005). A month after the theft, though, Norway's police finally had a break. An English criminal and ex-con named Billy Harward approached the Norwegian Embassy in London explaining that he could negotiate with the thieves and get the painting back, for a price. The Norwegian Embassy contacted Scotland Yard, who in turn contacted Leif Lier. Lier flew to London to meet with the Art Squad detectives and discuss their plan of action. John Butler, the head of the Art Squad at the time, and Detectives Dick Ellis, Sid Walker and Charley Hill had been following the case since The Scream was first reported stolen, but because the crime was not in their jurisdiction, they were still figuring out how they could assist the Norwegians. Billy Harward inadvertently provided the Art Squad with the opportunity to become involved in the case. But the English cops knew Harward, and they knew that he was, at best, an unreliable source. They rightfully suspected that he was only interested in getting some free money from the Norwegian government, so they removed him the investigation at the first possible chance (Dolnick, 2005).
By the time the Art Squad met Lier, they had already had a month to devise a plan: Detective Charley Hill would go undercover as a buyer for the Getty Museum in Los Angeles and spread the word that he, on behalf of the museum, was interested in negotiating a deal to buy back The Scream for a temporary exhibition at the Getty (Dolnick, 2005). Hill had extensive experience as an undercover art dealer; the previous year he and the Art Squad used the same ruse to successfully recover a number of paintings--including Vermeer's Lady Writing a Letter With Her Maid--that had been stolen from a manor house in Ireland (Dolnick, 2005; Hart, 2004). For this operation, Hill would need to establish a paper trail to prove that he was an employee of the Getty Museum in case a suspicious criminal decided to look into his background. So the English detectives collaborated with the museum to create fake IDs, payroll accounts, business cards, and a personnel file on record at the Getty under Hill's pseudonym, "Chris Roberts" (Dolnick, 2005). Hill even spent time at the library researching the life and career of Edvard Munch, so that he would sound convincing as an art buyer and Munch expert (Dolnick, 2005).
The details of the operation were worked out, and the detectives were ready. The National Museum in Oslo spread the word that anybody who had information as to the whereabouts of the painting should contact Jens Kristian Thune, the museum's chairman of the board (Dolnick, 2005, p.93). On April 24, 1994, Thune received a call from Einar-Tore Ulving, an art dealer and Thune's cousin by marriage who lived in Tønsberg, Norway, about 60 miles from Oslo (Dolnick, 2005; Hart, 2004). Ulving told Thune that a client of his approached him with information about the painting. His client was Jan Olsen, an ex-con who spent about a dozen years in prison for arson. Olsen, Ulving said, was looking for a buyer for The Scream.
Thune called the Norwegian authorities, who in turn called Scotland Yard. Charley Hill, masquerading as Chris Roberts, "the man from the Getty," called Ulving and arranged a meeting in Oslo (Dolnick, 2005; Hart, 2004). On May 5, 1994, Hill, Art Squad chief John Butler , and Detective Sid Walker, posing as Hill's bodyguard, arrived at Oslo's Plaza Hotel (Dolnick, 2005; Hart, 2004). They had with them £500,000 in cash; money they would use to negotiate with Olsen for the painting. Walker deposited the money in the hotel's safe (Dolnick, 2005). The detectives were dismayed to discover that their sting operation was planned the same weekend that the hotel was hosting the annual Scandinavian narcotics officers' convention (Dolnick, 2005). They feared that the presence of so many police officers at the hotel would scare away the thieves, but they had no choice but to go forward with the plan.
The two undercover agents met Ulving and Olsen in the hotel's restaurant; Hill playing the role of a pushy American businessman while Walker lent an intimidating presence and seldom spoke (Dolnick, 2005). They watched Olsen closely, who was at first wary of their surroundings but relaxed as soon as Walker showed him the money in the hotel's safe. The four men agreed to meet the next day to discuss the exchange (Dolnick, 2005).
After the meeting, Olsen instructed Ulving to drive his car to a hidden garage tucked away in a back alley where Olsen's associates thoroughly searched Ulving's car for bugs or surveillance devices (Dolnick, 2005; Hart, 2004). That night, Ulving received a call at his house telling him to drive to a roadside café on the highway somewhere between Tønsberg and Oslo. It was sometime after 1am. There, a man emerged from the dark, carrying a large object wrapped in a blanket, and placed it in the back of Ulving's station wagon (Dolnick, 2005, p.208). Ulving knew what it was: The Scream. The stranger told Ulving to drive home, but Ulving suggested they drive to Åsgårdstrand only a few miles away, where Ulving kept a summer home, and hide the painting there until the trade-off (Dolnick, 2005; Hart, 2004).
The next morning Ulving and the stranger--whose name was Bjørn Grytdahl--met Olsen, Hill, and Walker at a restaurant to discuss the details of the trade-off. Olsen and Grytdahl would accompany Walker back to the hotel, and Ulving would take Hill to his summer home in Åsgårdstrand to pick up the painting. Once Hill had the painting, he would call Walker to tell him to give Olsen and Grytdahl the money. Of course, Hill would instead call John Butler and the Norwegian police, who would then raid Walker's hotel room and arrest Olsen and Grytdahl.
At Åsgårdstrand, Hill unwrapped The Scream and took a long look at it to make sure it was the original. He knew from his research that there were a few drips of wax on one corner--likely spattered onto the surface when Munch had blown out his candles after a long night of painting--so he checked the corner of the painting, near the figure's left elbow (Dolnick, 2005). The drips of wax were there; he had the original. Hill called Butler at the hotel, and the police raided Walker's room.
Olsen and Grytdahl were arrested and charged with the theft of The Scream. Police also arrested two other men for their involvement in the robbery: Pål Enger, a former soccer player, and William Aasheim, who was only 18 years old (Dolnick, 2005). The heist was Enger's idea; he had hoped to sell the painting to a lucrative buyer. It was Enger and Aasheim who broke into the National Museum that morning in February. All four men were convicted, but they appealed and each of their sentences--except Enger's--were overturned (Dolnick, 2005).
The Scream recovery was the last major undercover operation for Hill as an Art Squad detective; he left the force soon after and started a career as a private investigator. Then, in 1999, Detective Ellis retired and moved into the private sector as well. Over the next ten years, the Art Squad has diminished in manpower and funding, and it was just announced that Det. Sgt. Rapley has taken a job as the security director at the Victoria and Albert Museum. The Metropolitan Police have not yet named a new Art Squad director (theartnewspaper.com, 2010).
References:
Dolnick, E. (2005). The Rescue Artist: A True Story of Art, Thieves, and the Hunt for a Missing Masterpiece. New York: HarperCollins.
Hart, M. (2004.) The Irish Game: A True Story of Crime and Art. London: Chatto & Windus.
Stevenson, R. W. (1994, June 5). "The Scream" Is Back, but Where Has It Been? Retrieved on May 25, 2010, from The New York Times
V&A gets its own personal detective. (2010, June 8). Retrieved on June 9, 2010, from The Art Newspaper
2003 Looting of the Iraq National Museum, Baghdadby Brian Williams
Click on images to enlarge.
In March 2003, when Colonel Matthew Bogdanos of the Marine Reserves arrived in Umm Qasr, Iraq at the beginning of the U.S. invasion, his mission was to search for terrorist activity and weapons of mass destruction, as well as to conduct crime-scene investigations of bombings that resulted in U.S. casualties (Bogdanos, 2005, p.102-103). It was not the job of his interagency task force to protect or recover a collection of ancient, dusty artifacts in the basement of a museum. Bogdanos and his team of Marine Reservists, who in civilian life led jobs as police officers, detectives, lawyers and psychologists (Bogdanos himself is an assistant district attorney in New York City), traveled along the Iraqi Gulf coast investigating terrorist activity. In the city of Basra on April 15, a British journalist accosted Bogdanos. She screamed, "You macho assholes are down here looking for missiles and money, and the finest museum in the world in Baghdad has just been looted" (Bogdanos, 2005, p.109).
Back at headquarters, the headlines Bogdanos read online were alarming: "MUSEUM TREASURES NOW WAR BOOTY," wrote the Associated Press on April 12. On April 13, the New York Times reported, "PILLAGERS STRIP IRAQ MUSEUM OF ITS TREASURE: It took only 48 hours for the museum to be destroyed, with at least 170,000 artifacts carried away by looters." The Times went on: "The American and British forces are clearly to blame for the destruction and displacement of [Iraq's] cultural treasures" (Bogdanos, 2005, p.111). On April 14, the Independent reported, "Not a single pot or display case remained intact." Many early news articles featured photos of the museum's galleries, empty but for a few smashed display cases. Some commentators went much farther; Michael Petzel, the president of the International Council on Monuments and Sites, said the U.S. was guilty of committing a "crime against humanity" for failing to protect the museum (Bogdanos, 2005, p.111). It was obvious to Bogdanos and his team what needed be done. One of the marines in Bogdanos' command turned to him. "Sir, that's our mission, " he said. "Damn straight it's our mission," answered Bogdanos. "We've got the only law-enforcement expertise in the country" (Bogdanos, 2005, p.110).
Born to a blue-collar Greek family in New York City, Matthew Bogdanos earned a law school degree as well as a graduate school degree in classical studies at Columbia University while on active duty in the Marine Corps. He became an assistant district attorney in 1988, and earned the nickname "Pit Bull" for his tenacity when prosecuting cases. While serving in Iraq in 2003, Bogdanos was in the right place at the right time: with his background as a prosecutor and his knowledge of ancient civilizations, Bogdanos had the right skill-set to investigate the looting of the Iraq Museum (1).
It took a few days for Bogdanos to persuade his commanders to allow him to go. He would have no convoy to protect his team during the trip north to Baghdad. Although the museum was right in the middle of the combat zone, he and his team of fourteen marines arrived there without incident. What they found was not what the Western press led them to expect. The news reports turned out to have been wildly inaccurate. Not only would it have been practically impossible for looters to extract 170,000 artifacts in 48 hours, as the New York Times reported, it was obvious to Bogdanos that the galleries had the capacity to display only a fraction of that number (Bogdanos, 2005, p.136). Only twenty-eight of the 451 glass display cases had been smashed (Bogdanos, 2005, p.136). Even more inaccurate were the reports that looters had emptied the galleries of every artifact. The galleries were empty because the museum's staff had moved almost everything to a safe location in the days before the invasion; the objects too big to move were wrapped with foam rubber to protect them from bomb blasts (Bogdanos, 2005, p.15). As highly exaggerated and sensationalized as the reports were, they contained a kernel of truth: there had been some looting, but it was determined that only forty artifacts were stolen from the galleries (2) by looters--a much lower figure than first reported by the press (Bogdanos, 2005 p.213; Brodie, 2008). Regardless, forty artifacts stolen were forty that needed to be recovered.
Bogdanos's biggest surprise was what he discovered in the museum's storage areas on the second-floor and in the basement: more than thirteen thousand objects had been stolen. These artifacts were small: coins, beads, and cylindrical seals, some of which were worth $100,000 apiece; and "would all fit in a large backpack," (3) making it easy for the thieves to escape with so many objects (Bogdanos, 2005, p.270; Warner, 2005). The artifacts stolen from the museum amounted to just three percent of the museum's total holdings (Warner, 2005), a far cry from the early news reports that looters had emptied the museum of its collection.
Three crimes in one
While searching the museum during the first few hours of his investigation, Colonel Bogdanos determined that the museum had fallen victim to three separate crimes, each one criminologically distinct. Each crime was committed by a distinct type of offender. The looting of the Iraq Museum is a classic example of Cohen and Felson's Routine Activities Theory (1979), which posits that are three factors which must be in place in order for a crime to occur: a motivated offender, a suitable target, and a lack of effective guardianship. According to this theory, if one of these elements is missing, then a crime is not likely to occur (Miller et al., 2008, p.99). In the case of the Iraq Museum, the motivated offenders (the looters) zeroed in on the target (the museum) because of a lack of suitable guardianship during the chaos and social upheaval of the U.S. invasion. The offenders themselves fell into three distinct categories: there were the opportunistic looters who grabbed objects indiscriminately, the professional thieves who knew enough about ancient art to be more selective in what they took, and the insiders--possibly museum staff--who had access to the most secure storage rooms in the museum (Bogdanos, 2005, p.213).
The first crime: opportunistic looters
Colonel Bogdanos and his team searched the museum one room at a time, accompanied by staff members and sometimes the media. While investigating one of the second-floor storage rooms, they found evidence that soldiers in the Iraqi Army had used the room as a sniper nest; it was suitable for this purpose because the windows were strategically positioned to allow them to fire at American troops on the street below (Bogdanos, 2005, p.164-5). Sometime between April 8 and April 12, Iraqi soldiers had entered the museum and gained access to the locked storage rooms with the assistance of a museum staff member, either willingly or by force (Bogdanos, 2005, p.166). Because there were no signs of forced entry, Bogdanos surmised that when the Iraqi soldiers retreated, they left the storage room doors open. The looters simply walked in and took what they wanted.
Right away Colonel Bogdanos and his team saw that the thieves who robbed the second-floor storage rooms grabbed objects indiscriminately; marks in the dust on the storage room shelves showed that they had swept armfuls of objects into bags, sometimes even emptying their own bags onto the floor to fill them with artifacts instead (Bogdanos, 2005, p.150). Some of the objects taken were actually fakes (which the museum kept locked away, so as to keep them out of the art market); further proof that the looters who robbed the second-floor storage rooms had no knowledge of ancient art and were only motivated by the prospect of an easy target. From a criminological perspective, the attractiveness of a target to potential criminals can be understood by applying Felson's acronym VIVA--which stands for value, inertia, visibility and accessibility--to the target (Miller et al., 2008, p.100). The Iraq Museum had thousands of high-value objects, many of which were small enough to be spirited away in a backpack--the "inertia" in Felson's acronym, which refers to the size and bulk of a target (Miller et al., 2008, p.101). As for visibility, the museum was not only a major landmark in Baghdad, it was also a symbol of Saddam Hussein's totalitarian regime, and therefore an ideal target for Iraqi citizens who wanted to lash out at their former oppressor (Bogdanos, 2005, p.212). Finally, in the chaotic days during the U.S. invasion when museum security and staff members were laying low in their homes, the museum stood empty and vulnerable (in fact, the museum's security director did not return to the museum until two years after the invasion). As mentioned above, the museum had become highly accessible after the Iraqi Army fled the museum, leaving the doors unlocked.
The second crime: the professionals
Bogdanos's team reached the restoration room, from which a number of artifacts had been stolen after being placed there by the museum staff for safekeeping. Bogdanos noticed that this was a different type of crime than the one committed in the storage rooms on the second floor. The artifacts stolen from here were among the museum's signature pieces, well known to archaeologists, scholars, and antiquities experts all over the world. A few are famous because of their age--the Mask of Warka (shown at the beginning of this article), for example, was carved in ca. 3100 B.C. and is regarded as the earliest artistic representation of a human face (Bogdanos, 2005, plate 28). As much negative publicity as the United States received for failing to protect the museum from looters, and as culturally significant as these objects are, this crime was the least serious of the three in terms of the number of artifacts stolen. Furthermore, these artifacts were world-famous and easily recognizable, which would make it difficult for thieves to sell them or smuggle them past customs agents stationed at the Iraqi border. In fact, sixteen of the forty artifacts from the galleries have been recovered as of this writing (Brodie, 2005).
The cultural and aesthetic significance of these objects is what alerted Bogdanos to the fact that this was not a crime committed by a typical looter off the street. The scene in the restoration room was different than what Bogdanos's team saw in the second-floor storage rooms, where the looting had been hasty and haphazard. Here, it was obvious that the objects taken were carefully selected, judging by what was left behind. These thieves were professionals (Bogdanos, 2005, p.213). The fact that such high-profile pieces were stolen is evidence that the thieves were members of a sophisticated network of smugglers and would be able to get the artifacts out of the country more easily than an average citizen. Another possible scenario is that the thieves had lined up prospective buyers beforehand, as suggested by Dr. Ahmed Chalabi of the Iraqi National Congress. Dr. Chalabi's belief is that these forty big-ticket items from the museum's galleries were hand-picked by unscrupulous art collectors sometime before the invasion (Bogdanos, 2005, p.215). The confusion and lack of security at the museum in April 2003 was an ideal opportunity to grab them. Furthermore, Bogdanos noticed that some of the artifacts were left sitting on tables in the restoration room when nearly all of them were small enough to fit inside one of the room's safes just a few feet away. Why would the museum staff leave these valuable artifacts on the table and not lock them in a safe? Bogdanos had to consider that a staff member had intentionally left the artifacts sitting out to be picked up later by an accomplice (Bogdanos, 2005, p.275). The fact that the restoration room was located near an exit supports this theory (2005, p.275).
Like the looters, the actions of the thieves who stole the artifacts from the restoration room and galleries can be explained using Cohen and Felson's routine activities theory. They took advantage of the museum's lack of guardianship to gain access to what they wanted: dozens of high-value, easily transportable objects. The looters ended up with both authentic pieces and fakes because they lacked the knowledge to tell the difference; they also vandalized the museum's administrative offices to a greater extent than the galleries in a gesture of protest of the museum administrators' allegiance to Iraq's former regime. On the other hand, the restoration room criminals were motivated by the prospect of millions of dollars in profit through the sale of the artifacts to foreign dealers or collectors. Not only were they professional criminals, they had considerable knowledge of ancient art and antiquities.
The third crime: the inside job
The third, and perhaps most devastating, crime occurred in the museum's basement storage area where Colonel Bogdanos and his team discovered the theft of more than ten thousand small artifacts. The door to the locked basement storage area had even been bricked over before the invasion, but the thieves had broken through (Bogdanos, 2005, p.4, 216). Once inside, the thieves rifled through every box that had not been secured in one of the locked cabinets or safes along the wall. In fact, the thieves did have the keys to those locked cabinets, but dropped them amidst the clutter of empty boxes on the floor in the dark room. One can only imagine how long they searched for those keys in the darkness. Bogdanos's team later found the keys where the thieves had dropped them (Bogdanos, 2005, p.10). This was an incredible stroke of luck for the museum; hundreds of thousands of gold and silver artifacts were stored in those locked cabinets, some of them more than five thousand years old (Bogdanos, 2005, p.12). Still, the thieves were able to escape with thousands of valuable and culturally significant ancient objects.
It was obvious to Colonel Bogdanos and his team that looters off the street did not commit this theft; it had to have been an inside job. The thieves knew where to find the keys to both the basement storage area and the locked cabinets; only a few museum administrators had that knowledge. After the keys were found, Bogdanos asked museum director Dr. Nawala al-Mutwali where they had been stored. She led him to a corner of the room and showed him the keys' hiding spot in the back corner of a drawer, behind some index cards. Bogdanos noticed that the drawer was neat and orderly; the thieves knew exactly where the keys were and did not have to rifle through the contents of the drawer (Bogdanos, 2005, p.11). As few people knew what was stored in the locked cabinets in the basement, even fewer had known exactly which drawer contained the keys to the cabinets (Bogdanos, 2005, p.11).
Therefore, the only people with the knowledge necessary to rob the basement storage areas would be Iraq Museum administrators. Put another way, this was a "crime committed by a person of respectability and high social status in the course of his occupation," which is Edwin Sutherland's 1983 definition of white-collar crime (Miller et al., 2008, p.182). The individuals who robbed the basement storage areas enjoyed a position of prestige in Iraqi society--or at least among Saddam's ruling party--and do not fit common criminological descriptions of criminals as individuals who act out of impulse or opportunity, who associate themselves with a criminal counter-culture, or who generally lack self-control. Another component of white-collar crime, as theorized by researchers such as Chambliss (1988, 1999) and Quinney (1980), is that white-collar crimes, such as corporate fraud and negligence, inflict greater social harm than crimes committed against individuals (Miller et al., 2008, p.182). The Iraq Museum looting case exemplifies this premise; looters off the street stole approximately 3,178 objects from the galleries, restoration room and second-floor storage rooms, whereas the thieves who gained access to the underground storage areas--who had insider knowledge of the valuable contents in the museum's basement as well as how to access them--robbed the museum of 10,686 artifacts (Bogdanos, 2005; Brodie, 2008; Warner, 2005). Furthermore, 96 percent of the objects stolen by looters off the street have been recovered; by comparison, only 2,307 artifacts from the museum's basement have currently been recovered--a recovery rate of 22 percent (Bogdanos, 2005; Brodie, 2008). This suggests that the thieves who had insider knowledge and stole the bulk of the artifacts taken from the Iraq Museum in April 2003 also had enough knowledge to successfully integrate the artifacts into the art market beyond Iraq's borders.
Reports from the Iraq Museum show that artifacts stolen during the 2003 invasion continue to be recovered today, but if it weren't for Colonel Bogdanos and his team of Marines studying the museum's crime scenes and determining what was stolen, what was left behind, and who the likely culprits were, the recovery rate might have been much lower. At the beginning of the investigation, Bogdanos instituted an amnesty program allowing anybody to return artifacts taken from the museum without threat of prosecution, no questions asked . By going out to talk to the local population--and by forming collaborative relationships with the press ("After all the hype and hostility of the initial reports," Bogdanos said, "I thought the fourth estate owed me one.")--he and his team spread the amnesty announcement among the population in Baghdad (Bogdanos, 2005, p.152). Almost immediately, people began returning artifacts. Many were local citizens who claimed they were temporarily holding the artifacts for "safekeeping" (Bogdanos, 2005, p.151). Bogdanos' team recovered 100 artifacts in the first three days of their investigation alone.
Bogdanos also credits the collaboration between the international police force and UNESCO, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, in the months following the looting for contributing to the recovery of more artifacts. On July 8, 2003, Interpol and UNESCO signed a cooperation agreement, bridging the gap between the international law enforcement and art communities, to achieve the common goal of retrieving the objects taken from the Iraq Museum. (Bogdanos, 2005, 307n272). The FBI set up a task force to investigate and prosecute the thefts as well. And in November 2004, Congress passed the Emergency Protection for Iraqi Cultural Antiquities Act, thereby making it illegal to import into the United States any unauthorized artifacts from any archaeological site within Iraq (Bogdanos, 2005, p.263).
The case of the Iraq Museum looting is an object lesson in how easily misinformation can spread in the first critical days after a high-profile crime occurs. The international press--either in their rush to print the story before checking their facts, or because of their particular political point of view--simply got it wrong. Because of this, the international indictment of the U.S. following the looting of the museum was vicious and instantaneous. Other books written about the looting--such as The Rape of Mesopotamia by Lawrence Rothfield which barely mentions Bogdanos, and The Looting of the Iraq Museum, Baghdad by Milbry Polk and Angela Schuster that, remarkably, does not mention Bogdanos at all--are quick to blame the U.S. for failing to protect the museum from looters, and therefore are unwilling to soften their criticism by giving credit to an American soldier risking his life to repair the damage done to the museum. After Bogdanos' investigation, it turned out that the severity of the crime had been highly exaggerated, and the soldiers fighting in Baghdad went to considerable lengths not to damage the museum. When the Iraqi snipers inside the museum shot at the American tanks on the street, the tanks retreated rather than engaging the enemy who were using the museum as a cover (Bogdanos, 2005, p.208-211). Even more surprising, the museum was victimized in part by its own staff members who took advantage of the chaos in the city during the invasion. Ironically, if it were not for the first few sensationalistic news reports in April 2003, Bogdanos might not have decided to hurry to Baghdad to secure the museum. Without his assistance, it's anybody's guess how long it would have taken for the truth to surface.
In both the courtroom and the combat zone, Bogdanos is driven by a strong desire to uphold the rule of law. Bogdanos writes in his book that he made it his mission to recover the stolen artifacts, what he called "the property of the Iraqi people" (2005, p.127). It was an uphill battle from the beginning, and he was initially criticized by reporters and members of other organizations on the ground in Baghdad who blamed the U.S. for failing to protect the museum. One UN agent told Bogdanos, "I'm not here to help you. I'm here to watch you fail" (Bogdanos, 2005, p.181). He was also determined to be respectful to the museum staff, and even though he regarded everybody at the museum as suspects, he would not treat them with suspicion (Bogdanos, 2005, p.133). To successfully investigate the theft, he would have to earn the staff's trust. His professionalism and integrity in his every action--while risking his life in a combat zone, facing insurmountable odds as well as intense criticism from the international community--is a testament to Bogdanos' courage and his conviction to do what is right.
References:
Bogdanos, M., & Patrick, W. (2005). Thieves of Baghdad: One Marine's Passion to Recover the World's Greatest Stolen Treasures. New York, NY: Bloomsbury.
Brodie, N. (2008, October 20). 2003 Looting of the Iraq National Museum. Retrieved March 9, 2010, from the Stanford Archaeology Center at www.stanford.edu.
Miller, J.M., Schreck, C.J., & Tewksbury, R. (2008). Criminological Theory: A Brief Introduction. Boston, MA: Pearson Education, Inc.
Warner, F. (2005, July 3). The Single Backpack Theory: Proof archaeologists owe the U.S. an apology for their accusations on Iraq National Museum looting. Retrieved March 9, 2010, from Free Frank Warner.
More articles:
The Casualties of War: The Truth About the Iraq Museum (PDF) by Matthew Bogdanos
The Baghdad Museum Project (4)
Links:
1, 2, 3, 4: Retrieved April 22, 2010.
A Reclining Figure, Henry Mooreby Dayna Jalkanen
Click on image to enlarge.
In one of the most confounding art heists to date, three men outfitted with a crane-equipped red Mercedes flat-bed truck swiped a two-ton bronze Henry Moore sculpture right off the late artist's guarded property. On December 15, 2005, around 10:00 pm, the thieves broke into the grounds of the Henry Moore Foundation sculpture park in Much Hadham, Hertfordshire in England and stole Moore's A Reclining Figure (1). Described as an "audacious theft" by Hertfordshire Police Chief Inspector Richard Harbon, the men simply drove through the park security gate, supposedly left open for a tenant, and hoisted the 11-foot long, 6 foot-wide, 6 foot-high sculpture onto their stolen truck. Audacious, indeed. A Reclining Figure had recently returned from an exhibition and was not set in its usual location on its base, but rather was placed near the park's visitor center, possibly making it easier for the thieves to steal (2).
Police speculate that the sculpture, valued at $5.3 million in 2005, may have been stolen to be melted down and sold as scrap metal (3). Considering, however, that its raw material value was estimated to be a relatively measly $5,000-$10,000, some investigators believe the theives may have intended to smuggle it to the United States where it could have been sold by "dodgy dealers," possibly as a copy, for up to $200,000. Julian Radcliff, chairman of the Art Loss Registry, even stated that it would be relatively easy for the thieves to box up the sculpture and send it across the Atlantic unrecognized and unnoticed. However, the heist received a great deal of British media attention which may have deterred the thieves from any potential plans along those lines.
In spite of the thieves having been caught on security cameras, and having been seen by a civilian in Harlow, Essex about an hour after the heist, A Reclining Figure has yet to be retrieved and the perpetrators still roam free. Police did, however, recover the truck (4) they believe the culprits used to transport their prized loot. It was found on December 18th, 2005, in Coopersale, Essex. They believe a second, smaller vehicle was also involved-- possibly a Mini-Cooper or a Daihatsu-- but that vehicle has not been acquired by the authorities.
Word quickly spread to the art community that the sculpture had been stolen, and immediately many other institutions owning large, public Moore sculptures were placed on red alert for fear of copy-cat crimes. Although no other Moore sculptures of the size of A Reclining Figure have been pilfered (the Art Loss Registry does have 47 smaller Moore sculptures listed as stolen and unrecovered), copy-cat criminals in Britain did successfully steal other public bronze sculptures (5) created by various artists including Henry Pegram and Lynne Chadwick.
Should you happen to come across A Reclining Figure, consider it your lucky day, snap a picture on your cell phone and report it to British authorities. The Henry Moore Foundation (6) is offering a reward up to 100,000 pounds sterling (about $200,000) for any information leading to the retrieval of the sculpture.
Links:
1, 2, 3: Retrieved January 22, 2009.
4, 5: Retrieved February 2, 2009.
6: Retrieved January 22, 2009.