News and Conferences
1,500 lost works of art worth perhaps €1billion found in Munich flat
"The customs warehouse in Garching near Munich is holding around 1500 works of art by some of the most famous artists of the early 20th century, worth in total perhaps one billion euro. "
Dutch Museums Identify Looted Art
"Dutch museums have identified 139 pieces of art amongst their collections which may have been forcibly taken from Jewish owners."
Expert spots stolen work sold by Sotheby’s
"A stolen painting by the Dutch artist Jan Schoonhoven (1914-94) was jointly bought in London at Sotheby’s contemporary art day auction on 27 June by two galleries - London’s Mayor Gallery and Amsterdam’s Borzo Modern and Contemporary Art"
Extended Agreement Further Protects Archaeological Heritage of Cambodia
"The Department of State is pleased to announce the extension of the Memorandum of Understanding Between the Government of the United States of America and the Government of the Kingdom of Cambodia Concerning the Imposition of Import Restrictions on Archaeological Material from Cambodia from the Bronze Age Through the Khmer Era."
Conference: The Monuments Men, Social Media, the Law and Cultural Heritage
The Monuments Men, a star-studded film directed by George Clooney, is based on the work of the Monuments, Fine Arts, and Archives program, which was responsible for protecting and saving works of art and cultural heritage during World War II. LCCHP’s Fifth Annual Conference seeks to explore a variety of perspectives on the issue.
The immorality of using Detroit’s art to bail out bankrupt city
"Even if it proves legal for the city’s emergency manager to sell paintings in the Detroit Institute of Arts, there is a moral case to consider"
Should Detroit Sell Its Art?
"The fiscal apocalypse that is Detroit has spun off a collateral storm in the art world with a suggestion that salvific funds [...] could be raised by selling treasures of the Detroit Institute of Arts, one of America’s best encyclopedic museums. Having been asked my opinion as an art-lover [...] I have two answers. Here’s the short one: sell."
Looters ransack Egyptian antiques museum and snatch priceless artefacts as armed police move inside stormed Cairo mosque
"Egypt’s famous Malawi National Museum has been ransacked, looted and smashed up by vandals in another example of the recent unrest in the country."
10 Reasons You Should Care About The Endangered Detroit Art Museum
"Art admirers from New York to Los Angeles are likely feeling the reverberations of last week's Detroit bankruptcy news."
Italian police seizes huge haul of illicit antiquities
"More than 500 works, estimated to be worth around €2m and intended for the black market, have been recovered."
A Legal Defeat for Anne Frank House
"In what may prove to be the conclusion to a long and bitter legal battle over control of the legacy of Anne Frank, a district court in Amsterdam (...) ordered the Anne Frank House to return a collection of archives to a foundation in Switzerland."
Genève restitue au Pérou un vestige archéologique volé
"Un Genevois a tenté de vendre une poterie Chancay sur Internet. La police a localisé le vendeur et le Ministère public a séquestré le vestige."
On the conservation and display of human remains: "Museums Confront the Skeletons in Their Closets"
The curators of the Museum of Medical History are currently re-evaluating the principle that govern the display of human remains in light of preserving the dignitiy of the dead and restitution claims.
"The Met Will Return a Pair of Statues to Cambodia"
"The museum said it would repatriate the life-size sandstone masterworks, known as the Kneeling Attendants."
"Frenchman Will Return to China Prized Bronze Artifacts Looted in 19th Century"
"One of France’s wealthiest businessmen has agreed to return to China two bronze animal heads that were looted from the imperial Summer Palace near Beijing by invading French and British troops in the 19th century"
King Croesus's golden brooch to be returned to Turkey
"The Turkish culture minister, Ertugrul Günay, has announced that German officials have agreed to return the missing artefact, a brooch in the form of a winged seahorse, possibly as early as this year."
British called upon to stem illicit trade of artefacts
"The head of a new research programme dedicated to combating the illicit trade in cultural objects has made an open call to the art trade and collectors, asking for their co-operation."
Turkey’s Efforts to Repatriate Art Alarm Museums
“Turkish officials are demanding ancient artifacts from Western museums, and aren’t timid about doing so. The museums say their mission to display global art treasures is under siege.”
How UNESCO's 1970 Convention Is Weeding Looted Artifacts Out of the Antiquities Market
"With the slow but unstoppable force of a juggernaut, the UNESCO Convention for the protection of cultural property, approved on November 14, 1970 — after which year the acquisition of antiquities ceases to be legitimate unless accompanied by an official export license — is reconfiguring the market. Not all nations subscribe to the Convention, and those that do, like the United States, may not enforce all of its provisions. Yet several factors are combining to make the Convention increasingly effective across most Western countries (with some notable exceptions, such as Switzerland). One is the weight of public opinion, led by scholars who deplore the massive loss of historical documentation that the unrecorded looting of archaeological sites entails and the destruction of a huge proportion of buried art treasures resulting from the crude methods to which commercial diggers resort." - Souren Melikian
Swiss Freeports Are Home for a Growing Treasury of Art
"Simon Studer started his career in a basement vault in a warehouse complex near the heart of this city [...]. He was taking inventory for one of Switzerland’s best-known gallery owners, who rented the space. 'I was checking sizes, condition, looking for a signature', Mr. Studer recalls, 'and making sure the art was properly measured'." - David Segal
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