Reposted from Artnet News

Nine items made from imperial Chinese porcelain believed to be worth millions were stolen from a museum in Cologne, Germany, in a brazen art heist carried out, per the museum “with great effort and violence.” It is the latest in a spree of troubling incidents on which the museum is hoping to crack down. Shao-Lan Hertel, the scientific director of Cologne’s Museum of East Asian Art, revealed the theft in a statement on the institution’s website and provided a full listing of the stolen items. Further details, such as their value, were not provided for insurance-related reasons.

The suspects, who still not have been identified, broke into the museum on the night of September 12 and stole nine Chinese porcelain objects dating from the 16th to 19th centuries. Security workers immediately notified police and nobody was injured. “The staff members of the Museum for East Asian Art are shocked and deeply consternated by the burglary. More than financial and material damage, the museum mourns a loss of intangible nature,” Hertel said in the statement. Hertel said most of the stolen objects were acquired by the museum founders Adolf and Frieda Fischer in China between 1906 and 1911, documenting the acquisitions in detail in their purchase diary. Another item was a Ming-dynasty yellow-glazed dish, which was gifted to the museum in 2015. The museum has faced security vulnerabilities this year and a crime spree it has been trying to address, Hertel noted. A failed burglary was foiled by an alarm in January and followed by another in June in which the burglars broke a window at the museum.

The museum “massively heightened” its security systems, Hertel said. Further details about the increased measures were not provided. However, German public broadcaster WDR reported the window was only repaired with a wooden panel—which is how the burglars entered in the recent heist. The only major lead in the case came from the statement of a lone security guard who said possibly two men were involved in the break-in, one of whom was wearing a backpack like a delivery driver. The security measures were decided in consultation with local police and the Department for Art and Culture of the City of Cologne. The museum is collaborating with authorities in planning how security can be further expanded and the case has been registered with Interpol. “The international dimension of the investigation corresponds to the cultural significance and financial value of the stolen property,” Hertel said. “The objects are very well documented and therefore clearly identifiable, and so it is hoped that they will eventually find their way back into the museum collection.”

Reposted from Newsweek

An American tourist has been arrested in Israel after allegedly smashing and severely damaging two Roman-era statues.  The incident occurred at the Israel Museum in Jerusalem on Thursday, according to officials. The statues date to the 2nd century C.E. and were part of the Archeology Wing's permanent exhibition. "In a severe incident [Thursday] afternoon, a tourist from the U.S. intentionally caused damage to two ancient Roman statues from the second century C.E.," a museum spokesperson said in a statement provided to Newsweek. "The museum's staff alerted the police, which is handling the matter. The damaged statues have been moved to the museum's conservation lab for professional restoration. The museum's management, which views this as a troubling and unusual event, condemns all forms of violence and hopes such incidents will not recur. "The sculptures were knocked off their pedestals and had broken into several pieces. One is a marble head of the ancient Greek goddess Athena that was discovered in 1978 in Tel Naharon, northern Israel, Haaretz reported. The head was likely once part of a larger-than-life statue that may have stood more than 8 feet in height. The other sculpture is a depiction of a griffon—a horned, winged creature with a beak and the body of a lion—holding a wheel of fate representing the Roman god, Nemesis. This artifact was discovered in the Negev desert in southern Israel in 1957.

Police said in a statement provided to Newsweek that museum security personnel detained the tourist, a 40-year-old Jewish American man before officers arrived and apprehended him. Police then questioned him, determining that he destroyed the statues because of his religious sensibilities, believing them to be "idolatrous" and contrary to the Torah. The man's lawyer, Nick Kaufman, told the Associated Press that the 40-year-old, who has yet to be named, had not acted out of religious fanaticism. Instead, Kaufman said the tourist was showing signs of "Jerusalem syndrome"—a unique psychiatric phenomenon that occurs in some tourists and pilgrims who visit the holy city, which is sacred to Jews, Christians and Muslims.

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Reposted from Interfax-Ukraine

Kyiv municipal museums received from international partners special equipment worth EUR 215,000 as part of a joint project to protect cultural property, the press service of Kyiv City State Administration (KCSA) said on the official website on Friday. "The results of a joint project to protect cultural property of twelve municipal museums in Kyiv were discussed during a meeting with Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of France to Ukraine Gaël Vessières and Executive Director of the International Alliance for the Protection of Cultural Heritage in Conflict Zones (ALIPH) Valérie Frélan at the KCSA," it
said. Thanks to the financial support of ALIPH within the framework of a joint project worth EUR 215,000, special protective equipment was purchased dehumidifiers, humidifiers, fireproof safes, and cabinets. Automatic fire extinguishing systems were also partially installed.
In addition, during the meeting the question was raised about the prospects for further cooperation, in particular in protecting the national cultural heritage and cultural heritage of Kyiv.

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Reposted from Barron's

 Six artworks stolen by the Nazis and returned recently to the heirs of th Austrian Jew who owned them will be auctioned in New York next month, Christie's said Thursday. New York authorities announced on September 20 that leading institutions that include New York's Museum of Modern Art had agreed to return seven works by the Austrian Expressionist artist Egon Schiele to the family of Fritz Grunbaum, a cabaret performer and art collector who died in the Dachau concentration camp in 1941. Three of the works -- watercolors on paper, thought to be worth up to $2.5 million each -- will be auctioned on November 9 and three others will go up two days later as part of Christie's fall auctions. The seventh work, which was returned by the Museum of Modern Art, has been acquired privately by "a prominent collector who has a demonstrated record of supporting Holocaust survivors," said Raymond Dowd, the Grunbaum heirs' New York attorney. Grunbaum's heirs had been fighting for the artworks' return for years. He owned hundreds of works of art, including more than 80 by Schiele. Schiele's works, considered "degenerate" by the Nazis, were largely auctioned or sold abroad to finance the Nazi Party, according to the Manhattan district attorney's office. Arrested by the Nazis in 1938, Grunbaum was forced while at Dachau to sign over his power of attorney to his spouse, who was then made to hand over the family's entire collection before herself being deported to a different concentration camp, in current-day Belarus. The seven works whose restitution was announced last month had reappeared on the art market after World War II, first in Switzerland and then making their way to New York. The Grunbaum heirs are pursuing other works as well.
 Last week, three Schiele drawings were seized by the Manhattan district attorney's office from the Art Institute of Chicago, the Carnegie Museums of Pittsburgh and the Allen Memorial Art Museum at Oberlin College in Ohio.

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Reposted from The Guardian

Unesco, the United Nations’ culture body, has announced plans for what it says will be the first virtual museum of stolen cultural artefacts, aimed at raising public awareness of trafficking and the unique importance of cultural heritage. “Behind every stolen work or fragment lies a piece of history, identity and humanity that has been wrenched from its custodians, rendered inaccessible to research, and now risks falling into oblivion,” said the Unesco director general, Audrey Azoulay. “Our objective with this is to place these works back in the spotlight, and to restore the right of societies to access their heritage, experience it, and recognize themselves in it,” Azoulay told a meeting of national representatives in Paris. Developed with the international police organization Interpol, whose database of cultural objects stolen from museums, collections and archeological sites worldwide lists more than 52,000 artefacts, the $2.5m (£2.05m) virtual museum should open in 2025. Visitors will be able to navigate a succession of virtual spaces containing detailed 3D images of the artefacts, each accompanied by materials explaining their unique cultural significance including stories and testimonies from local communities.

Unesco does not expect to be able to name the items that will make up the initial collection until shortly before the museum’s opening. According to the Antiquities Coalition, a US-based NGO, the most significant looted and stolen artefacts currently missing globally include a third century alabaster stone inscription taken from Awwam temple in Yemen between 2009 and 2011. Also on the coalition’s list are a seventh century BC ivory relief of a lion attacking a Nubian, stolen from the Baghdad Museum in 2003; a green stone mask looted from the Maya site of Rio Azul, Guatemala in the 1970s; and a fifth-sixth century figurine of Varaha taken from a temple complex in Rajasthan, India in 1988. “These are objects that exist physically, but we don’t know where,” Ernesto Ottone, the organization’s assistant director general for culture, told the Guardian. “We will exhibit them virtually, in a space where we can really tell the story and the context behind them.” Ottone said the aim was to “help young people especially to understand that a stolen artefact is one that has been ripped from its community, but also to help recover stolen objects and promote the repatriation of cultural property generally”.

Logically, he said, the museum’s ultimate aim should be its own disappearance: “It’s the opposite of a regular museum, whose collection will continue to expand. With this one, we hope its collection will shrink, as items are recovered one by one.” The project’s architect, Francis Kéré, the 2022 – and first African – winner of the prestigious Pritzker prize for architecture, said the project was about “awakening the imagination”. Cultural artefacts embody “a value in their physical presence, but also a value to their communities … that we cannot describe”, he said. Kére, who was born in Burkina Faso, compared an object torn from its community to a tree uprooted from its soil. “Something happens that we don’t fully understand in the relationship between a tree, its roots, and its nourishment,” he said. “Something similar happens, that we also don’t understand, in the relationship between a cultural artefact and its community. Cultures that have been robbed of artefacts are like a tree’s roots looking for nourishment.” The architect has designed an extendable virtual “ramp”, contained within a globe connecting regions, countries, cultures and the 600 artefacts that will make up the opening collection, and has begun work with web developers to turn the concept into a digital reality. 

Ottone said that while designing and building the virtual museum was a complex job, the most time-consuming task was creating scalable 3D images of the artefacts, for many of which there is no physical record beyond a small black-and-white photo. “No one has imagined a museum like this,” Azoulay said. “The works’ presentation is enhanced by a deep dive into their universe, into the cultural and social movements from which they were born – linking the material and the immaterial.” Unesco’s 1970 convention on prohibiting and preventing the illicit import, export and sale of cultural property urges signatory states to take measures to stop trafficking, which Interpol has said is increasingly the preserve of organized crime.

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Reposted from NPR

La Casa del Libro Museum Library in San Juan was among the many cultural institutions to suffer devastating consequences after hurricanes Irma and Maria walloped Puerto Rico in 2017. Human-driven climate change was the engine behind both. Strong winds caused the museum's power to go out. This meant no air conditioning. And the high humidity levels threatened the museum's world-class collection of 15th century books and artworks with mold. About a month after disaster struck, the institution put out a call to the National Heritage Responders Hotline for help.

The National Heritage Responders is a volunteer network of around 100 experts in cultural heritage conservation from around the country. They assist individuals and institutions in figuring out how to save important objects and buildings after disasters. Their crisis hotline has been busier than ever in recent years because of more frequent and severe weather brought on by climate change. In 2023, there have been around 70 calls so far, up from fewer than 10 in 2008, when the hotline first appeared. (The hotline is intended for the use of cultural institutions; individual members of the public can get in touch with the network via email.) "Climate change is increasing the frequency and the severity of the disasters that we're experiencing," said Ann Frellsen. The Atlanta-based book and paper conservator is a longtime heritage responder volunteer with more than three decades of experience helping out cultural institutions after disasters. She was among those deployed to Puerto Rico over several visits starting a couple of months after the hurricanes hit. "It's just a constant battle." After providing initial support via the phone, Frellsen and her team came in to help La Casa del Libro and other local institutions in crisis with equipment, supplies and advice. (Much of the advice the hotline provides is via phone or video-chat; volunteers are sent out into the field in certain cases, on an as-needed basis.)"There were no stoplights and there were no signs on the highways, because they'd all blown away," Frellsen said. Frellsen said figuring out how to reach the more than 20 institutions that needed assistance in Puerto Rico was challenging — and that's to say nothing of the on-the-job hazards. "As hot and humid as it was, we were in full Tyvek suits the entire time because the mold situation was just unfathomable," Frellsen said. When she isn't heading into disaster zones to help salvage artifacts and heirlooms from fires, hurricanes and floods, Frellsen trains others in the heritage conservation field to do the same.

Recently, she co-led a workshop of professional librarians, archivists and conservators at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum in Boston. Some of the participants may eventually take the test to become National Heritage Responders. But at this moment, they were deep in a hands-on training exercise, based on an imaginary scenario cooked up by Frellsen and her co-trainers. In the scenario, a blizzard had triggered the museum's sprinkler system — which can happen in strong winds — and all that water has left behind soggy carpets, excess humidity, and many precious presidential artifacts in a World War II exhibition in peril. Huddled around a tall glass case containing a ball-gown worn by John F. Kennedy's sister, Rosemary Kennedy, in 1938, the trainee heritage responders tried to figure out how to protect the gauzy, peach-colored dress — and the other treasures on display — from the ravages of mold. "I would mitigate the high humidity in the space," said Evan Knight, the preservation specialist with Massachusetts Board of Library Commissioners, the state agency that supports libraries in Massachusetts. "And if we deal with the humidity, then that should help at least arrest mold growth to some extent before a conservator can come in." But Annie Rubel, a historic preservation expert in Deerfield, Mass., wasn't too keen on this idea. "Well, I think that this is an extremely fragile piece," Rubel countered. "If there is no textile conservator on the way immediately, I would fashion some kind of support sling and very gently remove it from the area."

Ultimately, they decide to remove the carpet from under the case and stabilize the environment in the case itself. The National Heritage Responders was launched by the Foundation for Advancement in Conservation in 2006. But it was in the 1940s that the United States and Europe first started thinking seriously about how to recover culturally important artifacts and sites after a crisis. World War II compelled countries to band together to protect cultural treasures, forming a group of 345 men and women from 13 countries known as The Monuments Men. Since then, efforts around saving cultural heritage after disasters have evolved beyond historic buildings and celebrated works of art. For example, after floods devastated Eastern Kentucky in 2022, National Heritage Responders helped salvage thousands of reel-to-reel tapes documenting Appalachian cultural traditions. They also recently ran online workshops on disaster recovery for people in Maui following this summer's wildfires. "A community can't recover if they lose those cultural identities," said Frellsen, "and their cultural identity is often tied up in the objects and the spaces that they live with." Frellsen said she's excited about the next generation that she's training — especially with human-caused climate change creating a lot more work. "It's really comforting to know that there are a lot more people who can come in and replace us, with a lot more stamina and energy than I find I have," she said. "I would really love to be deployed," said Rubel, the preservation expert who attended the training in Boston. Rubel said she hopes her background in building conservation will secure her a spot in the National Heritage Responders' network. "That's an underrepresented skillset on the team," Rubel said. "So I'm hoping that that comes up sooner rather than later."

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Reposted from Chronicle

Hadrian's Wall "sustained some damage" after the world-famous Sycamore Gap tree near it was felled, inspectors have found. The landmark tree in Northumberland, believed to have been around 300 years old, was cut down overnight between Wednesday and Thursday last week, in what detectives called a "deliberate act of vandalism". The incident led to widespread anger and upset across the region. Early signs suggest that Hadrian's Wall, which stands next to where the sycamore had been, sustained "some damage", according to preservation body Historic England. It comes after Northumbria Police arrested a man in his 60s and a 16-year-old boy in connection with the incident. Both have been released on bail.

A Historic England statement read: "We visited Sycamore Gap on Friday for a preliminary inspection. Whilst we identified that Hadrian's Wall has sustained some damage, we have not been able to access the site to carry out a full investigation so a further archaeological appraisal will take place once the site is considered safe. "As the Government's heritage adviser, we are involved because Hadrian's Wall is protected as a scheduled monument. We appreciate how strongly people feel about the loss of the tree, and its impact on this special historic landscape, and will continue to work closely with key partners as these progresses." The wall, built by the Roman army on the orders of emperor Hadrian, has Unesco World Heritage status. The sycamore was looked after by Northumberland National Park Authority and the National Trust. It was among the UK's most photographed trees and was made famous in a scene in Kevin Costner's 1991 film Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves. Experts have said new shoots are expected to grow from the tree, but it will never be the same again.

Over the weekend, a fence was erected around the sycamore to protect the site and visitors were urged not to touch the tree or remove any pieces from it. A sign, placed there by the National Trust, said: "Please respect the tree and avoid touching it or removing pieces from it. We will find a way to commemorate it. Thank you."

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Reposted from Artnet News

A painting by the French post-Impressionist artist Edouard-Leon Cortés, stolen from a New York gallery in the 1960s, has been recovered after it was spotted for sale in the U.K. earlier this year. The painting, Flower Market Madeleine, was one of about 3,000 paintings stolen from the Herbert Arnot Gallery in New York City over a 12-year period in the 1950s and 1960s, Art Recovery International announced on November 21. The private company deals in dispute resolution and art recovery services. Arnot Gallery was founded in Austria in 1863, but moved to New York during World War II. In 1966, Louis Edelman left his apprenticeship at the midtown Manhattan gallery with plans to start his own. Before leaving his former employer, Edelman schemed to invoice sales he made at the Arnot Gallery in his own name and sold most of the paintings in Chicago, Kansas City, and St. Louis, which was revealed when the FBI arrested him in the Windy City. According to Art Recovery, when a gallery owner was asked during the trial whether he knew the paintings he bought from Edelman were stolen, he replied, “Well, not all of them.”

Edelman was sentenced to two years in prison and fined $10,000 for the thefts. The paintings he stole were valued at more than $1 million, according to Art Recovery. Federal prosecutors at the time said the works were worth more than $250,000. Most of them were never recovered, though some have reappeared at auction houses and galleries across the world. The Cortés painting was found for sale by Carnes Fine Art, a dealer in Mawdesley, England, which purchased it in November 2022 at Capes Dunn auction, according to Art Recovery. Artnet News has reached out to Carnes Fine Art for additional comment. Christopher A. Marinello, lawyer and founder of Art Recovery, thanked Bradley Carnes and Capes Dunn for releasing this stolen painting “unconditionally” back to the Arnot Gallery. “While in this instance, we were able to convince many of the parties to reimburse the other, eventually there will be those who are out of luck,” he said. Marinello advised that anyone buying or selling a painting by Edouard-Leon Cortés or Antoine Blanchard check with the Arnot Gallery for proper authentication. “We have been recovering one or two pictures per year from this 60-year-old theft and we’re never going to give up until every last one is returned,” he said.

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Reposted from Kelowna Capitol News

David Hunwick had no idea that his two bronze fish-kissing sculpture had been stolen in Penticton. A friend notified the Victoria-based artist on Sunday, Oct. 15, about the theft. The city had not notified him, so he was unaware the sculpture had been vandalized, he said. The bronze fish have been missing since at least August. Hunwick took to social media to ask if anyone saw anything and that’s when he found out the fish were taken some time in the summer. “I had no idea they had gone missing. It’s very sad that a few spoil the enjoyment of the many,” said Hunwick. “I just found out by chance yesterday (Sunday, Oct. 16). I am the eternal optimist and still hope for a positive outcome.” “The Kiss” sculpture was located opposite Lickity Splitz on the boulevard looking towards the SS Sicamous. The two fish kissing have been broken/cut off, leaving just the bronze ring. Now Hunwick is out thousands of dollars for his art. He has contacted Penticton police who he said were very helpful. Hunwick’s fish sculpture was part of the Penticton public sculpture exhibit that is featured along the Okanagan Lake boulevard, beside city hall and in the roundabout by the Penticton Art Gallery. His sculpture was displayed in Castlegar for many months without issue. Sadly, this is the second theft from the 2023 Penticton Public Sculpture Exhibition.

In June, Wish to Fly by Coquitlam artist Serge Mozhnesky was torn off its pedestal and stolen. Damage was done to the huge red spider art — GIGASPIDER by Ron Simmer. The Wish to Fly sculpture has never been recovered. In those cases, the city notified the artists. Shane Mills, communications director for the city, said the staff member in charge of the exhibition is away at the moment but will provide a response when they get back. In 2021, someone stole the key off the Raven’s Key sculpture located at the same location the Kiss fish were. If anyone knows anything about the two missing bronze fish, contact the Penticton RCMP detachment.

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Reposted from The Art Newspaper

Arthur Brand, who helped to recover a Van Gogh painting last month, says he was watching a "boring football game" when the surprising delivery was made Six paintings stolen from an old town hall in the small coastal town of Medemblik in north Holland have been returned via an unusual doorstep delivery to an art detective in Amsterdam. Arthur Brand, known for his work in recovering an early Van Gogh painting last month as well as Hitler’s missing horse statues and a Picasso painting, tells The Art Newspaper that he was sitting at home when his doorbell rang. "I was watching a boring football game: Holland was losing to France 2-0,” he said. “They just called at my door on Friday night at 10.30pm.” He was asked to come downstairs to unload a delivery by a man who apparently was uninvolved with the theft, Dutch media reported. He brought the six historical paintings up to his flat before alerting the police. “I think this was a direct result of the recovery of the Van Gogh [The Parsonage Garden at Nuenen in Spring (1884)] last month,” Brand says. “That made headlines all over the world and one of the reasons the Van Gogh was returned was that they couldn’t do anything with it—sell it or get a lesser sentence. “Most likely [the Medemblik thieves] got scared and maybe there was a possibility the police was on their tracks already. You either burn it, which is a bad idea because when you are caught later you get extra prison time, or they thought they would dump it at my doorstep.” 

The paintings, which together are thought to be worth around €100,000, include a portrait of King Radboud—which is considered of particular local significance—and portraits of Prince William of Orange, Maurits of Orange, Count Jan van Nassau, Queen Wilhelmina and a scene from the Bible. The paintings are currently with the police. A spokeswoman from Medemblik municipality tells The Art Newspaper that the find was a surprise. “One of our executives had a message completely out of the blue,” she says. “It’s really extraordinary and a bit of a mystery, but for us it is really good news. We are especially pleased that the painting of Radboud is back because it really belongs to our municipality.” Deputy mayor Jeroen Broeders said in a press release that “sometimes you only know how much something is worth to you when it isn’t there anymore and that is certainly the case with these paintings.” Brand said he would not claim the reward. “But” he added, “I have asked for a book voucher.”

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