Federal Prosecutors File Court Papers in Case For Repatriation of Cambodian Statue

A new development occurred this week in the fight over a priceless Cambodian statue. This past Monday, August 27, federal prosecutors filed court papers on behalf of Cambodia accusing Sotheby's of knowing that the 10th century work--which was to be sold at auction in New York City--"was an important piece of cultural property that had been stolen" from its homeland during the violent upheavals of the Khmer Rouge regime in the 1970s. For previous posts chronicling the story, please see: Global Art Conflict in New York, and Sotheby's Takes Action Against Cambodian Property Claim.

The case began over a year ago, when the Cambodian government asked the United States for help in recovering the thousand year old statue. Experts believed it to be stolen during the bloody rule of the Khmer Rouge (1975-1979), a time at which looters took advantage of the chaos to plunder long inaccessible temples and remove priceless antiquities. The statue was to be sold at Sotheby's on March 24, 2011 on behalf of Ruspoli di Poggio Suasa, a Belgian collector who acquired it in 1975 from a London antiquities dealer. Amid allegations, Sotheby's withdrew the statue on the day it was to be sold.

The sandstone masterwork, whose estimated value is $2-$3 million, is five feet tall and weighs 250 pounds. It is one of a pair of warriors in a battle-ready stance from a remote temple complex in Koh Ker. Archaeologists and Cambodian officials have also located the very pedestal and feet of the statue at the site. The statue is approximately 200 years older than the famed sculptures at Angkor Wat, which is 60 miles away.

In June, Sotheby's asked a federal judge in Manhattan to dismiss the civil action to force the return of the statue. For its part, Sotheby's claimed that its owner had "clear title" to the work, which was purchased at London's Spink & Son in December, 1975, even though the records detailing how the company acquired that statue are no longer available.

Jane A. Levine, a senior vice president and worldwide compliance director for Sotheby's, has said that the auction house was "aware that there are widely divergent views on how to resolve conflicts involving cultural heritage objects." She stated that the statue could have been removed at any time during its thousand year history and that Cambodia "did not identify any basis to contest the owner's title to the property and did not allege that it would be unlawful for Sotheby's to sell the statue." She also stated that "Sotheby's approach to the Khmer sculpture is one of responsible and ethical market behavior and international cooperation between private and public entities."

The prosecution's filing contains statements from two heritage law experts who state that Cambodian and British law dictate that the statue be treated as stolen property. Matthew Rendall, one of the experts, said that the statue is covered under Cambodian statutes, royal orders, and decrees dating to the early 1900s that declare such items to be the "exclusvie" and "immovable" property of the government. Mr. Rendall noted five occasions between 1985 and 1997 that Sotheby's returned sculptures to Cambodia after claims they had been looted sometime after 1970.

Source: The New York Times

Historic Cemetery Vandalized in Brooklyn, NY

Dozens of tombstones and memorials have been vandalized at the Brooklyn's historic cemetery the week of August 19, 2012, resulting in approximately $100,000 damages. According to the groundskeepers of the 19th-century Green-Wood Cemetery, more than 50 gravestones, plaques and statutes have been knocked down. Since its opening in 1838 it has never suffered destruction of similar magnitude. In 2006, the Green-Wood Cemetery was designated a National Historic Landmark.  Many of the toppled stones date back to the 1800s. Mutilation of the statutes took place despite the fact that the grounds are protected by high cast-iron fence, video surveillance, and 24-hour car patrol of the grounds.

Currently the case is under investigation by the New York Police Department Hate Crimes Task Force. According to the cemeteries blog, Green-Wood is asking for help from the public to pay for repairs.

According to the New York State Finance Law of 1988, there are funds under the joint custody of the state comptroller and the commissioner of taxation and finance to administer in instances of state cemetery vandalism and monument repair. It is unlike that the Green-Wood Cemetery would qualify for these funds because it is a private cemetery. The severity of criminal charges against the vandals depends on the cost of damages and means of destruction. Here, those responsible for the havoc would face 2nd degree criminal mischief charges for property damage, under New York Penal Law (NY CLS Penal § 145.10). 

Some historical information about the cemetery from its website: Founded in 1838 as one of America’s first rural cemeteries, the Green-Wood Cemetery soon developed an international reputation for its magnificent beauty and became the fashionable place to be buried. By 1860, Green-Wood was attracting 500,000 visitors a year, rivaling Niagara Falls as the country’s greatest tourist attraction. Crowds flocked to Green-Wood to enjoy family outings, carriage rides and sculpture viewing in the finest of first generation American landscapes. Green-Wood’s popularity helped inspire the creation of public parks, including New York City’s Central and Prospect Parks.

Source: New York Daily News; Green-Wood website; images from: Green-Wood Blog.

Fossils Dealer Wants his Dinosaur Skeleton Back

Eric Prokopi, a Florida-based fossils dealer is not giving up on a dinosaur skeleton he recreated from pieces of rock and stone, which was seized by the US Government earlier this summer. The dinosaur skeleton parts are thought to have originated in Mongolia. A New York judge ordered seizure of the skeleton arguing that it was imported into the US with false provenance information, indicating that the skeleton originated in Great Britain and not Mongolia.

On August 20, 2012, Prokopi lawyers filed court papers to recover the seized fossils. As reported, "the court papers, Prokopi and Dallas-based auction house Heritage Auctions were in negotiations with Mongolia's president to settle the dispute when the U.S. filed a seizure lawsuit to obtain the dinosaur." In addition, the court papers "called the effort to return the 70 million-year-old skeleton to Mongolia unprecedented, saying fossils from China, Kazakhstan, Mongolia and Russia have been openly sold on the international market and collected in the United States by people and museums for generations." Even if that were true, false statements in bills of lading and other customs declarations are hard to dispute and more likely than not to result in forfeiture of the improperly declared objects.

According to Prokopi, he imported the bones in 2010 as chunks of broken bones and rocks which he enhanced with plastic material and other fossil specimens. The origins of the broken bones are the key to deciding which cabinet gets to house this skeleton. Unfortunately, nobody is asking whether the multimillion year old skeleton wishes to return to its historical motherland or not.

Source: ArtDaily.org.

Legal Battle over 9/11 Relic

A group of atheists, the American Atheists to be exact, represented by Edwin F. Kagin, brought a federal lawsuit against the National September 11 Memorial and Museum (the Museum) in opposition to the museum’s decision to display a giant cross-shaped steel beam that became a site of prayer during the work at ground zero in Downtown New York. On August 13, 2012, the Museum filed court papers to dismiss the lawsuit arguing, among other things, that as an independent nonprofit and not a government agency, it would not be violating the Constitution’s establishment clause and state civil-rights law by exhibiting a religious symbol.

As reported elsewhere, in its court papers, the museum states that the 17-foot beam is being exhibited as "a relic of the 2001 attack and not as a religious symbol." It is perceived as an “important and essential artifact that belongs at the World Trade Center site as it comprises a key component of the retelling of the story of 9/11.”

Also, it is the museums position that "simply displaying an object with religious significance does not amount to endorsing or promoting a religion."

Source: The New York Times; image from: Werismyki. 

Russian Judicial Decision on "Pussy Riot" a Riot

On August 22, 2012, Russia was to join the World Trade Organization (the WTO) after almost two decades of negotiations and failed attempts. It was considered the last major economy to be left out of the WTO but the U.S. Congress was not rushing to pass permanent normal trade relations with Russia. For once, I supported the glacial pace of our Congress' decision-making. Of course Russia should be a part of the WTO, but it should also have a fair legal system and above board politician. However, not every wish comes true.

The famous poet Tyutchev's quote "Russia can't be understood with the intellect" remains an apt description. The mock of a trial over three members of the Pussy Riot punk-rock band, which ended with a two-year prison sentence for each, instead of the three petitioned for by the prosecutor. It was handed down on August 17, 2012, almost six months after they were arrested for "hooliganism driven by religious hatred." It is a curious case reeking of human right abuse and dissident crackdown, regardless of the form in which the performance was delivered.

The band members were arrested in February for performing a prayer to the Virgin Mary to expel Vladimir Putin. Their performance took place in the Moscow's Cathedral of Christ the Savior (rebuilt in the 1990s), and it was clearly intended to shock the audience as well as protest candidacy of Vladimir Putin running for a second first, or simply his third term as Russian President. (For the video of the performance, see, Youtube clip).  The arrest and the subsequent trial, based on a newly minted law, left some bemoaning the fate of Yekaterina Samutsevich (30 years old), Marina Alekhina (24 years old) and Nadezhda Tolokonnikova (22 years old). Many were asking why other performers, Russian and Western, were not speaking up on behalf of the arrested women. Many more were gloating and calling for punishment, as they basked in righteous indignation over the venue chosen for the Pussy Riot performance. Ultimately, many public figures began to make statements and comments in support of the performers, these included such public figures as outspoken journalists (Artemii Troitskii), Western pop stars, including Madonna and Kate Nash; other activists and dissidents: Yevgenia Chirikova, the Russian chessmaster Garry Kasparov and the jailed businessman Mikhail Khodorkovsky and business people and expats, including Google's Sergey Brin.  Putin himself was quoted as saying he did not wish for a tough punishment for the performers.

The acceptance of China into the WTO and its receipt of the coveted Most Favored Nation (the MFN) label in 2001 also emphasized poor treatment of dissenters and stark violations of human rights. Then nd now, visual and performing artists suffer from the hands of the corrupt Chinese officials no less than the Pussy Riot performers. Therefore, withholding the MFN title from Russian businesses and consumers would be unfair.

Few would argue that the form that the message of Pussy Riot took when it was delivered in a church also left much to be desired, not in the least of which were their lack of respect and sensitivity to the sacred place they invaded. However, there is a difference between assigning community service to someone behaving in a vulgar and disturbing way the band members did, and sending them, liberal arts students and activists to prison for two years simply for putting on a public performance.

On the bright side, Zamutsevich, Alekhina and Tolokonnikova should be out in time to protest Putin's run for another term.

Select Sources: Detroit Free Press; Echo Moskvy; NBC News.; Huffington Post; BBC News.

Britain Places Export Ban On Famous Picasso Painting In Effort To Keep Masterpiece In Britain

The British government has placed a temporary export ban on Pablo Picasso's painting Child With A Dove in the hope that funds can be raised to keep the iconic work in the United Kingdom. The painting is privately owned by the Aberconway family of North Whales and has been on loan to the National Gallery since 1974. In March, Christie's confirmed that the family appointed the auction house to sell the masterpiece for undisclosed reasons, sparking the concern that the painting could leave Britain. Last Friday, Culture Minister Ed Vaizey announced that he had made the decision to temporarily ban export of the piece, preventing the work from leaving the country until December 16. Further, if a "serious" attempt to meet the asking price is made by a private buyer or institution outside Britain, the ban could last until June 16, 2013.

The painting is valued at $80 million. Painted in Paris in 1901 when Picasso was only 19 years old, the work marks the start of the Spanish painter's famed "Blue Period." The painting was bequeathed to Lady Aberconway in 1947 by Samuel Courtauld, the legendary industrialist and prolific art collector, who acquired the painting in 1924.

Minister Vaizey based his decision on recommendations by the Reviewing Committee on the Export of Works of Art and Objects of Cultural Interest, which is administered by Arts Council England. The question was evaluated according to the three Waverley Criteria, which articulate limited circumstances in which the government may impose export restrictions on artworks. The criteria include: (a) whether a work is "so closely connected with our history and national life that its departure would be a misfortune," (b) whether the artwork is of "outstanding aesthetic importance," and (c) whether the artwork is of "outstanding significance for the study of some particular branch of art, learning, or history." The Reviewing Committee ruled that the painting fulfilled all three. Aidan Weston-Lewis, a Reviewing Committee member, stated, "Child with a Dove is a much-loved painting whose iconic status, together with its long history in British collections--laterally on loan to public galleries--make it of outstanding importance to our national heritage."

The export ban provides cultural institutions "a last chance to raise the money to keep the painting in the United Kingdom," according to the Culture Ministry. This approach recently proved successful, when earlier this month, the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford purchased Edouard Manet's portrait of Mademoiselle Claus, after Minister Vaizey placed a similar export ban on the work. The ban provided the museum with the extra eight months it needed to collect the $12.5 million purchase price from the Heritage Lottery Fund and The Art Fund, as well as donations from trusts, foundations, and private individuals.

Additionally, public institutions in England can pay significantly less for artworks than their market prices through private sale arrangements that provide shared tax advantages to the two parties (the original price of the Manet work was $45.4 million). Thus, the steep asking-price for Child With A Dove is likely to be higher than what a British museum may ultimately end up paying, if time is provided to raise funds to purchase the work.


Following the Manet episode, it appears that Vaizey is seeking a similar result in this case.

Source: Reuters, BBC

Question of Trust: Rediscovered Picasso to Sell

On August 14, 2012, the board of trustees of the Evansville Museum of Arts, History and Science in Indiana voted to sell a work by Pablo Picasso they did not know they had until recently.  What would you do if you learned that one of the works in your storage was a Picasso? and a gift from the artist?

In the case of the Evansville Museum, the decision was easy “Seated Woman with Red Hat” (“Femme assise au chapeau rouge”) executed around 1954-1956 would be too expensive to house, display and secure properly. Thus, they chose to sell it through a private sale with assistance of a New York auction house, Guernsey’s.  The decisions to sell and the chose of the agent to do it are unconventional. So is the work, which is not a painting but a gemmail, an enamel on glass intended to be illuminated from behind, to produce layered effect. Apparently Picasso produced about 50 of gemmaux in his lifetime. This particular work was purchased by Raymond Loewy, who presented it to the museum. At the time of the gift, the author's name was confused with the technique and the work was cataloged as by “Gemmaux.” It was never displayed since the 1960s.

A special advisory panel appointed by the president of the museum’s board of trustees came together to determine what to do with the newly rediscovered Picasso and what action would be in the best interest of the museum.  They recommended to sell the piece, which may or may not be in the best interest of the museum. The executive director of the Museum, John Streetman was quoted as saying that “This was a difficult but prudent decision to move forward with deaccession.”

The Museum has not decided what to do with the proceeds from the sale, but it has no other Picassos in its collection and unlikely to acquire one for its permanent collection. The art collection includes works mostly by American painters such as Georgia O'Keeffe, Edward Hopper, Paul Cadmus, Janet Fish, William Bailey and others.

Source: Art Daily.

Is Antiquities Collecting In or Out? It is "In" in Cleveland

Many experts and private individuals wish for collecting of antiquities to be a practice of the past, similar to smallpox. Heated disputes and "battles" over ownership of antiquities have been raging for decades resulting in canceled auctions, voluntary returns and forced repatriations of ceramics, marbles, bronzes etc. In recognition of the flawed acquisition practices of the last century, many museums in the United States, even the heavy lifters such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and the Getty Museum in California, found themselves with but one option -- to return illegally exported objects to countries such as Italy and Turkey. Many more claims are coming to the fore (Cambodia, Greece, Peru immediately come to mind). In light of these claims and trends, it is particularly curious to observe an American museum invest millions in acquisition of objects without clear provenance dating back to the 1970 UNESCO Convention on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property.*

Just this week, New York Times featured an article about the Cleveland Museum of Art, which readies to unveil 35,000 square feet of new gallery space and is willing to invest in inventory with questionable provenance to showcase. For our digest of the article please read "A Question of Standards."  Is the Cleveland Museum of Art advocating a relapse in responsible curating and collecting, or is it upholding the mission of public education and museum growth within the standards outlined by the American Association of Museums (AAM)? Namely, AAM expects museums to "rigorously research the provenance of an object prior to acquisition and  make a concerted effort to obtain accurate written documentation with respect to the history of the object, including export and import documents." In this case, Cleveland seems to have done some provenance research and made some effort to obtain written documentation, but then what? If information dating back to 1970 is not available, as the museum alleges, are the objects rendered permanently tainted and out of reach of the American institutions? or, should they be purchased, insured and displayed until the missing information surfaces and forces the museum to hand over the object to its rightful owner? That time may never come, or research may catch up to the museum and force deaccessioning sooner rather than later.

Undoubtedly, Cleveland's decisions to purchase the marble bust of Drusus Minor and the Mayan vessel are bold and provocative -- a gamble. No challenger emerged yet with standing and evidence of violation if international law.

Sources: For more details on the 1970 Convention, see:

Lyndel V. Prott, "Unesco and Unidroit: A Partnership against Trafficking of Cultural Objects,"  1 Unif. L. Rev. 1 (1996) 59-71; 

Lyndell V. Prott, "International Control of Illicit Movement on the Cultural Heritage: The 1970 UNESCO Convention and Some Possible Alternatives," 10 Syracuse J. Int'l L. & Com. 333 (1983).

A Question of Standards: The Recent Antiquities Acquisitions of the Cleveland Museum of Art

The Cleveland Museum of Art's two new acquisitions highlight an ongoing debate within the art community about the standards employed by cultural institutions when acquiring artifacts with murky provenance. On Monday, August 13, museum director David Franklin announced that two new artifacts would be accessioned by the museum, currently in the midst of a massive expansion and renovation project to be completed in 2013. The pieces include a rare marble portrait of Drusus Minor, son of the Roman emperor Tiberius, and an ancient Mayan cylindrical vessel, intricately painted with a battle scene, dating to 600-900 A.D.

Neither piece has reliable provenance before 1970. The marble head of Drusus Minor was sold to the museum by Phoenix Ancient Art, a prominent antiquities dealer operating in Geneva and New York. The artifact was sold at auction in 2004 in France and has no official publication record before 1970, though the museum believes the piece can be traced to a prominent late 19th century family in Algiers. Additionally, while the Mayan vessel was photographed and published as a part of a notable New York City collection in the early 1970s, one of the gallery owners pleaded guilty to a federal misdemeanor charge in 2004 for falsifying a customs document about the origin of the object.

Franklin, who took over as director of the museum in 2010 and is known for his particularly "pro-collecting" position, stated that he believed that the museum knew enough about both artifacts to be confident that they were not illicitly taken.

The museum's actions reflect one side of a debate among museum professionals and scholars as to the proper standards in the acquisition of antiquities. The art market in general--and the antiquities market in particular--represent extensive and largely unregulated international markets; the unruliness is due to difficulty often involved in tracing a piece's origins. In response to disputes between American museums and countries claiming their artifacts were illegally taken from their borders, the Association of American Museum Directors created stringent standards for museums when acquiring antiquities in 2008. The AAMD advised that museums should not accept artifacts without clearly demonstrable provenance before 1970--an internationally recognized cut-off. The organization also recognized that as "a complete recent ownership history may not be obtainable for all archaeological material and every work of ancient art," their guidelines should be followed with discretion. However, the guidelines have frequently led museums and curators to err on the side of caution and forgo acquiring certain antiquities for fear of embarrassing accusations and litigation. The standards have also made it hard for private collectors to sell or donate objects to museums.

Many believe that these standards make it too difficult for museums to acquire artifacts and build collections. Franklin believes that museums have an "ethical responsibility" to continue collecting ancient art under the proper circumstances. "Museum should still be buying antiquities, and we shouldn't shirk that responsibility," he told the New York Times. However, others believe that when a museum accepts an artifact from a questionable source or with a questionable record, it may be complicit with looting and black market dealing. Such practices not only deprive countries of their cultural heritage and property, but they also disturb the circumstances in which an artifact was discovered, destroying historical and archaeological insights from a particular archaeological site forever.

It remains a complex question, which will be dealt with by museums, dealers, and experts across the international community for years to come.

Source: The New York Times

Michigan County Residents Save Detroit Museum With New Millage Tax

The Detroit Institute of Arts was saved from devastating budget cuts on Tuesday, August 7, when voters in three Michigan counties agreed to a property tax increase that will provide additional funding to the museum. The new millage tax is expected to raise $23 million per year, putting the beleaguered arts institution in a secure financial position for the first time in two decades. In exchange for the tax increase, residents of Wayne, Macomb, and Oakland--who make up 79% of the museum's annual attendance--will receive free admission.

The city owns the Beaux-Arts building that houses the museum, which boasts a collection of over 60,000 pieces. The museum's holdings include monumental frescoes by Diego Rivera, paintings by Andy Warhol, Alexander Calder, Rembrandt, Rubens, Monet, Cezanne, Van Gogh, and Munch, as well as ancient Egyptian, Greek, and Roman antiquities. Despite the museum's tenuous financial standing, its leadership has consistently refused to deaccession any of its pieces--a desperate option increasingly considered by floundering cultural arts institutions.

The Detroit Institute of Arts has faced crushing economic straits over the past several years. Both the state of Michigan and the city of Detroit has been consistently withdrawing financial support over the past twenty years. Further, the institution underwent a major renovation in 2007, only to experience disastrous cutbacks two years later, when it was forced to reduce its operating budget from $34 million to $25.4 million and eliminate more than 60 full and part time positions--20% of its workforce. Neither the museum's small endowment nor its operating revenues could keep it afloat, as monies from admissions, food, and merchandise sales only generate $3.5 million a year--only 15% of its budget.

The Detroit Institute is not the first museum to be supported by a millage tax. Other American museums, including the Minneapolis Institute of Arts and the St. Louis Art Museum, also rely on property taxes for a portion of their revenues. However, the Detroit institution's leadership has pointed out that their case was particularly grave, as the museum is not also supported by a large endowment and does not receive significant financial support from either the city or the state.

According to a fact sheet circulated by the Detroit Institute, the new tax will last for 10 years and will cost each homeowner approximately $15 a year for every $150,000 of a home's fair market value. Over the next decade, the Detroit institution plans to build its endowment of $98 million to $400 million. In addition to supplementing the museum's operating budget, the new funding will also support new programming for older visitors and students, as well as expand operating hours.

Visit the museum's website at Detroit Institute of Arts

Source: The New York Times

London Decision on Authenticity of a Russian Painting

Lessons learned from London in July include:
1. A politician, when asked whether a city is ready to host Olympic games two days before the opening ceremony, should just say "yes."
2. A judge, when asked if a multi-million dollar painting is authentic, should balance probabilities (which is effectively tossing a coin).

"We are holding an Olympic Games in one of the busiest, most active, bustling cities anywhere in the world. Of course it’s easier if you hold an Olympic games in the middle of nowhere,” responded the British Prime Minister, David Cameron to Mitt Romney's "disconcerting" observation regarding London's readiness to host the 30th Olympic games. Perhaps selling works of art is as hard as hosting Olympic games.

Professional event planners and art experts spend hundreds of hours in order to do their work right. Art historians examine works before sale, study the provenance, pore over catalogs and in the end take risks by stating their educated opinions about the objects offered for sale. More than 100 years ago, Justice Holmes stated in his Bleistein v. Donaldson Lithographing Co. opinion that courts are not the right venue to decide whether something is art or not, specifically "it would be a dangerous undertaking for persons trained only to the law to constitute themselves final judges of the worth of pictorial illustrations...some works of genius would be sure to miss appreciation... ." In the 21st century it seems that courts are not the right venue to decide authenticity either. See Jo Backer Laird and Caroline W. Trowbridge, discussing Thome v The Alexander & Louisa Calder Foundation, 890 N.Y.S.2d 16 (First Dept. 2009) (in response to the Plaintiff's request for a declaratory judgment that the works in question were authentic, the court ruled that it would be inappropriate as a legal matter, and ineffective as a practical matter, ... because "art authentication involves the exercise of [an] expert's informed judgment, … is highly subjective, and even highly regarded and knowledgeable experts may disagree on questions of authentication".)

Now comes the decision in the case surrounding a canvas attributed to a Russian painter, Kustodiev. Various articles have called the British judge's decision to award Russian billionaire Viktor Vekselberg a refund from Christie's for a disputed painting "diplomatic." Here,  the High Court judge  ruled that Christie's neither was negligent nor misrepresented the painting in the 2005 sale, and said "I do not think certainty on the point is possible but my task is to determine authenticity on the balance of probabilities and the likelihood, in my view, is that Odalisque is the work of someone other than Kustodiev... "it follows that Aurora [owned and/or operated by Vekselberg] is entitled to cancel its purchase and to recover the money paid for it."

While Christie's "maintains their belief in the attribution to Kustodiev and are considering their options"  and Aurora is celebrates "the ruling, which confirmed that the experts from Russian Museums were correct in asserting that the painting is not the work of Kustodiev," only time and additional scholarship will tell whether the work is actually by Kustodiev or not.

And as for the 2012 Olympic Games, from what we can see, London is a well-prepared host for the competitors.


Sources: The Telegraph on Mitt Romney's visit; The Telegraph on Kustodiev Dispute; Art+Auction; Art History News; PBLT; Bloomberg.

Poland's Famed Renaissance Masterpiece, Raphael's "Portrait of a Young Man," Found After Half a Century

Poland's long-lost "Portrait of a Young Man," missing for over half a century and widely considered to be the most important painting missing since World War II, has been discovered in a bank vault in an undisclosed location. A spokesman for the country's Office for the Restitution of Cultural Goods, a division of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, told Polish media outlets that he is confident the painting will be returned to Poland. "Most importantly, the work was not lost in the turmoil of the war. It has not been burnt or destroyed. It exists. It is safely waiting in a region of the world where the law favors us." He declined to reveal the country in which the painting was found.

The oil painting, completed around 1513-1514, is attributed to the High Renaissance Master Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino, or Raphael. Many art historians believe that the painting is actually a self-portrait of the artist, as the facial features of the youth in the painting resemble those of Raphael's only other self-portrait--the fresco "The School of Athens" at the Vatican. 

The painting was purchased by Poland's Prince Adam Jerzy Czartoryski in 1789, together with Leonardo da Vinci's "Lady with an Ermine," painted around 1489-90, and several other Roman antiquities. It was confiscated from the Czartoryski family's collection in Krakow by the Nazis in 1939 for Hitler's Fuhrermuseum, his personal museum in Linz. The painting was last seen in 1945, when Hans Frank, governor of the General Government, took the painting to Wawel Castle for his own personal use. It has been missing ever since.

The Czartoryski family has made consistent attempts to find the painting since the end of World War II but were hampered by the fact that Poland was behind the Iron Curtain. The family renewed its efforts in 1991. Historians, art scholars, and many in the international community await new developments as the exciting story unfolds.

Source: The Art Newspaper

Christo's "Over the River" Obstructed by Legal Challenges

"Over The River" is a temporary work of art, still in progress, by the artists Christo and Jeanne-Claude (1935-2009), akin to their "The Gates" "Running Fence" and other site-specific large scale projects designed to look at familiar landscapes through a prism. It envisions suspending 5.9 miles of silvery fabric panels above the Arkansas River along a 42-mile stretch of the river between Salida and Cañon City in south-central Colorado. As many other projects, this one is requiring permits to install equipment and Christo is fighting multiple legal battles to move the project forward. Just last month, a US judge ordered that "no construction of the project may proceed until a legal challenge against the work has concluded."

 The Art Newspaper reported of two separate legal challenges against Christo’s plan, including a challenge by an organisation called Roar (Rags Over the Arkansas River), which is seeking to thwart the installation due to environmental concerns. Tentative opening date for the project is August 2015 but with the recent decision the installation may take longer to complete. "The Gates" project in Central Park was 25 years in the making.

Source: The Art Newspaper