A series of legal actions has been launched by European governments to regain priceless works of art that they claim have been illegally smuggled to the United States to be sold off to wealthy collectors and museums.
One of the highest-profile cases is in France, where what has been dubbed ”The Affair of the Hebrew Manuscripts”, is reaching its climax. The case centres on Michel Garel, a specialist in ancient documents at the National Library in Paris who is alleged to have systematically pillaged medieval religious texts to satisfy a demand from the US.
One manuscript, a 600-year-old French Hebrew version of the biblical books of the Pentateuch, Lamentations, Ecclesiastes and the Lessons of the Prophets, has been traced to a New York collector who bought it for £200 000 at Christie’s. Garel, who maintains his innocence, is to appear before a French court on theft charges.
Agnes Saal, the library’s director, said: ”The National Library is motivated by a strong desire to recover this manuscript so that it can once more take its place as part of the national heritage.”
The affair, coinciding with a similar case in Italy, has laid bare the shadowy role played in the trade in illicit documents by wealthy Americans.
”We are dealing with crimes that touch on the history of France — and indeed of humanity,” said Colonel Roger Lembert, head of France’s 30-strong police unit dedicated to cracking art smuggling.
The case in Italy is the most advanced, as authorities mount an aggressive campaign to regain lost treasures. On trial are Marion True (57), a former Getty Museum antiquities curator, and Robert Hecht, an 86-year-old American art dealer based in Paris.
As a representative of the world’s richest art institution, True is accused of illegally obtaining 42 items during the 1980s and 1990s, including a 2 000-year-old statue of Apollo unearthed in Italy. The charges carry a 10-year sentence. She denies the charge — as does Hecht — and the Getty Museum says that she is innocent.
Rocco Buttiglione, the Italian Minister of Culture, said Italy is paving the way for other countries to retrieve looted heritage. ”The age of trafficking in art pieces is over,” he warned.
The global trade in illicit art is worth billions and relies on networks of dealers as well as auction houses that, though in good faith, provide an unwitting point of sale.
”We often find stolen items in major galleries or in the auctions at London or New York,” said Lembert. ”The main demand driving the market is from private collectors and, to a lesser extent, museums.”
The trade in Middle Eastern treasures, as well as relics from Greece and Italy, is growing. Many Iraqi items, apparently looted by insurgents, are also appearing.
”The claim that the illicit art industry funds terrorism is undeniable,” said Matthew Bogdanos, a US public prosecutor and former head of the investigation into the looting of Iraq’s National Museum after the invasion in 2003. He said if True is found guilty and imprisoned, it would prevent future crimes. ”The value of a conviction like that is high and will act as a deterrent. We need to set an example and prison is a true deterrent for many art criminals.”
According to an internal review by the Getty Museum, almost half the antiquities the museum classifies as ”masterpieces”, including ancient urns, vases and statues, were acquired from suspect dealers.
Other US museums are being targeted by the Italian authority, including the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art, which has a set of Hellenistic silver pieces and a fifth-century BC Greek vase that Italy contends were clandestinely removed from the country. Boston Museum of Fine Arts officials said they would be contacting Italian authorities after questions were raised about the provenance of a statue, a vase and a jar in its possession.
Other countries are now preparing similar campaigns. Athens is demanding the return of four pieces from the Getty, for which the museum paid $5,2-million in 1993, including a 400 BC gold funeral wreath.
”We are observing the Italian case very closely,” said Mary Pandou, director of museums at the Greek culture ministry. Officials in Turkey are also preparing to launch an initiative for the return of looted antiquities.
”The problem,” said one art investigator, ”is that there are a lot of very rich people in America who will pay what it takes. Until the entire art world decides it can’t handle stolen goods, things are unlikely to get better.” — Guardian Unlimited Â