Art crime is continually in the news. Even as I write this short introduction, the art world and the wider world is ringing with the mid-November 2015 news of the armed theft of masterpieces valued at many millions of euros, from the Castelvecchio Museum in Verona, Italy. Fifteen masterworks, including paintings by Tintoretto and Rubens, were taken by three masked men who overpowered guards and a cashier, and kept them at bay as they selected the works to steal. Thus is the art world, and humankind’s shared artistic and cultural heritage, tragically and again diminished. As John Donne put it so succinctly and evocatively in December 1623 (317 years before Ernest Hemingway took it, in October 1940, as both the title and epigram for his For Whom the Bell Tolls):
No man is an Iland, intire of it selfe;
every man is a peece of the Continent, a part of the maine;
if a Clod bee washed away by the Sea, Europe is the lesse, as well
as if a Promontorie were, as well as if a Mannor of thy friends
or of thine owne were;
any mans death diminishes me, because I am involved in Mankinde;
And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; It tolls for thee.
The multidisciplinary nature of the study of art crime, pioneered by the Association for Research into Crimes against Art (ARCA), the co-publisher of this volume, highlights both the way in which crimes against art cross many intellectual and professional boundaries, and the way in which art and cultural heritage belongs to all humankind and should, as John Donne thought, be a concern of all humankind. From the ancient archaeological treasure house of the Fertile Crescent, currently under fire from fundamentalists and iconoclasts of the most destructive bent, through to the impenetrable and rarefied world of the contemporary art market, and on to the virtual (but often vulnerable) world of the internet, and on all of the many islands of endeavour in between, scholars and researchers and practitioners are striving to research, to avoid or to minimise, and to prevent or indeed make right, or simply to document and understand, crimes against art and against humankind’s shared cultural heritage.
This book brings together many of those scholars and researchers and practitioners, to distil and present their accumulated wisdom and experience in this developing area. Whilst this book cannot and does not pretend to be exhaustive (impossible in a field where the creative but misguided efforts of numerous malefactors are constantly evolving and refining their criminal techniques), the wide range of chapters covers many of the more commonly encountered art crimes, from theft to fraud to vandalism to looting to fundamentalist iconoclasm, and more. Some are intensely practical, others more reflective and conceptual in their approach; but all offer to working professionals – be they curators, collectors, museum or gallery directors, or students of art crime – insights born of experience, research and wide knowledge.
The largely unregulated and unconstrained art market is analysed by Tom Flynn, long-time observer and commentator of this field, as a complex set of interlocking aesthetic and economic systems, intersecting but also discrete, each with its own set of codes, conventions and relationships. He notes, in particular, that the larger auction houses have become more akin to globalised financial institutions deploying ever more opaque financial constructs and sheltering behind a veil of secrecy and confidentiality, which encourages or fosters a perception of exploitability. These characteristics underline the critical importance of appropriate provenance, of due diligence, and of ensuring authenticity.
Marc Balcells examines the prevalence and incidence of art theft around the world, noting both the evolving scope of the ‘art’ involved, and the problems besetting the integrity of the data upon which a criminological and substantive analysis of such crime must necessarily be based. He undertakes an evidence-based description of the various motivating factors driving art thieves and art thefts. He then builds on this analysis to offer both preventive measures and policy recommendations, including the need to avoid the recurrent myths and to build a more robust data set.
Toby Bull, from his perspective as a serving Hong Kong-based law enforcement officer, delves deeply into both the ways in which art thieves seek to profit from the criminal endeavours, and best practice when it comes both to achieving the recovery of stolen art, and the fraught area of the use of rewards to effect that recovery. He highlights the invalidity of the recurring myth of the gentleman art thief, pointing instead to the far more common use of stolen art being either to sell back, or to use as collateral, by opportunistic and often versatile and well-connected criminals who steal art and then try to work out what to do next. He distinguishes a ransom from a reward, and sets out in detail the circumstances, legal and practical, in which the latter can both be offered in an appropriate and timely fashion and enhance the chances of recovery and arrest.
Colette Loll opens her chapter with a detailed dissection of the pervasive anxiety in the modern art marketplace occasioned by high prices fostering an environment of fraud and mistrust, before turning to the fast-developing world of the online art marketplace, and in particular work done to develop a proactive anti-fraud initiative in this domain, in search of effective solutions. In essence, she notes that the move of the art market into the online space has had the effect, here as in so many other areas, of rendering irrelevant aspects of the traditional art market so as to make compelling the active interaction of technology, data analysis and multi-disciplinary specialists.
Art lawyer Louisa Gommans lays out a road map for the prospective buyer of art, setting out essential steps to be taken before an art work is purchased (due diligence, provenance research, informed reliance on connoisseurship and forensic testing), and before a seller or dealer is relied upon. Then, if the worst happens, she describes the steps to be taken by the dispossessed or defrauded owner, and the importance and relevance of several aspects of the legislative and legal environment as it applies to a particular transaction.
Finally in this section is my own chapter focusing on the two major hurdles that confront private litigants seeking to recover stolen art across national borders: the variable law relating to the acquisition of good title to a stolen art work, and limitation periods that preclude legal action after the passage of time. These issues are resolved in different ways in different legal systems around the world. The resulting legal landscape confronting a litigant can thus be confusing, depending on where it is that a stolen art work surfaces, which is often continents and decades away from where it was originally stolen.
Penelope Jackson, drawing on her long experience as an art-museum director and curator, opens the section on ‘Collections and Crimes’ by focusing, in a practical and systematic fashion, on what can and should be done to protect objects in collections. Subdividing her discussion into factors relating to the organisation, the object, and empowering protection, she highlights planning, asset registers, auditing and personnel management, databases and process development and recording in the first area; physical layout, conservation, hanging and displaying techniques, and the development of a proactive community around the objects in the second area; and finally aspects of human involvement, physical setting and illumination, and adherence to protocols. In the end, as she notes, no one factor is a universal answer, but rather it is an informed combination of all that will enable the difficult but critical balance between the viewer experience and protection to be appropriately struck.
Dick Drent, an experienced museum security specialist, subdivides his hands-on discussion of protecting art into strategy, tactics, technology, and new paths for proactive security. He advocates transforming the exhibiting organisation into a ‘high-reliability organisation’, putting proactive security at the heart of its approach to developing and executing all aspects of a formal security plan in an unforgiving environment, where the art is always, albeit variably, at risk. The use of predictive profiling, ‘red-teaming’ and an effective working security chain are all analysed and described, as is the careful and informed use of an institution’s available security budget. A spectrum of innovative security technologies are described, culminating in the use of predictive security intelligence, all aimed at removing the surprise aspect of any threat to an organisation’s art.
Virginia Curry brings to bear her long experience with public law enforcement in the art world, widening the focus to include a law-enforcement perspective on theft of art, and also vandalism, forgery and fraud. Art crime in times of armed conflict, and Nazi-era looted art, are highlighted by reference to both the work done by the Blue Shield and the importance of the 1998 Washington Principles. She notes the difficulties with earlier reliance on connoisseurship, and describes the downfall of the storied Knoedler Gallery, before turning to the importance of research prior to purchasing and, after a crime, of dealing appropriately and effectively with law enforcement.
Art insurance has a very long and distinguished history, and forms the backdrop to Dorit Straus’s guide both to navigating its complexities, and to adopting industry best practice so as to minimise fine-art losses, during transportation, storage, installation and display. She dissects the insurance transaction itself and the critical features of the all-important policy document. She then turns to various cautionary tales of attempts, over the years, to defraud insurers, including fraudulent valuations, fake robberies, loss of value by forgery or fakery, and fraud by galleries or other consignees.
The last chapter in this section marks something of a departure from the others, as it deals in depth with an ongoing and difficult problem: the intersection of indigenous art and the contemporary art world. Whilst this issue has its origins in the colonial era, the wide diaspora of indigenous art from that time continues to present problems today. Ngarino Ellis traces in detail the arc of the history of looting and theft of art in colonial-era New Zealand, from the late eighteenth century through to the present day, so as to assist readers who are compelled by circumstance to interact with indigenous art in their own settings. Whilst her recommendations and guidance are focused on the New Zealand setting, the principles underlying those aspects of the chapter will, with appropriate changes, be equally applicable to other countries and collections that find themselves at the same crossroads.
The final section of the volume is concerned with art crime in times of armed conflict. I open it with a discussion both of the motivations and reasons underlying art crime in such situations, and the international community’s current, but now dated and in parts problematic, attempt to deal with such crimes: the Hague Convention of 1954. The ambit of the Convention is described, the central protective obligations imposed on states are detailed, the particular problem of the Convention’s relevance to non-state combatants is considered, and shortcomings of the Convention are identified. Relevant and recent events in both the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia and the International Criminal Court are described, and a checklist of actions to be taken before, during and after an armed conflict is given.
Laurie Rush, drawing on her pioneering work with the United States military, takes the reader on a sweeping historical survey of the looting of antiquities from the coast of Sicily in 648 BCE to the notorious free ports in contemporary Switzerland, detailing a variety of case studies and techniques, including the concealing of looted antiquities in fake tourist items, underwater archaeology, the link between looting and terrorism, and steps that the art trade could and should take.
The destruction of parts of the ancient city of Palmyra, the depredations of Ansar Dine in Timbuktu, and the destruction of the Bamiyan Buddhas, all feature in the opening sections of Alexander Gillespie’s scene-setting survey of iconoclasm. With the international community thus far seemingly impotent to prevent such crimes, his description of the work of the United Nations Security Council, the importance of education and debate, and of taking what steps can be taken to interdict the flow of looted antiquities, all loom large. In order for us all better to understand the present fundamentalist-driven destruction of humankind’s shared cultural heritage, his detailed and insightful survey of iconoclasm, and the evolution of attitudes and responses to the looting of cultural heritage during warfare, from the ancient and classical worlds, through the Crusades, on to the American Civil War, and finally through the Napoleonic conflicts and the two World Wars, is illuminating and valuable. As he notes, the seemingly sudden emergence and acceptance of the need to value and protect cultural heritage as an international norm has now become the yardstick against which the actions of the iconoclasts must be measured. This has itself resulted in a number of international conventions and instruments as manifestations of the fact, as Gillespie notes, that the destruction of cultural heritage during armed conflict is the antithesis of the collective norm that has taken four thousand years to evolve.
My thanks go first to Noah Charney and ARCA, for introducing the world (and, serendipitously, me) to the disciplined and systemised study of art crime in all its varied manifestations. To Lynda Albertson, hard-working CEO of ARCA, and to the staff and interns and students and friends of ARCA over the years, for all of their annual (and infectious) inspiration and enthusiasm in Amelia, in Umbria, my sincere thanks. It has been, and continues to be, quite a ride.
My heartfelt thanks go to each of the authors of the chapters that make up this book. You politely put up with my regular intrusions into your busy lives, and with my injudicious prodding and cajoling and enquiring. Thank you.
And especial thanks to Lucy Myers, Lucy Clark, Lucie Ewin, our copy-editor Abigail Grater, and all the team at Lund Humphries, who first accepted the idea, and then graciously and carefully and professionally shepherded us through the process from beginning to end.
And finally, thanks to you, the reader.
Arthur Tompkins is a District Court Judge based in Wellington, New Zealand. He teaches the ‘Art in War’ component course at the Association for Research into Crimes against Art’s annual Postgraduate Certificate Programme in Art Crime and Heritage Protection Studies, in Umbria, Italy.