It was announced today that the case against the Beierwaltes was dropped today after it was agreed that an purportedly looted item would be repatriated to Lebanon. See the attached letter below. And for more information about the case, see last week’s blog entry. Congratulations on this important return!
Note: All of the information in this blog post is taken from a publicly filed document. No confidential or privileged information was used in preparing this post.
On September 22, Matthew Bogdanos submitted an application in NY Supreme Court in a matter involving a stolen antiquity from Lebanon. Our founder served as a cultural heritage law expert on this case. It was an honor to once again work with Bogdanos, a talented trial attorney. His track record for excellence is impressive, and the filing in this case is a tour de force of legal writing, reading like a suspenseful crime narrative and primer on cultural heritage law. The document was full of famous art world names, citations to landmark cases and conventions, and introduction to the world of art crime and heritage looting.
The cast of characters involved in this matter have become household names in the heritage field. The Aboutaams (owners of Phoenix Ancient Art) have been involved in numerous legal battles; Robin Symes, described as a “disgraced” art dealer, has been connected to dozens of pillaged antiquities; Frederick Schultz (former New York gallery owner and former president of the National Association of Dealers in Ancient, Oriental and Primitive Art) served time for dealing in looted Egyptian antiquities; Michael Steinhardt, founder of a hedge fund and referred to as “Wall Street’s Greatest Trader,” has faced many legal controversies for his art collection (including this year’s disputed sale of the Guennol Stargazer at Christie’s); and Frieda Tchacos, a dealer with a history of antiquities violations has been profiled for her role in the illicit antiquities trade. All of these individuals have been featured in books like Chasing Aphrodite and the Medici Conspiracy. In fact, the dispute over the Bull’s Head reads like a redux of the Euphronios Krater debacle at the Metropolitan Museum of Art (“the Met”). However, as Bogdanos notes in the government’s filing, the Met acted “admirably” by removing the item from display and delving into the object’s past.
The current controversy involves an antiquity that was purportedly looted from storage in Lebanon during the nation’s civil war. It went missing for decades and then appeared at the Met after it was loaned to the museum by Michael Steinhardt. He had purchased the item from wealthy collectors, Will and Lynda Beierwaltes. Once Steinhardt was informed of the work’s problematic provenance, he demanded a refund for the purchase and transferred title to the object back to the couple.
One of the most interesting aspects of this case is Bogdanos’ discussion about “good faith.” The Beierwaltes are not novice collectors; they owned a collection of antiquities valued at nearly $100 million. As “professional” collectors, did they really use good faith in acquiring the antiquity? As Bogdanos rightly asks: where are the documents related to the object? If an antiquity of such high value (over a million dollars) crosses international borders multiple times, there should be documentation that traces its movements.
“There is no customs declaration form, no shipping document, no air waybill, no tracking form, no insurance form, no invoice, no bill of sale, no photograph, and no mention in any contemporaneous correspondence or email. No proof of any kind of the possession and repeated transportation across oceans and international borders of a two-millennia-old statue valued at more than one million dollars by either of the names listed by the Met on October 20, 2017.” As stated on page 45, “…twenty-four years (1981-2004) of movement across international borders of a million-dollar statue generated four handwritten words, a couple storage invoices, and one piece of paper from the infamous Robin Symes. A neon sign flashing ‘stolen’ would have been more subtle and less insidious.”
One of the disturbing aspects of this controversy is the allegation that the sculpture was taken during the civil war in Lebanon. If true, then the item was pilfered by opportunists taking advantage of political upheaval to steal priceless and irreplaceable treasures. Sadly, this type of theft occurs around the world and is still common today, particularly prevalent in Syria and Iraq.
Purchasing items without complete provenance is risky. As I explained in this editorial in The Guardian, looted antiquities are problematic from an investment perspective. Bogdanos warns against this risk, stating “The obvious, but all-too-often ignored, risks attendant to never asking about ownership history is that the buyer may one day have that purchase seized and confiscated as stolen property. Here, the absence of the required inquiry, not only subjects the Beierwaltes to potential prosecution for criminal possession of stolen property, but it also defeats any claim that they were good-faith purchasers of the Bull’s Head.”
As outlined in the government’s conclusion, there are a host of important facts to recognize in this case. (1) The Bull’s Head was excavated in 1967 and stolen in 1981 during a civil war, nearly 50 years after Lebanon’s patrimony laws (the laws vest ownership of all discovered antiquities in the nation). (2) The sculpture surfaced in the hands of Robin Symes in NY in early 1996. As revealed by several international investigations, Symes was a major participant in an antiquities trafficking network in the 1980s and 1990s. The network’s black-market supply chain started with tomb raiders, passed through the launderers and middle men, and terminated at the demand end with collectors, like the Beierwaltes. (3) The Symes-Beierwaltes relationship was responsible for 98% of the vast Beierwaltes Collection, valued at almost $100 million in 2006. The acquisition of the collection appears to have coincided with the peak of the Medici, Becchina, and Symes empire of loot. (4) There is a shocking lack of documentation produced by the Beierwaltes. (5) The lack of records is especially telling for collectors involved in the art trade for 62 years. (6) The Beierwaltes avoided submission of any materials pursuant to discovery requests, despite multiple subpoenas and repeated requests. There is also no evidence concerning how Robin Symes acquired the Bull’s Head or whether he legally possessed it. (7) Lebanon made commendable efforts to protect and to recover its cultural heritage.
A copy of the the government’s filing can be found on the Chasing Aphrodite website: https://chasingaphrodite.com/2017/09/24/the-sidon-bulls-head-court-record-documents-a-journey-through-the-illicit-antiquities-trade/
Our founder at the repatriation ceremony in 2017
UPDATE: The Bull’s Head (as well as two other pieces) were returned to Lebanon in December 2017.
Learn more about high-profile art thefts and infamous forgeries in “Mysteries In The Museum: Crime And Deception In Art,” a WNPR episode from Sept. 8, 2017. The recording is available at http://wnpr.org/post/mysteries-museum-crime-and-deception-art
Amineddoleh & Associates LLC is pleased to celebrate its first anniversary. The litigation and transactional boutique law firm is recognized for its work in the areas of art, cultural heritage, and intellectual property law.
Since our inception, we have been involved in numerous high-profile matters. The law firm’s founder Leila Amineddoleh served as a consultant to the Brooklyn United States Attorney’s Office in the civil case brought against Hobby Lobby (information about the case is available here and here), and likewise serves as a cultural heritage law expert to the New York District Attorney’s Office for antiquities investigations. In that role, she was involved in the repatriation of looted antiquities from Italy and the recent seizure of an ancient Lebanese bull’s head to Lebanon from the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Amineddoleh also worked as a legal expert consultant for foreign governments in Europe and Asia on repatriation issues.
Amineddoleh & Associates serves the needs of private clients in a number of areas as well. The firm’s first year has been very active with a host of high-stakes art and intellectual property matters, including the following:
Besides work for our valued clients, Amineddoleh & Associates has been actively weighing in on art and heritage issues in national and international dialogues. We’ve discussed art and heritage issues in numerous publications, including Live Science, Time Magazine, NY Times, Bloomberg News, and iNews. Our founder Ms. Amineddoleh appeared on two nationally aired radio shows, Knowledge@Wharton and WNPR, and she spoke at numerous conferences and presented guest lectures across the country.
Ms. Brennan assisted in co-teaching a course on antiquities at Sotheby’s Institute of Art. She is actively researching current international and federal legislation controlling cultural property, as well as conducting legal research into artists’ estates and foundations. We’ve been published extensively in sources such as Artsy and Artnet, and Ms. Brennan served as the research assistant for Maxwell L. Anderson’s book Antiquities: What Everyone Needs to Know.
The attorneys at Amineddoleh & Associates are pleased to work in the arts in other capacities. Ms. Brennan is a graphic designer and illustrator in her spare time. Ms. Amineddoleh performs classical piano music, and she curated an art crime exhibition at New York University. Michael Rose is a talented painter. We are proud to actively support the arts, as members of arts organizations, such as Lincoln Center Young Patrons, Young Patrons’ of the Hispanic Society of America, and Young Friends of the Philadelphia Museum of Art.
We look forward to another exciting year ahead. In November, Ms. Amineddoleh will be organizing and speaking at a program on art collecting and due diligence for Harvard Business School at the Harvard Club in New York City. In February, she will be leading a lecture at the Philadelphia Museum of Art on the history of art collecting. We are proud to contribute to the Antiquities Coalition in a forthcoming policy piece for the group. In the fall, please look for our contribution to a forthcoming book from Bloomsbury Press, Nazi Law: From Nuremberg to Nuremberg.
For more information on the firm’s practice please visit www.artandiplawfirm.com.
Last night, Tom Mashberg of the NY Times broke the story about an ancient vase that was seized from the Metropolitan Museum of Art (“the Met”). The 2,300-year-old object, the “Python Vessel,” had been displayed at the NY institution since 1989, when it was purchased from Sotheby’s for $90,000. Matthew Bogdanos, a celebrated and Assistant District Attorney in the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office (as well as author and colonel in the United States Marine Corps Reserves), seized the work based on evidence that it was looted from Italy in the 1970s. He was presented with evidence from forensics archaeologist Christos Tsirogiannis that the vase was connected to well-known looter Giacomo Medici. Medici was convicted in a Rome court of conspiring to traffic in ancient treasures, and is perhaps best known for his role in the looting and trafficking of the Euphronios Krater.
The Euphronios krater (also known as the Sarpedon Krater) is a red-figure vase attributed to the famous Greek painter Euphronios and the potter Euxitheos, dating from around 515 BCE. The Euphronios Krater is believed to have been illegally excavated sometime in December 1971 near Cerveteri, Italy, from the Greppe di Sant’Angelo region of the town’s ancient Etruscan cemetery, by tombaroli (tomb raiders). The looters sold the vase to Medici who them smuggled it into Switzerland and sold it for $350,000 to an antiquities dealer, Robert Hecht. By this point, the vase, which had been found in a remarkably excellent state, was intentionally damaged and broken into fragments to more easily illegally export it. After restoring the fragmented object, in February 1972, Hecht wrote to Dietrich von Bothmer, the Met’s Curator of Greek and Roman Art, about the krater. In August 1972, the Met bought the vase for $1 million.
Throughout the 1990s, Italian authorities investigated Giacomo Medici, and they eventually found enough evidence to bring legal claims against him. The Italian authorities also demanded the repatriation of the Euphronios Krater from the Met. The case drew international attention and led to the restitution of dozens of Italian artifacts from institutions across the country, including the Met, the MFA in Boston, and the Princeton Art Museum. The return of objects also led to the cultural exchange of artifacts from Italy in the form of long-term loans to the American institutions repatriating looted good. The Euphronios Krater has since returned home and is now on display at the Archaeological Museum of Cerveteri.
In the case of the Python Vessel, Mashberg reports that the Met removed the item from its viewing case and that it is now in the custody of law enforcement agents.