The St. Louis Art Museum (SLAM) Fights for a Mask and May Lose

As we saw in Peter Watson's Medici Conspiracy the buying and selling of antiquities is at the heart of what  often becomes an intriguing international soap opera involving museums, collectors, politicians, cops, grave diggers, shady dealers, and lots of money. When I began following SLAM's efforts to keep their mask, I happen to reading Watson's book and yes Hichaam Aboutaam is featured in both stories. This one is somewhat different in that SLAM did make efforts to clarify the collection history and it appears that the U.S. Government failed to act promptly.  But could this be a precedent setting case where the U.S. The information below provides background and information as of yesterday.

The blog Looting Matters has asked the following questions. "Ali and Hicham Aboutaam have yet to explain their link with an antiquity returned from Princeton to Italy. Aboutaam's urge that other institutions should "follow suit" and repatriate "antiquities whose provenance may be in doubt" will cause discomfort for two particular institutions: The St Louis Art Gallery: the Egyptian mummy mask and The Cleveland Museum of Art: the Cleveland Apollo. Ali and Hicham Aboutaam have yet to explain their link with an antiquity returned from Princeton to Italy. Will these two museums be returning these two acquisitions in the near future? "



3. Illicit-cultural-property.blogspot.com - St. Louis , Mo. Brent Benjamin Appointed to CPAC

The White House announced back in September that President Bush will nominate Brent R. Benjamin to serve on the Cultural Property Advisory Committee for three years. David Gill commented on the appointment, as did Wayne Sayles. Earlier in July, Robert O'Brien, a Los Angeles attorney was nominated as well, though his appointment attracted little notice.

Ton Cremers, an administrator on the invaluable Museum Security Network argues this was an "outrageous" appointment. The reason for the concern is this antiquity, the Ka-Nefer-Nefer mask which I discussed at length last year.

It was stolen from a storehouse in Saqqara sometime between its excavation in an archaeological dig in 1952, and its acquisition by the St. Louis Art Museum in 1998. It may be worth examining this acquisition in more detail. The best summary of the dispute I have found is this 2006 article in the Riverfront Times.

As always, the antiquities trade presents a number of questions. Was Benjamin at the museum in 1998 when it acquired this object? No, he came a year after the mask was acquired. Do his actions with respect to this mask disqualify him automatically from serving on the committee? I'm not sure they do. Does this ongoing dispute between Egypt and the St. Louis Art Museum automatically disqualify Benjamin from serving on the committee? Not according to President Bush, but did the Museum really have clean hands when they acquired the mask? The answer I think is not really.

They purchased it from Hichaam Aboutaam, who has been linked with looted antiquities. The work had been displayed at a Museum in Geneva when the SLAM was considering purchasing the work. However, the museum sent Mohammed Saleh, a retired director of the Cairo Museum a letter asking:.. Read more.. http://illicit-cultural-property.blogspot.com/2008/10/brent-benjamin-appointed-to-cpac.html

4. Museum Security Network - St. Louis, Mo

SLAM’s Federal Court Action: Summary and Comment on the Saga of the Mummy Mask

The St. Louis Art Museum (SLAM) on February 15, 2011 filed a lawsuit against the United States seeking a declaratory judgment in the case of the Ka-Nefer-Nefer mummy mask. It is helpful to explain both what this lawsuit is about and what missing information and discrepancies are starting to appear at this early stage of the court process. 
Summary of SLAM’s Complaint and Legal Arguments
A declaratory judgment is a binding ruling by a court that decides a party’s rights in a dispute. It is a preventive action taken when a party believes that it will face impending legal action. In this case, SLAM filed a complaint in federal district court to prevent authorities from seizing the mummy mask in its possession. SLAM’s complaint suggests that federal authorities were preparing to seize the controversial mummy mask of Ka-Nefer-Nefer, excavated in 1952 in Egypt and purchased by the museum in 1998 from Phoenix Ancient Art, Geneva. The complaint alleges that “counsel for the Museum was contacted by the United States Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Missouri in St. Louis, to request a meeting regarding the Mask. On January 13, 2011, the U.S. Attorney’s Office in St. Louis hosted a meeting regarding the Mask. In attendance were Assistant U.S. Attorneys from the St. Louis U.S. Attorney’s Office and, telephonically, the Southern District of New York, and agents from DHS in St. Louis and, also telephonically, a DHS agent stationed in Cairo, Egypt. During this meeting, the Assistant U.S. Attorneys communicated their intention to seize and forfeit the Mask pursuant to 19 U.S.C. 1595a.” The museum responded by filing the current petition for declaratory judgment.
SLAM wants the federal district court in St. Louis to declare that the mummy mask cannot be seized by federal officials.

http://www.museum-security.org/?p=5887&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+museum-security%2FKrXY+%28Museum+Security+Network%29

5. St. Louis - St. Louis Art Museum (SLAM)  Ka-Nefer-Nefer mask Dispute 
Meanwhile, SLAM’s assertion that Jelinek sold the mask to Phoenix Ancient Art will likely be challenged by the federal government. The Riverfront Times described an unusual transaction between Zuzi Jelinek and Phoeniz Ancient Art, or perhaps the lack of a transaction at all. The newspaper explained:
“According to Swiss telephone listings, a Suzana Jelinek-Ronkuline lives at 84 Quai de Cologny in Geneva. Her telephone number is identical to the one on the letter Phoenix Ancient Art provided to the St. Louis museum. Reached by phone in Geneva, a man identifying himself as Jelinek’s son, Ivo Jelinek, says his mother never owned the Ka-Nefer-Nefer mask. ‘This is completely false information. . . .’ Jelinek says his mother’s name may be linked to the Ka-Nefer-Nefer mask for another reason: the Aboutaam brothers, owners of Phoenix Ancient Art, rented another house she owns on Quai de Cologny. . . . Presented with this information, Hicham Aboutaam directed the Riverfront Timesto a woman identifying herself as Suzana Jelinek, of Zagreb, Croatia. ‘I bought the mask many many years ago, and I sold it many many years ago,’ says Suzana Jelinek when reached at her Zagreb home. ‘I have so many things in my collection that my children don’t know what all I have.’”
Phoenix Ancient Art allegedly bought the mask in 1997 from Jelinek. The purchase price paid by Phoenix was not known, according to the Riverfront Times. But this price hopefully will be reported during the current federal litigation since an object’s fair market value or its undervalue is a piece of evidence used to determine whether property was legally or illegally transferred. It also goes without saying that evidence of a purchase and sale can certainly establish whether Jelinek engaged in a transaction involving the mask. That evidence can take many forms, including evidence of the parties’ bank statements for example, documenting the release of purchase money or the deposit of sale money.
Also of interest is the museum’s reported due diligence. One must always ask “What diligence is due?” The museum’s complaint certainly details a variety of concrete and laudable steps taken to verify the mummy mask’s provenance. However, several questions remain regarding the actual information learned through that diligence and how that information was accepted or rejected when deciding to purchase the mask.
Hopefully we will learn more as the case progresses. (museum-security.org)

6. Rome -  Jennifer Dobner, Associated Press -Ka-Nefer-Nefer mask Dispute Ton Cremers, security consultant, and operator of the website news service, Museum Security Network in The Netherlands, is mentioned in the lawsuit that cites numerous emails Mr. Cremers sent to government officials in 2005 and 2006 call for an investigation, according to Mann.
I reached Mr. Cremers in Rome and he, traveling on with an iPad and without his usual computer, referred us to his response today that he posted on the MSN Google Group:
Ton Cremers: There is NO doubt whatsoever that this mask was stolen from a storage is Saqqara. One does not need to be surprised that the infamous Aboutaam brothers were the ones selling this mask. They are ‘renowned’ for trading in dubious antiquities without any provenance. In this case they just made up a fake provenance: supposedly the mask had been part of a Swiss private collection. Yes, Switzerland again….
Anybody who read Peter Watsons’ books, Sotheby’s The Inside Story and The Medici Conspiracy knows that the Swiss route should be distrusted. The Aboutaam fake provenance was very easy to unmask for the Swiss collector mentioned by them in the provenance had never heard about this mask.
According the ICOM deontological code, no museum should keep stolen objects, no matter any legal context. There is a knack in this case: the Saint Louis Art Museum is not a member of ICOM, and apparently does not mind the ICOM ethical code. If they had been an ICOM Member, they should have been thrown out of this organization immediately. It is an outright lie that they performed due diligence when achieving this mask, for they did not.
In my view, Brent Benjamin, the director of the SLAM, is nothing else than an outright buyer of stolen property (yes, I am aware that his predecessor actually bought the mask). His standpoint is that Egypt must prove that the Ka-Nefer-Nefer mask was stolen. That is putting the world upside down. One thing is sure beyond any doubt: The mask was not excavated in Missouri.

7. Legal Status of Egyptian Mask Under Dispute Date: Thursday, February 17, 2011
Who owns the ancient Egyptian mummy Mask of Ka-Nefer-Nefer? The mask, which belonged to a noble woman who lived over 3,000 years ago, was found in 1952. The museum, which bought it in 1998, is seeking to enjoin seizure by U.S. authorities.
The museum, represented by Jeffrey Simon with Husch Blackwell in Kansas City, says it conducted a thorough investigation of the mask’s provenance before purchasing it. Moreover, they assert, the U.S. cannot show probable cause that the mask was stolen, smuggled, or otherwise clandestinely entered the United States. The museum urges that Egyptian law allowed for the personal and private ownership of Egyptian antiquities when the mask was discovered. And, even if it was stolen, they says the five-year statute of limitations under the Tariff Act of 1930 has run.
For more information visit Courthouse News Service.

8. U.S. demands art museum hand over Egyptian artifact

ST. LOUIS | Wed Mar 16, 2011 8:39pm EDT Reuters -  - A fight between the U.S. government and the St. Louis Art Museum over a death mask from ancient Egypt intensified on Wednesday as the government formally demanded the museum hand over the disputed object.The 3,200-year-old mask of Ka-Nefer-Nefer, a 19th Dynasty noblewoman, sits on display in the basement of the museum. The federal complaint contends the mask was stolen from Egypt before the museum obtained it for $500,000 in 1998. The complaint, which included a request for a restraining order preventing the museum from disposing of the mask during the legal proceedings, came a month after the museum sued the government to try to block the seizure of the mask. U.S. Attorney Richard Callahan said the dispute was "unfortunate" and would be "resolved by the courts." The museum was not available for comment.
In its lawsuit, the museum said that the government did not have enough evidence that the mask was stolen and that the statute of limitations had run out on the government's right to seize the mask.
The federal complaint said the government was "certain" the mask was stolen and had traced its path following its discovery by an Egyptian excavator in 1952. The mask was stolen sometime between 1966 and 1973, the complaint said. In 2006, the Egyptian Supreme Council of Antiquities found out the mask had been purchased by the St. Louis museum and began its attempt to recover the piece.
(Reporting by Bruce Olson. Editing by Peter Bohan)

“Neither condemned nor vindicated” - Marion True - Former Curator Getty Museum

Marion True's alleged complicity in antiquities trafficking in Italy was described in agonizing detail in Peter Watson's The Medici Conspiracy.

Marion True on why it is hard to accept the lack of verdict after her five-year trialBy Marion True | From issue 220, January 2011
Published online 5 Jan 11 (News)
The trial of Marion True, the former antiquities curator of the Getty Museum (which for many years has been one of the leading collectors of world-class antiquities), for conspiring to receive antiquities that had been illegally excavated and exported from Italy, began on 16 November 2005. The Art Newspaper has been covering the trial since its outset. Until March 2009, the prosecution worked through its case, and then the defence began cross-examining witnesses, but True has had no opportunity to present her case directly. Here, she tells The Art Newspaper about the trial and its outcome.
A headline in The Art Newspaper in June 2010 announced that the trial in Rome against me had “collapsed” after five years, the statutes of limitations for all crimes of which I was accused by the Italian state having expired. The court officially recognised this fact on 13 October in a hearing of 12 minutes. Thus, my five-year long trial ended without judgment—neither condemnation nor vindication, a reality hard to accept, given the distorted and slanderous allegations against me. Throughout, my lawyers advised me not to speak out, not to undermine my defence.
What the article failed to explain is that the prosecutor, fully aware of the statutes, consumed the past five years with the presentation of his case, interspersed with endless delays. The court met 43 times over 60 months, usually for two to four hours per session, including time for translation. Nineteen witnesses were presented, mostly carabinieri officers and journalists. Daniela Rizzo, a state archaeologist, dominated 14 sessions alone. She gave interminable details about vases and fragments in the Getty Museum, made unsubstantiated claims about market values (to which she admits to having no experience) and accused highly respected scholars, such as the late Sir John Beazley and Arthur Dale Trendall, of collaboration with smugglers. During this time, my lawyers were able to cross-examine witnesses but not to present my case. There is no right to a speedy trial in Italy, and one is presumed guilty until proven innocent.
I could have chosen to waive the statute of limitations and to continue for another few years, but to what end? This politically motivated process accomplished its goals long ago. It made headlines with groundless accusations that destroyed my reputation and career, while intimidating other American museums into returning objects without question. The media eventually lost interest and most people thought the trial had ended with the return of objects from the Getty in 2007. As Hugh Eakin wrote in The New Yorker in 2010, the prosecutor Paolo Giorgio Ferri had signalled to him in 2007 that “he hopes for a rapid conclusion,” adding: “There’s no reason to go on in outrage against Marion True.” Even Presiding Judge Gustavo Barbalinardo expressed his impatience, remarking in 2009 that he hoped the trial would be over before he retired.
The trial represented only half the time that I spent under investigation for criminal activities. On 1 September 2000, carabinieri officials contacted the office of the United States Attorney in Los Angeles to request co-operation. They suspected me of being in receipt of stolen property, of trafficking and of criminal conspiracy. The US attorney thought at first there must be some mistake, since he knew the Getty, and I in particular, had been working to change the way in which it acquired antiquities. There was no mistake, however, and a decade of interrogations, depositions, orchestrated media leaks, preliminary hearings and a multitude of court appearances began.
What provoked Italy to take such an aggressive position against one individual among all the collecting institutions? An employee of the Getty Museum for 23 years, I had been working for much of that time with Italian colleagues in the Ministry for Beni Culturali— Mario Serio (former director general), Adriano La Regina (former superintendent of the Imperial Fora), Pier Giovanni Guzzo (superintendent of Pompeii and Herculaneum) in particular—to find new ways of building collections at the Getty beyond market purchases. Together with Jerry Podany, the Getty’s head of antiquities conservation, I travelled often to Italy to promote the loan of materials. In exchange we offered conservation assistance and advice, publication and exhibition of the loaned objects. And from 1987, at the request of Getty president Harold Williams, I worked with legal counsel to formulate an acquisition policy for antiquities that called for direct notification of the ministries of Mediterranean countries when purchases were proposed, and requested any information or objections to acquisitions under consideration. The policy also demanded that the ministries have immediate notification of objects acquired and, most importantly, the return of any object that could be proven to be illicitly excavated or smuggled. At the time this policy was the most stringent among major US museums, and was strengthened in 1995 with the requirement that any object proposed for acquisition be published as something known to the scholarly world before 1995.
Beyond rhetoric, the Getty had long shown its willingness to co-operate in the repatriation of objects. Between 1990 and 2005, at my instigation, the Getty Trust returned a number of important pieces that the museum had discovered were illegally removed from Italy. These were returned before 2000, the year I was charged as a felon. Another major return of objects was part of the Francavilla Marittima project, a research effort conceived by my department in co-operation with the Italian ministry of culture, the Museum of Sybaris, the Archaeological Institute in Bern and the University of Groningen, Holland. Hundreds of fragments, illicitly excavated from the site in the late 1960s and 1970s had found their way into the Getty and the Archaeological Institute of Bern. When the work was done, the Getty paid for all the objects in Bern and Los Angeles to be packed and returned to Italy.
Given the Getty’s history of co-operation, it is hard to understand why the Italian government chose to launch an international trial rather than ask for the return of disputed objects. Remarks made to me by senior carabinieri officers suggested that the motive was the recovery of the large cult statue, the so-called Venus of Morgantina (see below). Originally, this statue was not part of the charges against me and also had no connection with the co-defendants in the trial, Robert Hecht and Giacomo Medici. It was suddenly raised by Ferri in November 2004 and then appeared on the list of disputed objects when the case was referred to trial in 2005. And though Italy had never formally requested its return, the statue also assumed importance in the negotiations over disputed objects between the Getty Museum and Italy, separate from the proceedings against me.
The Italian police and prosecutor claim their motive was provided in the archives of Medici, seized in 1995 in Geneva. Medici had maintained files of photographs of objects in museums and private collections around the world. These images, some showing sculptures just excavated and dirt still clinging to the surfaces of vases in fragments, were unknown until some were published on the carabinieri website in 1999. I had my first glimpse of most of them during my interrogation by Ferri and his staff at the Getty in 2001, and said immediately that the images proved certain objects were illicitly removed from Italy and should be returned. The Getty Museum had purchased some objects from Medici in 1984 and 1985 before I became curator, but it had otherwise had very limited contact beyond the receipt of a fake kouros head in 1992. The prosecutor had found three letters between Medici and me written over a period of ten years concerning objects either already in the collection or never proposed. The objects in the photos I was shown by Ferri were purchased from other dealers or collectors.
At this point, would it not have been easier for the Italian authorities to come to the Getty with the photos from Medici’s archives and say: “We have evidence that objects acquired by your institution were dug up illegally and we would like them returned?” Not only did our policy state that we would return any stolen object, we had made good on that policy a number of times. Instead, they chose criminal prosecution.
Concerning the charges against me personally, when was I in possession of stolen property? I never held any object presented as evidence against me, let alone any other antiquity of value, nor had I ever seen the Medici photos. In fact, I had proposed for acquisition only 16 objects on the list attached to my indictment. The other 24 objects had been proposed by my predecessors or never proposed. All the pieces acquired were approved by the museum’s board of trustees, after being vetted by the director, the associate director/chief curator, and in-house counsel (after 1986) as well as the president of the trust. Trafficking in stolen goods? I personally never bought or sold any ancient object, and none of the evidence presented suggested that I had.
Finally, I was accused of criminal conspiracy—conspiring with two co-defendants, antiquities dealers Hecht and Medici, as well as an undefined number of “unindicted co-conspirators” that includes antiquities dealers and collectors as well as many scholars and curators, to remove works of ancient art from Italy illegally and acquire or sell them. Medici was a dealer from Geneva who had sold a few important objects to the Getty Museum from 1983-85 to my predecessors, including a fine Caeretan hydria on loan to the British Museum for nearly 50 years and auctioned at Christie’s in London in 1982. He also donated a fake kouros head to the museum for study in 1992. Hecht was well known among American and European museums as a scholar of ancient vases and coins, as well as a major dealer in works of ancient art. Much has been made of correspondence between me and both dealers, but nothing in it suggests anything but appropriate professional relations. Had I been involved in any conspiracy, why would I have refused as fakes objects offered by alleged co-conspirators, such as the (genuine) pelike by the Kleophrades Painter, formerly in the Princeton Museum and now returned to Italy, or condemned as “unacceptable” the room of Roman wall paintings now returned to Italy from Switzerland? These were among the many objects on the art market that I chose not to propose for purchase.
Ferri also alleged my relationship with New York collectors Lawrence and Barbara Fleischman was a conspiracy to acquire objects that I wanted for the Getty Museum. Lawrence and his wife Barbara were long-time collectors of antiquities and close friends. (Lawrence died in 1997, three years before the Italian investigations began and Barbara, though interviewed, was fortunately never accused.) We often discussed objects we found exciting. But what need was there to collude with them to buy objects for the museum from the same dealers with whom I was already in contact? We were, in fact, competitors in the market. The Fleischmans built a fine collection with intelligence and passion—but it was not made for the Getty.
Unfortunately, facts played little role in the Italian court’s charges or the media’s presentation of them. The intention was to use the case against me to condemn publicly the collecting of antiquities and to terrorise museums and collectors, especially in the United States. Remarkably, no European or Asian museum has been pressed in this manner, though there are recently purchased objects in many, pieces that were offered to me for the Getty but that I declined to propose.
The strategy worked extremely well. American museums chose not to join forces to challenge the Italian position, but silently went their separate ways, with directors travelling to Italy to make private deals to return objects in the hope of appeasing the prosecutor. There was even a sense of relief that I was the only target of the Italians. Yet, it now appears that I will not be the only victim. Six months ago, The New York Times announced that a second American curator, Michael Padgett of Princeton University Art Museum, is under investigation together with another group of dealers for charges very similar to those lodged against me. This too in spite of Princeton’s willingness to work with Italy to return disputed objects.
By the time this article appears, the Morgantina Goddess will be back in Italy (though the excavator of Morgantina, Malcolm Bell, has refuted the claim that it comes from this site). It will stand on an isolator-base to protect it from earthquakes designed and provided by the Getty. The publicity generated by the trial will probably draw more visitors for a while but it is unlikely their number will be anything close to the public that visited the Getty Villa, where the sculpture was exhibited in Los Angeles. When I last saw it, the Euphronios/Onesimos kylix was on display not in Cerveteri but in the Villa Giulia in Rome, a trophy shown with thousands of other Greek vases.
What has the return of these objects and others cost the Italian state? My defence fees alone would have paid for years of conservation and education programmes in Italian museums and excavation sites, let alone the cost of the prosecution. At the same time, recent reports of collapsing structures in Pompeii (the House of the Gladiators) and Rome (the Golden House of Nero and the Colosseum) have led once again to outcries about the lack of money for security, conservation and protection by the Italian government.
If the case against Princeton goes forward, perhaps American museums will stand together and not yield to intimidation. Their antiquities collections have been built carefully over more than a century, and are important educational resources in a country that considers the achievements of ancient Greece and Rome fundamental to its own culture. Certainly, methods of collecting in the United States and elsewhere have changed over this time, as have laws and conventions protecting cultural patrimony. But negotiations and collaborations that I and many others promoted with Italian colleagues for years are far more productive in the long run than endless, destructive and expensive litigation. (The Art Newspaper)

New Installation of Native American Opens in Denver

Denver, CO  - New Installation at the Denver Art Museum Opens
When the Denver Art Museum’s signature American Indian art galleries reopened last week after a seven-month overhaul, the biggest change wasn’t the new display cases or the dramatic lighting. Rather, it was in a less obvious place: the wall labels.

For the first time many of the works on display are attributed to individual artists instead of just their tribes. It is a revolution in museum practice that many scholars hope will spread, raising the stature of American Indian artists and elevating their work from the category of artifacts to the more exalted realm of art.

So the museum’s “Wild Man of the Woods” mask, made in 1900 and previously identified only as “Kwakiutl,” will be attributed to Willie Seaweed, a Canadian carver who died in 1967. In another gallery an exhibition of more than 30 pieces of pottery will celebrate the extraordinary skill of Nampeyo, a Hopi woman born around 1860. Other objects, thought to be the work of single unknown creators — like a selection of Navajo “eyedazzler” weavings dated 1885-1900 — will be grouped together with labels reading, “Artist not known.”  New York Times

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/06/arts/design/06names.html?_r=1&ref=design

Nancy Blomberg, curator of Native American art at the Denver Art Museum and the force behind the new installation has, according to the New York Times, focused on attributing works of art in the collection to artists. Her statements in the Times articles seem to indicate that she considers this a primary concern in the installation. Is that a good thing? In my judgment providing an artist's name on the label without context is confusing and misleading for the museum visitor. Unfortunately mixing contemporary works of art with traditional has become the politically correct path in not only Native American but also African as well. Two great examples are the National Museum of American Indian and the National Museum of African Art where they engage in collecting and displaying both contemporary and traditional works of art. In my judgment this can only be effective if the issues of  authenticity are addressed and the museum visitor is made to understand that an object made for sale has a different context than an object made for ceremonial use. As the Times article points out the concept of being an "artist" is not always understood by ethnographic groups in quite the same way as it is in the west. This disparity has been blurred as we now accept a great deal of southwest historic pottery as traditional when clearly it was made for sale. Understanding the cultural context of an object is essential to interpreting art from these areas. Collection history is certainly important in this process but that information must be understood within the cultural context and not as an adjunct bit of information. The philosophical battle between anthropology and art has been ongoing for more than a century. The solution is defining the clear context of an object and why it was made. This distinction does not detract from our appreciation of either traditional or contemporary art, but it does help us understand it.