Memorandum submitted by the Art Loss Register
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
AND RECOMMENDATIONS
As the central database of 180,000 items of
stolen and missing works of art that has directly led to the recovery
of £100 million worth of art and antiques, the Art Loss Register
Ltd (ALR) recommends that:
— All identified of artworks from a
museum or items that are not accounted for in a museum or gallery
collection should be reported to the ALR. A museum's chances of
recovering to recover a stolen item (or its legal position) may
be prejudiced if the institution has not circulated its loss(es)
to the internationally recognized central database for missing
art and antique items. Many UK museums and the curators of the
Government's own art collection have not done so.
— All schedules of art collections
should be recorded with the ALR pre-loss as a major deterrent
to thieves.
— Due diligence on title should be
conducted by a museum in the event of an acquisition or before
receipt of a loan.
1. MUSEUM THEFT
AND THE
ART LOSS
REGISTER'S
RESPONSE
The worldwide publicity in August 2006 given
to the theft of 221 items from the Hermitage Museum in St Petersburg
has highlighted the vulnerability of museums becoming the victim
of theft, either by professional thieves or their own staff.[18]
Similarly, the aggravated theft of Edvard Munch's
internationally famous paintings "The Scream" and "Madonna"
from the Oslo Museum in August 2004, recently recovered by the
Norwegian police, illustrates the lengths that criminals will
go to steal paintings from so-called "soft targets".
While the violence that the thieves were prepared
to use to steal the paintings in Oslo and the complicity of the
Hermitage museum curator in that incident are shocking examples,
they are, unfortunately, not exceptional.
These crimes demonstrate a number of key considerations
in relation to the security of museum collections and the possibility
of recovering works of art stolen from them:
— No museum collection is immune to
the risk of theft. The theft may be perpetrated by visitors, by
members of museum staff, external contractors working in the museum.
Some thefts may be opportunistic. Others will be the work of professional
criminal gangs.
— In displaying its collection, a museum
must strike a balance between making its collection accessible
to the public in an attractive and informative manner, and, at
the same time, securing it sufficiently in order to minimize the
chance of theft. The level of security in place will be determined
by cost. There are some cheap and effective measures which can
be taken to provide significant deterrence to theft.
— Besides the risk of theft, museums
may need to find a compromise between security and safety, ie
ensuring that works are security attached to walls/pedestals to
prevent theft, but which at the same time can be easily removed
from exhibition or storage areas in case of an emergency eg fire
or flood.
— Where violence is a possibility in
the execution of a theft, the safety of the visiting public and
museum staff must take priority.
— Items held in storage areas rather
than exhibition areas are particularly vulnerable to theft if
they are not the subject of routine and regular audit checks.
In the USA for example, Special Agent Jim Wynn of the Art Crimes
Team of the FBI estimates that approximately 80% of museum cases
reported to the National Stolen Art File are committed internally
be a member of staff or someone in a position of trust. Major
museums with millions of items in store can only check their collection
every time they undertake an audit, which may be only once every
three years or so. Thus it is a sad but inevitable fact that a
large proportion of thefts have only been reported to the ALR
some time after the theft. The museum may believe that the item
has been mislaid or moved to another location and by the time
it is accepted that the item is stolen, the item may well have
passed into the art market.
— Transparency and accountability by
the museum in the event of a theft is key to the recovery of stolen
property. Information on stolen items should be swiftly disseminated
by a museum on an international basis to law enforcement and specialist
recovery agencies. While a museum may prefer not to publicize
that it has been the victim of a theft—whether perpetrated
from the inside or out—for fear of looking incompetent,
encouraging copycat thefts, deterring would-be donors or not wanting
to jeopardise delicate recovery negotiations if the stolen items
should surface quickly, the decision taken by the Hermitage Museum
in August 2006 to disseminate information on its losses quickly
paid dividends and twenty seven items were surrendered to the
museum shortly after the story broke in the press.
2. THE ART
LOSS REGISTER
The Art Loss Register Ltd (ALR) maintains the
world's largest private database of stolen, missing and looted
works of art. The company was founded by the art trade and insurance
industry in 1990 but its archive of losses dates back to 1960
(complemented by a database of World War II art claims). There
are ALR offices in London, Cologne, New York, Amsterdam and Delhi
and the staff are trained art historians and linguists. Since
starting operations, the ALR has been responsible for the recovery
of £100 million worth of stolen and missing art and antiques.
The aims of the ALR are:
— To recovery stolen property.
— To reduce the trade in stolen art
and antiques.
— To provide a central database for
the registration of collection inventories pre-theft.
Any stolen or missing item can be registered
on the database provided that it is uniquely identifiable. Thefts
have been reported from the following sources: private owners,
galleries, churches, warehouses, shipping companies as well as
museums and are usually notified to the ALR by the owner, the
insurance company or a law enforcement agency.
3. MUSEUM THEFTS
RECORDED ON
THE ALR DATABASE
To date, there are 1723 cases of thefts from
museums worldwide recorded on the ALR database encompassing 8,182
items. This is a tiny fraction of all cases that should have been
reported to the ALR. Of these cases, 594 are thefts in or recorded
in the United Kingdom, 1091 are thefts in or recorded in the United
States and 38 are thefts in or recorded in Germany, Austria and
Switerland. In the Netherlands, between 1991 and 2005, major thefts
have occurred at the Frans Hals Museum in Haarlem, the Van Gogh
Museum in Amsterdam, the Gemeentemuseum in the Hague and the Westfries
Museum in Hoorn.
A registration fee of £20.00 is charged
to record an item on the ALR database. For museums where a large
number of items have been stolen or for a not for profit institution,
this fee may be reduced or sometimes waived. Where a museum fails
to record a loss on the ALR's database, this may prejudice their
position in any ensuing action to recover an artwork which has
been acquired by a good faith purchaser who can demonstrate that
he or she undertook due diligence in the course of its acquisition.[19]
4. THEFTS FROM
UK MUSEUMS
There are 791 objects stolen from UK museums
on the ALR database, of which 680 are still outstanding losses
and 111 have been recovered or traced.[20]
The following chart illustrated the breakdown
by category of items stolen from museum collections.
ITEMS STOLEN FROM MUSEUM COLLECTIONS RECORDED
ON THE ART LOSS REGISTER DATABASE (TO SEPTEMBER 2006)
|
| Category of Item | Number of items on ALR database
| Percentage of total number of items logged on database
|
|
| Arms and Armour | 172
| 2.1% |
| Books and Manuscripts | 234
| 2.9% |
| Ceramics | 497
| 6.1% |
| Coin | 752
| 10.0% |
| Enamels | 9
| 0.1% |
| Furniture | 87
| 1.1% |
| Glass | 5 |
10.6% |
| Instruments/Utensils | 127
| 1.5% |
| Jewellery | 223
| 1.4% |
| Lights and Candelabra | 59
| 0.7% |
| Medals | 114
| 1.4% |
| Toys and Memorabilia | 270
| 3.3% |
| Objects | 697
| 8.5% |
| Paintings | 2,913
| 35.6% |
| Sculptures | 1,099
| 13.4% |
| Silver | 278
| 3.4% |
| Textiles | 129
| 1.6% |
| Watches and Clocks | 469
| 5.7% |
| Vehicles | 2
| 0.02% |
| 8,182 total
| |
|
5. THE ALR'S
POSITIVE (PRE-LOSS)
DATABASE
As the theft from the Hermitage Museum demonstrates graphically,
items (particularly of small size) held in museum storage areas
(or areas of a museum that are visited infrequently with fewer
security measures in place) are particularly vulnerable to theft,
loss or misplacement.[21]
They are also more attractive to thieves as they are likely to
be less well known, therefore reducing the chance of detection
when they should surface on the art market. Where items are not
on public display, the thieves are most likely to be museum staff
or outside contractors working in the museum with unfettered access
to such areas. The Art Loss Register has recorded a number of
works of art on its database that have been identified as missing
only when a museum inventory has been cross-checked, the loss
often being detected years after the presumed date of loss. One
such example is the death mask of the artist, JMW Turner, owned
by the Royal Academy that was recorded as missing with the ALR
in 2002 but which was last observed in the Royal Academy's collection
some 17 years earlier.
All museums and stately homes open to the public should have
good records, ideally including photographs and measurements,
of all their assets and this provides the opportunity for pre-loss
registration with the ALR. Any institution that has an inventory
of its collection can send it to the ALR to be held on its "positive"
database. The mere recording of a schedule of assets is not a
deterrent to theft unless those same assets are searched against
forthcoming sales in the art market and this searching process
is publicised.
When a match is made of an item which has been registered
pre-theft on the positive database but has not been reported as
stolen, the institution will be notified to determine if the sale
has been authorised (unlikely in most instances unless the museum
has more than one example of a particular item, eg several editions
of a print). In the event that the item has been stolen (eg from
a storeroom) it will be moved from the positive database (pre-loss)
to the negative database (post-loss). The ALR will investigate
the match and assist in the recovery of the item.[22]
In the event of a reported theft, the ALR will move the item(s)
from its positive database to its negative database. The stolen
item(s) will then be searched on a daily basis against provenance
requests submitted to the ALR by the art trade, at auction sales,
against the stock of art dealers at art fairs worldwide and by
private individuals, law enforcement agents and customs officers.
6. THE PUBLIC
CATALOGUE FOUNDATION
An agreement has been agreed with the Public Catalogue Foundation,
a registered UK charity founded by Dr Fred Hohler in 2002 that
aims to to record the Britain's complete collection of oil paintings
in public ownership. This will be made accessible to the public
through a series of affordable catalogues and, at a later stage,
free Internet access. Under the agreement, all participating insitutions
(museums and civic buildings) will have their collections automatically
transferred to the ALR's positive database subject to the collections
agreeing to this and to publicise this in their guidebooks or
with warning notices. Given that the Public Catalogue Foundations
estimates that four in five works of art in public ownership are
not on display and are therefore at potential risk from theft
whilst in storage, the partnership between the ALR and the Public
Catalogue Foundation may be regarded as a great step forward to
improve security of Britain's heritage and assist the campaign
against art theft. (see appendix iv) (not printed here)
The following example demonstrates where the ALR's positive
database should have been used by an institution to record its
collection during a redevelopment programme, but was not and the
stolen item was recovered thanks only to research by a specialist
art historian at the ALR.
In the Spring of 2004, acting on a tip off from an informer,
a police officer from Essex Constabularly contacted the ALR for
a check on a John Constable oil sketch. The sketch was not recorded
as missing or stolen on the ALR's database. Research in the Constable
catalogue raisonné indicated that the sketch should
have been in the collection of a provincial museum in Southern
England. The museum was contacted by the ALR for confirmation
of a loss but it stated that it had not suffered a theft and it
was not aware that any items were missing from its. When pressed
further, the museum confirmed that the item was bar code labelled
and was audited at its off-site store during a redevelopment programme
in January 2001 but was not noticed when the museum's staff listed
the contents of a particular shelf in the storehouse during an
audit undertaken in June 2002. The museum director explained this
oversight to the ALR on the grounds that the 2002 audit "was
not for the purpose of detecting thefts". The Constable sketch
was not noticed on any shipping list between January 2001 and
June 2002 and was assumed to have been taken some time prior to
the last shipment of art out of the warehouse and back to the
museum in January 2003.
7. SEARCHING FOR
ITEMS STOLEN
FROM MUSEUM
COLLECTIONS
All items recorded on the ALR database are systematically
searched for by the Art Loss Register. The most likely point of
detection is often at the point of sale. Each year, the ALR checks
approximately 300,000 auction lots offered for sale by the leading
auction houses worldwide and these are compared against the ALR's
listings of stolen and looted art. In addition, ad hoc provenance
checks are submitted by dealers, private collectors and law enforcement
officers.
8. REDUCED RECOVERY
FEES FOR
MUSEUMS
In the event of a recovery of a stolen item, including an
item stolen from a museum, the ALR charges a recovery fee. For
insurers this is normally 20% of the value up to £50,000
and 15% thereafter but for a museum or not for profit organisation,
the ALR will reduce this recovery fee. Like a law firm, we will
also offer a museum client a time and expenses option in the event
of a recovery. For example, we recently registered two artworks
for a small UK museum. As the museum relies solely on public donations,
our recovery fee was dropped so that there is no question of the
museum not being able to pay the ALR recovery fee or having to
sell the recovered item to do so.
9. RECOVERIES OF
ITEMS STOLEN
FROM MUSEUM
COLLECTIONS WORLDWIDE
Since 1990, the ALR has identified 73 items stolen since
the war from museums worldwide through its searching process.
In most cases, the items were found in auction house catalogues,
with art dealers or on the receipt of intelligence from law enforcement
agencies. Of these 73 items, the source countries were as follows.
|
| Country of Theft | Number of Items Stolen
|
|
| United Kingdom | 23
|
| Republic of Ireland | 11
|
| United States of America | 4
|
| Russian Federation | 4
|
| France | 25
|
| Argentina | 3
|
| Tunisia | 1
|
| Nigeria | 1
|
| Poland | 2
|
| Iran | 1 |
|
In over half the cases involving works of art stolen from
museums, the item was located by the ALR not in the country of
ownership.
Where a museum has learnt of the whereabouts of a stolen
object from its collection independently, the ALR will undertake
negotiations to recover the item. Cases may be civil disputes
or involve the police in criminal enquiries. The role of the ALR
database in such negotiations is significant. Even where legal
title may have passed, the fact that an item is recorded on the
ALR database and the ensuing restrictions this imposes on a subsequent
possessor trying to sell the item, particularly at its true market
value, will in many cases lead to the surrender of the item or
the settlement of the case to the advantage of the original owner.
10. CASE HISTORIES—EXAMPLES
ITEMS STOLEN
FROM MUSEUMS
IDENTIFIED BY
THE ALR
Leighton House Museum, London
Seven paintings were stolen from Leighton House Museum on
5 July 1992. They were recorded on the ALR database. An enquiry
from the Metropolitan police assisted by the ALR into the origin
of the theft led to the recovery of six of the seven paintings.
Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery, Birmingham
A 15th century painting by Petrus Christus was stolen by
a visitor to the Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery in December
1993. The item was checked against the ALR database by a dealer
in Switzerland in March 1994. An operation by Scotland Yard resulted
in a number of arrests and the recovery of the painting.
Cowper Memorial Museum, Olney, Buckinghamshire
A painting by Charles Spencelayh titled "Footman in
a Frozen Garden" was stolen from the museum in May 1991.
The painting was identified by the ALR in a sale at Christie's
auction house in March 1995.
Anne of Cleves Museum, Lewes, Sussex
A silver racing trophy by Robert Hennell was stolen from
the Anne of Cleves Museum in May 1987. It was located in a Christie's
auction catalogue in October 1996.
Clive House Museum, Shrewsbury, Shropshire
A 17th century silver chalice was stolen from Clive House
Museum on 3 August 1986 whilst on loan to St Chad's Church in
Shrewsbury. The chalice was identified at an auction house in
New York, USA in March 1997. Previously the chalice had been sold
through a saleroom in Washington DC. The chalice was returned
to the museum in Shrewsbury.
Bado Museum Museum, Tunisia
In October 1999 The Art Loss Register identified a Roman
marble head of a woman stolen in 1998 from the Bado Museum and
registered on the ALR database from an Interpol report circulated
in 1999. The sculpture had been discovered by Scotland Yard officers
in a garage in London having taken 11 months to reach the United
Kingdom from Tunisia via Europe.
11. IDENTIFICATION OF
ARTWORKS STOLEN
FROM MUSEUMS
DURING WORLD
WAR II
Nine items that were stolen from museum collections in Poland,
Italy, Germany and the USSR during World War II have been located
on the international art market through systematic searching of
auction house catalogues by the ALR. These artworks have either
been repatriated or are the subject of settlement discussions
between the museum and the current holder.
12. REQUIREMENT FOR
DUE DILIGENCE
BY MUSEUMS
Any museum can refer to the Art Loss Register for a title
check of a work of art and all searches are submitted under contract.
The check may concern an item that the museum is considering for
purchase, is an incoming loan or is part of the permanent collection
and may have gaps in its provenance between the years 1933 and
1945. While a check is no guarantee of title, it does demonstrate
that the museum has endeavoured to undertake due diligence and
this would be given consideration in the event that an item which
has been checked against the ALR's database and is not recorded
does subsequently turn out to be missing or stolen. Increasingly,
museums worldwide are becoming aware of the necessity of undertaking
due diligence to identify potentially Holocaust tainted objects
in their collections and there have been settlements on items
located in British institutions following recommendations by the
UK Government's Spoliation Advisory Panel, eg the Tate (painting
by Jan Griffier), the Burrell Collection (painting attributed
to Jean Baptiste Chardin and the British Museum (collection of
Old Master drawings).
In addition the Spoliation Advisory Panel has recommended
to the Secretary of State that legislation should be introduced
to amend the British Museum Act of 1963, the British Library Act
of 1972 and the Museum and Galleries Act of 1992 so as to permit
the restitution of objects in this category. A consultation paper
titled "Restitution of Objects Spoliated in the Nazi Era:
A Consultation Document" has been published in July 2006
by the DCMS to prepare changes in the law to allow for the deaccessioning
of cultural objects spoliated by the Nazis.
While provenance research into the whereabouts of artworks
on continental Europe between 1933 and 1945 is desirable, institutions
will need to balance the cost of provenance research against pre-existing
budgetary allocations and the availability of staff (with the
appropriate expertise) to undertake such research.[23]
13. DUE DILIGENCE
IN PRACTICE
Since 1990, 500 works of art have been submitted to the ALR
at its London office for title checks against its database of
stolen and looted works of art. These searching statistics submitted
to the ALR by UK based museums may be compared to the number of
items searched by museums located in the United States through
the ALR's New York office. In the year 2004 alone, 675 items were
submitted for checks by 50 different American museums and 602
items in 2005. There are several reasons for the apparent greater
activity of American museums compared to British museums in terms
of due diligence. With larger acquisition budgets than their British
counterparts, many museums in the US are purchasing more works
of art that require title checks. Additionally, there is a greater
tradition of donation of art to museums in the USA than in the
UK and these donations are being checked for provenance before
the item is incorporated into the museum's collection. Finally,
many US museums have been conducting in-house provenance research
programs to identify gaps in provenance between the years 1933
to 1945 for works of art held in their collections and items with
incomplete provenances between these years are being sent to the
ALR for research and/or checking against the ALR's database. In
terms of loan exhibitions, in 2004, 13 American museums submitted
checks on 307 works that were part of incoming loan exhibitions
and in 2005, 255 works were checked on the same basis. This is
likely to be connected to the Federal Immunity from Seizure Act[24]
which specifically protects works of art while on temporary display
in a not-for-profit exhibition in the United States. To apply
for immunity, the application must be made by the borrowing institution
itself, not the lender. According to Clause 6 of the US State
Departments "Checklist for Applicants", applicants should
include
"A statement concerning the provenance of works to be borrowed,
as follows: `The applicant certifies that it has undertaken
professional inquiry—including independent, multi-source
research—into the provenance of the objects proposed for
determination of cultural significance and national interest'."
The ALR's database of stolen and looted art is generally
considered an internationally recognized source for consultation
as part of the due diligence process.
Through the ALR's office in Cologne, Germany, between 1999
and 2005, 309 items were checked for four museums, two in Germany
and two in Switzerland. Of these, 278 items were textiles and
31 items were paintings. Of the paintings, 10 were checked to
identify possible problematic World War II provenances, 14 were
checked as incoming loans and seven were checked as potential
new acquisitions.
14. ALR CHARGING POLICY
FOR MUSEUMS
Charges for provenance checks against the ALR database are
tailored to the needs of the individual institution and will depend
on the level of research required, the number of items submitted
for checks and the format of information submitted to the ALR
(hard copy, electronic format etc).
25 September 2006
18
Yevgeny Yakovlev, deputy chief of the Interior Ministry's criminal
investigation department, Russian Federation, estimates that approximately
50 thefts from Russian museums, archives and galleries are registered
on its internal database per annum. However, he admits that the
true scale of losses in museum store-rooms is impossible to determine
as there have been no inspections since 1978. See: MSN: antique
thefts from Russian Museums Massive-Interior Ministry, circulated
21.09.2006. Back
19
In the USA, the Connecticut case of Kerstin Lindholm v Peter
M Brant and the Brant Foundation Inc. raised questions of whether
a buyer of fine art was a buyer in the ordinary course or a good
faith purchaser. A collector named Peter M Brant purchased Andy
Warhol's "Red Elvis" for approx. $2.9 million from an
art dealer named Anders Malmberg. The painting was in fact still
owned by a Swedish collector named Kerstin Lindholm. Malmberg
convinced Lindholm to lend the painting two exhibitions and meanwhile
sold it to collector Peter M Brant. On learning of the sale, Lindholm
filed suit against Malmberg and Brant. While Malmberg was found
guilty of fraud and embezzlement by a Swedish court, the Connecticut
Superior Court took note of the fact that Brant had taken a number
of precautions to check the painting's title including the drafting
of a formal sale contract, a check of a database of state by state
liens (UCC filings) and requesting a search of the ALR's database.
In its decision, the court specifically noted "Plaintiff's
expert, Hoffeld, admitted that the Art Loss Register is the best
recognized mechanism for determining whether a piece of art is
stolen. Accordingly, it was reasonable in investigating title
for Brant to search the Art Loss Register and the UCC liens to
determine if there were any clalims on Red Elvis". Given
the steps taken, the Connecticut Superior Court ruled that Brant
had purchased Red Elvis in good faith and that he was entitled
to retain ownership of the painting. Back
20
Detective Sergeant Vernon Rapley of the Metropolitan Police's
Art & Antiques Unit reported that from 2004-05 in London,
there had been a steep increase in thefts from museums and galleries.
In 2005, 15 museums suffered a theft, while in 2005, this figure
had increased by 25%. Report of DS Vernon Rapley at "Art
Theft: History, Prevention, Detective, Solution". Conference
at Cambridge University, 9 and 10 June 2006 organised by Cambridge
University's Centre for Research in the Arts, Social Sciences
& Humanities. Back
21
The Northern Ireland Audit Office reported in August 2006 that
the Arts Council in Northern Ireland has admitted following an
internal audit that it does not know the whereabouts of 52 works
of art in its £2.7 million collection. In our opinion, "the
write-offs are indicative of the poor record-keeping and management
of the collection". (SEE APPENDIX I). The report concluded
that the council was now taking steps to ensure that up to date
inventories were being maintained. In 1996 the National Audit
Office reported that one fifth of the Ministry of Defence's £5
million collection has been stolen or lost in the previous eight
years. Of the collection, 161 paintings and prints were missing,
23 had been stolen and one had been given as a gift. (SEE APPENDIX
II) Back
22
See "Museums and Country Houses-Deterring the Thieves"
by Julian Radcliffe. Trace Magazine, Issue 192, March 2006,
pp 28-29. (SEE APPENDIX III) Back
23
By way of comparison, in the United States, the New York based
"Conference of Jewish Material Claims against Germany"
has published a report on the lack of progress that US museums
are making in researching the provenance of art in their collections
that may have been looted. Of over 300 US museums that were contacted
for progress reports, only 214 responded to the survey. More than
one third of museums had not conducted provenance research and
another third provided incomplete information. 151 museums have
posted data on an internet portal (www.nepip.org) but this represents
only 18,000 objects out of a total of 140,000 items that have
provenance gaps between 1933 and 1945. Many museums cited budgetary
constraints and scare staff resources as a reason for inactivity.
(See The Art Newspaper-September 2006). In the United Kingdom,
44 museums have lists of works with incomplete data published
on the NMDC website, as well as reports on the status of ongoing
research (See: www.nationalmuseums.org.uk/spoliation). MLA is
developing a web site for museums, libraries and archives on all
cultural property matters, including spoliation, which will become
the primary source of regularly updated information and guidance
on these issues. Back
24
Exemption from Judicial Seizure of Cultural Objects Imported
for Temporary Exhibition, Pub L No 89-259 (S 2273), 79 Stat 985
(1965) (codified at 22 U.S.C. §§ 2459 (1994)). Back
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