web analytics

The Art Rescuers: Italy’s Carabinieri TPC and the Museum of Rescued Art

Museum dell’Arte Salvata (Copyright: Leila A. Amineddoleh)

Amineddoleh & Associates LLC is proud to work as a leading law firm in the cultural heritage sector. We have worked with collectors, dealers, museums, law enforcement agencies, and even foreign governments. One of our clients is the Republic of Italy, a nation paradoxically blessed with an abundance of artistic and cultural treasures, but cursed with the solemn responsibility of protecting those treasures. Properly monitoring antiquities and archaeological sites, regulating the market, and protecting cultural heritage is a costly and heavy burden. Every region of the Italian nation is famed worldwide for its cultural treasures, and so the country has developed means to actively protect its heritage through various channels. For instance, Italy is the first nation in the world to have a military unit responsible for the protection of art and heritage. 

 

The Carabinieri Headquarters for the Protection of Cultural Heritage (Comando Carabinieri Tutela Patrimonio Culturale, or TPC) was instituted in 1969. The TPC is a part of the Ministry of Culture and plays an important role regarding the safety and protection of the heritage.  The TPC is renowned for its efforts and works with law enforcement agencies around the world to recover stolen and illicitly exported artifacts, assists in heritage protection and management globally, recovers stolen art within Italy and abroad, and works to monitor and regulate the art market for looted or illicitly removed art and antiquities. 

 

The TPC has had tremendous success over the decades, recovering hundreds of thousands of objects worth billions of dollars. In a thrilling recent escapade during 2020, the TPC tracked down a 500-year-old painting stolen from a museum in Naples. Jesus Christ in his “Savior of the World” (Salvator Mundi) aspect. The work is a copy of the infamous Salvator Mundi that sold for over $450 million in 2017 (considered the world’s highest-selling painting to date). The police found this copy stashed in the cupboard of an apartment and arrested the 36-year-old property owner. It was probably easy to spot among the inhabitant’s mismatched cutlery. 

 

Castel Sant’Angelo (Copyright: Leila A. Amineddoleh)

The elite and highly specialized force has celebrated its successes in countless repatriation ceremonies and with art exhibitions. In particular, 2009 marked one of the most high-profile returns resulting from TPC investigations. The Metropolitan Museum of Art (the “Met”) returned the Euphronios Krater (infamously known as the “Hot Pot”) to Italy once the TPC and Swiss authorities uncovered an extensive looting network selling black market antiquities from Italy. These objects wound up in the hands of reputable collectors and museums, including the Met, the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, the Getty Museum, Harvard University, and the Cleveland Museum of Art. In the wake of this return, hundreds of other items from that network were returned. These restituted works were exhibited in the Colosseum with much pomp, circumstance, and celebration.  

 

At the United Nations in January 2020

A decade later, in 2019, in honor of the TPC’s 50 anniversary, the Carabinieri, the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, and the Italian Ministry of Cultural Heritage and Activities organized a comprehensive exhibition of recovered art. “Recovered Treasures: the Art of Saving Art” was on view in Paris and then displayed at the United Nations in New York in January 2020. Our founder, Leila Amineddoleh, was invited to attend this exclusive event to open this once-in-a-lifetime exhibition. At the opening, Secretary-General of the United Nations Antonio Guterres aptly stated that the “exhibition not only comprises priceless works of art, it also paints a picture of the power of international cooperation.” 

 

Sign at the entry of “Will the world save beauty?” exhibition

When Italian museums finally reopened after the Covid pandemic, the Castel Sant’Angelo in Rome hosted an exhibition entitled “Will the World Save Beauty?,” a show dedicated to exhibited repatriated antiquities, items recovered after natural disasters, works stolen from churches and private institutions, the prevalence of forgeries, and even stolen instruments. Leila also received an invitation from the Carabinieri to view this jaw-dropping show. The juxtaposition of recovered antiquities in a building with nearly 2,000 years of history was both ethereal and moving. This historic site had survived sacking and plundering, and so it was particularly effective to experience repatriated artwork in such a historically rich setting. 

 

Copyright: Leila A. Amineddoleh

At the start of this summer, Minister of Culture Dario Franceschini announced the opening of the Museo dell’Arte Salvata (“Museum for Rescued Art”), a new museum displaying looted works returned to the Mediterranean nation. The concept for this museum is innovative and appealing –  hundreds of smuggled, and now repatriated, artworks will be displayed for public view. But the particular items on display will rotate, with the next group of pieces to be presented after October 15, 2022. Once the displayed works are removed, they will be returned to the respective regions of Italy from where they were originally stolen. The museum’s noble aim is to return objects to the collections of small museums that have suffered from the loss of artwork, giving them and the nation of Italy as a whole a boost to aid in post-pandemic recovery for the culture sector. 

 

Copyright: Leila A. Amineddoleh

Our founder had the pleasure of visiting the museum shortly after its fabulous opening. The museum is intimate (the objects are all displayed in one large room), and the exhibition is excellent. The repatriated objects on display are organized in glass vitrines featuring information about the works’ significance, the ways in which they were smuggled, and the importance of repatriation. The museum notes that the objects on display are “mainly from the United States of America.” The United States (in particular, New York) is the center of the art market and so items are sold both legally on the market and illicitly. But US authorities have also been instrumental in recovering stolen and illicitly exported objects linked to Italy. 

 

Franceschini stated: “Stolen works of art and archaeological relics that are dispersed, sold or exported illegally is a significant loss for the cultural heritage of the country…. Protecting and promoting these treasures is an institutional duty, but also a moral commitment: it is necessary to take on this responsibility for future generations.” Stéphane Verger, director of the National Roman Museum, poignantly noted:  “I think of this as a museum of wounded art, because the works exhibited here have been deprived of their contexts of discovery and belonging.”

 

Just a month after this exhibition’s opening, another 142 Italian antiquities seized by the Manhattan DA are headed home to Italy. This included 48 items recovered from private collector Michael Steinhardt during a high-profile seizure in December 2021, where the former hedge fund manager agreed to surrender $70 million worth of antiquities. The most valuable work returned to Italy is a fresco depicting an infant Hercules strangling a snake, valued at $1 million and looted from Herculaneum. Officials revealed that  another 60 of the items were recovered from Royal-Athena Galleries in Manhattan.

 

Copyright: Leila A. Amineddoleh

As this law firm is currently representing the Republic of Italy in an ongoing antiquities dispute, and our founder served as a cultural heritage law expert for the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office regarding the  seizure of items from Michael Steinhardt, traveling to Rome and visiting such an impressive and important exhibition was – in Ms. Amineddoleh’s word – both powerful and gratifying. This highlights the impact of cultural heritage looting and trafficking at the global level and close to home. 

 

The Museo dell’Arte Salvata is located in the Aula Ottagona, a building that had previously been closed for a number of years. The structure is part of the Baths of Diocletian complex, located a few minutes away from Termini Train Station (Rome’s main railway station), and across the street from the Repubblica subway station, in the heart of the Eternal City. Since it is part of the network of national Roman museums, visitors can purchase one ticket and see  all five museums for one relatively inexpensive entry price. It is well worth the trip – and visitors can wrap up their visit with a large bowl of cacio e pepe and a hearty glass of Chianti Classico for a true Italian experience.

 

 

Our Founder Quoted in Le Parisien

Leila A. Amineddoleh was quoted in Le Parisien after speaking with a French journalist about the seizure of 180 items from Michael Steinhardt’s antiquities collection. Leila served as an expert for the seizure of a number of items removed from the Steinhardt collection, including the Bull’s Head that triggered the investigation into the financier’s collection. Details are available HERE.

Amineddoleh & Associates’ Winter 2021 Newsletter

In this inaugural newsletter, Amineddoleh & Associates is pleased to share some major developments that took place at the firm during the summer and autumn of 2021. 

 

LITIGATION UPDATES

 

Ancient marble bust contested in lawsuit
Image from Manhattan DA’s Office

A Victory for Our Client, the Republic of Italy 

Amineddoleh and Associates secured a win for its client, the Italian Republic, in the ongoing Safani v. Republic of Italy litigation in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. The court dismissed litigation against our client in a case concerning an Italian antiquity seized from a Manhattan art gallery. Read about the litigation update here and the case details here.

(The Plaintiff has since filed a Second Amended Complaint, naming the Manhattan District Attorney as a defendant in the case.)  

 

ART & IP NEWS

 

Illicit Antiquities Trafficking 

In this blog post, our founder Leila Amineddoleh discusses disgraced art dealer Nancy Wiener, who revealed new details about her involvement in the illicit trafficking of antiquities and its effect on the art market in an allocution statement. Wiener had ties to Douglas Latchford, whose recent appearance in the Pandora Papers leak highlights the global nature of the illicit antiquities trade. Read more on our website

 

Nazi-Era Looting, Duress Sales, and New Laws 

There were a number of developments this autumn concerning Nazi-Era looting. We presented an entry in our popular Provenance Series to examine the issues surrounding the restitution of looted cultural heritage in Poland, including the country’s history, a new law shortening the applicable statute of limitations, and examples of successful returns. Read more on our website. In addition, questions continue to arise concerning alleged duress sales, with one painting in Houston’s Museum of Fine Arts coming under scrutiny. Founder Leila Amineddoleh discussed the case and its implications with media outlets. 

 

Turkey and Antiquities Restitution

Gold ewer
Image from V&A

Firm founder Leila Amineddoleh consulted with the Gilbert Trust at the Victoria & Albert Museum concerning a 4,250 year old golden ewer that was returned to Turkey in October. The ewer was purchased by a private collector who was unaware of the seller’s dirty dealings, including his involvement in antiquities trafficking. Luckily, the Gilbert Trust was proactive and the matter was resolved amicably and creatively. Read about the ewer’s fascinating history and the details of its return here.

 

NFT Battle: Miramax v. Tarantino 

With the ongoing NFT craze, market participants and legal scholars have been waiting for guidance from courts concerning the application of “traditional” intellectual property law to this new digital asset class. We authored a blog post discussing the legal questions and controversies arising as the NFT market continues to grow. NFTs recently made headlines when Miramax sued Quentin Tarantino. Tarantino, the award-winning movie director, announced his plan to sell a new NFT collection consisting of seven tokens to uncut, exclusive scenes from Pulp Fiction. In response, Miramax sued Tarantino for breach of contract, as well as copyright and trademark infringement. Read more about NFTs and this new lawsuit here

 

Lifetime Ban on Collecting: the Steinhardt Seizure 

Several artifacts seized from Steinhardt
Image from DA’s Office

This blog post details the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office seizure of 180 looted antiquities from Michael Steinhardt. Steinhardt, a hedge-fund pioneer and one of the world’s most prolific collectors of ancient art, was involved in a criminal investigation examining issues with the provenance of various pieces in his collection. The DA’s Office announced that Steinhardt has been sanctioned by placing him under a lifetime ban on the purchase of antiquities. All of the seized antiquities will be returned to their country of origin. Read more about this news on our website. Our founder served as an independent cultural heritage law expert for the seizure of certain items in Steinhardt’s collection. She discussed this with a number of news outlets, including WNYC

 

LAW FIRM UPDATES AND EVENTS 

 

New Team Members 

Our firm added two new members to its roster this fall: Travis Mock and Deanna Schreiber. Travis is an attorney with a wealth of experience in litigation, IP law and trademarks, while Deanna is 3L at Fordham Law School interested in both transactional and litigation aspects of art and cultural heritage law. Deanna was the winner of the NY State Bar Association’s writing competition for her submission discussing the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act and its future role in Nazi-looted art controversies. We wish Travis and Deanna a warm welcome. Learn more about our team and their accomplishments here.

 

Art Law Conferences 

Congratulations to our firm’s founder Leila Amineddoleh, who successfully chaired the 13th Annual NYCLA Art Law Institute, one of the most anticipated events of the year. Leila also spoke on the topic of foreign sovereign immunity while Associate Claudia Quinones participated in the ever-popular What’s New in Art Law? panel, focusing on title disputes. Check out the conference program and speaker details here

In early December, Leila and Claudia also spoke at an international conference, The Intentional Destruction of the Cultural Heritage of Mankind, organized by Università degli Studi di Roma “La Sapienza.” They discussed cultural heritage as a human right as well as measures of legal protection in times of peace and conflict. In November, Leila presented a 3-hour lecture on the topic of NFTs for the Executive Master in Art Market Studies at the University of Zurich. Earlier in the month, she presented on “New Obligations in the Art & Antiquities Markets” for the Responsible Art Market Initiative. She also presented a featured lecture, “Cultural Heritage, the Law and Looting,” for the Department of Art History at New York University in October. Before that, she spoke about Nazi Looted Art and the Guelph Treasure for the International Center of Medieval Art. 

 

CLIENTS AND REPRESENTATIVE MATTERS

 

Leader in the NFT Market 

Our firm was hired to create a unique template for the sale and purchase of NFTs on Monax. The company’s cutting-edge digital platform will combine technological expertise with art market considerations to provide users with full support for these emerging digital assets. As NFTs continue to increase in price and popularity, this template has the potential to revolutionize the market. Read more about NFTs and Monax’s services here. A&A also advised Nifty Gateway on its Terms & Conditions, and we have been working with a number of clients on new NFT projects. 

 

Artists, Designers & Fashion 

Fragrance of Infinity: Hiroshi Sugimoto’s limited edition perfume bottle
Copyright: Diptyque

In honor of Diptyque’s 60th anniversary, our client Hiroshi Sugimoto collaborated with the fragrance house on a limited edition perfume bottle inspired by the Japanese region of Kankitsuzan. The artist used his childhood memory of seeing the ocean for the first time to create a striking form exploring the relationship between man and nature. More information on the collection can be found here

 

 

Public Art Commissions 

In honor of Veterans Day, the People’s Picture (our client) was commissioned by America250 to create a digital photo mosaic depicting African American WWI hero Sgt. Henry Johnson for its November Salute 2021. The stunning mosaic, containing hundreds of photographs of veterans and other military personnel, is accessible online here and you can read more about The People’s Picture and their work here

 

Artists, Art Dealers & Art Fairs 

A number of our artist-clients received recognition for international art exhibitions over the past year, including the talented Kamrooz Aram. In addition, our collector-clients and dealer-clients, including Zeit Contemporary Art, were also actively buying and selling art through both online platforms and in-person art fairs.

 

Television & Film

As television viewership numbers increase during the pandemic, it is a pleasure to work with producers, writers, and on-screen talent creating exciting programs. One of these clients is Terra Incognita, a company producing content for educational, travel, and documentary programming. They focus on high-quality and thought-provoking ideas to empower audiences around the world.

On behalf of Amineddoleh & Associates, we wish you a happy holiday season and wonderful new year. 

 

BREAKING Cultural Heritage News: Michael Steinhardt subjected to Seizure of Collection and Lifetime Ban on Purchasing Antiquities

Our founder at the repatriation ceremony for the Bull’s Head in 2017

Today, the Manhattan District Attorney (DA) Cyrus Vance announced that Michael Steinhardt, hedge-fund pioneer and one of the world’s most prolific collectors of ancient art, surrendered 180 looted antiquities valued at $70 million. This unprecedented seizure is the result of a criminal investigation that began several years ago. Amineddoleh & Associates previously wrote about a looted Bull’s Head had been purchased by Steinhardt in 2010 for $700,000, who subsequently loaned it to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. After museum personnel raised concerns as to the provenance of the object, it came to light that the sculpture had been looted during the Lebanese Civil War. The Bull’s Head, as well as an ancient marble torso depicting a calf bearer, were both tied to the black market, seized by the DA’s Office, and subsequently repatriated. Both items had been extensively photographed during their excavation in 1967, and storage records placed them at a Lebanese warehouse before they were stolen in 1981. Notably, there was “not a single piece of paper” accounting for the provenance of the Bull’s Head between its disappearance and later sale at a London dealership in the 1990s.

Despite the presence of multiple red flags during the acquisition process, Steinhardt failed to prioritize due diligence when purchasing these objects. Most of the antiquities in his collection were trafficked during periods following civil unrest or armed conflict and depicted covered in dirt or other encrustations in photographs prior to their purchase. The seized objects span 11 countries and 12 criminal smuggling networks, and all had deficient provenance histories – or more troublingly, no information at all as to their origins – at the time of sale. It is incredulous that Steinhardt was unaware of his illegal acts. “For decades, Michael Steinhardt displayed a rapacious appetite for plundered artifacts without concern for the legality of his actions, the legitimacy of the pieces he bought and sold, or the grievous cultural damage he wrought across the globe,” said District Attorney Vance. “His pursuit of ‘new’ additions to showcase and sell knew no geographic or moral boundaries, as reflected in the sprawling underworld of antiquities traffickers, crime bosses, money launderers, and tomb raiders he relied upon to expand his collection.”

In a major announcement, the DA’s Office reached an agreement to put an end to the legal process filed against Steinhardt, whereby all the antiquities formerly in his possession will be returned to their countries of origin rather than being held as evidence in a lengthy criminal procedure. Vance also indicated that his office is currently carrying out joint parallel investigations with foreign law enforcement, and this measure will protect the integrity of the process and potential witnesses. Most importantly, Steinhardt was given a lifetime ban on the purchase of antiquities, the first time such an extreme sanction has been imposed. This indicates the seriousness with which the DA’s Office views the illicit trafficking of antiquities and other cultural heritage objects and heralds more stringent oversight for private players in the New York art market.

The Steinhardt seizure represents a significant achievement for the Manhattan DA’s Antiquities Trafficking Unit (led by Matthew Bogdanos), which has recovered thousands of stolen cultural heritage objects collectively valued at over $200 million since its inception in 2017, and repatriated a total of 717 pieces to 14 nations over the past year.

Amineddoleh & Associates LLC has been watching this matter closely. Our founder, Leila A. Amineddoleh served as the cultural heritage law expert for a number of the warrants used to seize dozens of items from Steinhardt’s collection, including the Lebanese Bull’s Head. (We note that Leila has never been, and is not currently, employed by the Manhattan DA’s Office, but has instead served as an independent expert.)

Ownership Dispute of Lebanese Antiquity at the Met

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.