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Museums and Collectors and the Illicit Trade of Art/Cultural Objects

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Book cover Art Collections, Private and Public: A Comparative Legal Study

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Abstract

Unfortunately the trade in looted art and antiquities is one of the most prolific illicit trades in the world. Obviously, this trade is a “demand-driven crime”, it takes place because it is already known by the looters that there are buyers waiting for these objects.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Amineddoleh 2013, p. 228.

  2. 2.

    It was John H. Merryman who first used these two “terms”, “market nations” and “source nations”, as far as the antiquities are concerned, see Merryman 1986, p. 832.

  3. 3.

    Bogdanos 2008, p. 725; Vitale 2009, p. 1835.

  4. 4.

    According to Kreder and Bauer 2011, p. 882: “Art theft is rampant for a number of reasons: the news headlines of art auctions fetching millions of dollars, the notoriously lax security of art museums, and the low priority of art theft investigations due to the perception that the crime is “victimless”.

  5. 5.

    Resulting in “bad publicity and immense financial expense” for the museums, see Dubin 2010, p. 132.

  6. 6.

    Amineddoleh 2013, p. 235.

  7. 7.

    Thomas Hoving, the former director of the Metropolitan Museum, openly acknowledged—in a book he wrote, in 1993—that museums had a very significant role in the purchase of looted cultural objects. It is cited by Amineddoleh 2013, p. 235.

  8. 8.

    Hoffman 2010, pp. 667–668.

  9. 9.

    Hilaire and Davis 2010, p. 37.

  10. 10.

    Kreder 2005, p. 1199.

  11. 11.

    Scott Dutcher 2006, p. 1295; Ulph 2011, p. 39.

  12. 12.

    Such is the case of Marqués de Vega-Inclán, according to Kagan 2013, pp. 199–200. At about 1904, on the one hand he had dreams such as planning a new museum in Toledo, dedicated to the works of El Greco, and on the other hand he was directly or indirectly implicated in the sale of paintings (probably 20 of them…) of the same painter to buyers abroad. As Kagan mentions, Marqués de Vega-Inclán was so much enthusiastic about this project of making a new museum in Toledo, that a friend of his, Aureliano Beruete y Moret, art historian, art critic, and director of the Museo del Prado in 1918 (and having the same attitude with Marqués de Vega-Inclán, as far as selling works of Spanish painters abroad is concerned) was thinking that Marqués de Vega-Inclán was suffering from an illness that he was describing as “theotocapulifila manía”!.

  13. 13.

    See Paterson and Renold 2014, pp. 572–573: “Overall, however, amongst developed countries there is a patchwork of national cultural property export controls that often bear little resemblance to one another, in wording or implementation”.

  14. 14.

    Fincham 2008, p. 349.

  15. 15.

    Nafziger 2014a, p. 509.

  16. 16.

    Renold and Schönenberger 2014, pp. 409, 414.

  17. 17.

    Moustaira 2014, pp. 183–187.

  18. 18.

    For more details about the Greek law, see Moustaira 2014, pp. 183–186.

  19. 19.

    Moustaira 2014, pp. 186–187.

  20. 20.

    Voudouri 2010, p. 557.

  21. 21.

    Chamberlain and Hausler 2014, p. 469.

  22. 22.

    Wang 2008, p. 227.

  23. 23.

    Chamberlain and Hausler 2014, p. 472.

  24. 24.

    Davies and Myburgh 2008, p. 321.

  25. 25.

    See infra, 9.3.

  26. 26.

    Paterson 2014, p. 74.

  27. 27.

    See Paterson 2014, p. 75, stating that the Canadian Act “also relied on French experience insofar as it provided for a decentralized system of administration”.

  28. 28.

    Clark 1982–1983, p. 775.

  29. 29.

    Stoll 2012, p. 66.

  30. 30.

    See Nafziger 2014b, p. 211, on the fact that it was Mexico, “that, along with Peru, initiated specific legal efforts to combat illegal trafficking”. These efforts led to the 1970 UNESCO Convention.

  31. 31.

    Estrella Faria 2014, p. 19.

  32. 32.

    See Kaye 2014, p. 209: “Through the 1970 UNESCO Convention and the 1995 UNIDROIT Convention, the international community has taken important steps to try to rationalize the varied international response to stolen cultural property, foster widespread international enforcement of national ownership laws and, albeit gingerly at first, sanction the enforcement by one nation of another nation’s export laws in a way that adequately reflects the concerns of source and market countries”.

  33. 33.

    http://portal.unesco.org/la/convention.asp?KO=13039&language=E.

  34. 34.

    www.unidroit.org/status-cp.

  35. 35.

    Chamberlain and Hausler 2014, pp. 461–462.

  36. 36.

    See http://portal.unesco.org/en/ev.php-URL_ID=13039&URL_DO=D)_TOPIC&URL_SECTION=201.htm#RESERVES.

  37. 37.

    Chamberlain and Hausler 2014, p. 462.

  38. 38.

    Most jurists in USA oppose in generally to a “blank check rule”, according to which USA would be expected to enforce foreign export restrictions, see Merryman 2001, p. 51. However, the McClain doctrine incorporates some foreign law into title issues. Under this doctrine, dealing in antiquities that have been excavated in violation of a foreign statute can result in criminal sanctions in USA, even when U.S. import regulations have not been violated, see Goldberg 2006, p. 1031.

  39. 39.

    Beltrametti 2013. She points out that the UNESCO Convention’s entry into force in USA was not at all of interest of the country, for two major reasons: First, the U.S. cultural objects are scarce and not of particular interest to the international market, therefore they did not really need the guaranteed by the UNESCO Convention protection. Second, the introduction of a regulation that would make more difficult the work of the traders and of curators, would reduce the trade of cultural objects and, consequently, the world prestige of important U.S. collections.

  40. 40.

    The illicit import in USA has both civil [19 U.S.C. § 2609 (2012)] and criminal [National Stole Property Act, 18 U.S.C. §§ 2314-15 (2012)] consequences.

  41. 41.

    19 U.S.C. § 2602(a)(2)(A),(B) (2012).

  42. 42.

    http://exchanges.state.gov/heritage.culprop/listactions.html (Nov. 17, 2014).

  43. 43.

    Cornu 2014, p. 83.

  44. 44.

    Nafziger 2014a, b, p. 228.

  45. 45.

    Frigo 2011, p. 1024.

  46. 46.

    Prott 2014, p. 294.

  47. 47.

    Amineddoleh 2013, p. 240.

  48. 48.

    “Comando dei Carabinieri” which is exclusively occupied with the national cultural patrimony’s care.

  49. 49.

    Founder of the department store chain that bears his surname; see also about the case, Scott 2008, pp. 806–810.

  50. 50.

    Beltrametti 2013.

  51. 51.

    See Stoll 2012, p. 91: “For antiquities collectors, museums, and educational institutions, the battle has just begun. Recent victories have emboldened the Italian government, and it continues to launch investigations into American institutions’ acquisitions”.

  52. 52.

    Goodwin 2008, pp. 689–691.

  53. 53.

    Loschelder 2010, p. 705.

  54. 54.

    See Palmer 2005, p. 950: “Public exhibition exposes cultural objects to widespread scrutiny, alerting potential claimants”.

  55. 55.

    Forrest 2014, p. 144; Getz 2011, pp. 205–209.

  56. 56.

    All these details about legislations are taken from the articles of Forrest 2014, p. 144 and Getz 2011, p. 203.

  57. 57.

    Kaye 2010, p. 354.

  58. 58.

    O’Connell 2009, p. 783.

  59. 59.

    Forrest 2014, p. 163.

  60. 60.

    See Summary of ILA’s 76th Conference—Washington 2014, April 12, 2014, p. 13.

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  1. Faculty of Law, University of Athens, Athens, Greece

    Elina Moustaira

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Moustaira, E. (2015). Museums and Collectors and the Illicit Trade of Art/Cultural Objects. In: Art Collections, Private and Public: A Comparative Legal Study. SpringerBriefs in Law. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-15802-0_9

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