No, NYT, listing a couple of lots doesn't prove that antiquities buyers care about provenance!

A quick note about the article by Souren Melikian that is in today's New York Times. It is dumb. And wrong. 

Antiquities, With a Proven Record, Drive Auction Market

Paris — The market for antiquities from the ancient world is undergoing an upheaval that sends some works of art skyrocketing to unimaginable heights while scores of others are effectively becoming unsalable. 

The reason for this discrepancy lies in the Unesco convention adopted in 1970 to safeguard the buried heritage of mankind and shield standing monuments from looting. While many countries, including the United States, did not sign up, the convention is effectively being implemented by international institutions and, increasingly, by prudent collectors and dealers, fearful that the legitimate ownership of their acquisitions may be challenged in the future. 

As a result, important works of art that can be proved to have reached the market before 1970 shoot to vertiginous levels, while those that cannot fail to sell with increasing frequency.

Okay, yes, well obviously the United Stated DID sign the Unesco convention but besides that, the listing of a couple of random lots does not prove that buyers prefer pre-1970 pieces. You need stats for that. Real numbers. Trends. Etc. Not just a few random lots.  

You know what? I just finished a paper this week containing JUST those sorts of numbers. And...well, 1970 is not a factor for what I was looking at. Data from this year. Seriously. This is bad.

Paper forthcoming.

Sigh.

"Plunder to Preservation" from the Oxford University Press (with chapter by me!)

A chapter by me appears in a new book released this month by the Oxford University Press.

From Plunder to Preservation Britain and the Heritage of Empire, c.1800-1940, Edited by Astrid Swenson and Peter Mandler, ”takes a novel approach to this important and controversial subject by considering the impact of empire on the idea of ‘heritage’. It reveals a dazzling variety of attitudes on the part of the imperialists – from frank ‘plunder’ of American, Asian, African and Pacific peoples’ cultural artefacts and monuments to a growing appreciation of the need for ‘preservation’ of the world’s heritage in the places it originated.”

My chapter is titled “Publication as Preservation at a Remote Maya Site in the Early Twentieth Century”. It is about the early excavations of the remote Maya site of Holmul in advance of the massive looting of that site which may have produced such illicit antiquities as the November Collection. It explores the idea of preserving and protecting a site which is conceptually remote, even to scholars, and discusses my re-excavation of this early dig.

The book, which features a range of case-studies, is available on the OUP website at http://ukcatalogue.oup.com/product/9780197265413.do

A paper.li attempt

If all goes right, this should auto aggregate news articles about antiquities trafficking and cultural property issues each Wednesday. Enjoy!

http://paper.li/DrDonnaYates/1370445356#

Two magazines on Flip Board

I am experimenting with Flip Board Magazines. If you are a Flip board user and want some slightly curated content on cultural property issues, art crime, and antiquities trafficking check out:

Anonymous Swiss Collector: flip.it/lYao9

If you want archaeology and heritage misc. check out:

The Archaeologist: http://flip.it/aFXeD 

I am enjoying the smoothness of flip board. Let us see where it goes. If you are not familiar with it and have either an iphone or an android phone, check it out.

The Virgin of Copacabana has been looted

On Monday 22 of April the gold and silver accessories of the Virgin of Copacabana were robbed.

I cannot emphasise how important the Virgin of Copacabana is and has been to Bolivia. She was the replacement for the sun/earth religions offered by the Spanish who plonked her sanctuary down on an ancient holy site in the 16th century. Understandably everyone is freaking out and a lot of accusations are flying. The police have raided some premises. Some people were arrested and let go. The president accused 'some bishops' of being involved in the church thefts and the church has come out mad against that.

It is too soon to say much about this, but I will note that everything that was stolen was metal. As followers of this blog know I have been specifically looking into the looting and market of metal church objects from Bolivia vs. non-metal objects. These thefts happen all the time but I somehow expected that the Virgin of Copacabana would be the one icon that was well protected. I guess not.

Unless the police grab these folks quick, it is unlikely that they will get the metal objects back. I think they mostly get melted (mostly), but I can't prove it (yet?!). Plus how do you sell the jewels of the Virgin of Copacabana?

More when I hear it.

Antiquities dealer and alleged smuggler Leonardo Patterson arrested in Spain, facing extradition to Guatemala and Peru

Antiquities dealer, alleged smuggler, and total piece of work Leonardo Patterson has been arrested in Spain and Perú is attempting to have him extradited to face charges of crimes against cultural property. Guatemala also wants a piece of him, and are asking he be extradited as well.

Patterson was arrested on the 28th of March at the Madrid airport by Interpol based off of warrants from, as you can imagine, Guatemala and Peru. The Guatemala warrant has been outstanding since 2008 and there he is wanted on charges related to 269 objects that were either seized from Patterson in Spain or from his car as he allegedly made a crazy drive to Germany with his car filled with illicit antiquities that were pending further investigation (yes, he decided to cross some MORE borders with them). The Peruvian charge may be from the same string of incidents or from a 2004 warrant (see below).

Patterson has been involved in some crazy stuff in his day and I am not even sure that the 2008 raids/returns/etc. thing was the craziest. Mexican news source El Universal's words, not mine:

In 1970 he was also accused of trying to sell a fake Maya fresco in the United States. In his defense, the art dealer said the fresco had been authenticated by an archaeologist. 

Years later, Patterson was again accused of forgery. This time an Olmec colossal head, which he acquired in the early '90s from a craftsman from San Andres Tuxtla, Veracruz, and then tried to sell for nearly 20 million dollars. 

His criminal record also includes the illegal trafficking of antiquities in Dallas in 1985, and a scam to sell works attributed to Dalí in 1999.

Other sources say that in 1986 he was arrested in the US for smuggling endangered sea turtle eggs. What a guy!

He was, allegedly, heavily involved in the smuggling of the fantastic octopoid god headdress from the Peruvian site of La Mina. This depends on how much you want to listen to Michel Van Rijn, or at least sort through what he says. However, yes, Patterson.

I've written a draft of an encyclopedia entry on La Mina for our website which isn't quite ready yet, but I can give you an excerpt from what will go up there eventually:

Perhaps the most famous object from La Mina is a large golden headdress which depicts a tentacled zoomorphic sea god. The headdress was most likely removed from La Mina during the initial 1988 looting of the site (Laville 2006). It seems to have been purchased by the collector Raul Apesteguía who sold it on to Costa Rican dealer/collector Leonardo Patterson (O'Brien 2006). Apesteguía, who is thought to have purchased other La Mina objects, was brutally murdered in his home on 26 January 1996. Apesteguía was beaten to death and six boxes of pre-Conquest gold and ceramics were taken from his collection (O'Brien 2006). The police determined that Apesteguía died at the hands of an antiquities trafficking mob he was associated with. An August 1996 raid at Lima's international airport produced three objects taken during the Apesteguía murder, along with 445 other artefacts which were in the process of being shipped to French dealer Yves de Parceval (O'Brien 2006). 

The sea god headdress, along with other Peruvian objects linked to Apesteguía, appeared in a 1997 catalogue  that accompanied exhibition of Patterson's collection at the Museo do Pobo Galego in Santiago de Compostela, Spain (O'Brien 2006). By 2006 the piece was in Belgium and on the market. The headdress was recovered by London's Metropolitan Police Force and was returned to Perú in August 2006 (Laville 2006). According to the Guardian ‘a London solicitor's firm had facilitated the return on behalf of their client after an intelligence-led investigation’ (Laville 2006). Reportedly, the piece was offered to an undercover agent who agreed to pay an unnamed collector £1 million for the object if the exchange was made in London (O'Brien 2006). The piece was moved to London from Belgium where it was seized by police. Several reports state that a key player in this sting was the Dutch art dealer Michel van Rijn and, in turn, van Rijn has stated in interviews that Patterson was the target of the sting (for example, see Lucena 2006).

Based on the contents of the 1997 catalogue and at the urging of Walter Alva, a Peruvian court issued an arrest warrant for Patterson in 2004 (Associated Press 2008). As a result of that investigation, in 2008, the government of Spain officially returned forty-five Peruvian cultural objects that had been seized in the 2007 raid of a warehouse owned by Patterson, (Associated Press 2008). Twelve of these pieces are thought to have come from Sipán but many of the others, including gold masks, jewellery, and ceramics are thought to have come from La Mina (Associated Press 2008). Patterson claimed that all the objects were on loan from Roeckl (Associated Press 2008).

I am quite surprised that Patterson's arrest hasn't really hit the English-language news. Dude is a piece of work!

We have an article about Patterson that has been pending inclusion on the Trafficking Culture website for some time but it needs such constant update that we haven't be able to share it. You can read about some Olmec wooden sculptures form El Manatí, Mexico that were seized in the 2008 raid on Patterson's objects in Spain, however, and I will let you know when and if we can get his full bio, etc, up.

Belize: Anti-Looting posters!

On a more positive note Belize, the country that stole my heart and hasn't given it back, has a new anti-looting campaign going on to pair with the recent signing of a Belize-US cultural property MOU!

High-five to the Belizean Institute of Archaeology. Hows about y'all send me a few of those posters?

Dick's Service Center in Punta Gorda is anti-looting! Are you?
Photo from the Institute of Archaeology, Belize

So they sold that Barbier-Mueller stuff over the weekend.

I can't tell you why this sold for €1,609,500. I have no clue.

From the Sotheby's Website:

Guillaume Cerutti, President-Directeur General, Sotheby’s France, said: “With a final total of more than €10 million, this sale established a new world record for a sale of Pre-Columbian Art. Despite having achieved less than expected, these results are good considering the context in which the sale unfolded. High prices were achieved for the many iconic pieces which reflect the extraordinary quality of the collection.”

Subtle, Guillaume. Subtle. Wink wink.

By my count Peru, Mexico, Guatemala, Ecuador, and Venezuela all provided the "context" that Monsieur Cerutti refers to (and maybe Colombia too? I am forget-y and without coffee. A situation to fix). Suffice to say I am now, right this moment, working on something terribly numbers-y and another something very academic about this auction. Details forthcoming.

See I knew that masters in Pre-Conquest American antiquities auctions would be good for something. That doesn't tell me why that weird bird pot thing sold for €1,609,500. I am not seeing it.

The collection's issues: Sotheby's Paris Barbier-Mueller sale 2

In this post I want to talk a little bit about the (very) little that I know about the Barbier-Mueller collection. As you can imagine, this mostly concerns shady dealings with particular objects, none of which are in the 22/23 March Sotheby's Paris sale, none of which will probably 'surface' anytime soon. Indeed, my most favorite looted antiquity may (or may not!) be in the Barbier-Mueller collection: the Rio Azul mask.

So who is behind the Barbier-Mueller collection?

Joseph Mueller in 1957

As Sotheby's is VERY very very very VERY quick and eager to point out, the Barbier-Mueller collection has its foundation in the collecting activity of Josef Mueller who, according to Sotheby's, first bought a Latin American artefact in 1920. Sotheby's goes on to emphasise that the collection is "century-old". Why? Because most of the collection is not "century-old"; by setting recently acquired items near old items the auction house is trying to get people off their back. Good luck.

Since I think the 70s, the Barbier-Mueller collection has been administered by Joseph Mueller's son-in-law, Jean Paul Barbier-Mueller as well as Mueller's daughter, Monique. The couple have expanded the collection and opened two museums: the Musée Barbier-Mueller in Geneva, Switzerland in 1977 and the Museu Barbier-Mueller d'Art Precolombí in Barcelona in 1997. 

The shape and contents of the Barbier-Mueller Collection as it stands today seems to have much more to do with the activities of the Barbier-Muellers in the latter part of the 20th century rather than the collecting of Mueller in the early part of the 20th century. Call me out on this if I am wrong, but see below.

Why are they selling this stuff?

Monique and J-P looking insufferable

Well, in 1997 the Museu Barbier-Mueller d'Art Precolombí opened in Barcelona specifically to house the Latin American stuff from the Barbier-Mueller central in Geneva. On 14 September 2012, Barbier-Mueller Barcelona closed because it was not economically viable. The museum was unable to reach an agreement with Jean Paul Barbier-Mueller, who seems to have decided to scrap the whole thing. The objects in Barbier-Mueller Barcelona were sent back to Switzerland and Jean Paul set about selling some portion of them. Enter the Sotheby's sale...which was announced the same month that Barbier-Mueller Barcelona shut its doors.

What is being sold?

The portion of the Barbier-Mueller collection being sold at Sotheby's is pretty much your standard hodge-podge of "Precolumbian" things from up and down the Americas. Indeed, contents of the sale catalogue is not unlike the catalogues produced for several decades of Sotheby's New York's biannual Precolombian sale. Plenty of these items came through those sales. At least one (lot 13) came from my pet 'favorite' dealer at the moment, the late Everett Rassiga.

Everything is pretty standard marketable stuff: the popular things people buy for whatever reason. To go a step further, a lot of the items are exactly the sorts that have been (controversially) called fakes by Karen O. Bruhns and Nancy L. Kelker in Faking Ancient Mesoamerica and in Faking the Ancient Andes. I can certainly see how many of these things are just too perfect, too appealing, too modern, and totally unknown in the actual archaeological record. Take that with a grain of salt, but don't just accept these things are all 'real'.

How is the provenance?

This section is partially in response to criticism over Peru's action to recover the Peruvian items in the auction. Reporting on the issue makes it seem that the collection is all pre-1920s and that Peru is acting anyway. Other commentators have stated that this is evidence "that museums and others were snookered into accepting a 1970 date for acquisitions of artifacts", stating that such a claim is unreasonable. 

I don't want to go into the 1970-or-not debate, but I think it is worth having a look at the provenance of these objects before we start saying such things. Why? As I said, Sotheby's REALLY wants you to think that all of this stuff appeared in Switzerland magically in the 1920s. That simply isn't reality. 

Like a madwoman, I have gone through the whole catalogue and recorded the listed 'surface date' of each of the items for sale. I am being very liberal and trusting the listed date-of-purchase from other galleries/dealers (usually I only trust publications and exhibitions because, well, people lie). The only thing I won't accept is a date with no name (no Anonymous Swiss Collectors)... those I kick up to the next date (there aren't many of these). Remember the house and the owners are motivated to push the provenance date as far back as they possibly can so we have every reason to believe that the dates listed are the earliest records for these objects.

Here is what we have in this sale:

So, 152 lots with provenance dates before 1970 and 161 lots with provenance dates after 1970.

Isolating the Peruvian items we get a different picture:

For Peruvian lots, 35 have provenance dates before 1970 and 20 have provenance dates to after 1970. Please note that in all of these, especially the Peruvian items, many are listed as simply 'avant 1952' when I suppose an inventory of the collection was taken. Make of that what you will.

What does this mean for Peru's case?

Almost nothing. Although 1970 is bandied about, complained about, and called upon, and dismissed, the Government of Peru did not give up legal ownership of archaeological material upon signing the UNESCO convention. Peru is asserting ownership and, thus, illegal export. Ownership. Just like a private citizen could (you know, if you could privately own such things in Peru). I understand that assertions of ownership across borders is a bit of a dog's breakfast: it is difficult to sort out, difficult to understand, and difficult to talk about, but under Peruvian law, Peru has owned all archaeological things since 1929 (or perhaps 1822). How foreign courts interpret this based on their own law is, well, up to those foreign courts but there really is no practical reason to make the 1970 date more than it is.

And, again, the slight majority of items in this sale are post-1970 anyway so are unclean no matter how you look at it.

 Now where is Guatemala in all this?

Where am I? Ask the Barbier-Muellers!

Since I know all of you have read my encyclopedia article on the Rio Azul mask it is silly for me to quote myself. I will anyway:

During the 1990s the mask was rumoured to be in a private collection in Germany, having passed through Switzerland (Adams 1999: 216). In late 1999 the piece surfaced in a temporary exhibition in the Barbier-Mueller Pre-Columbian Art Museum in Barcelona where it was seen by several Guatemalan government officials  (Hernández Sánchez 2008: 4). In July 2001, the government of Guatemala issued a legal claim for the Río Azul mask as well as 11 other Guatemalan items in the Barbier-Mueller collection (Hernández Sánchez 2008: 60; Valdés 2006: 94). This process, documented extensively in Hernández Sánchez (2008), came to an end in 2002 when a Barcelona court denied Guatemala’s claim, stating that any alleged crime would have occurred outside of Spain’s jurisdiction (Hernández Sánchez 2008: 61). The mask is thought to still be in the Barbier-Mueller collection, having been moved back to Switzerland, but its exact whereabouts remain unknown (Hernández Sánchez 2008; Nessi 2008).

A TON of the items for sale at Sotheby's are from Guatemala. Many of the 'freshest' artefacts, the ones with provenance dates in the 2000s, are Maya. I am not sure what kind of crossover there is with the 12 items that Guatemala unsuccessfully laid claim to a few years ago, but I would have thought they might have a go at these, especially if Peru is getting involved. Perhaps they are sitting back and letting Peru spend the money (if, indeed, any money is being spent, who knows). Let us see what happens.

PS: Rio Azul Mask!

The Sotheby's sale of the Barbier-Mueller Collection: waxing and waning on Peruvian law.

It is being reported that Peru is attempting to recover 67-ish archaeological objects being offered by Sotheby’s Paris’ 22/23 March sale of items from the Barbier-Mueller Collection. An interesting and quite unsurprising move.

Peru stuff? Usually sold in NYC.

My initial thought was that Sotheby’s wouldn’t touch the Barbier-Mueller if they didn’t think their ability to sell the stuff was clear. I don’t really know the specifics or the logistics, but I imagine that is why the sale is happening in Paris rather than in the United States. For decades and decades New York has been the venue for the house’s Pre-Columbian sales. If that isn’t where the market for this material is, it is at least where people expect to buy it. However the movement of the collection into the United States for sale might just be problematic. A quick rundown of why:

• The US and Peru have had a Cultural Property MOU in place since 1997 banning the import of various types of old things, including artefacts, having previously (since 1990) had an emergency ban on the import of items from the site of Sipán.
• Sotheby’s New York has ignored Peruvian requests to halt the sale of certain artefacts before, causing the feds to seize said items.
• Bonus awkwardness: Sotheby’s New York is in all sorts of mess over that statue from the Cambodian site of Koh Ker and probably have their hands full.

Basically, the moment Sotheby’s takes any of this stuff across a border, things could go off the rails, and if they tried to bring it into the US for a sale, the US would be obliged to halt the shipment at customs and investigate Peru’s claim of ownership because you can’t just take Peruvian antiquities into the US anymore. Or at least you aren’t supposed to be able to. Best leave it in Paris and let whoever buys this stuff deal with the trouble.

Of course none of that could be a factor. Who knows.

Moving back to what this post was supposed to be about. The Wall Street Journal article quotes someone at the Peruvian Ministry of Culture as saying: “It is possible to deduce that their exportation must have been clandestine, given that from April 2, 1822 Peruvian regulations prohibit the removing of archaeological goods without government authorization.” They could have quoted me as saying “you have got to be kidding.”

History lesson straight from wikipedia:

“San Martín proclaimed Peruvian independence after reaching Lima the following year [meaning 1821]. Royalist strongholds remained throughout the country and in Upper Peru, so it was not until four years later that the Spanish Monarchy was definitively defeated at the Battle of Ayacucho by troops under the command of Antonio José de Sucre [meaning December 1824]. Upper Peru was once again separated from Peru in 1825 by an Upper Peruvian constituent congress, despite opposition to the plan by Bolívar [Sorry Simón, no unified South America AND they named the resulting country after YOU!].”

Peru libre...Peru libre?

I am not a lawyer. That should be obvious to everyone, especially lawyers. However, I do spend an unhealthy amount of my waking hours^[1] thinking about South American law in historical and social context. Not really if the law is/can be applied (working on that), but rather why it says what it says when it says it. I think about the Revolution quite a lot and, honestly, I really have trouble believing anything much came out of Peru (or “Peru”) in 1822. If it did, it would have been some fuzzy declaration of state sovereignty over land and water. Super broad. Pretty much translatable as “Look, we are a country now, this is us”. At least that is what I thought. I admit that Peru is not my forte. I set about finding out.

This thing kinda looks fake.

Now tell me, readers, do you think anyone in the Peru of 1822 was claiming archaeological objects for the Peruvian people?

Actually, maybe yes!

As it turns out the personified “Ministry of Culture” was citing Decreto Supremo N° 89 del 2 abril de 1822. Do you know what is really hard to find on the internet? The actual text of Decreto Supremo N° 89 del 2 abril de 1822 as opposed to summaries written by others. I hate this. I really do.

This is from a blog post by Fabricio Alfredo Valencia Gibaja so, let us assume it is believable:

“Supreme Decree No. 89 of 2 April 1822. Signed by Torre Tagle by order of Bernardo de Monteagudo. This law is the first time we find legal precedent for the protection of cultural heritage in Republican Peru; it expressly established that the monuments that remain of ancient Peru are the property of the Nation, that they can circulate freely within the country, saying that the government has the right to prohibit their exportation. The extraction of mineral stones, ancient works of pottery, textiles, and other objects that are found within the huacas [archaeological sites] is absolutely prohibited. The Government is able to grant licenses for projects of public interest and to sanction the violation of this provision with the loss of ‘especie’ and a fine of 1000 pesos. It also charges customs officials with ensuring compliance with the previously mentioned requirements."^[2]

Wow, okay…if it says that, that is a bit of a surprise. I really want to see this law now. From that little summary I honestly can’t tell if baby-Peru fully claimed archaeological OBJECTS as property of the nation. Monuments, yes. Extraction, no. But do they say “we, Peru, own this stuff”? Because, you know, I am not quite sure they did. Why you ask? Well that ‘effin mess that was Peru v. Johnson.

To quote me quoting other people: “Their case hinged on the country of Peru proving that Johnson’s collection was composed of stolen property. This claim was based on Peruvian Law No. 6634 of June 13, 1929 and Peruvian Law No. 24047 of 5 January 1985, which identify the Peruvian State as the rightful owner of undocumented Peruvian antiquities (Kobrinski 2011).” Thus in one of the most well-known (and totally frustrating) Peru repatriation cases to hit US courts, this 1822 Supreme Decree was not even a factor in the whole thing being a total wash…

I guess I wonder where Peru is going with citing the 1822 law if, in the past, international courts have not seen that as proof of an ownership claim. Maybe the personified Ministry of Culture was just saying stuff that sounds good. Maybe it is because some (but certainly not all or even most: some of this crap is from the 2000s!) of the Barbier-Mueller stuff may have a pre-1929 provenance?

I don’t know. I would love to see what Peru sent Sotheby’s. I would love to see Decreto Supremo N° 89 del 2 abril de 1822. Email me if you can provide either!

[1] And sleeping hours. A few days ago I dreamed that I was looking up at a massive grey/white skyscraper from its base. I knew, just knew that the skyscraper was “the law of Uruguay”. The skyscraper was all Uruguayan law. Then I woke up.

[2] My brain is dumb right now. This translation is probably total crap. Here is the Spanish. “Decreto Supremo N° 89 del 2 abril de 1822. Suscrito por Torre Tagle por orden de Bernardo de Monteagudo. Esta norma es el primer precedente jurídico que ubicamos en el Perú Republicano de protección del patrimonio; establece expresamente que los monumentos que quedan de la antigüedad del Perú son propiedad de la Nación, pudiendo circular libremente dentro del país, contando el gobierno con el derecho de prohibir su exportación. La extracción de piedras minerales, obras antiguas de alfarería, tejidos y demás objetos que se encontraban en las huacas fue absolutamente prohibida. El Gobierno podía otorgar licencia con propósitos de utilidad pública y sancionar el incumplimiento de esta disposición con la pérdida de la especie y una multa de 1000 pesos, asimismo encargaba a los funcionarios de aduanas velar por el cumplimiento de lo anteriormente prescrito.”