The Palgrave Handbook on Art Crime

909 Pages·2019·13.672 MB·English

by  Hufnagel, Saskia(Editor);Chappell, Duncan(Editor)

The Palgrave Handbook
on Art Crime
Edited by
Saskia Hufnagel · Duncan Chappell
The Palgrave Handbook on Art Crime
“This Handbook, at times racy as well as scholarly, reveals not only the ingenious
creativity of many recent art frauds and the brazen destruction of archaeological sites
for profitable loot but the complacency of many museum curators and directors who
have acquired illicitly exported and illegally trafficked antiquities in recent years with-
out exercising adequate due diligence. Recent cases, such as the sale by the Knoedler
Gallery in New York of fake Abstract Expressionist paintings for millions of dollars,
the purchase by the National Gallery of Australia in Canberra of early bronze master-
works purloined from rural temples in India, and the return to Italy in recent years of
looted Greek vases and other antiquities from the Metropolitan Museum of Art in
New York, show that fraud and plunder continue. The extent to which some dealers,
some collectors and even some museum curators remain complicit, despite protesta-
tions of ethical probity, is shocking and disquieting.”
—Sir Colin Renfrew, Senior Fellow of the McDonald
Institute for Archaeological Research
Saskia Hufnagel • Duncan Chappell
Editors
The Palgrave
Handbook on Art
Crime
Editors
Saskia Hufnagel Duncan Chappell
School of Law University of Sydney
Queen Mary University of London Sydney, NSW, Australia
London, UK
ISBN 978-1-137-54404-9 ISBN 978-1-137-54405-6 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-54405-6
© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Switzerland AG
2019
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Acknowledgements
The editors would like to acknowledge the support of the sponsors and vari-
ous institutions involved in the creation of this handbook: first and foremost,
the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC, UK) in providing gener-
ous financial assistance to this project as part of the AHRC Network Grant on
‘Art, Crime and Criminals: Painting Fresh Pictures on Art Theft, Fraud and
Plunder’ awarded to the editors (2016–2017). This grant contributed in par-
ticular to the hosting of the three workshops (Theft, Fraud and Looting/
Terrorist Financing) at which several papers presented formed the foundation
for this publication; secondly, the German Federal Ministry of Finance, which
generously provided its conference venue in Berlin for the third workshop
(and especially Dr Judith Hermes and Doris Dietze for their wonderful hos-
pitality); and finally, the School of Law, Queen Mary University of London,
which provided invaluable administrative support and the venue for the
first workshop.
The editors thank all the authors for their high-quality contributions,
angelic patience and friendly co-operation throughout the process of turning
their chapters into a handbook.
v
Contents
Part I Setting the Context 1
1 A rt Crime: Exposing a Panoply of Theft, Fraud and Plunder 3
Duncan Chappell and Saskia Hufnagel
2 O ne Looter, Two Looters, Three Looters … The Discipline of
Cultural Heritage Crime Within Criminology and Its Inherent
Measurement Problems 33
Marc Balcells
3 A rt Crime Literature: A General Overview 55
Vicki Oliveri
4 Th e Antiquities Licit-Illicit Interface 79
Blythe Alison Bowman Balestrieri
5 I NTERPOL and International Trends and Developments in
the Fight Against Cultural Property Crime 89
Saskia Hufnagel
vii
viii Contents
Part II Art Theft 107
6 Art Theft: An Examination of Its Various Forms 109
Duncan Chappell and Kenneth Polk
7 Unsolved Art Thefts 133
Vicki Oliveri
8 “Purely Bent on Mischief”: Theft from Australian Museums
1870s–1950s 149
Maryanne McCubbin
9 Protecting Works of Art from Theft 187
Declan Garrett
10 Regional Overviews of the Policing of Art Crime in the
European Union 213
Naomi Oosterman
11 Recovering Stolen Artworks: A Practical Approach 237
James Ratcliffe
12 Insurance Challenges and Art Crime 253
Dorit Straus
13 Statutes of Limitation and Other Legal Challenges to the
Recovery of Stolen Art 271
Patty Gerstenblith
Part III Art Fraud and Forgery 287
14 P rofiling Art Forgers 289
Noah Charney
15 Examining Art Fraud 301
Kenneth Polk and Duncan Chappell
Contents ix
16 Case Study 1: Beltracchi and the History of Art Fraud in
Germany 321
Saskia Hufnagel
17 Case Study 2: The Knoedler Art Forgery Network 343
Derek Fincham
18 Case Study 3: A Perspective from the Fakery Frontline—An
Interview with an Art Forger 363
Duncan Chappell and Saskia Hufnagel
19 Unmasking Art Forgery: Scientific Approaches 381
Robyn Sloggett
Part IV Art Plunder 407
20 Plunder and Looting: Some Historical Reminders 409
Valerie Higgins
21 The Criminal Organization of the Transnational Trade in
Cultural Objects: Two Case Studies 439
Neil Brodie
22 Th e Kapoor Case Including the Stolen Shiva 463
Michaela Boland
23 Cultural Heritage Offences in Latin America: Textile
Traffickers, Mummy Mailers, Silver Smugglers, and Virgin
Vandals 483
Donna Yates
24 Cultural Heritage Offences: A View from Asia 503
Stefan Gruber
x Contents
25 Bones of Contention: The Online Trade in Archaeological,
Ethnographic and Anatomical Human Remains on Social
Media Platforms 527
Damien Huffer, Duncan Chappell, Nathan Charlton, and
Brian F. Spatola
26 Forging Antiquities: The Case of Papyrus Fakes 557
Malcolm Choat
27 The Gurlitt ‘Collection’ and Nazi-Looted Art 587
Saskia Hufnagel and Duncan Chappell
28 Blue Shield Protection of Cultural Property: A Perspective
from the Field 607
Laurie W. Rush
29 I conoclasm: Religious and Political Motivations for
Destroying Art 625
Sam Hardy
30 Iconoclasm and Cultural Heritage Destruction During
Contemporary Armed Conflicts 653
Joris D. Kila
31 Protecting and Preserving Underwater Cultural Heritage in
Southeast Asia 685
Natali Pearson
32 The Development of the Heritage Crime Programme in
England 731
Mark Harrison, Mark Dunkley, and Alison James
33 The International Politics of Cultural Heritage Crime in
Cambodia: Past, Present and Future 751
Tess Davis and Simon Mackenzie
Contents xi
34 Preventing Illicit Trafficking of Cultural Objects: A Supply
Chain Perspective 769
Mariya Polner
Part V Some Ethical and Allied Challenges 795
35 The Return of Looted Objects to Their Countries of Origin:
The Case for Change 797
David W. J. Gill
36 Illicit Antiquities in American Museums: Diversity in Ethical
Standards 815
Christos Tsirogiannis
37 White-Collar Crime, Organised Crime and the Challenges of
Doing Research on Art Crime 839
Simon Mackenzie
38 In Vacuums of Law We Find: Outsider Poiesis in Street Art
and Graffiti 855
Lucy Finchett-Maddock
39 Taking Culture and the Balancing Act of Power 881
John Kerr
Index 901