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Showing posts with label Swedish Royal Library. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Swedish Royal Library. Show all posts

August 27, 2013

ARCA's Fifth Annual International Art Crime Conference: Third Panel featured Nicholas M. O’Donnell, Jerker Rydén, Joris Kila

Judge Tompkins (left) with Nicholas O'Donnell, Jerker
Rydén, and Joris Kila (right)
by Sophia Kisielewska, ARCA Intern

After a delicious lunch served by the staff of La Locanda in the beautiful chiostro everyone settled back into their seats to listen to Panel Three. Moderating the panel was Judge Arthur Tompkins, a District Court Judge in New Zealand and a professor on ARCA’s Postgraduate Certificate program.

The first panelist was Nicholas M. O’Donnell, a litigation partner with Sullivan & Worcester LLP in Boston and New York, whose practice focuses primarily on complex civil litigation, representing collectors, dealers, artists and museums. O'Donnell is also the editor of The Art LawReport. O’Donnell’s presentation, “American Wartime Art Restitution Litigation in the 1990s and Beyond—Has it All Been Worth It?” looked at the difficult subject of art restitution, specifically its reception in America since the 1998 Washington Conference, when awareness of the problem was ignited.

O'Donnell used a number of case studies to understand if there has been a shift in how restitution cases are being addressed in courts. He said that the Portrait of Wally affair, and the case of Maria Atlmann and her claim of five paintings by Gustav Klimt, seemed to infer that a change had occurred, however the use of the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act and the fact that courts are regularly dismissing claims based on statutes of limitations seems to indicate that courts are still very much against the claimants in art restitution cases.

O’Donnell emphasized that in almost all cases the battleground is the statute of limitations but he also pointed out that the FSIA has its own issues. To demonstrate his point he spoke of the Chabad Lubavitch library dispute. Currently Russia is being fined $50,000 for every day it defies the judgment held by US District Court for the District of Columbia on January 16 2013. Charges will be halted once Russia returns thelibrary of the late Menachem Schneerson to the plaintiffs, the current leadership of the worldwide Chabad Lubavitch movement, which they seem unlikely to do. O’Donnell spoke of the impact of this case on international relations and the art world and in his closing slides he reviewed what the future litigation, legislation, and diplomacy in cases of wartime restitution in the United States might consequently look like.

The second presentation was given by Jerker Rydén, the Senior Legal Advisor of the Royal Library of Sweden. Rydén has worked as a judge, a lawyer in private practice, and a national delegate to international copyright proceedings as well as senior legal advisor of the National Heritage Board of Sweden. In the recent past he has worked closely with assistant United States attorney Sharon Cohen Levin of the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York and the Federal Bureau of Investigation to help track and recover unique and valuable historical works that had been stolen from the library collections. In his presentation, “Skullduggery in the Stacks: Recovering stolen books for the Royal Library of Sweden” he discussed the legal and practical issues that faces the Royal Library of Sweden as it attempts to recover the 62 books that were stolen by Anders Burius, a former director of the Royal Library Manuscript Department, who was arrested in 2004 and who later committed suicide. [More details provided here by A.M.C. Knutsson]

Rydén used this case to explain the many techniques that are used by book thieves, such as breaking books into sub-parts and stealing and erasing finding aides (i.e., card catalogue entries) which means that such thefts can go undiscovered for decades. He spoke of the role of auction houses and booksellers in aiding book thieves by not doing their due diligence on the sellers and by not asking for provenance on the items. He went on to describe the book recovery efforts of the law enforcement in the United States and in Europe and the recovery efforts of industry organisations, such as international databases. At the end of his presentation Rydén made a point of saying that the effects of such thefts can damage the collective memory of a nation, which he described as ‘just like permanent brain damage’. 

The panel was brought to a close with a presentation by Joris Kila who is a senior researcher at the University of Vienna and reserve Lieutenant Colonel in the Dutch army. He is board member of the World Association for the Protection of Tangible and Intangible Cultural Heritage in Times of Armed Conflict in Rome, chairman of the International Cultural Resources Working Group and a member of the Research Forum on the Law of Armed Conflict and Peace Operations in the Netherlands as well as being a guest lecturer and researcher at the Netherlands and Austrian Defense Academies.

Dr. Kila's presentation, “An update on Armed Conflict and Heritage”, focused on the status of cultural property in recent areas of conflict. He described how cultural heritage has always been available for damage and manipulation thanks to its place in museums and other public spaces and its incontestable link to glorified and idealized pasts and as such it will continue to be heavily disputed and contested in future wartime conflicts as well as in pre- and post conflict phases. The damaging or destruction of cultural property is attacking the identity of the opponent while at the same time looting of cultural objects can be beneficial for the opposing forces such as insurgents for financial reasons thus generating a security issue to be taken into account by military organizations. Because of these issues it is clear that cultural property needs protecting in areas of conflict. Kila pointed out that research into current conflict and heritage aspects is lacking and is in desperate need of funding.

Dr. Kila's presentation covered a number of new developments and dilemmas in the international heritage discourse such as heritage and identity, trauma scapes, issues of increasing iconoclasm and debates about selecting what to preserve. Finally he spoke of today's situations in Egypt, Libya and Syria, as he has experienced and witnessed it in person, and emphasized that the situations in these war zones must be factored into these discussions.

July 26, 2013

Royal Library of Sweden celebrates the return of two rare manuscripts stolen by Anders Burius and recovered by Baltimore-based book dealer Stephan Loewentheil

by A. M. C. Knutsson, ARCA Student 2013

On Wednesday the 24th of July, the second return ceremony for books stolen from the Royal Library of Sweden took place in the office of the New York District Attorney.  Last year the Wytfliet Atlas was the first to be returned to the Royal Library after it was identified in the possession of a New York-based dealer who had purchased it in 2003 from Sotheby’s, who reimbursed the dealer before returning it to the Library.

The two new returns are the ‘Das illustrirte Mississippithal’ by Henry Lewis, which was the first book to be discovered missing from the Royal Library and a 1683 French book by Louis Hennepin on the Louisiana territory.  A full list of the books that remain missing can be found here. Both of these books were purchased by Baltimore-based dealer Stephan Loewentheil from Ketterer Kunst, a German auction house where many of the stolen books had been sold. Learning about the thefts, Loewentheil, who in turn had sold the books, bought them back and returned them to the Royal Library at his own expense. Loewentheil explained his actions in the following words, "Although as a bona fide purchaser, I didn't have any legal liability, from a moral standpoint it bothered me.”

The head librarian and CEO of the Royal Library, Gunilla Herdenberg commented on the return, saying that the return means a lot to the Library as well as the Swedish cultural heritage. It is important, she asserts, to show that these types of thefts can be resolved.

The thefts from the Royal Library took place between 1995 and 2004. They were conducted by Anders Burius, the head of the Manuscript Department, who at discovery committed suicide. More than 50 books remain missing, but it is believed that the increased publicity with the return of the resurfaced books in conjunction with further effort at identification both by the Library and the FBI might prove fruitful.

The juridical representative of the Royal Library has ensured that the Library is constantly working to localize the missing books. The economic value is irrelevant when it comes to the damage conducted to the Library and the cultural heritage of Sweden.  These books are intended for the enlightenment of mankind and the return of the books is the only right thing to do from an ethical standpoint.

Steven D. Feldman, from Herrick, Feinstein LLP, representing the Royal Library stated, “Stephan Loewentheil’s decision to return these two cultural treasures to the Royal Library of Sweden should serve as an example for ethical book dealers and collectors in the United States and around the world.  As Mr. Loewentheil demonstrated, these stolen books should be returned to the people of Sweden and the Royal Library, their true owner, and made available to the public.  They should not be secreted away in private collections.”

In the words of Stephan Loewentheil, “Our clients love books and people who love books tend to want to do the right thing, so they were happy to sell the books back to me.”

Anyone who holds any information regarding the missing books (a complete list is available at www.wytflietatlas.com) is encouraged to contact Jerker Rydén at the Royal Library of Sweden.

For more information:


June 29, 2013

History of Art Crime: ARCA Student A. M. C. Knutsson Writes on Book Thief Anders Burius and the Theft at the Swedish Royal Library

by A. M. C. Knutsson, ARCA Student 2013
 
Photo: Andrea Davis Kronlund and Jens Östman
http://www.wytflietatlas.com 
At 04.30 am on the 8th of December 2004, a top floor apartment in Central Stockholm explodes, injuring 11 people and forcing the evacuation of 44 others. Four days later the body of a man was found among the debris, along with a pro and con list of whether or not to stay alive. The man’s wrists had been slashed and the gas lead had been cut repeatedly; it remains uncertain whether Anders Burius was alive when his apartment exploded. Three days earlier Burius had been released from custody. 

Anders Burius had been the chief of the Swedish Royal Library’s Manuscript Department, and in charged of imposing increased safety measures following the thefts by renowned map-thief Peter Bellwood. Burius had also been stealing books from various libraries since 1986.

During the spring of 2004, the Royal Library personnel were looking for an 1850 map of the Mississippi. The online database REGINA still contained an entry indicating that the book would be in the library's possession, however it could not be located within the library. Following an inventory of the book stacks, it was revealed that more than 50 books had gone missing.  As the investigation wore on, Burius felt that it was only a matter of time before he would be exposed and he confessed to a colleague.

On the All Saints Eve, Burius sent a text message to a colleague, “Now I’m going into Bergsgatan 58 [the police station]”. At 4.40 pm, Burius was arrested for the thefts in the Royal Library. He was almost immediately dubbed "KB mannen" (the Royal Library man) by the media and his story spread through the news like wildfire. During his three weeks in custody, he kept writing lists for the police of all the books he had stolen. In total, Burius appears to have stolen 103 books whereof 58 where from the Royal Library. As the investigation dragged out, Burius was temporarily released.

At the time of the discovery of the thefts, Burius had systematically retrieved books from his work for a decade. He had, with his intimate knowledge of the library, been able to steal books and remove entries from the old card index in order to conceal his crimes.  However, over time, Burius had become less careful and started leaving catalogue traces behind. In addition to his meddling with the catalogues, Burius was also careful to remove identifying marks from the books. In the extreme case of Maximilianus Transylvanus' 1523 account of Magellan’s tour of the world, he had even cut the text-block out of its original binding and had it rebound in Germany in order to conceal its connection to the Royal Library. The book was later sold for €94,300.

After ‘cleaning’ the books, Burius approached dealers in Germany under the pseudonym Karl Fields, a nod to the Swedish poet Karlfeldt. The auction house Ketterer Kunst, Burius claimed, only required the seller to sign an assurance of ownership and made no effort to check the provenance of the works offered for sale. Ketterer Kunst maintains that they did nothing wrong in selling the books as Burius had confirmed that the books were his.

In June 2012, one of the most important stolen objects resurfaced in New York. The Cornelius Wytfliet atlas that contains one of the earliest maps of North America was offered for sale by W. Graham Arder III. He in turn had purchased it in good faith from Sotheby’s in 2003 for $100,000; its current value was estimated at $450,000. Mr Arder returned the book to Sotheby’s who reimbursed him in full and later returned it to the Royal Library after negotiations. Whilst it is hoped that this find will encourage other books to resurface, most of these books have now been legally acquired by ‘good faith’ purchasers and it is uncertain whether the Royal Library will be able to recreate its marred collections.

Bibliography

http://www.herrick.com/siteFiles/News/B6C44B1FDFDEFECAFB7BCB94496A843D.pdf


Radio:

Tv-dramatisation:

Bibliotekstjuven (The Library Thief), originally aired January 2011