Skip navigation

 Login or Register | Member Centre

Globe essay

Stop the appeasement of art and antiquities thieves

GEOFFREY CLARFIELD

From Saturday's Globe and Mail

Latest comment posted at 9:17 AM EDT 05/07/08

Stop the appeasement of art and antiquities thieves ...Read the full article

This conversation is closed

  1. Art Hostage from United Kingdom writes: Geoffrey calls it appeasement, Art Hostage calls it Dane-geld.

    'being a thief was a terrific life, trouble was, they put you in jail for it !!' John McVicar

    There is the solution, Ten years minimum jail-time for art theft from a public building or museum.

    Ten years minimum jail-time for handling art stolen from a public building or museum.

    This will create dispersal into the private sector where Art collectors are better placed to pay for tighter security.
  2. Robert Boyd from Windsor, Canada writes: New mosque opens in Calgary - comments are closed of course.
    You don't have to like it - you just have to pretend to like it.
  3. John Stanton from Not Calgree, Canada writes: Yeah, why can we comment on this innocuous story and not the Calgary mosque story? I mean, WTF?
  4. Pragmatic Pundit from Calgary, Canada writes: Robert & John - Like any story involving religion, and Islam in particular, the comments quickly get out of hand. It usually takes less than half a dozen posting before flagrant violations of the terms and conditions begin to take place.
  5. Jim Sheppard from Executive Editor, globeandmail.com, Canada writes: You're absolutely correct, Pragmatic. Too many of our readers feel they should pay no attention to our guidelines and they force us to close certain conversations to avoid an outpouring or vulgar, racist and offensive material.
  6. Ryan Ginger from Ottawa, Canada writes: I applaud Mr. Clarfield for tacking a subject that is rarely given an in-depth treatment in the media, but I must object to the way he has muddled issues. Ultimately, he does not give Museum professionals who work in Canadian public institutions the credit they rightfully deserve--instead, he tars them with the same brush he uses to paint Nazi-looters, Hiram Bingham, and corrupt antiquities smugglers. Let me respond to just a few issues:

    "Of the missing art objects now on Interpol's list," Clarfield writes, "516 were taken from Canadian collections." Sure. But how many were stolen from public museums? Apart from a few high profile cases--which you cite--most were taken during private home burglaries. Furthermore, museum professionals in Canada routinely check interpol's database, as well as other professional resources, to ensure that a potential acquisition is legitimate. Canadian museum's don't touch stolen property--and if they do, they rectify it immediately. Period. This is the difference between a public museum and private collector.

    Second, you fail to distinguish between A) works of art that only have value on the "art market" as works of art, and B) works of art that have a potential value (albeit a lesser value) as a raw commodity. A painting is different from a solid-gold sculpture, which may be melted down and easily sold. This was a real possibility in the case of the UBC Museum of Anthropology theft.
  7. S Lucht from British Columbia, Canada writes: There's a good book on the trade in illegal antiquities (The Medici Conspiracy). It provides a detailed look into the relationships between front-line criminals (eg, tomb-robbers), smugglers, dealers, collectors, and museums (in particular the Getty and the Metropolitan). Eye-opening.
  8. David C from Canada writes:
    I'm not sure I understand everything here. It seems to me like we are talking about two very different topics. One would be the buying back of stolen art by the museum from which it was stolen. The second would be the purchase of stolen antiquities from unstable countries by certain museums.

    They both have in common the fact that in both instances they are being used as currency by international crime syndicates. But after that, the moral issues differ, in my opinion.

    I agree that no museum should purchase artifacts illegally obtained from unstable countries. That's a no brainer. But why wouldn't they purchase back pieces that have been stolen from their own collections, when the police have run into a dead end?

    I would imaging that those pieces targeted would also have enough appeal to be sold on the black market to private collectors. So either way, once the piece is stolen, organized crime/ terrorist organizations are going to get their money out of the pieces. The question is, will it find its way back into a public museum or forever dissapear into a private collection?

    There seems to be much less of a moral issue with the second scenario.
  9. Nite Owl from Calgary, Canada writes: Jim Sheppard, Just keep that head of yours in the sand or whatever dark place you have it stuck (what's that smell?) If you're afraid of the true opinions of Canadians why don't you find a job more in tune with your delicate sensibilities. I suggest you run for election. They ignore our opinions too.
  10. Greg Ohio from Cleveland, United States writes: Mr Sheppard, you could just remove the offensive posts and allow a meaningful discussion. Your have generally not allowed comments on the Kadr story, which is of great public significance.

Comments are closed

Thanks for your interest in commenting on this article, however we are no longer accepting submissions. If you would like, you may send a letter to the editor.

Report an abusive comment to our editorial staff

close

Alert us about this comment

Please let us know if this reader’s comment breaks the editor's rules and is obscene, abusive, threatening, unlawful, harassing, defamatory, profane or racially offensive by selecting the appropriate option to describe the problem.

Do not use this to complain about comments that don’t break the rules, for example those comments that you disagree with or contain spelling errors or multiple postings.

Back to top