It's art squad v tomb raiders as Greece reclaims its pillaged past
June Samaras
As Athens and Rome clamp down, smugglers venture further afield
Helena Smith in Geneva
Friday July 21, 2006 -The Guardian
http://arts.guardian.co.uk/news/story/0,,1825719,00.html
For the connoisseur of ancient art, 6 rue Verdaine in Geneva's old
town is a jewel to behold. Set in its windows, like pearls in an
oyster, are an elegant Attic red figure krater attributed to a
5th-century BC painter, an Etruscan pouring vessel and an array of
vases.
Enter the plush showroom and the antiquities get better. Just in from
the collection of an anonymous Swiss gentleman is a rare, 4th-century
AD portrait of Helena, the mother of Constantine, the founder of
Byzantium. The bronze bust, though severe of expression, is the
showpiece of Phoenix Ancient Art - and comes with a £1.2m price tag.
"Great-quality antiquities are a great investment," says Ali Aboutaam,
the gallery's Lebanese proprietor. "They're a fraction of the price
of, say, buying a Picasso."
In a world where cynicism and forgeries prevail, Mr Aboutaam insists
no piece is purchased without being checked first, through the vendor,
Interpol and various publications. "We're against dealing in illegally
excavated antiquities and we don't support that market at all."
But in the increasingly sophisticated international art market, even
items sold openly and legally with apparent provenance can cause
controversy. Six years ago Phoenix Ancient Art sold a 3,200-year old
mummy mask to the St Louis Art Museum that Egypt claims was stolen
from the Cairo Museum, although Mr Aboutaam says "there is no evidence
to support" the accusations.
In 2004 a life-size bronze sculpture of Apollo Sauroktonos stood in
the showroom before it was sold for an undisclosed amount to the
Cleveland Museum of Art. Carved by Praxiteles, the master artist, the
work is seen as the finest piece of classical sculpture purchased by a
north American museum since the second world war.
"[We] acquired the Apollo ... after over a year of extensive research.
An international team of specialists thoroughly considered the
acquisition from legal, art-historical,and technical perspectives,
including laboratory testing. An emphasis was placed on research into
its history," says a spokeswoman, Donna Brock, adding that the museum
remains confident about its decision.
'We stand by its provenance'
Mr Aboutaam also says the statue was bought in good faith. "We stand
by its provenance." An account of the statue's ownership history
released at the time of the acquisition by the Cleveland, and endorsed
by Phoenix Ancient Art, says the monumental bronze was "a part of a
private estate" in the former East Germany until it was rediscovered
"in pieces" in 1990. The family who reclaimed the estate upon
reunification, sold the work in 1994 to unnamed persons before it was
acquired by Phoenix Ancient Art.
But, this month, as Greece stepped up its campaign against the illegal
antiquities trade and announced it would demand the repatriation of
hundreds of looted works, the statue again became the focus of
scrutiny. Mr Aboutaam may have exercised due diligence when he bought
the masterpiece but authorities in Athens believe that before it
entered his showroom it was passed through a chain of traffickers on
the underground market. "We're investigating this statue and whether
it was stolen very closely," says Giorgos Gligoris, who heads Greece's
art squad. "We believe that it was, that it's a typical case of
antiquities theft. We're in the process of studying photographs. The
Italians, we have learned, may be claiming it and so may we. Our
information from informers is that it was found in the Ionian Sea and
then passed on, through I don't know how many hands, before being
sold."
From his sixth-floor office in the Orwellian building that is the
Athens police headquarters, the detective oversees a web of informants
in and outside Greece. Among his targets is the freeport in Geneva
where the sellers of museum-quality pieces often store their stock and
where specialists believe the illicit journey of plundered art into
some of the world's greatest museums often begins.
"We have people in Geneva because it seems that containers always pass
through the freeport," he says. "Smugglers like Switzerland, with its
flexible laws and good location, but they can see we're closing in on
them."
In 1997 Swiss police found and seized 10,000 antiquities, many still
covered with dirt, all bearing the stamps of well-known auction
houses, hidden in four of the huge grey warehouses that girdle
Geneva's freeport transit area.
Home to an estimated 34,000 archaeological sites, Greece is viewed as
Europe's biggest open-air museum. Along with Italy, it has attracted
tomb raiders since before its foundation as a nation state in 1830.
But Athens is toughening its stance, homing in on the dealers,
curators and collectors that are the source of demand. This month the
J Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles agreed to yield ownership of two
pieces that Greece had long claimed.
"All these illicit digs have resulted in an extraordinary loss to our
heritage," says Maria Pantou, the director of the department of
museums at the Greek culture ministry. "Every time an object is
removed from the ground [illegally] it immediately loses 85% of its
worth, even if it is a masterpiece," she said. "Unless something is
documented, it's very hard to prove from where it came."
As supplies have dwindled and demand has grown traffickers have become
ever more expert. Greece's network of dealers and smugglers have been
forced to look further afield.
After the Balkans, where illegal excavations have escalated
alarmingly, thieves have turned their attention to the Middle East and
the far east - especially the estimated 11,000 precious artefacts
still missing after the notorious plundering of the Baghdad Museum in
April 2003.
"Unlike Italy, in Greece there's not a lot of stuff left because
smugglers have been around for hundreds of years," says Nikolas
Zirganos, an Athenian journalist who has researched the subject
extensively. "These rings have begun to understand that both Athens
and Rome are determined to clamp down on the trade so now they're
expanding to places like Babylon and Cambodia."
· The illicit trade in antiquities world-wide is worth about $2bn
(£1.1bn). Tomb-robbing is said to be the world's second oldest
profession
· During the past 20 years, between 65% and 90% of antiquities put on
sale on the London art market were of unknown provenance and were
probably illegally excavated. More than £3m worth of antiquities are
traded in London auction houses every year
· John D Cooney, a former curator of ancient art at Cleveland Museum,
announced in 1970 that 95% of all antiquities in the US had been
smuggled
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June Samaras
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