By Nicholas Nalbantian
On September 27, 2016, at the National
Press Club in Washington, D.C., Gary Vikan presented his memoir: Sacred and Stolen. After twenty-seven
years at the Walters Art Museum in Baltimore, including eighteen years as its
director, we were given an inside view of the art world and the development of
the international law of art theft.
Dr. Vikan began by recounting an
earlier time, in the 1970s and 1980s, when the comfort level for purchasing
stolen art was still high. Collectors were more concerned with whether any
particular piece had been called “stolen” publicly rather than concerned for
the reality surrounding the item. Such little care made the West a ready market
for plundered works of artistic and historical significance. From 1975 to 1984,
Dr. Vikan worked at the Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, an American
center for Byzantine art. During that time, Dr. Vikan witnessed the flood of
plundered artifacts following the Turkish invasion of Cyprus, a part of the
more general effort to “de-Hellenize” Northern Cyprus.
Dr. Vikan’s talk focused on two
particular episodes: In the first, he recounted the entertaining tale of how
Vikan helped Dominique De Menile, the oil heiress, obtain thirteenth century
frescos in 1983. Through her generosity, these plundered mosaics were housed in
Houston, with permission from Cyprus, until 2012 when they were returned.
However, the second episode more significantly highlights the contribution Dr.
Vikan made to the jurisprudence of international art theft. This is the saga of
the sixth century Kanakaria Mosaics.
The Kanakaria Mosaics were likely
stolen from the Cypriot Church of the Panagia Kanakaria in 1979. In 1988, the
mosaics were sold for $1.2 million in cash from a dubious German art dealer in
Geneva to Peg Goldberg, an Indianapolis dealer in nineteenth and twentieth
century paintings. Upon returning to the United States, Goldberg tried to sell
the mosaics to the J. Paul Getty Museum in California for $20 million; such a
high profile item sale alerted Cypriot authorities to the mosaic’s location.
Once located, the Autocephalous Greek
Orthodox Church brought suit
in federal district court in Indianapolis in 1989 for the return of the
mosaics. In an illustration of how the law treats the issue of plundered art
like any other stolen item, the action of replevin had to begin with the court
considering whether Indiana applied the O’Keeffe
v. Snyder rule on the statute of limitations. The court determined that the
O’Keeffe v. Snyder rule did apply,
which meant that the statute of limitations began upon discovery of the mosaics
by the Orthodox Church, rather than running from their date of theft. Dr. Vikan
was called as an expert witness to explain whether these mosaics were
sufficiently suspicious to defeat Goldberg’s defense that she was a good faith
purchaser. Judge Nolan was unconvinced by Goldberg and ruled in favor of the
Orthodox Church. Goldberg appealed, but the Seventh Circuit affirmed:
“Lest
this result seem too harsh, we should note that those who wish to purchase art
work on the international market...are not without means by which to protect
themselves. Especially when circumstances are as suspicious as those that faced
Peg Goldberg, prospective purchasers would do best to do more than make a few
last-minute phone calls. As testified to at trial, in a transaction like this,
‘All the red flags are up, all the red lights are on, all the sirens are
blaring.’”
With the Seventh Circuit quoting
the testimony of Dr. Vikan – "All the red flags are up, all the red lights are on, all the sirens are blaring." – he has made a noted contribution to the growing
customary international law on art theft as the choices made by the United States
may influence other states’ courts in the future. The international law of art
theft has seen improvement since the 1970s, but is still lacking in many
regards.
Dr. Vikan’s experiences with the
occupation of northern Cyprus can inform how to deal with the current trade of
plundered artifacts from Syria and Iraq. Art theft is the third highest-netting criminal enterprise after drugs and guns, and a
number of valuable pieces remain on the market as a result. The governmental
instinct is that of restriction, such as Cyprus’ foreign minister Ioannis
Kasoulides’ request that the UN Security Council “apply universal
limitations on the trade and transfer of artefacts originating from all
conflict zone, with the obligation of proof of legitimate trade resting on the
traders, auction houses and buyers and not on the originating state.” The hope
is that cutting off market access will remove a stream of income available to
ISIS. Combating terrorism is important, but we should perhaps take a more
nuanced approach than the one espoused by Kasoulides.
ISIS has been destroying
antiquities like the Temple of Baalshamin
or the contents of the Mosul
Museum. Their movement is iconoclastic and they wish to remove evidence of
pre-Islamic civilization. Yet, should we follow Kasoulides’ lead, we risk the
further destruction of Syrian and Iraqi history. Dr. Vikan shared his belief
that there is value in providing safe harbor to these items of national and
cultural significance, a notion that it is better that the sixth century
mosaics eventually return to Nicosia than risk their permanent destruction at
the hands of nationalists or iconoclasts. So too recovered relics should be
protected by states without conflict zones rather than rejecting them out of
hand. The U.S. government passed the Protect and Preserve International
Cultural Property Act in September 2016, which, in part, adopted this tendency.
The Act includes provisions
that allow for the waiver of import restrictions if “the President determines
that, for purposes of protecting and preserving such material, the material
should be temporarily located in the United States.” This is the goal epitomized by Dominique De Menile. The law
should allow for these cultural relics to be protected in the stable states, without
taking title to the item, in the hope that these antiquities will someday be
returned to their home region.
As for items that are already in
the United States illegitimately, there needs to be a process of recovery
superior to the one the Cypriote government went through with the Goldbergs. There
are laws in place aimed at preventing the theft of the historical objects,
including the 1970 UNESCO Convention requiring the repatriation of objects
illegally removed from many countries. However, the process is still cumbersome
and can take four to five years for an identified piece to be returned to
Egypt. The Protect and Preserve International Cultural Property Act was a step
in the right direction, but more needs to be done to aid the recovered pieces
to be returned to their rightful homes.
The book “Sacred and Stolen: Confessions of a Museum Director” by Dr. Gary
Vikan was published September 20, 2016.
