Is Art Theft OK?

[RoadFish]

Is stealing art OK? How old long does one have to hold on to a piece of stolen art before it is OK to display it and claim ownership?

[ded i]

Stealing is never okay.

Stealing art will send you to the depths of ... the very ugliest levels of hell.

Almost every country has one or more stolen art and antiquities register which auction houses and dealers routinely check.

It is very difficult, if not impossible, to profit on stolen art. The thief would

1) have to find someone who wants to hold the stolen piece in their private collection (which they then couldn't show to anyone who knows anything about art.) Many art thieves get caught "shopping" a piece.

2)hold the painting (whatever) hostage to the institution it was stolen from and demand a ransom ~ and again, it's a high risk scenario.

None the less, there's a lot of art stolen because security is expensive and many museums and galleries are on tight budgets. Thieves take art because they can - because it is high profile and they get "famous" and because they don't care about art. And because they are stupid and don't realize they can't sell it - and didn't do their homework.

There are also thousands of court cases going on today to adjudicate the situations created by art stolen during WWII when the Nazi's had a detailed list of art to "liberate" from countries they invaded.

[RoadFish]

That was a little trolling, other wise known as "tongue in cheek", as I think a lot of art in major museums, especially art produced before 1500 was stolen from somebody at sometime. It certainly is not only the Germans who stole art! How did the Louvre or the Metropolitan get their works early works?

[ded i]

That was a little trolling, other wise known as "tongue in cheek", as I think a lot of art in major museums, especially art produced before 1500 was stolen from somebody at sometime. It certainly is not only the Germans who stole art! How did the Louvre or the Metropolitan get there works early works?

You are absolutely right - art has been part of the "booty" foreign nations extract from occupied countries.

In many cases countries were poor, undeveloped, and did not have the $ or strength to protect their own antiquities. If Lord Elgin hadn't taken the Parthenon Marbles to England - where would they be today?

The Parthenon, built about 500 BC, stood strong and intact until the occupying Turks used it (1687)to store armaments and gunpowder . Invading Venetians scored a direct hit (cannonball) and literally blew the roof off, destroying many of the statues. The Venetian general, Morosini, then managed to break the remaining artifacts trying to take them to his ship.

Until 1800 the broken art was plundered by tourists until Lord Elgin (rotten with syphilis - his nose had already fallen off) in collusion with - again - the Turks - took the fragments to England...

Museums were first built in "civilized" countries to safeguard antiquities, many times beginning as housing for royal collections which included "gifts" of the most brilliant artifacts fashioned, or those "liberated" from all over the world.

So, each treasure has a different history or provenance - where and who decides what constitutes "theft" ...

It's a little easier with recent acquisitions, in WWII the Germans made detailed lists of every collection they transported.

The whole situation has become problematic - where to draw the line?

It seems possession is 9/10's of the law in some cases ... but what about an invading army which lost their war - or do people and countries get to keep things they bought illegally or have stolen from countries they occupied only briefly?

[RoadFish]

As an L.A. gang member said to Dan Rather in a live broadcast on gangs from a park in South Central, "Look, if Columbus 'Discovered' America, I can 'Discover' your car in the parking lot!"

[tubtar]

Beaucoup antiquities in Iraq being sold to fund all manner of malfeasance as we speak.
The more things change , the more they remain the same.
I believe most of it went to pure profiteering and less to ideology driven causes , but there is a lot of evidence that some of it is being marketed by the bad guys.
I apprciate the value of art , but have never really embraced it as a commodity.............but then , I've never needed to fund an incursion or insurgency.
But the day is young .................
J.S.

[Dr Mabuse]

there is no nose on the Sphinx due to Napoleon ordering his cannoneers to use it, the nose, for target practice...

they were pretty good shots really...

[RoadFish]

there is no nose on the Sphinx due to Napoleon ordering his cannoneers to use it, the nose, for target practice...

they were pretty good shots really...

Well, sure, blame it on the French! But, check it out!

http://www.napoleon-series.org/faq/c_sphinx.html

[Dr Mabuse]

Well, sure, blame it on the French! But, check it out!

http://www.napoleon-series.org/faq/c_sphinx.html

you bastard...

i'm familiar with that link...

there are better links to the discussion btw...

the only problem with the 'sufi' theory is... he said "nose and ears" were completely destroyed in his writings as that link mentions at the end... but the Sphinx still has ears... that whole story is widely considered nothing more than Muslim propaganda...

the most historical evidence of any story, is the indisputable fact that Napoleon was there in that time period... and his troops and their effect on the 'locals' were well known... the Napoleon story also has romance to it... all the makings of a good tale...

there is indeed a sketch that shows the nose off the Sphinx as that link mentions... it doesn't mention that there are 2 other sketches from the same time period, including one a year later, that show the nose intact... you are left with personal opinion to say "this one is right and those two are wrong"

i'm sticking with the Napoleon story, until it is disproved on more than personal opinions and slight evidence, that is itself contradicted by similar evidence... the Napoleon tale has. by far, the most historical evidence... and there are too many obvious problems with the other possibilities...

those nonexplosive cannonballs of Napoleon's time would make just that kind of damage to stone... including the upper lip just left of center...

[ded i]

I thought there should be visuals from that era ~

"Frederick Lewis Norden, an artist and marine architect, sketched the Sphinx in 1737. His detailed drawings, published in 1755, were more realistic and showed the Sphinx with no nose. It is very unlikely that Norden would omit the nose if it was present. ... the nose was gone by 1737 at the latest; thus its removal can not be blamed on Napoleon's troops, who visited more than 50 years later."

link

[RoadFish]

Thanks, ded i! If later drawings show the nose it is much more likely they projected their idea of what was missing, rather than someone forecasting its demise!

[Dr Mabuse]

in someone's personal opinion it is more likely they would not omit the nose if it were there... based on three small images, and the author of that page is obviously ignorant of some other data...

that's thin...

there are history teachers teaching the nose was destroyed in WW1... the sufi theory... all sorts of ideas...

here is a visual to consider...

this is a late 19th century engraving showing the french botanist Vivant Denon and his team of "savants", who came with Napoleon, taking measurements of the Great Sphinx... note the highly accurate negroid nose depicted there... and unlike 'travelers' making sketches earlier... these were men who were about as close to 'science' as you got in that day... why would THEY draw something like that?... in the process of recording things for posterity?...

also note the negroid lips... which knowledge of history tells us must have been the case... and many people believe were changed later due to racism... which is one of the theories of the cannoneers taking aim at the nose also, as it was negroid in nature... and shooting the lips... the 'black nose' stuff...

Yul Brenner was not an accurate representation of the people from northern africa... it wasn't a bunch of white guys... somehow that troubled many white people, that africans had built the most wonderful things in the world...

also the racism of it is in the stories of the other cases, or things about 'mocking smiles' in the muslim defacement stories...

there are also various stories about the beard of the Sphinx... it used to have that protruding beard like you see on the golden sarcophagus of king tut... that may have been added in the later kingdom, or may have been original... etc...

(image is a little blurry because i scaled it up for viewing, i enhanced the hell out of it in 4 different ways but that's all i got, i'm no expert at enhancement tools)

the truth is... no one knows for sure... the face could have been changed in the 1500's or earlier, but that doesn't make sense either... it could be any one of the versions...

but based on all the data i've seen... i'm sticking with the Napoleon story as it has more evidence...

[Umberto]

too much info on Lord Elgin.

[RoadFish]

Wow! An early Polaroid of Napoleon's army! Neat stuff!

[ded i]

I'm basing my opinion on nothing more than belief that a Scandinavian marine architect would NOT deliberately remove the nose from a specimen (the Sphinx) he was trying to record very accurately.

He made more than one drawing .

I'm trying to get better images of his drawing(s) - (but I have houseguests)


mabuse you drive me fuking crazy