Art Theft an Exploratory Study of the Illegitimate Art Market in Australia
| Championship: Art Crime: is there a Relationship between the Art Marketplace and Art Theft?
| Copyright: Frances Kelly-Hodgson |
Description: Art crimes, particularly art theft, bear on the art market place in several ways. Examples of this are the continually thriving illicit art industries, the increment and subtract of the value of art and antiquities pertaining to particular thefts, and the process by which illicit art and antiquities make their way on to the licit market.
Warning: This paper cannot be copied and used in your own assignment; this is plagiarism. Copied sections volition be identified by Turnitin and penalties will apply. Please refer to the Academy's Academic Integrity resource and policies on Academic Integrity and Copyright.
Writing features 
Partly to credit for the grand scale of success in the art world is the international art marketplace and its ability to place a cost tag on art and antiquities, which are otherwise difficult to confer a value onto. Art crimes, particularly fine art theft, affect the fine art market in several ways. Examples of this are the continually thriving illicit fine art industries, the increment and subtract of the value of art and antiquities pertaining to particular thefts, and the procedure by which illicit fine art and antiquities brand their style on to the licit market. Alongside the legitimate art market is the illegitimate fine art market where stolen, forged, or fake fine art and antiquities contribute to an equally profitable, all the same unlawful, industry. Both the licit and illicit art markets cater to elite, wealthy 'players' who as art dealers must show a high decree of financial awareness when trading works that will frequently fetch in a higher place millions.[1]
The fine art market place is vulnerable to art crime because of the high demand of art, the staggering profitability of art, the ease of sale following some thefts and, in cases of looting in times of conflict, the level of local regime corruption.[two] There have been many instances of art theft which have had an influence on the art market. Included amidst those are the notoriously famous thefts of Hubert and January van Eycks 1432 masterpiece The Ghent Altarpiece, (Fig 1.) the unlikely simply merely as famous pillaging of the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, the theft of a Charles Goldie portrait (Fig 3.) from the University of Auckland, the politically motivated theft of Colin McCahon's Urewera Mural, (Fig 4.) and the stealing of a Dancing Shiva (Fig v.) statue past an international antiques smuggler. The relationship between art theft and the art market is an ambiguous one, but in that location is no doubt that art theft can and does have a huge influence over the international art market place.
Throughout history the plunders of war have always been plentiful in terms of art and antiquities, especially after Napoleon's conquests.[3] During the French Revolution the calibration of art theft was unprecedented. The annexation of art and antiquities during the French Revolution changed the social attitudes of Europeans towards fine art every bit citizens overthrew the monarchy and took these symbols of aristocracy equally bounty.[iv] This change of buying would influence the art market for many years to come equally the revolutionary scale of art theft resulted in previous purple belongings saturating the art market and providing a means of funds for armed forces endeavours.[5] The French Revolution transferred the power, not only of France but also of its thriving art market, from the aristocracy to the commoners.[6] When Napoleon came to power he stole the Ghent Altarpiece to put on display as a symbol of Paris as the eye of the arts and looted other works to continue the financial upkeep of the imperial ground forces.[7] Napoleon's annexation changed the ownership of works from one nation to another and caused fence about where the work ought to reside and riddled the art market with lawsuits, causing strife amongst fine art dealers who became reluctant to deal in works with questionable provenance.[8]
Like Napoleon, Hitler looted art extensively all throughout Europe but the masses of works he stole were much harder to retrieve and the collections he took much more hard to restore.[9] Hitler also destroyed multitudes of gimmicky art, or what he called 'degenerate fine art.'[10] Among the plunders of war for both Napoleon and Hitler was Hubert and January van Eyck's Ghent Altarpiece, also known every bit The Adoration of the Mystical lamb, which was taken start by Napoleon'south men during the French Revolution and again under Hitler's regime in 1942 during the invasion of Kingdom of belgium. The Ghent Altarpiece was recovered from a salt mine which was nearly diddled up by Nazi's out of fear of the artworks falling into American hands. Had the operation gone through, the entire world, and particularly the art market, would have suffered a major loss financially and historically.[eleven] The painting was the start of the works housed in the mine to exist returned to its owners, presumably because of its importance and extremely high value.[12] The thefts of an estimated 20.v billion dollars worth of artwork during the Nazi regime de-stabilised the international art market as many works that had been looted were somewhen sold on, leading to a later seizure of these illicitly acquired works and putting the unsuspecting new owner at a financial and cultural loss.[13]
The theft of art, particularly when it is work of a high profile, is highly publicised and therefore gains a lot of attending not only in the fine art earth circuits just also in the general public. However, museum thefts are not mutual in the earth of art crime so the case of the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum has absorbed the public who are often bemused by the staggeringly high values of stolen works.[fourteen] In 1990, thieves posing as police officers took twelve paintings from Boston's Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, including Rembrandt's only known seascape, (Fig 2.) that were estimated to exist worth a combined value of US$300 million.[xv] Information technology is widely hypothesised that major fine art thefts result in increased value and sales for works by the same creative person.[xvi] The theft of a work makes the rest of the creative person's oeuvre more than rare, and therefore, more valuable while the missing condition of Rembrandt'south only known seascape means that the need for the return of that particular piece of work is ever increasing. However, the works, to engagement, are still missing then their whereabouts are curious because almost of these works are likewise highly recognizable to exist sold to any honest buyer, suggesting that these went straight into a individual collection. High profile thefts such equally these create a loftier risk for criminals because the works are recognizable on the art marketplace and therefore less marketable and less profitable.[17]
Some incidents of art theft closer to abode accept also shared a relationship with and influenced the art marketplace. In 2006, Charles Goldie'southward portrait Hori Pokai: Planning Revenge was taken from the general library at the University of Auckland along with a rare unbound bible and several other items.[18] Charles Goldie is renowned as being one of New Zealand's about successful artists in terms of attention from patrons worldwide, the market place value of his works, and his high number of sales.[xix] At the height of his popularity, Goldie's works were a prime attraction for tourists to New Zealand who wanted to gain an insight into Maori civilisation.[20] It is suspected that the oil painting, among the other items, were stolen to lodge because of their high cultural significance in New Zealand's minor fine art marketplace which would make them almost incommunicable to sell, and they are also very niche items.[21] The fear of these items existence taken overseas to be sold was very existent and meant that it was possible for New Zealand to lose a very meaning role of its cultural heritage forever, causing a destructive blow to the local art market which would accept lost an important part of New Zealand's artistic and cultural history.[22]
New Zealand artists and their works have been the subject area of art thefts for many years. Some of these cases, while all the same depression contour in comparison to the theft at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum for example, have achieved more than legendary status than others. I of these cases is the theft of Colin McCahon's Urewera Mural in 1997 from the Te Urewera National Park in the North Island.[23] The painting was said to be stolen as a form of peaceful protest by Maori who felt misinterpreted by the creative person's own historical misunderstandings which he had incorporated into the work.[24] The theft of the painting gave it more attending than ever earlier, once it was returned it was put on brandish at the Auckland Fine art Gallery with information emphasising how the theft changed the view of the painting for New Zealanders.[25] The artwork now describes a changed civilization that'south represents several of New Zealand's cultural identities. The theft encouraged a new perception to be held of the painting and re-established its value as a piece of our cultural heritage.[26]
Without proof of provenance, stolen antiquities are deemed invaluable because knowledge cannot be gathered from an object that has been placed out of its cultural and historical context.[27] Considering of this, criminals oft get away without being punished for their crimes and instead the art marketplace is at a loss due to having a slice of cultural heritage stripped of its importance and value.[28] Illicit objects that are looted from archaeological sites mostly go undocumented so make their way onto the licit market for auction easily.[29] This turns the antiquities marketplace into a 'gray' marketplace considering of the difficulty in distinguishing the licit or illicit provenance of antiquities, which, in turn, discourages buyers who do not desire to be victims of art fraud.[30]
New York dealer Subhash Kapoor smuggled antiquities, including a 900-year-onetime bronze statue of a deity the Dancing Shiva, out of India and sold every bit many as twenty-two illicit antiquities to The National Gallery of Australia.[31] How the Shiva ended up on the art market and farther concluded up in the hands of a National Gallery curator is not but a brandish of the dealers dishonesty and disrespect for the religious civilisation and fine art of India but likewise a display of the gallery's lack of due diligence.[32] The theft of an antiquity as an item of cultural heritage is hugely negative in terms of the financial affect it has on the fine art market. A theft can cause a countries income to suffer due to a subtract in museum attendance and a subtract in tourism and publicity for that cultures particular artworks and antiquities.[33] In some means, the fine art market itself tin can be seen as a driving force backside the theft of antiquities because of the growing commercialization surrounding cultural heritage objects which labels them as economically desirable in the elite art world.[34]
When fine art is stolen, the loss to the art market, and the earth, is not only material just also intellectual.[35] The loss of an artwork is non but materialistic as with it goes its cultural value and symbolic significance pertaining to where information technology came from and the artist who made it. The nature of the international art market is rather inconsistent and can be described as opaque, unregulated, and illiquid.[36] The art market is the arrangement in which the value of works are adamant and then is very closely linked to the world of fine art crime in the sense that criminals seek out artworks because of their value considering they are wanting to make a reasonably low risk profit. The art market place also shares a relationship with fine art theft in the sense that the art manufacture is the perfect place for money launderers to hide their illegal gains by purchasing paintings which are difficult to determine the value of.[37]
Criminal on goings within the fine art market place are abiding due to the international art markets fluid nature and the amount of wealth involved in the art industries. Often criminals seek out art theft every bit an easier form of theft that assists them in funding other criminal or trafficking endeavours considering a slice of fine art, particularly an antiquity, has a trail that is easily erased from public knowledge. Art theft is transnational, but equally the fine art market is and efforts to stem the merchandise in stolen art have proved very costly.[38] Stolen works are easily lost once they become transnational, making them harder to recover and effecting the art market immensely by putting information technology at a loss of a work that could potentially exist a well sought later multi meg dollar slice. The relationship between the art marketplace and art theft is definitely a tumultuous ane, where lines between what is and isn't illicit are hard to distinguish and values are hard to determine and maintain.
Bibliography
Bell, Leonard. "The Colonial Paintings of Charles Frederick Goldie in the 1990's: The Postcolonial Goldie and the Rewriting of History," Cultural Studies 9, no.ane (1995): Accessed May 5, 2014.
Binney, Judith Encircled Lands: Te Urewera 1820-1921. New Zealand: Bridget Williams Books Limited, 2009.
Charney, Noah. Stealing the Mystic Lamb: The True Story of The Worlds Nearly Coveted Masterpiece. United States: Public Affairs, 2010.
Choi, Sue. "The Legal Landscape of the International Fine art Market later on Democracy of Austria v.Altmann," Northwestern Journal of International Law and Business 26, no. 1 (2005-2006): Accessed May 7, 2014, http://scholarlycommons.police.northwestern.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1620&context=njilb&
Coomber, Jarrett. The Economic Impact of Art Theft: A Quantitative Study of the Economic Effects of Art Theft on Art Prices and Returns. Netherlands: Erasmus Academy, 2013. sei-redir=1&referer=http%3A%2F%2F.
Durney, Mark and Blythe Prouxl, "Art Criminal offence: A Brief Introduction," Law-breaking Police Soc Exchange 56 (2011).
Gibson, Anne and Elizabeth Binning, "Art Thieves Snatch Goldie, McCahons in Library Raid," The New Zealand Herald, January six, 2007.
Greenfield, Jeanette. "Art Theft and the Art Market place," in The Return of Cultural Treasures, ed Jeanette Greenfield. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007.
Hamlin, Gladys Due east. "European Fine art Collections and the War," Higher Art Journal five, 2014. 3 (1946): Accessed May seven, 2014.
James, Marianne. "Art Crime," Trends and Issues in Crime and Criminal Justice, Canberra: Australian Institute of Criminology, 2000.
Kisluck, Anna. "Stolen Art and the Art Loss Register." Paper presented at the Fine art Offense Protecting Fine art, Protecting Artists and Protecting Consumers Conference convened by the Australian Institute of Criminology, Sydney, 2-3 December 1999.
Kleinman, Rachel and Amrit Dhillon, "Dancing Into Trouble," The Age, March eighteen, 2014.
Mackenzie, Simon. "The Market as Criminal and Criminals in the Marketplace: Reducing Opportunities for Organised Criminal offence in the International Antiquities Marketplace," in Crime in the Art and Antiquities Earth, Illegal Trafficking in Cultural Property, ed Stefano Manacorda and Duncan Chappell. Great britain: University of Glasgow, 2011.
McIntosh, Isabel "The Urewera Mural: Becoming Gift and the Hau of Disappearance," Cultural Studies Review ten, no.ane (2004): Accessed May 5, 2014.
Robertson, Iain. Agreement International Fine art Markets and Direction. New York: Routledge, 2005.
Taylor, Andrew "Gallery's Statue Render 'Should Include Gift of Goodwill," The Sydney Morning Herald, Apr 2, 2014.
Tijhuis, A.J.G. Transnational Criminal offense and the Interface between Legal and Illegal Actors: The Case of the Illicit Art and Antiquities Trade. Netherlands: Wolf Legal Publishers, 2006.
[1] Iain Robertson, Understanding International Art Markets and Management (New York: Routledge, 2005), 13.
[2] Simon Mackenzie, "The Market as Criminal and Criminals in the Market: Reducing Opportunities for Organised Offense in the International Antiquities Market," in Crime in the Art and Antiquities World, Illegal Trafficking in Cultural Property, ed Stefano Manacorda and Duncan Chappell (UK: University of Glasgow, 2011)
[3] A.J.Thousand Tijhuis, Transnational Crime and the Interface between Legal and Illegal Actors: The Instance of the Illicit Fine art and Antiquities Merchandise (Netherlands: Wolf Legal Publishers, 2006),one
[4] Noah Charney, Stealing the Mystic Lamb: The Truthful Story of The Worlds Most Coveted Masterpiece (United States: Public Affairs, 2010), eighty.
[5]Ibid, 83.
[6] Ibid.
[7] Ibid, 89.
[eight] Ibid, 108.
[nine] Jeanette Greenfield, "Fine art Theft and the Art Market," in The Return of Cultural Treasures, ed Jeanette Greenfield (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007), 240.
[x] Sue Choi, "The Legal Landscape of the International Art Marketplace later Commonwealth of Austria v.Altmann," Northwestern Journal of International Police and Business 26, no. 1 (2005-2006): 167, accessed May 7, 2014, http://scholarlycommons.law.northwestern.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1620&context=njilb&sei-redir=ane&referer=http%3A%2F%2F.
[xi] Gladys E. Hamlin, "European Art Collections and the War," College Art Periodical 5, no. 3 (1946): 221, Accessed May vii, 2014.
[12] Ibid, 222.
[thirteen] Choi, "The Legal Landscape of the International Art Market place later on Republic of Austria five.Altmann," 171.
[fourteen] Mark Durney and Blythe Prouxl, "Art Crime: A Cursory Introduction," Crime Law Soc Commutation 56 (2011): 121.
[xv] Marianne James, "Fine art Crime," Trends and Issues in Crime and Criminal Justice, Canberra: Australian Institute of Criminology, 2000, 2.
[16] Jarrett Coomber, The Economic Impact of Fine art Theft: A Quantitative Study of the Economical Effects of Art Theft on Art Prices and Returns (Netherlands: Erasmus University, 2013), 31.
[17] Anna Kisluck, "Stolen Art and the Fine art Loss Annals" (Paper presented at the Fine art Crime Protecting Art, Protecting Artists and Protecting Consumers Conference convened by the Australian Plant of Criminology, Sydney, 2-three December 1999), iv.
[eighteen] Anne Gibson and Elizabeth Binning, "Art Thieves Snatch Goldie, McCahons in Library Raid," The New Zealand Herald, January 6, 2007.
[19] Leonard Bong, "The Colonial Paintings of Charles Frederick Goldie in the 1990's: The Postcolonial Goldie and the Rewriting of History," Cultural Studies 9, no.ane (1995):26, Accessed May 5, 2014.
[20] Ibid, 27.
[21] Gibson and Binning, "Art Thieves Snatch Goldie"
[22] Ibid.
[23] Isabel McIntosh, "The Urewera Mural: Becoming Gift and the Hau of Disappearance," Cultural Studies Review 10, no.1 (2004):42, Accessed May 5, 2014.
[24] Judith Binney, Encircled Lands: Te Urewera 1820-1921 (New Zealand: Bridget Williams Books Limited, 2009), 8.
[25] Ibid.
[26] Isabel McIntosh, "The Urewera Landscape," 58.
[27] Durney and Prouxl, "Fine art Criminal offence," 116.
[28] Ibid, 117.
[29] Ibid, 124.
[30] Ibid, 125.
[31] Andrew Taylor, "Gallery's Statue Return 'Should Include Gift of Goodwill," The Sydney Morn Herald, April 2, 2014.
[32] Rachel Kleinman and Amrit Dhillon, "Dancing Into Trouble," The Age, March xviii, 2014.
[33] Durney and Prouxl, "Art Law-breaking," 119.
[34] Ibid, 128.
[35] Ibid, 116.
[36] Ibid, 121.
[37] James, "Art Crime," i.fine art
[38]Kisluck, "Stolen Art and The Fine art Loss Annals," two.
montanezdient1993.blogspot.com
Source: https://awa.auckland.ac.nz/index.php?p=argument-essay&textid=1049
0 Response to "Art Theft an Exploratory Study of the Illegitimate Art Market in Australia"
Post a Comment