[MSN] LATEST: ethnographic objects stolen in National Gallery Harare, Zimbabwe, June 2006 all recovered in Poland
Museum Security Network Mailinglist
msn-list at te.verweg.com
Mon Dec 11 19:04:51 CET 2006
From: AfricanAntiques at yahoogroups.com
[mailto:AfricanAntiques at yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of Rand African Art
Sent: 11 December 2006 17:32
To: AfricanAntiques at yahoogroups.com; African_Arts at yahoogroups.com
Subject: {Spam?} {Disarmed} [AfricanAntiques] Re: LATEST: ethnographic
objects stolen in National Gallery Harare, Zimbabwe, June 2006 all recovered
in Poland
Ton,
I sincerely wish to thank you for your help in this situation because
without the mention of this situation on your website with the photos of the
objects, and also on yours David Norden :-) , (and help from another
un-named individual), this situation could have taken a much different turn.
I am also glad that the Deputy Director of the National Museums and
Monuments in Zimbabwe / National Gallery decided to make this situation so
public and raise awareness of the situation, it helped significantly in the
end.
It appears that the story about the recovery has been published today in the
Polish newspapers as you mentioned to me, this is good news and signifies
the end of a long 5+ weeks of very interesting correspondence between myself
and the culprit and myself and the Polish authorities, and also signifies
that soon the National Gallery in Zimbabwe will soon have these artifacts
back in their possession.
I get lots of emails from people every week wishing to sell me things, most
of the time the objects aren't of interest to me, but when I got the email
from this particular individual with photos of the headrests, it really
caught my attention and interest.
Unfortunately, I was not aware of the situation that happened in Zimbabwe
because I do not remember it being mentioned in any discussion groups (maybe
it was?) and I was not yet a member of the Museum Security Network mailing
list (I am now!).
So, fortunately for me when I sat down over that weekend over 5 weeks ago to
learn more about Shona headrests on the Internet and in books, I happened to
come across the article on your website with photos of the objects
<http://www.museum-security.org/> (and/or similar objects to the ones that
were stolen) and I was able to compare the photos side by side which raised
questions in my head. At first I thought it couldn't be true, but I sent
photos to Lee R. for a second opinion and he confirmed my thoughts.
Initially I was prepared to buy the headrests that were offered to me with
really no questions asked, I loved them. I was busily thinking of ways to
raise the money to purchase a couple of them, but I am glad that I learned
the truth about them because otherwise they would have ended up on my
website and someone would have eventually recognized them and then I would
be the one the authorities would be questioning!
I often wonder what the situation would have ended up like if the objects
were offered to someone who didn't try and do a little background
investigation on them or if no reports were made about the theft? They could
have gone to a gallery and sold to a private collector and they would have
sat in someones house for possibly many years before they possibly surfaced
on the market again and had another opportunity for someone to recognize
them, and would they recognize them after such a long period of time? The
culprit in this situation would have remained out there to do this type of
thing again. I have read that most of the thefts occur with the help of
someone inside the museums, or by people inside the museums, and thefts
often go un-noticed because records and photographs are so bad or
non-existent in the first place. It makes you wonder just how many stolen
artifacts are out there in the market place at any given time?!
I have read that stolen artifacts usually surface after a period of 10 years
or so, I guess this gives enough people time to forget about the theft. The
other case is that stolen artifacts go right into the hands of collectors
who know, but don't care, about the objects history. This particular case is
interesting in the fact that it was such a blatantly public theft and the
artifacts surfaced in a very short period of time.
When I inquired about the history of the objects, I was told that the
objects came from this person's Grandfather's collection, the Grandfather
being a doctor in Rhodesia in the 1940's and collected the objects then. It
makes me despise the use of "Old French Collection" or "Old Belgium
Collection" in the history of an object even more now. Every time I see this
in an auction description, or in a listing on an object on a gallery
website, this incident will come to my mind.
I know that many museums in Africa and other parts of the world are
struggling to increase record keeping and security. I hope that other
institutions will choose to make thefts public like the National Gallery in
Zimbabwe did.
I'd encourage people to visit David Norden's stolen artifacts page on his
website:
http://users.telenet.be/african-shop/stolen-art.htm
<http://users.telenet.be/african-shop/stolen-art.htm>
and also the Museum Security Network's site: http://www.museum-security.org/
<http://www.museum-security.org/>
to try and keep up on thefts that occur. I will also try to post messages to
the group if I hear of a situation that involves the theft of Tribal art.
People need to be aware when it happens, you never know when you may be
offered something that was previously stolen.
I am glad that the National Gallery in Zimbabwe will be getting the
headrests and Makonde masks back where they will hopefully stay for good and
hopefully I will someday be able to go and visit them!
Cheers!
RAND
www.randafricanart.com <http://www.randafricanart.com/>
www.discoverafricanart.com <http://www.discoverafricanart.com/>
www.douglassociety.org <http://www.douglassociety.org/>
"MSN (Ton Cremers)" <museum-security at museum-security.org> wrote:
June this year a daytime robbery took place in the National Gallery
in
Harare, Zimbabwe. The guard chasing the culprit most unfortunately
was
stopped by the crowd.
Thanks to the intervention of the deputy director of the National
Museums
and Monuments in Zimbabwe the National Gallery decided to publish
information about this theft plus photographs on the Museum Security
Network
website.
Some 5 weeks ago the stolen objects were offered to a
collector/dealer in
the USA by a seller in Poland (!). This good-faith collector
contacted me
because the objects offered seemed to be the ones published on the
MSN site
(!).
We informed the authorities, and thanks to a great performance by
all those
involved, including Polish police, the stolen objects have been
confiscated,
and the thief has been arrested.
A great example where international cooperation managed to beat a
cross
border criminal.
We do congratulate the Zimbabwean National Gallery with the recovery
of the
stolen items.
Ton Cremers
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