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description= The Hunt for Looted Antiquities in the World s Museums;
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e transparent and proactive should post all of their wiener objects with a complete ownership history on their provenance pages as the national gallery of australia did belatedly in response to the kapoor investigation this is a clear signal of an institution s good faith auction houses most major auction houses have online searchable sales archives that include some but sadly not all provenance information look for any objects that passed through the nancy or doris wiener once you find them we ll have to track down where they are today some creative google searching can often work as can reverse image searches on google images or tineye there s also the doris wiener collection when doris wiener died in 2011 christie s sold a collection of 380 her objects the criminal complaint against nancy wiener describes how many of those objects came through asian smuggling networks where are they today some were likely acquired by museums while others were probably purchased by private collectors unless christie s releases this information some sleuthing or tipsters will be required to track them down like museums auction houses who have done business with the wieners should be proactive and transparent by posting complete information on objects they ve sold tied to the wieners this will send a clear signal to the public that they re not interested in protecting art traffickers private collectors doris wiener is said to have sold antiquities to leading collectors including john d rockefeller iii igor stravinsky and jacqueline kennedy nancy wiener also sold to prominent private collectors what came of those collections where are those objects today private collections are difficult to search unless they ve been published in a catalog or loaned to a museum or gallery show some private collectors may want to come forward in good faith and we should encourage them if you own an object sold by nancy or doris wiener or know someone who does email me here and share what you can we may be help to help you assess its origins dealer catalogs many galleries publish sales catalogs of their inventory did doris or nancy wiener can we track them down the nancy wiener gallery s website has posted images of objects she was selling over the years the internet archive can be used to search it back to 2011 http web archive org web http www nancywiener com happy hunting share this share on x opens in new window x share on facebook opens in new window facebook share on linkedin opens in new window linkedin share on reddit opens in new window reddit email a link to a friend opens in new window email print opens in new window print like loading 2 comments posted in news tagged doris wiener doris wiener gallery india pride project nancy wiener nancy wiener gallery updated manhattan dealer nancy wiener arrested criminal complaint alleges sweeping conspiracy to sell stolen asian art through major auction houses posted on december 21 2016 6 comments antiquities dealer nancy wiener was arrested wednesday morning in manhattan and charged with conspiring with international smuggling networks to buy smuggle launder and sell millions of dollars worth of stolen asian art thru leading auction houses wiener is a second generation dealer who runs one of the country s most prestigious asian art galleries on manhattan s upper east side for nearly three decades the nancy wiener gallery has sold asian art to private collectors and museums including the metropolitan museum of art asia society the los angeles county museum the art institute of chicago the nelson atkins museum the national gallery of australia and the asian civilizations museum in singapore according to her website the criminal complaint filed after her arrest on wednesday alleges wiener was part of a sweeping conspiracy to funnel stolen artifacts into the art market for decades the complaint alleges wiener has bought stolen and looted antiquities from thieves and smugglers across asia sent them to restorers to erase evidence of their theft and then laundered them through sotheby s and christie s auction houses using straw buyers to create false ownership histories and artificially set market prices the 12 page complaint signed by ice special agent brenton easter cites tens of thousands of pages of emails documents and photographs recovered during more than 50 search warrants carried out since 2007 easter has been the lead investigator on operation hidden idol the subhash kapoor case operation mummy s curse and most of the other prominent federal investigations of the illicit antiquities trade in recent years the prosecutor on the case manhattan assistant da matthew bogdanos also has a long track record disrupting antiquities smuggling networks and is the author of the book thieves of baghdad wiener s attorney georges g lederman told the new york times his client had surrendered voluntarily we are examining the charges and will respond at the appropriate time lederman said i ve asked sotheby s and christie s for comment on the allegations i ll post their responses here when i receive them the seated buddhas the seated buddha in australia wiener s alleged ties to the black market first came to light in 2014 when michaela boland and i reported in the australian newspaper that the dealer had provided a false ownership history when she sold a 1 08 million seated buddha to the national gallery of australia as i detailed later the story started in 2012 when a source tipped me off that wiener had bought the australian buddha and a matching one that she sold to the singapore s asian civilizations museum from an indian antiquities trafficker australian authorities conducted their own investigation and reached the same conclusion they returned the buddha to india earlier this year and wiener was forced to refund the purchase price wednesday s criminal complaint cites the two seated buddhas as evidence of wiener s criminal conduct and reveals important new details about their illicit origins she sold the first to singapore s acm without being asked to provide its ownership history the complaint states after i repeatedly asked the museum to release its records to no avail the museum appears to have contacted wiener for additional information according to the complaint wiener gave the acm an evolving series of stories about its previous owner first she said it had been in a european collection for decades then she said the owner s father had acquired the piece in india finally she named the former owner and said he had purchased it while stationed in vietnam in the 1960s that name ian donaldson is the same false story she provided to the national gallery of australia in fact records seized during the investigation show that wiener acquired them both from none other than vaman ghiya the notorious indian idol thief whose criminal case was profiled in the new yorker in 2007 photos of the acm buddha seized during the investigation show it wet as it lay on a dirty floor in front of a black backdrop presumably as it appeared shortly after being looted from india s ancient city of mathura the second capital of the kushan empire the sculpture remains on display in the singapore museum auction house due diligence in the spotlight while they are not accused of criminal conduct sotheby s and christie s play a prominent role in the alleged criminal conspiracy described in court records filed wednesday several objects illustrate how the auction houses allowed wiener to launder looted antiquities by accepting false ownership histories without question when wiener consigned a cambodian sculpture of 11th century shiva at a 2011 auction at sotheby s the auction house noted that cracks in the sculpture had been dressed up with plaint splatters to mask repairs a clear sign of looting according to the complaint sotheby s nevertheless accepted wiener s word that it had been out of cambodia since 1968 and required no documentation from the dealer to support the claim when selling lot 29 at the march 24 2011 sale sotheby s described it as coming from a private english collection acquired 1960s this exceptional figure exemplifies the highest achievements of the baphuon school and is arguably amongst the best of its kind the catalog noted it sold for 578 500 in fact there was no english collection the complaint alleges seized emails show wiener and a co conspiritor an antiquities dealer based in london and bangkok had acquired the sculpture direct from a supplier and not through a dealer for half its market price they sent it to london to be cleaned put together and mounted all evidence the complaint alleges that it had been recently looted i ve asked sotheby s attorney and former federal prosecutor jane levine for a comment and will post it when i hear back the doris wiener collection christie s is also singled out in the complaint for the sale of nearly 400 objects many of them allegedly looted or stolen that had belonged to nancy wiener s mother doris a prominent dealer in her own right who pioneered the asian art market in the 1960s and 70s s with sales to prominent collectors like john d rockefeller and jacqueline kennedy doris continued to deal until her death in 2011 when nancy inherited her mother s collection and allegedly destroyed all records of the smugglers from whom they had been acquired wiener intially tried to consigned the collection for sale at sotheby s but was turned away because she could not provide their ownership history so wiener turned to christie s which according to the complaint only required evidence that the objects had been on the market since 2000 a full 30 years later than the 1970 standard required by most museums and archaeologists even that low bar was too high for christie s which allegedly only asked wiener for documentation on the top 25 of the sale s 380 lots wiener told christie s 10 had come from spink and son a defunct london auction house that has frequently been linked to looted antiquities several others had previously been sold at auction by doris and re acquired in straw purchases designed to create the impression of good provenance this dodgy track record for a fraction of the lots appeared to be enough for christie s which auctioned all 380 lots on march 20 2012 for a total of nearly 12 8 million dollars update on december 28 christie s released a brief statement on the arrest of nancy wiener we are aware of these very serious allegations against the defendant and are monitoring the legal proceedings closely we will withhold further comment until the appropriate time i ve asked whether they will notify customers who purchased objects from the doris wiener sale and will post a response when i receive it dozens of the objects sold in that sale have now been tied to smuggling networks reaching from afghanistan and pakistan to india cambodia and thailand we re report details of those networks soon a copy of the criminal complaint can be read here view this document on scribd share this share on x opens in new window x share on facebook opens in new window facebook share on linkedin opens in new window linkedin share on reddit opens in new window reddit email a link to a friend opens in new window email print opens in new window print like loading 6 comments posted in news tagged brent easter christies matthew bogdanos nancy wiener nancy wiener gallery national gallery of australia sotheby s updated inside the isis looting operation u s lawsuit reveals terror group s brutal bureaucracy of plunder posted on december 15 2016 12 comments a civil lawsuit filed today by the u s government sheds startling new light on the brutality of the syrian looting operations of the islamic state the lawsuit seeks the forfeiture of four looted objects a gold ring two gold coins and a stone relief that were allegedly sold by the islamic state to fund terrorism photographs of the objects were recovered during the may 2015 special forces raid on abu sayyaf an isis leader in deir ezzor syria charged with managing the region s ministry of natural resources which included looting operations the records show sayyaf who was killed in the raid was part of a well organized looting bureaucracy that isis used to generate revenue as shown in this organization chart that was found among the documents recovered from his house as a regional chief abu sayyaf issued looting permits and charged looters a khums tax 20 of the value their finds he also had the ability to arrest individuals excavating archeological objects without authorization much of the evidence from the sayyaf raid cited in the case was first released publicly in november 2015 and greeted with some skepticism by experts on the illicit trade including myself in particular the raid fueled the heated debate about how much revenue isis actually generates from looting the seized documents showed just 211 000 in revenue generated by the looting tax suggesting the millions in looting revenue cited in some news accounts could be far off the mark objects seized from abu sayyaf during a special forces raid in may 2015 but thursday s filing includes new records from the abu sayyaf raid that have not previously been released among other things they include a harrowing account from looters who were extorted by isis abu sayyaf ordered their child kidnapped when they refused to pay an low ball price for a cache of gold and relics they had discovered the four objects being sought were shown in electronic images seized from abu sayyaf during the raid and were sold directly by him according to the complaint as detailed below the fbi s subsequent investigation was able to find additional information about at least one of the objects as it passed through the illicit trade taken together the newly released records give us a detailed but narrow window into isis efforts to profit off the international market in ancient art like the evidence released before it these new records should be considered critically particularly at a time when a u s military intervention in syria appears more likely it is worth asking why the u s government has filed the complaint now more than a year and a half after the evidence was gathered why the government seeks the forfeiture of objects whose current location is unknown and why this information is being released publicly when it virtually guarantees the objects will not surface on the art market update 12 16 16 on friday i spoke with arvind lal and zia faruqui in the us attorneys office of the district of colombia lal is the chief of the asset forfeiture and money laundering section and faruqui is the assistant u s attorney from that section who did much of the work on the complaint here is a summary of their answers to the questions above where are the objects lal and zia declined to say whether they knew where the objects were citing the on going investigation of the abu sayyaf material but they said the complaint makes clear they are not currentl...
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