-
Recently
- UPDATED > USA vs One Ancient Mosaic: A Looted Syrian Masterpiece in Los Angeles May 26, 2018
- The Sidon Bull’s Head: Court Record Documents a Journey Through the Illicit Antiquities Trade September 24, 2017
- Hobby Lobby’s Legal Expert Speaks: “I can’t rule out…they used my advice to evade the law.” July 10, 2017
- UPDATED > Help Wanted: We’re Tracking Down Objects Sold By Nancy and Doris Wiener January 5, 2017
- UPDATED > Manhattan Dealer Nancy Wiener Arrested: Criminal Complaint Alleges Sweeping Conspiracy to Sell Stolen Asian Art Through Major Auction Houses December 21, 2016
- UPDATED > Inside the ISIS Looting Operation: U.S. Lawsuit Reveals Terror Group’s Brutal Bureaucracy of Plunder December 15, 2016
- The End of the Beginning: NGA Returns Kushan Buddha and Two Kapoor Objects September 18, 2016
- The Missing Link: Subhash Kapoor’s Suppliers in India Are (Finally) Getting Rolled Up July 3, 2016
- The Lessons of Palmyra: Iconoclasm in the era of Clickbait April 7, 2016
- UPDATED > Asia Week Arrest: Japanese Dealer Convicted Of Selling Stolen Art March 19, 2016
- Asia Week Raids: New Details on the Christie’s Seizures March 18, 2016
- Busted: Asia Week Raids Reveal Scope of Illicit Trade in Asian Art March 17, 2016
- The Crennan Report: The NGA’s Ex Post Facto Due Diligence Finds 22 “Questionable” Asian Antiquities February 17, 2016
- Operation Antiquity: Prison for Antiquities Dealer Behind Looting and Tax Fraud Scheme December 15, 2015
- Ball State’s Kapoor Return Reveals New False Provenance November 17, 2015
- The Seated Buddha Goes Home: Nancy Wiener and National Gallery of Australia Will Return Sculpture to India March 5, 2015
- The Kushan Buddhas: Nancy Wiener, Douglas Latchford and New Questions about Ancient Buddhas February 1, 2015
- Danti’s Inference: The Known Unknowns Of ISIS and Antiquities Looting November 18, 2014
- Hecht’s Footprints: Haverford College Opens Up About Source of Their Greek Vases November 4, 2014
- Shiva Goes Home: Australia’s Prime Minister Returns Looted Kapoor Idols to India September 4, 2014
BUY THE BOOK
AVAILABLE VIA
Search the website:
Like us for the daily updates
Tweeting Aphrodite
- RT @ARCA_artcrime: Pompeii administration and the Public Prosecutor’s Office of Torre Annunziata announce the discovery of a large ceremoni… 3 hours ago
- RT @mcsts: Devastating news from London. All amazing and outstanding professionals and colleagues, with whom I worked closely for many year… 3 hours ago
- RT @nickmirzoeff: I was part of a fascinating set of responses to @profdanhicks concept of “necrography” and colonial violence. My contribu… 13 hours ago
- Confiscated coins at Canadian border become opportunity coinworld.com/news/precious-… 14 hours ago
- RT @SarahEBond: Did, did somebody remember to bring the ring so the pandemic can end? 🦅 15 hours ago
- RT @Lexialex: Pitching a show today called Yallah dig! about a group of Egyptian Englandologists who were able to buy an excavation permit… 17 hours ago
- RT @incunabula: A very rare SHINY scroll with lots of SHINY SHINY GOLD from the tribal uplands of Bulshittistan. 19 hours ago
- RT @arielsabar: 21 more papyri allegedly stolen from Oxford U. have turned up in the collections of the @museumofBible, per Egypt Explorati… 19 hours ago
- via this disturbing @JaneLytv thread here twitter.com/JaneLytv/statu… 1 day ago
- Deepfake with Tom Cruise (?) and an ancient (?) coin: "It's the real thing." tiktok.com/@deeptomcruise… 1 day ago
What we’re talking about
AAMD American Numismatic Society antiquities Aphrodite archaeology Arnold-Peter Weiss art crime Arthur Houghton Art of the Past Asian Civilizations Museum book review Cambodia Chasing Aphrodite Christies Cleveland Museum Dallas Museum of Art David Gill Dietrich von Bothmer Douglas Latchford Edoardo Almagià Elie Borowski Events FBI Gary Vikan Getty Museum Getty Villa Giacomo Medici Gianfranco Becchina Hugh Eakin illicit antiquities Immigration and Customs Enforcement India Italy J. Paul Getty Museum J. Paul Getty Trust James Cuno james grimaldi Jane Levine Jim Cuno Jiri Frel Khmer Kimbell Art Museum Koh Ker Loot looted antiquities looting Marion True Metropolitan Museum of Art Michaela Boland Michael Padgett museums Nancy Wiener National Gallery of Australia New York Review of Books Nomos AG Norton Simon Museum numismatics Princeton University repatriation Robert Hecht Robin Symes Ron Radford SAFE scandal Selina Mohamed Sicily Sotheby's Subhash Kapoor Tamil Nadu The Art Newspaper Timothy Potts Turkey Vijay Kumar Walters Museum of Art WikiLootTon Cremer’s MSN
- An error has occurred; the feed is probably down. Try again later.
Cultural Heritage Lawyer Rick St. Hilaire
- New Law Aims to Protect Lunar Artifacts
- Thai Cultural Property Case Edges Closer to Settlement
- Antiquities Trafficking Bathed in Sunshine: Disclosures of Shell Company Owners and Suspicious Financial Transactions May Be on the Horizon if the NDAA Becomes Law
- OFAC Puts High-Value Art Market Participants on Notice
- Brooklyn Man Indicted for Egyptian Artifact Smuggling. Did COVID-19 Impact Grand Jury Selection?
Paul Barford’s Portable Antiquities and Heritage Issues
Derek Fincham’s Illicit Cultural Property
David Gill’s Looting Matters
Conflict Antiquities
- “This is all published information and anyone who googles it can find it.” Christos Tsirogiannis, monitoring the trade in illicit antiquities.
- Private ‘rescue’-by-purchase of stolen cultural goods: The material and social consequences and the complicity of Europe and North America
- trafficking of forgeries by forced migrants and forced migrants as false provenances for forgeries
- Turkey’s Gendarmerie caught a Covid-19-infected, health emergency worker-impersonating antiquities trafficker
- the international conference on Handling of Cultural Goods and Financing of Political Violence, at the Norwegian Institute in Rome, has been postponed
The Association for Research into Crimes against Art
- The art of loss: Mourning "Charley Hill" the intrepid undercover agent who recovered Edvard Munch's "The Scream"
- Sometimes restitution is a little like putting lipstick on a pig
- A striking blow to the prosecution for embezzlement of volumes stolen from the Biblioteca dei Girolamini in Naples.
- Restitution: Belgian authorities hand over a 1st century BCE Roman statue stolen from Rome in 2011
- Recovery: "Salvator Mundi", stolen from the Basilica of San Domenico Maggiore, is recovered by Italy's Polizia di Stato
Larry Rothfield’s The Punching Bag
- Against "Displacement": A Thought about Hilgert's "Culture Matters"
- 100 antiquities police officers needed, 7 on the books
- A due diligence checklist -- the starting point for a calibrated taxing system for antiquities or for a registration system
- A possible second-best solution for orphaned antiquities?
- U.S. Senators are pushing for Native American Artifact legislation -- but will it do any good?
Elginism — Repatriation Issues
Lee Rosenbaum’s CultureGrrl
- An error has occurred; the feed is probably down. Try again later.
Law Enforcement
- FBI Art Squad FBI’s Art Detail
- Carabinieri Art Squad The Tutela del Patrimonio Culturale, Italy’s Art Squad.
- Interpol Art Detail Interpol has tracked the trade in stolen art since 1947.
- ICE ICE Cultural Property, Art and Antiquities Investigations
Museums
- The Getty The website of the J. Paul Getty Trust
- The Metropolitan Museum of Art The Greek and Roman Galleries of the Met
- Boston MFA Art of the Ancient World at the Boston MFA
Related Books
Meta
Search Results for: becchina
UPDATED > Sleeping Beauty: Seizure of Sarcophagus in New York Shows Value of Becchina Dossier
UPDATE September 2014: Japanese dealer Noriyoshi Horiuchi has agreed to return the sarcophagus lid to Italy in a stipulation reached with the federal government. Rick St. Hilaire has the news here. UPDATE: After a 13 year legal battle, Switzerland has returned to … Continue reading
The Becchina Dossier: A New Window into the Illicit Trade
Italian culture reporter Fabio Isman has an important story in the current issue of the Art Newspaper [no link available yet] about Gianfranco Becchina, the retired Sicilian antiquities dealer who now faces trial in Rome for conspiracy to traffic in … Continue reading
Posted in News
Tagged archaeology, Fabio Isman, Getty Museum, Gianfranco Becchina, illicit antiquities, Loot, looting, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Sicily, The Art Newspaper
Asia Week Raids: New Details on the Christie’s Seizures
This week, a series of five federal raids during New York’s Asia week led to the seizure of at least eight looted antiquities and the arrest of at least one dealer. This is the first of several posts that … Continue reading
Optical Due Diligence: Art Loss Register Claims To Vet Ancient Art. Does it?
UPDATE 8/9/14: The Sunday Times has published another devastating report on the Art Loss Register’s business practices. ALR Founder Julian Radcliffe admits paying thieves to recover stolen art in a dozen cases and is described as a “fence” by senior European … Continue reading
Posted in News
Tagged antiquities, Art Loss Register, Bonhams, Carabinieri, Christies, David Gill, due diligence, Julian Radcliffe, Sotheby's, Subhash Kapoor
The Getty’s Looted Amber: A Window into the Museum’s Deepening Dilemma
In Saturday’s Los Angeles Times, I have a story about Getty Museum’s efforts to find the true origins of its massive antiquities collection. Here’s how the story starts: In the wake of a scandal over its acquisition of looted antiquities, … Continue reading
Tagged ancient amber, Arthur Houghton, Ascoli Satriano, Claire Lyons, Colin Renfrew, Faya Causey, Fritz Burki, Giacomo Medici, Gianfranco Becchina, Gordon McLendon, Head of Hades, J. Paul Getty Museum, James Cuno, Jiri Frel, looted antiquities, Marion True, Morgantina, Robert Hecht, Robin Symes, Tax fraud
Dallas Museum of Art Returns Orpheus Mosaic, Five Other Looted Treasures in Announcing New Art Loans Initiative
The Dallas Museum of Art has agreed to return six looted antiquities from its collection and announced a broad new initiative to exchange expertise and artwork with cultural institutions around the world. “The problems of illegal excavation and the illicit … Continue reading
Kapoor Case: Investigation into Stolen Indian Idols Will Test Museum Transparency
The investigation of antiquities dealer Subhash Kapoor, which made international headlines this week when federal agents raided his Manhattan warehouse, promises to shine a bright light on the illicit trade in antiquities smuggled out of India and other South Asian countries … Continue reading
Castor and Pollux, Forgeries and Loot: Reflections on the Arnold Peter Weiss Case
Looting and forgery are the Castor and Pollux of the antiquities trade, bound together by a love of murky origins. That appears to be the lesson of the guilty plea earlier this month by coin dealer Dr. Arnold Peter Weiss, … Continue reading
The Year of Aphrodite: Book Launch Plus 365
One year ago, Chasing Aphrodite hit bookstores. The amazing success we’ve enjoyed over the past twelve months is humbling, and we thought it a good opportunity to thank you, our most dedicated fans. Thank you for everything you’ve done to … Continue reading