On Wed, 15 Sep 1999, Museum Security Network wrote:

[++++ CLIP +++]

> The INTERPOL stolen art CD: A giant step in the right direction.
>
> Is this CD a REASONABLE ACCESSIBLE REGISTER OF STOLEN CULTURAL
> OBJECTS according to chapter 4 (4) of the Unidroit Convention?

===============================
Ton:

Obviously the new 14,000 stolen items INTERPOL CD-ROM is a very welcome
addition, but I think it is very far from sufficient in relation to "due
diligence" in checking whether an object is stolen.

The Art Loss Register funded mainly by the insurance industry and
London/New York art trade already has nearly 100,000 stolen items on it,
and there are major inventories of known WWII looted objects which are
still not on ALR or INTERPOL (e.g. the Rosenberg Nazi art looting squad
inventories now in the National Archives in Washington, the Rose Valland
and other official archives in Paris or the contents of the seven or eight
massive volumes of missing items from Polish public collections published
in the late 1940s and early 1950s,  which  between them cover many tens of
thousands of items, to give just three examples).

The current mess over looted Jewish and other WWII collections in many
major museums has come about because for decades it was common practice
to regard everything offered by the trade (or private collectors) as fair
game providing it wasn't being actively sought by INTERPOL or the local
police.  In fact, the test should have been not "is someone already
claiming that this is stolen?" but "can we prove where it did some from
and that it's not stolen?".  The latter test was laid down quite clearly
in the ICOM Ethics of Aquisition rules and Codes of 1972 and 1986, and if
it had been applied properly then many thousands of acquisitions made over
the past three decades would not now be belatedly under investigation as
possible loot from Jewish and other Second World War collections.


Patrick J. Boylan
(Professor of Heritage Policy and Management)

City University, Frobisher Crescent, Barbican, London EC2Y 8HB, UK;
phone: +44-171-477.8750, fax:+44-171-477.8887;
Home: "The Deepings", Gun Lane, Knebworth, Herts. SG3 6BJ, UK;
phone & fax: +44-1438-812.658;
E-mail: [log in to unmask];  Web site: http://www.city.ac.uk/artspol/

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