The federal raid last month on four California museums, including the Mingei International Museum in Balboa Park, has drawn new attention to an unwelcome fact of the art trade: An increasing amount of pillaged property is finding its way into museums and private collections.
Union-Tribune 2007 file photo
The Mingei International Museum is among the four California museums suspected of accepting looted artifacts from Thailand. Mingei director Rob Sidner has denied any wrongdoing.
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Museum directors are keenly aware of the ethical rules dictating how artifacts should be bought and borrowed, and how years of looting are steadily robbing civilizations of their culture.
Yet the growing market for ancient artifacts, combined with a lack of oversight and sometimes-lax museum policies, can test even the most noble professionals.
“A great many super-reputable places have gotten into trouble,” said Leon Dalva, a gallery owner in New York City who is president of the National Antique & Art Dealers Association of America. “There's no international regulatory agency.”
Three federal agencies are conducting a wide-ranging probe into an alleged theft and tax scheme in which the Mingei and other collections are suspected of accepting looted artifacts from Thailand, which allowed donors to get fraudulent tax write-offs.
The five-year investigation came to light Jan. 24, when scores of agents from the Internal Revenue Service, National Park Service and Immigration and Customs Enforcement descended on the Mingei and three other museums: the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Pacific Asia Museum in Pasadenaand the Bowers Museum in Santa Ana.
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Mingei museum seizures
Federal authorities have said that about 70 objects at the Mingei International Museum in Balboa Park were probably obtained illegally. On Jan. 24, agents raided the museum and seized 23 items. The items are primarily earthenware vessels from the Ban Chiang culture in northeast Thailand. Museum officials had expected to mount “Ban Chiang, Art of Ancient Thailand” on March 1. Last week, the Mingei provided images and details regarding some of the seized items, which are being stored at the museum as the investigation continues.
The item: Ban Chiang earthenware vessel
Age: 3000 B.C. - 1000 B.C.
Dimensions: 27 inches by 22 inches
Acquired from: Barry L. MacLean
The item: Ban Chiang earthen ware jar with pedestal
Age: 300 B.C. - A.D. 1
Dimensions: 12 inches by 9 inches
Acquired from: Jon and Cari Markell
The item: Ban Chiang earthenware carinated vessel
Age: 1100 B.C. - A.D. 700
Dimensions: 18 ½ inches by 14 inches
Acquired from: Jon and Cari Markell
The item: Ban Chiang serpentine bracelet
Age: 300 B.C. - A.D. 1
Dimensions: 3 ½ inches by 3/8 inch
Acquired from: Jon and Cari Markell
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The case is being watched from Massachusetts to California as museums balance their desire to enhance collections against the cultural-preservation interests of developing countries.
According to affidavits filed in support of search warrants, a Los Angeles-area smuggler named Robert Olson sold numerous items that had been looted from grave sites in the Ban Chiang region of northeast Thailand.
Investigators said Olson and gallery owner Jon Markell sold artifacts to wealthy donors and provided them with fake, overvalued appraisals. The donors would give the items to the Mingei and other museums and reap the tax benefits.
Mingei director Rob Sidner has denied any wrongdoing and said the museum is cooperating with investigators. An attorney for the museum said the Mingei will voluntarily return any items found to be stolen.
Tangled legislation
Last week, the Mingei provided photos of some of the 23 items seized in the federal raid and a copy of its collections policy. The policy, like so many across the nation, offers wide latitude when it comes to determining the legitimacy of objects.
Because of the “tangle of international legislation” and “extreme difficulty or impossibility” of establishing a clear history of ownership, the director must “exercise discretion based on available data rather than ideal data,” the 19-page policy states.
In general, fine art and antiquities are supposed to be accompanied by what is known as a provenance, the detailed history that spells out who has owned a particular piece since it was created or unearthed.
Proper documentation – or lack thereof – has not kept some museums from acquiring looted art.
In 2006, the San Diego Museum of Art returned a painting that had been stolen from a church in the tiny Mexican village of San Juan Tepemazalco and then sold to the museum. No one was charged even though investigators identified well-known art dealer Rodrigo Rivero Lake as a middleman in the transaction.
Last September, the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles agreed to return 40 pieces to Rome that Italian officials said were stolen. The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston also returned artwork taken out of Italy illegally.
John Russell is a professor of art history and archaeology at the Massachusetts College of Art and vice president of the Archaeological Institute of America. He said the research value of artifacts plummets when the provenance is lost or tainted because knowing the archaeological context of a piece can tell researchers as much about a culture as the artifact itself.
He called the Southern California case “the tip of the iceberg” and said he and other scholars are watching closely because they hope the investigation helps clean up the industry.
“If museum directors think they might go to jail, they might start thinking more carefully,” said Russell, who prefers long-term loans to the purchase and sale of artifacts. “But as long as there are no consequences, they'll continue to do it.”
Privatizing history
Last week, at least two Ban Chiang antiquities were being auctioned on eBay. The high bid for an ancient bowl stood at $27; the opening price for a bronze bracelet was $299.
Such transactions are against the law, said the Thai government and U.S. officials. Federal agents monitor Web-based auctions, which can lead them to major dealers illegally trading artifacts.
Although they have no records to prove it, investigators say the prevalence of cultural crimes is on the rise – especially in regions where the government is less than stable.
“People who are looking for art and artifacts take advantage of that instability,” said Matthew Allen, a director at Immigration and Customs Enforcement's Office of Investigations.
At least 50 of his agents troll the Internet and examine international shipping transactions in an attempt to rein in trafficking of stolen antiquities, Allen said. His office has hundreds of investigations under way at any given time.
“When a nation's cultural history and artifacts are stolen and put into a private collection, you're privatizing the history of a nation,” Allen said. “You make it so others can't get the benefit of that knowledge.”
Prosecuting traders often takes a back seat to returning artifacts to their countries of origin, Allen said. Convictions are more difficult to obtain than “deferred prosecutions” and agreements to surrender property, he said.
'We all learn'
Last month's raid already has prompted some museum directors to rethink policies and update procedures.
At the Museum of Man, just down the Prado from the Mingei, executive director Mari Lyn Salvador said her institution's collections policy was not as strong as she wanted it to be.
“For every incident of this sort, we all learn,” she said. “We all look more carefully for ways to scrutinize the objects and people we're dealing with.”
The seized items are still at the Mingei but are locked in a vault, said San Diego attorney Jerry Coughlan, who is representing the museum. One item from another donor, a large earthen pot about knee-high, remained on display after the Jan. 24 raid.
Eleven of the pieces were donated by Markell and his wife, according to records released by the museum last week. Most are Ban Chiang earthenware pots and jars that bear the cracks and fissures of age. The oldest is listed as dating to 2500 B.C.
What happens to the Thai artifacts will depend on the investigation. If authorities determine they were stolen from the Ban Chiang heritage site in Thailand, the museum will return the items, Coughlan said.
The attorney said his clients have not received additional search warrants from federal authorities. No museum employees have been subpoenaed, he said, nor have they hired individual lawyers.
“We're working trying to collect all the information and figure out what this is about,” Coughlan said. “I suspect (prosecutors) are in the same boat.”
If a federal grand jury is examining evidence seized at the Mingei and other museums, its actions would be secret until any indictments are handed down.
Jeff McDonald: (619) 542-4585; jeff.mcdonald@uniontrib.com
