|
 It was the latest of many high-profile cases for the 22-person
Federal Bureau of Investigation division dedicated to solving a
wide array of art-related crimes at an agency that is better
known for chasing bank robbers, spies and other criminal rogues.
Solomon Koninck’s 17th-century painting "A Scholar Sharpening
His Quill," was one of many treasures belonging to the family of
art collector Adolphe Schloss that were seized by the
Nazi-supporting Vichy government in France 75 years ago. The
portrait, which once adorned Adolph Hitler's Munich offices,
disappeared at the end of World War Two.
It resurfaced at Christie's auction house, which tipped off the
FBI unit last year that a Chilean art dealer was trying to sell
it.
"The evidence was really overwhelming," FBI Special Agent Chris
McKeogh said, days after the work's formal repatriation to the
Schloss heirs in early April. "There was really no question that
this was the painting in question."
In its early days, recalled Robert Wittman, the Art Crime Team's
founding chief, being art cops was not exactly "a path to
directorship."
But after 14 years, the team is getting more respect from fellow
agents after several headline-grabbing recoveries in the United
States of art works and other cultural property, Supervisory
Special Agent Tim Carpenter said.
"People just think what we’re doing is cool,” said Carpenter,
who now runs the unit from the FBI's Washington headquarters.
“I think we’ve changed a lot of perceptions, even within the
organization," he said. "So now my phone rings off the hook
weekly for folks wanting to be on the team.”
Since it was founded in 2005, the team has recovered nearly
15,000 objects worth nearly $800 million and secured more than
90 convictions.
CHAGALL, RENOIR AND RUBY SLIPPERS
Last year alone, its recoveries included a painting by Marc
Chagall that had been taken from the Manhattan home of an
elderly couple nearly 30 years earlier, a Nazi-looted work by
artist Auguste Renoir and a pair of "ruby slippers" worth
millions worn by Judy Garland as Dorothy in the 1939 movie "The
Wizard of Oz."
It is not the money, Carpenter stressed, but rather the
"intrinsic value" of stolen art and cultural property - anything
from baseball cards to a $5 million Stradivarius - that
determines whether the FBI will pursue it.
The red sequined shoes stolen from the Judy Garland Museum in
Minnesota 13 years ago were a prime example.
[to top of second column] |
"People responded to that case," he said. "They said this is really
important; this is a piece of Americana."
Agents selected for the team must understand why art and culture
matter to humanity, Carpenter said.
Agent McKeogh pinpointed his art awakening to a college backpacking
trip in Paris. On an obligatory visit to the Mona Lisa at the Louvre,
he happened to pass Pierre-Narcisse Guerin's 18th-century oil
painting “The Return of Marcus Sextus.”
"I found a painting that spoke to me and spent about a half-hour
sitting in front it," said McKeogh, who is based in New York. "And
from there, I was really hooked."
MOST VEXING UNSOLVED CASE
The United States was lagging far behind European countries in art
crime-fighting resources when Wittman helped launch the team in
2005, partly to track down antiquities that were looted from the
Baghdad Museum after the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq.
Now a private consultant, Wittman was the bureau's original art
sleuth. He said art thieves were always most vulnerable when they
tried to unload their high-profile, ill-gotten gains.
"The real art in art heists is not the stealing, it’s the selling,”
said Wittman, who had recovered more than $300 million in stolen art
when he retired in 2008 after 20 years.
While there are no reliable statistics on art crime, Carpenter said
he thinks technology is making things worse because stolen works and
forgeries can be sold anonymously on online marketplaces.
If the Art Crime Team's most vexing case is a daring 1990 heist at
the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston in which thieves made
off with 13 pieces by Dutch masters Rembrandt and Vermeer and other
artists worth half a billion dollars.
Despite a $10 million reward, none of them has been recovered, and
the theft, considered to be among the biggest in art history, looms
as the team's most glaring unsolved case.
"There’s not a single person on the Art Crime Team that doesn’t
dream of the day that we can recover those pieces,” said Carpenter.
(Reporting by Peter Szekely; Editing by Susan Thomas)
[© 2019 Thomson Reuters. All rights
reserved.] Copyright 2019 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published,
broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Thompson Reuters is solely responsible for this content. |
