Looted Antiquities

Twenty-seven looted artefacts seized from New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art have been returned to Italy and Egypt as part of longrunning investigations by the Manhattan District Attorney’s Antiquities Trafficking Unit.

The Council of Europe Convention on Offences relating to Cultural Property (also known as the ‘Nicosia’ Convention) entered into force on April 1.

The art market is being unfairly targeted with restrictions and regulations over stolen cultural property according to its most senior trade federation.

One of New York’s most prolific antiquities collectors has surrendered 180 ‘looted’ items from his collection and been barred for life from acquiring antiquities again.

A round-up of art and antiques news from the previous seven days, including the the return of a 3600-year-old tablet showing part of the Epic of Gilgamesh being handed back to Iraq by the US.

The increasingly contentious issue of selling Benin works of art at auction raised its head again last week after an ancestral plaque catalogued as 16th or 17th century was withdrawn from an East Sussex sale.

The art and antiques sector has until April 21 to submit feedback on new rules on the import of cultural goods proposed by the European Union.

MADAM – Your comprehensive coverage of the recent Unesco debacle in last week’s issue (ATG No 2471) successfully raises ongoing concerns about the organisation’s behaviour and attitudes.

A Unesco campaign aimed at increasing public awareness of looted art is threatening to backfire after it emerged the ‘stories’ told in its adverts were fabricated.

A round-up of art and antiques news from the previous seven days, including the arrest of antiquities dealers and experts in Paris relating to looted Middle Eastern artefacts.

Following the removal of four lots from a New York sale, Christie’s has expressed frustration at being denied access to key information on possible looted antiquities.