Christie's Auction House selling stolen merchandise

China accused Christie’s Thursday of repeatedly selling smuggled Chinese relics

Looting of treasures from the old world has been a favorite pastime of colonial powers. Visit any European capital and one will find lotted treasures ensconced in pretty cases.

The theft spans Vietnam, Cambodia, China, Iran, Iran, Pakistan, India and African countries. UNESCO has tried to create some regulations, but Western powers usually ignore the theft.

Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto was the last Pakistan Prime Minister that demanded from London, the return of the Pakistan Kohinoor diamondback to Islamabad. The British government has tons of Pakistani artifacts. According to Michbar “Trade in stolen art is the fastest-growing crime in the United States and the third largest part of international criminal activity.

The Chinese believe that stolen art has become the largest illegal export from their country. It is estimated that thieves take 30,000 pieces of art per year in Italy, and 6,000 in France. Insurance companies pay between $3 billion and $5 billion per year on stolen art insurance claims. There are numerous reasons for the flourishing trade in stolen art”. In recent years, the manuscript market has proved particularly active.

Recently, a late-16th-century Indian copy of the Qur’an, with the original lapis-lazuli binding, sold for $230,000.

The earliest known Moghul copy of Firdawsi’s Shahnamah, with miniatures by court painters Basawan and Kesu Khurd, commanded one-third of a million dollars from an anonymous buyer.

Interest in the manuscript may well have been heightened by headline news, on auction day, of a far more famous Shahnamah, from the Safavid period, that was involved in a remarkable international swap engineered by Oliver Hoare, a London private dealer who works from his home.

According to the Sino Daily “China accused Christie’s Thursday of repeatedly selling smuggled Chinese relics and vowed to place tough checks on the auction house in an angry response to the sale of two bronze artifacts in Paris”. According to the Asia One News ‘In recent years, Christie’s has frequently sold cultural heritage items looted or smuggled from China, and all items involved were illegally taken out of the country,’ the State Administration of Cultural Heritage said.

The wars in the Middle East have been a boon to illegal traders. Michbar says “Military conflict has always been a harbinger of activity in stolen art. The tragic plunder of art by the Nazis in World War II is well documented and is still being addressed by our courts. Recent fighting in Afghanistan where the museum in Kabul was looted, in Beirut where the museum has been shelled for more than 15 years, and of course, the tragic looting of the museums in Iraq, promise a whole new influx of stolen art.

The fall of Communism and the rise of organized crime in Russia and Eastern Europe will also supply more stolen art to international markets. But war is not the only cause of art theft.” Egypt has faced the largest looting in the world. Billions of Dollars of Mesopotamian artifacts were stolen from Iraq during the occupation. Afghanistan has also been the victim of wholesale looting–with crocodile tears shed for the Buddha statues.

The Police prevented Christie’s from auctioning off the Archimedes Palimpsest manuscript in 1998. Saudi Aramco says “By law, auction houses must make a “good-faith effort” to guarantee that each object came into the seller’s hands legally. The catalogue statement of the item’s provenance helps assert this, and auction catalogues have a wide readership in the antiquity departments of Islamic countries.

Thus false provenances concocted for stolen or illegally exported objects can often be detected.” Unscrupulous Western thieves have been stealing archaeological relics from Pakistan for the past century. Now Islamabad has caught Christie’s which was trying to auction off statues stolen from Pakistan. Christie’s is a world famous fine arts auction house.

Christie’s had tried to sell the theft $4.45 million. Pakistan wants it back. Pakistan has demanded that the Pakistani artifacts be returned to the country of origin under UNESCO convention on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property 1970. This forces the UNESCO system to take appropriate steps to recover and return any cultural property to its country of origin at the request of a State Party. Hopefully this collection will be returned to Pakistan–the second time that the country gets back its cultural property.

The presence of a lot of foreigners in Pakistan during the 80s saw many artifacts stolen from the country. The USA returned a lot of more than 40 relics in 2008-09. The US Department of Immigration and Custom’s Enforcement “ICE” takes pride in bringing to justice those who would trade in such items for profit. However the enforcement is weak.

The Guardian says “The illicit trade in stolen antiquities is allowed to flourish, say archaeologists, because dealers, collectors and museum curators have persuaded governments around the world to turn a blind eye. Switzerland, for instance, has provided European smugglers in stolen artefacts with a key transit point: hitherto, any artwork that has been on Swiss soil for at least five years has been granted legal title, allowing it to be shipped on to London or New York.

And, according to Lord Renfrew, professor of archeology at Cambridge university, until recently Britain was one of the worst offenders. Speaking at a press conference after the Museums Association and the International Council of Museums published a damning report, which found that Britain was generating £50m worth of illegal trade worldwide, he said, “The government is in the pocket of the art market, which wants to keep the flow of antiquities. It’s a scandal.” Museums have to compete for the public’s attention these days, and the bare-knuckled scramble for acquisitions has never been more fierce.” The halt on the illegal sale was placed with the cooperation of UNESCO’s intervention.

Christie has been involved with such illegal sales in the past. It has stopped the planned auction and has asked the Pakistani authorities to prove their claim. Sources in the Capital Administration Development Division (CADD) a sharp-eyed UNESCO official in Paris raised alarm after seeing A Christie advertisement about the auction alerted UNESCO. Their advertisement described the grey schist figure of the emaciated Siddhartha, or ‘Fasting Buddha’, as the most fascinating 3rd/4th century Gandhara piece in Christie’s entire collection. Christie claimed that the the artifact came to the auctioneer from a private collector who acquired it in Germany back in 1981.

Artifacts were stolen from Pakistan during the Afghan war when many Westerners were present there and they used their diplomatic pouches to transfer the finds The UNESCO official’s alerted Pakistan’s Department of Archeology and Museums (DOAM) which investigated the auctioneer surreptitious sale. The DOAM investigation revealed 60 more relics of Gandhara period hidden at Christie with price tags from $2,000 to $200,000. DOAM declared them Pakistan’s cultural property, excavated illegally from Buddhist sites in Gandhara region and smuggled out in early 1980s.

“We have checked all the sculptures on the (Christie) website. It is difficult to ascertain the authenticity and origin of all the sculptures from the photographs but some definitely look original. They can be certified only after physical and scientific examination.

“Nonetheless, it is quite clear that all artifacts belong to the ancient Gandhara region of Pakistan,” said the official.

Relief works, heads, busts, figures and stupa basis made up the collection. It includes a 3rd century grey schist relief of Buddha, price tag $182,500; a 7th/8th century bronze figure of seated Buddha from Swat Valley, price tag $122,500; a 4th/5th century Gandhara large stucco head of Buddha, starting auction price of $80,500, and a 2nd/3rd century grey schist figure of a pensive Buddha for going price of $68,500.

Other pricey relics in the collection include a 2nd/3rd century grey schist relief of Buddha and another grey schist head of Buddha from the same period for $30,000. Several more had the price starting from $2,000 upwards.

Chritie is hedging and not coming clean. According to press reports Toby Unsik of the Communications Department of Christie said: “We take our responsibilities in relation to the sale of cultural property very seriously and abide strictly by the laws in the countries in which we operate. We have invited the Pakistan authorities to provide us with full details of the grounds for any concerns they may have in relation to the sale of this lot and await hearing from them.” The Christie’s spokesman declined to comment further until Christie heard from the Pakistan government.

Michbar adds: “Art theft is structurally different than the theft of other property. Valuable works of art are relatively small, easily hidden, and easily moved both within and out of a country. Many thefts of art are never reported to the police. Victims of art theft fear that if the theft is publicized, other thieves will try to capitalize on their lack of security. Many also believe that publicity about the theft will just drive the art further underground”.

Christie has to be shut down. It is the den of inequity that deals with a lot of stolen goods, disguised as bought artifacts.

Also read on this website Pakistan claim stops Christie's auction of Buddha