Recovery | Cultural Property & Archaeology Law

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An Update on Turkey’s Cultural War

January 30, 2013

Turkey is currently seeking the return of thousands of antiquities which they believe are rightfully theirs. In this pursuit, Turkish officials are using every weapon in their arsenal and inciting what they have referred to as a “cultural war.” Turkish officials have not only threatened to halt their practice of lending archeological treasures to museums […]

Stolen Degas Painting Returned to French After 38 Years Missing

January 25, 2011

US Homeland Security has returned a Degas painting, “Blanchisseuses Souffrant Des Dents” (Laundrywoman with an Aching Tooth), to the acting French ambassador. The painting was stolen in 1973 from Musée Malraux in Le Havre in Normandy, and had been missing since. Last October, the painting appeared in a Sotheby’s New York catalogue for an auction […]

Cultural Property Law on May 17, 2010: Three Picassos, Four Executions, and 14,000 Polaroids

May 17, 2010

As I prepare to go to Italy for the summer to take part in the Association of Research Into Crimes Against Art Masters Program in International Art Crime, updating the blog has fallen a bit by the wayside. But the cultural property law world has hardly stopped turning. In the news recently: Following an attempted […]

Cultural Property Law on April 1, 2010: Folk Dance, Chilean Heritage, and Those Diligent Canadians

April 1, 2010

And today in cultural property law news… The Lawyer’s Committee for Cultural Heritage Preservation (LCCHP) has launched their new website. There’s a new web 2.0 design, and they took off the outdated internship database. As you might have guessed, the major earthquake in Chile has taken a toll on historical sites. A traditional folk dance […]

More to Mughal Than Meets the Eye

January 22, 2009

In keeping with our recent theme of manuscript theft, an Australian woman was caught trying to smuggle pages torn from a Mughal manuscript out of Egypt (Notably, the majority of pages stolen by Farhad Hakimzadeh, the manuscript thief discussed on this here blog, were from Mughal manuscripts.) The Mughal Empire was an Islamic imperial power […]

Is lawful retention of colonially acquired artifacts on par with looting?

December 8, 2008

At least under the current legal framework, looting is unlawful. Retention of artifacts procured in times of imperialism is not.

Italy Will (Finally) Return the Venere di Cirene to Libya

August 30, 2008

Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi met with Libyan leader Moamer Kadhafi today to finalize a “friendship and cooperation agreement” designed to compensate Libya for colonial era damage. Over the next 25 years, Italy will pay restitution to Libya for its occupation and subsequent colonization in the first half of the 20th century. During colonization, the […]

Interpol Recovers Stolen Turkish Sculpture Head

August 15, 2008

Interpol has recovered and returned a sculpture head stolen from the İzmit Archeology and Ethnography Museum. The head of the sculpture symbolizing autumn was stolen in 2002 and later found in Munich, Germany. Interpol transported the head back to Turkey and it has been returned to its rightful body. Read the full story at Turkish […]