The following article, copied from artsy.net, and written by John Zarobell, gives a very good impression about the functioning of freeports. Art is one of the most unregulated industries on the planet. Auction houses provide a space for exchange with prices determined in an open public forum, but many aspects of the auction house business…
On July 13th of 2017, the European Commission proposed new rules to stop imports in the Union of cultural goods illicitly exported from their country of origin (see the press release). Cultural goods are items of which countries consider that they have great artistic, historical or archaeological value and which belong to the country’s cultural…
The new issue of the International Journal of Cultural Property is available now, with contributions discussing deaccession, the status of fauna as cultural property, the role Sotheby’s has played in the collection of Maya antiquities, the fascinating case of the Buddhist Mummy, and other contributions.
Bulgarian officials said Friday they had recovered over 5,600 smuggled antiquities and arrested 22 members of two international smuggling rings in a joint operation with Turkey and France. A tip-off by the Bulgarian services eighteen months ago has led to the dismantling of “two international organized crime groups with members of different nationalities engaged in…
A Swedish academic who bought a rare antique Italian manuscript online from a university student in Bologna has helped police uncover a trove of stolen artwork and books. When his online purchase arrived from Italy to Sweden, the perspicacious professor from Lund University noticed a small antique ink stamp from the “Royal Library of Turin”…
Celebrating a repatriation decades in the making, U.S. and Italian law enforcement gathered in New York on Thursday with ancient statues, flasks and other artifacts set to be returned overseas. Bronzes of a Sardinian warrior and ox from the 8th century B.C., a Greek bronze of Heracles believed to be from the 3rd or 4th…
Sotheby’s offers the upper part of a Greek marble funerary stele on his next auction in London, on June 12, 2017 (lot 8) (see picture on the right). The funerary stele derives clearly from the confiscated Gianfranco Becchina archive according to Dr. Christos Tsirogiannis, a forensic archaeologist and Affiliated Researcher in the Scottish Centre for…
The Council of Europe Convention on Offences relating to Cultural Property was adopted on 3 May 2017 and came into force on 19 May 2017 (Council of Europe Treaty Series no. 221). The Treaty is open for signature by the member States and the non-member States which have participated in its elaboration and for accession by other non-member…
Seven ancient statues and pottery vessels are headed back to their homeland in Italy after authorities said they tracked down the stolen items in New York City. Dating back as far as the eighth century B.C., the artifacts were looted by Italian tomb raiders in the 1990s, then were smuggled out of the country and…
Bulgaria recovers over 5,000 antiquities in joint anti-smuggling op with Turkey, France. Bulgarian officials said Friday they had recovered over 5,600 smuggled antiquities and arrested 22 members of two international smuggling rings in a joint operation with Turkey and France. A tip-off by the Bulgarian services eighteen months ago has led to the dismantling of…
EAA-Community on the Illicit Trade in Cultural Material 