Acropolis Maidens Glow Anew: Caryatid Statues, Restored at Athens Museum

THE NEW YORK TIMES
By Liz Alderman

The Caryatids at the Acropolis Museum.

GREECE---For 2,500 years, the six sisters stood unflinching atop the Acropolis, as the fires of war blazed around them, bullets nicked their robes, and bombs scarred their curvaceous bodies. Their initial function was to prop up a part of the Erechtheion, the sacred temple near the Parthenon that paid homage to the first kings of Athens and the Greek gods Athena and Poseidon. The Caryatids’ origins were less poetic: According to one legend, Mr. Pantermalis said, the statuesque maidens were not intended to be glorified, but condemned to stand in penance at the temple for eternity to atone for an ancient treachery committed by their hometown, Caryae, a Greek city near Sparta that took the side of the Persians against the Greeks during the Peloponnesian War. Other historians say young women from the city who danced for the goddess Artemis were inspirations. [link]

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Court Seems to Boost Claim to 'Adam' and 'Eve' at Norton Simon Museum

THE LOS ANGELES TIMES
By Mike Boehme

"Adam" and "Eve," a diptych of paintings by Lucas Cranach the Elder, 
was created around 1530. (Norton Simon Art Foundation)

CALIFORNIA---The Bible tells us that all the world's troubles began with Adam and Eve taking fateful bites of forbidden fruit. The German Renaissance artist Lucas Cranach the Elder captured the moment in 1530, painting "Adam" and "Eve" on paired wooden panels that hang amid the stately calm of the Norton Simon Museum in Pasadena. They are the prize in a bitter seven-year court battle over who should own them: the museum that has shown them since the 1970s or heirs of Jacques Goudstikker, a Dutch Jewish art dealer who lost them to the invading Nazis in 1940. A 2-1 ruling last month by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals settled nothing, but it did keep Marei von Saher's case against the museum alive after it had been dismissed by a U.S. district court judge in Los Angeles. [link]

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Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Transfers Eight Illicitly Trafficked Antiquities to Nigeria

ARTDAILY

Head, Nok peoples. African, Nok peoples, Nigeria, About 500 BC–200 AD. Ceramic; terracotta.

MASSACHUSETTS---The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, has reached an agreement with the National Commission of Museums and Monuments, Nigeria (NCMM), transferring to the Commission eight antiquities of Nigerian origin that are believed to have been the subject of illicit trafficking. The antiquities include two Nok terracotta figures and a terracotta Ife head, archaeological materials that are known to be at high risk for theft and looting. The group also includes an ekpu, or ancestral figure dating to the 18th or 19th century, which was part of the collection of the Oron Museum, near Calabar, Nigeria, as late as the 1970s; and a bronze altar figure of about 1914, which was likely stolen from the Royal Palace in Benin City in 1976. [link]

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Despite Legal Challenges, Sale of Hopi Religious Artifacts Continues in France

THE NEW YORK TIMES
By Ton Mashberg

A view of three Hopi masks from Arizona during a Paris auction in December 2013. 

FRANCE---Prompted by another large sale on Friday of American Indian religious items — the fourth such auction in the past 18 months — embassy officials invited an American judge, who is herself a member of the Hopi tribe, to explain to government officials, art dealers, academics and lawyers why treating spiritual objects as commodities is insulting and sacrilegious. The embassy’s efforts did not pay off last week despite two legal challenges to the auction, which included 29 vibrant Hopi spiritual headdresses and masklike items, known as Katsinam, that are treated as living entities by the tribe. [link]

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Museum of Fine Arts in Boston Returns Art Works to Nigeria

ARTBEAT | NYTIMES
By Tom Mashberg

MASSACHUSETTS---The Museum of Fine Arts in Boston has returned eight works of art to Nigeria after determining that the documentation accompanying some of the items, six of which were bequeathed in early 2013 by a prominent donor and collector, was suspect or fraudulent. The repatriated antiquities include two Nok terracotta figures and a terracotta head, items known to be at high risk for theft; a wooden ancestral figure from the 18th or 19th century known as an ekpu, which disappeared from a Nigerian museum in the 1970s; an elaborate bronze altar figure of a warrior from the 1910s, which was likely stolen from the Royal Palace in Benin City in 1976; two terracotta heads from the Kingdom of Benin, and a group of three figures made of wood and fiber known as Kalabari. [link]

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2 Crucifixes From the Hand of Michelangelo, Perhaps

THE NEW YORK TIMES
By Elisabetta Povoledo

Questioned Michelangelo Made Crucifix Donated to The Louvre. Courtesy of Blouin Artinfo.

ITALY---Two wooden crucifixes dating from the 1490s that are included in a Michelangelo exhibition at the Capitoline Museums in Rome are inciting fresh debate over issues of attribution. The crucifixes are among the two dozen or so works, mostly copies, on display in a show that runs until September. The two in question are identified as “Michelangelo (attributed to),” from the collection of the Bargello National Museum in Florence, and “Florentine sculptor, Michelangelo?,” from the Louvre Museum in Paris. [link]

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Norton Simon Museum Dealt Legal Setback in 'Adam' and 'Eve' Case

THE LOS ANGELES TIMES
By David Ng, Mike Boehm

"Adam" and "Eve," a diptych of paintings by
Lucas Cranach the Elder, was created around 1530. (Norton Simon Art Foundation)

CALIFORNIA---The long-running legal dispute over the Norton Simon Museum's 16th century "Adam" and "Eve" paintings by Lucas Cranach the Elder took a turn on Friday when a federal appeals court reversed a 2012 decision from a lower court that had dismissed plaintiff Marei Von Saher's claims on the valuable works of art. The 9th Circuit Court ruled 2-to-1 to reverse U.S. District Judge John Walter's dismissal of Von Saher's suit. "Adam" and "Eve," which were appraised at $24 million in 2006, date from around 1530 and are among the most highly valued works at the Norton Simon in Pasadena. [link]

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Cambodia Welcomes Return of 1,000-Year-Old Statues

ABC NEWS
By Sopheng Cheang, Associated Press

Image of Hindu statues homecoming. Courtesy of UK's Daily Mail. 

CAMBODIA--- Three 1,000-year-old statues depicting Hindu mythology were welcomed home to Cambodia on Tuesday after being looted from a temple during the country's civil war and put in Western art collections. The pieces were handed over at a ceremony attended by Deputy Prime Minister Sok An and U.S. diplomat Jeff Daigle after being returned by the U.S. branches of auction houses Sotheby's and Christie's, and the Norton Simon Museum in California.Cambodian officials say the statues were looted in the 1970s by being hacked off their bases in the Koh Ker temple complex in Siem Reap province, also home to the Angkor Wat temples. [link]

A 10th-century statue is presented at a ceremony in Phnom Penh on June 3, 2014. Courtesy ArtDaily

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Norton Simon Museum to Return Contested Ancient Statue to Cambodia

THE LOS ANGELES TIMES
By David NG

Temple Wrestler, c. 925-50, Cambodia: Koh Ker, Angkor period, 900-975, Sandstone,
61-3/4 in. (156.8 cm), Norton Simon Art Foundation. (Norton Simon Art Foundation)

CALIFORNIA---The Norton Simon Museum in Pasadena announced that it will return an ancient statue acquired nearly 40 years ago to Cambodia, after talks with government officials seeking the repatriation of antiquities it believes were looted from ancient sites. Museum officials said Tuesday that the 10th century sandstone statue known variously as the "Temple Wrestler" or "Bhima" will be returned to Cambodia as "a gift." Standing a little more than 5 feet in height, the statue has been on regular display since the museum purchased it in 1976. The ancient "Bhima" is the twin of another contested statue that is also being returned to Cambodia. [link]

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Christie’s to Return Buddhist Statue to Cambodia

THE NEW YORK TIMES
By Tom Mashberg and Ralph Blumenthal

Christie’s will return this 10th-century sandstone sculpture to Cambodia. Credit Christie's

NEW YORK---Yet another ancient statue looted in the 1970s from a single remote temple in the jungles of Cambodia has turned up in the United States, this time at Christie’s, which is voluntarily paying to return it to its homeland. Christie’s sold the statue, a 10th-century sandstone depiction of a mythological figure known as Pandava, to an anonymous collector in 2009, but bought it back earlier this year after officials determined that the sculpture had been looted. In just the past three years, Cambodian officials say they have traced seven statues in the United States to the same Khmer temple, called Prasat Chen, about 75 miles northeast of Angkor Wat, a site pillaged during the upheaval of that country’s civil war. [link]

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India Stone-Faced on US Offer to Return Stolen Buddhist Idols

THE TIMES OF INDIA
By Kirit Mankodi

INDIA---The US immigration and customs department (ICE/DHS) has seized $100-million worth antiquities from Subhash Kapoor who is undergoing trial in Tamil Nadu for stealing idols from a temple in Ariyalur. These antiquities were allegedly smuggled from many states in India and other Asian countries and recovered in raids on Kapoor's business in New York called Art of the Past. ICE is keen to return the items but has been unable to find a matching interest on the part of Indian authorities. For instance, among the antique pieces, is a Chola-era stone sculpture of Buddha, likely stolen from Tamil Nadu. Another is a Bharhut Yakshi - worth $15 million in the art market and the most expensive item so far found in the Kapoor catalogue -- stolen from a shrine in Madhya Pradesh.[link]

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