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☆ At Art Fraud Trial, Sotheby’s Is Pressed on Role in Sales to Russian Oligarch
▼ + stars: | 2024-01-17 | by ( Graham Bowley | More About Graham Bowley | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Valette was the Sotheby’s executive who dealt with Bouvier in the sale of the da Vinci and three other works that are the focus of the case. In each instance, Bouvier bought the works through Sotheby’s and then resold them to Rybolovlev at large markups. Rybolovlev says Bouvier tricked him by pretending to act as his art adviser in the transactions, even pretending to negotiate with phantom third parties when he was actually the owner of the works. He has argued that Valette understood what was going on and helped him. But for Rybolovlev, Valette is central to the argument that Sotheby’s was knowingly part of a scheme to defraud him out of hundreds of millions of dollars.

Persons: Bouvier —, Valette, Bouvier, Vinci, Rybolovlev, Sotheby’s Organizations: Park West Locations: Manhattan, Sotheby’s

☆ Ukrainians in Germany Weigh Wrenching Choice: Stay or Go Home
▼ + stars: | 2023-12-03 | by ( Graham Bowley | More About Graham Bowley | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Since fleeing Ukraine with her daughter, Iryna Khomich has made a home of a tiny space in a village of prefabricated units in southwestern Germany. A full tour of its single room takes only a few moments: an iron bunk bed and a wardrobe, shoes scattered near the door, clothes drying on radiators. On one recent afternoon, her cat, Dimka, walked in and out, while her daughter, Sofiia, 8, read a German textbook at a desk. But like other displaced Ukrainians who fled west to wait out the war against Russia, Ms. Khomich, 37, lives each day wrestling with an agonizing choice: Should she return home to Ukraine, where the fighting drags on interminably, or put down roots in Germany, effectively turning a temporary separation into something more lasting? And they are debating it in places like Freiburg, a city nestled on the edge of the Black Forest close to the French border that has offered open arms, an extensive social safety net and the attractive promise of a life without war.

Persons: Iryna Khomich, Sofiia, Khomich Locations: Ukraine, Germany, Russia, Europe, Freiburg

☆ In Hitler’s Birthplace, Soul-Searching Over a Poisonous Past
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-19 | by ( Graham Bowley | More About Graham Bowley | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: 1 min

The Austrian town of Braunau am Inn, sitting just at the border with Germany, has a 15th-century church tower, cobblestone streets and cluttered rows of charming, colorful houses, some in green, pink and blue. It also has a fraught historical burden. On the upper floors of the house at Salzburger Vorstadt 15 on April 20, 1889, Adolf Hitler was born. One recent afternoon, Annette Pommer, 32, a history teacher, stared through the window of the Sailer cafe at the three-story 17th-century building across the street where Hitler spent the first few months of his life. She could hear the pounding of jackhammers; an excavator was crawling over a pile of bricks at the rear of the house while workers in hard hats swept the soil.

Persons: Adolf Hitler, Annette Pommer, Hitler Locations: Austrian, Braunau, Germany

☆ Top German Journalist Received €600,000 From Putin Ally, Leak Reveals
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-15 | by ( Graham Bowley | More About Graham Bowley | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

After Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, Germany went through a period of uncomfortable soul-searching about the close ties that some of its political and business leaders had to Moscow. That self-examination spilled into the country’s journalistic establishment this week after published reports revealed that an award-winning television broadcaster and author who has extensively covered Russia’s president, Vladimir V. Putin, had received hundreds of thousands of euros in undisclosed payments from businesses linked to a billionaire ally of Mr. Putin. The reports, by a consortium of publishing outlets including Germany’s Der Spiegel and The Guardian of Britain, were based on what the consortium said was a leaked cache of offshore financial records. They said that the broadcaster, Hubert Seipel, had been paid about 600,000 euros (about $651,000) in installments from accounts connected to Alexei A. Mordashov, a prominent Russian businessman, who was placed under sanctions by the United States last year as a way to punish Mr. Putin for his war in Ukraine. The payments were to support Mr. Seipel’s books about Mr. Putin, the reports said.

Persons: Vladimir V, Putin, Mr, Der Spiegel, Hubert Seipel, Alexei A Organizations: Guardian, United Locations: Russia, Ukraine, Germany, Moscow, Britain, Russian, United States

☆ Move to Rename ‘Anne Frank’ Day Care Center Stirs Criticism in Germany
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-08 | by ( Graham Bowley | More About Graham Bowley | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +2 min

A proposal in a small German town to rename a public day care center that is currently named after Anne Frank has become the center of a fraught national debate in the country about antisemitism. Germany has long engaged in palpable national soul searching about the responsibility to remember the past given the country’s own history, including specifically about Anne Frank herself. According to the report in the Volksstimme, the impetus to change the name had come from parents and day care employees, with the new name thought to be more child friendly. The story of Anne Frank was difficult for children to understand and “parents with a migrant background would often not know what to make of the name,” the newspaper reported, citing school authorities. The director of the school was quoted as saying the school wanted a name “without political background.”

Persons: Anne Frank, Anne Frank’s, Frank, ” Locations: Tangerhütte, Berlin, Saxony, Anhalt, Germany, Israel, Gaza, Amsterdam, Bergen

It won five cabinet positions in the three-party coalition, including the powerful economy and foreign ministries. And a host of missteps that some even within the party concede has stalled the Greens’ momentum. Today the Greens are widely viewed as a drag on the government of the Social Democratic chancellor, Olaf Scholz, which one poll gave a mere 19 percent approval rating. The Greens have drawn withering attacks from even their own coalition partners. To their opponents, the Greens have overreached on their agenda and become the face of an out-of-touch environmental elitism that has alienated many voters, sending droves to the far right.

Persons: Olaf Scholz Organizations: Germany’s Green Party, Greens, Social Democratic Locations: Ukraine

The story of the Bubon bronzes, though, is more than just a tale of looters’ remorse, investigative zeal, art market intrigue and antiquities repatriation. It’s also a lesson in history, one that presents a more nuanced view of ancient Rome than that popularized by Hollywood epics. Rome allowed a measure of self-government and promoted the promise of citizenship as potent tools to keep the peace. And there was often local buy-in, evident in the shrines built by invaded peoples to show respect for their conquerors. The Bubon bronzes, instead, remained underground, intact, for almost 2,000 years.

Persons: It’s, Severus, Trajan, Augustus, Roman Organizations: Hollywood Locations: Rome, Libya, Spain, Bubon, Asia

☆ Provenance of a Museum’s Greek Exhibit Is Questioned, Fueling a Debate
▼ + stars: | 2023-09-17 | by ( Graham Bowley | More About Graham Bowley | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

The Museum of Fine Arts in St. Petersburg, Fla., was riding high as “From Chaos to Order,” an exhibition of ancient Greek art, became its first major traveling show in years, making stops at museums in Florida and South Carolina before preparing to head west. “The idea was to look at the origins of Greek art in a new way,” said Michael Bennett, the former St. Petersburg curator who organized the show of works from the Geometric period, circa 900 to 700 B.C. “We felt it had something new to say about Greek art.”But earlier this year, when the exhibition was scheduled to travel to the Denver Art Museum, the staff there balked because many of the 57 artifacts lacked detailed provenances. The Denver museum had recently had its own scandal, when it returned four artifacts to Cambodia. Its director, Christoph Heinrich, suggested postponing the Florida exhibition in the hope that the provenance issues could be resolved.

Persons: ”, Michael Bennett, Sol Rabin, Christoph Heinrich Organizations: of Fine Arts, Denver Art Museum, Denver Locations: St . Petersburg, Fla, Florida, South Carolina, St, Petersburg, Denver, Cambodia

Nicholas O’Donnell, an art market lawyer in Boston who has been involved with efforts to get the industry to police itself without government regulation, said in the Ahmad case the market could have done a better job of reviewing its clients. When Mr. Ahmad was cited, the government issued a news release and his name and those of companies he was known to trade under were published on the database. The indictment cited relatives and associates of Mr. Ahmad who it said had helped him buy art in violation of sanctions and often dealt directly with the artists or galleries. Mr. Ahmad, who was born into a wealthy family of diamond traders, remains at large outside the United States, the authorities have said. The video shows a man it identifies as Mr. Ahmad firing a shoulder-launched rocket, in what the government presents as evidence of his connections to Hezbollah.

Persons: Nicholas O’Donnell, Ahmad, ”, “ It’s, Mr, Ahmad’s, Hind Ahmad Organizations: U.S . Office, Foreign Assets Control, The State Department Locations: U.S, Europe, Boston, Lebanon, United States

In 2006 she gave $200 million to New York University to help create the Institute for the Study of the Ancient World, which operates in a townhouse her foundation bought near the Met. White and Levy had begun amassing their extensive collection of more than 700 antiquities in the 1970s. Beginning in 1993, the couple agreed to relinquish 16 items after claims they had been looted from an ancient Roman site in England. In 2008, White surrendered 10 objects to Italy and two to Greece. It had been part of the “Glories of the Past” exhibition at the Met in 1990.

Persons: White, Levy, Giacomo Medici, Robin Symes, Eucharides, “, ”, David Gill Organizations: Brooklyn Museum, New, Botanical, Lincoln Center, New York University, for, Carnegie, Met, Centre for Heritage, University of Kent Locations: England, Italy, Greece, Italian, British, Turkey

SANTA FE, N.M — Alec Baldwin was on the set of his latest film, a low-budget western called “Rust,” working on a scene in which his character, a grizzled outlaw named Harland Rust, finds himself in a small wooden church, cornered by a sheriff and a U.S. Members of the small crew — including the director, cinematographer, cameraman and script supervisor — clustered around Mr. Baldwin inside the cramped, spartan set. As light poured through the church’s windows, casting slanted rays in the dust that swirled over the pews, a shadow fell, and the crew had to adjust the camera angle. The crew had been assured the gun was “cold,” meaning it held no live ammunition, according to court papers. In fact, investigators said, it was loaded with a live round.

Persons: N.M — Alec Baldwin, ”, Harland Rust, Baldwin, Jimmy Stewart Organizations: SANTA FE, Hollywood Locations: SANTA, U.S, Santa Fe, Laramie ”

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