Blog'Art

Stolen fossilised dinosaur footprints, 200 million years old and from a protected site, have been found after being advertised on eBay.

The three-toed prints, from coastline near Barry in the Vale of Glamorgan, had been offered for sale online and in a shop at Lyme Regis in Dorset.

The Countryside Council for Wales (CCW) realised they could have come only from the Bendrick Rock site.

A man described as a local amateur geologist has been cautioned by police.

The police had worked alongside the CCW and the fossils were recovered after a raid on the shop in Lyme Regis.

Dr Bill Wimbledon, a senior geologist for the Countryside Council for Wales (CCW) said they began to investigate after they were tipped off that fossils were being advertised for sale.

"They were described as being the right age and with a bit of detective work we looked and worked out they could only have come from here," he said.

"Bendrick Rock is one of Britain's most important areas for fossil footprints.

"The damage to the site is obvious - a large area of rock has been quarried away, continuous track ways broken up and individual prints cut up and taken away for sale.

"It's very sad. They took away the positives and left us with the negatives.

"We are very pleased to have tracked them down and reclaimed them, and they will now go to a safe home in a museum.

"Most people understand the great importance of SSSIs (sites of special scientific interest) and respect this, but there is a minority - a few rogue and commercial collectors and dealers - who want only to exploit sites.

"We will continue to be vigilant to protect what is international geological heritage, so that we can ensure Wales remains one of the best open-air museums in the world, accessible to all," he added.

Sgt Ian Guildford of South Wales Police said a man from the Cardiff area, whom he described as a local amateur geologist, had been cautioned for criminal damage and theft from a protected site.

Fossils can be legally collected and sold - but not if they are from protected or restricted sites.

Sgt Guildford said the dealers involved in this case had claimed they had received the fossils from legal sources.

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/uk_news/wales/south_east/5299016.stm

Published: 2006/08/30 15:45:36 GMT

© BBC MMVI

AFP 30.08.06 | 11h44, Le Monde

La succession du peintre autrichien Oskar Kokoschka (1886-1980) est contestée en Suisse par son neveu qui s'estime lésé au profit de la fondation qui porte le nom du peintre et possède un millier de tableaux, a rapporté mercredi l'avocat du plaignant.
Roman Kokoschka, un chirurgien viennois âgé de 63 ans, a porté plainte devant les tribunaux suisses pour demander l'annulation du dernier testament de la veuve du peintre expressioniste, Olda, décédée en Suisse en 2004, a déclaré à l'AFP l'avocat Julius Effenberger.

Selon lui, le testament rédigé en novembre 1998 l'a été alors qu'Olda Kokoschka avait subi une attaque cérébrale quelques mois plus tôt. Dans ce testament, la veuve du peintre faisait son héritière la Fondation Oskar Kokoschka, qu'elle avait elle-même fondé.

Selon l'avocat, un précédent testament, datant de 1995, faisait au contraire du neveu le principal héritier du peintre. L'avocat soupçonne la Fondation d'avoir influencé la veuve afin d'exclure la famille de la succession.

La Fondation possède plus d'un millier d'oeuvres abritées au Musée Jenisch à Vevey, au bord du lac Léman, non loin du dernier domicile des Kokoschka, arrivés en Suisse en 1945. Le peintre avait fui l'Autriche puis la Tchécoslovaquie dans les années 1930 afin d'échapper aux nazis qui considéraient son oeuvre comme décadente.

Citée par les quotidiens suisse Le Temps et 24 Heures, la Fondation Kokoschka a affirmé qu'Olda Kokoschka était bel et bien lucide au moment de la signature du testament de 1998 et qu'elle conduisait encore sa voiture en 2000.

Le plaignant accuse la Fondation d'avoir vendu aux enchères le mobilier du domicile du peintre alors que sa veuve souhaitait faire de la villa de Villeneuve un lieu de mémoire. Cette maison héberge désormais le secrétaire de la Fondation et ancien conseiller d'Olda Kokoschka, selon Me Effenberger.

http://www.lemonde.fr/web/depeches/0,14-0,39-28007116@7-54,0.html

AFP 28.08.06 | 13h20, Le Monde

L'accueil de musiciens louisianais en France et des opérations de restauration du patrimoine architectural de la Nouvelle Orléans sont au centre des actions de solidarité conduites depuis un an par la France dans le domaine culturel après le passage du cyclone Katrina sur la Louisiane.
Le ministre de la Culture, Renaud Donnedieu de Vabres, a fait lundi le bilan de ces actions en faveur de la Louisiane, un an après le passage du cyclone.

Dans le domaine du patrimoine, une étude de l'architecte en chef des monuments historiques, Pierre-Antoine Gatier, a permis d'engager la restauration du Passebon Cottage, une maison du quartier Tremé à l'architecture caractéristique des années 1840, indique le ministère dans un communiqué.

Quartier des musiciens et berceau du jazz, Tremé a été gravement endommagé par le passage du cyclone.

Par ailleurs, des musiciens de la Nouvelles-Orléans ont été accueillis depuis un an dans cinq centres culturels en France, où ils ont participé à des festivals et donné de nombreux concerts. Quinze d'entre eux devraient encore être accueillis d'ici fin 2006 et le programme se poursuivra en 2007.

Des opérations ont également été lancées dans les domaines des musées et du livre. Une exposition "Images de la femme dans la société française du XIXè siècle", à travers notamment des tableaux de Manet, Toulouse-Lautrec ou Picasso prêtés par des musées nationaux français, sera présentée du 3 mars au 2 juin 2007 au New Orleans Museum of Art.

Aux mêmes dates, des pièces et documents issus des collections de la Bibliothèque nationale de France et de la Historic New Orleans Collection seront exposés pour retracer "400 ans de présence française en Louisiane".

http://www.lemonde.fr/web/depeches/0,14-0,39-27986634@7-54,0.html

By Geneviève Roberts

Published: 30 August 2006, the Independent

More than 60 firefighters were called to a blaze at a Royal Academy of Arts building in London.

The fire broke out yesterday at the former Museum of Mankind, now owned by the Royal Academy, in Piccadilly. Part of the roof and first floor was damaged, a London Fire Brigade spokesman said.

The three-storey building in Burlington Gardens was empty, undergoing renovations in order to show the exhibition USA Today: New American Art from The Saatchi Gallery. The exhibition, due to open on 6 October, is likely to be postponed, the Saatchi Gallery said.

The fire broke out on the west corner of the roof, a spokesman for the Royal Academy said. One eye-witness, Shannon Gordon, said: "All of a sudden I looked up and there were more flames. Then there was a big bang as the roof collapsed."

The fire started at 1.45pm yesterday, and was brought under control at 5.30pm.Nearby buildings, including the main Royal Academy site, were evacuated.

Mary Anne Stevens, Acting Secretary of the Royal Academy of Arts, said: "The carefully coordinated emergency procedures of the Royal Academy and the effective management of the incident by the fire and police services appear to have limited the damage to one gallery and the roof."

No works of art were believed to have been damaged. The Royal Academy's main site will be open today.

http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/this_britain/article1222645.ece

August 30, 2006, The NY Times

By STEVE FRIESS

FELTON, Calif. — At 83, Dina Gottliebova Babbitt still recalls the rickety easel where in 1944, under orders from the infamous Nazi doctor Josef Mengele, she painted watercolors of the haggard faces of Gypsy prisoners.

But her memories of the Auschwitz concentration camp, vivid though they are, aren’t enough for Mrs. Babbitt. Seven of the 11 portraits that saved Mrs. Babbitt and her mother remain not far from where she created them, on display at the Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial and Museum in Poland.

“They are definitely my own paintings; they belong to me, my soul is in them, and without these paintings I wouldn’t be alive, my children and grandchildren wouldn’t be alive,” Mrs. Babbitt said with a Czech accent as she served schnitzel in her cottage here in the hills outside Santa Cruz. “I created them. Who else’s could they be?”

Her three-decade effort to retrieve them, which has stagnated for years, is drawing renewed interest this summer as a heart problem threatening Mrs. Babbitt’s health reinvigorates her supporters’ efforts to resolve the dispute.

Shelley Berkley, a Democratic representative of Nevada — Mrs. Babbitt’s daughter lives in Las Vegas — testified about the case in July at a Congressional hearing into the recovery of art stolen during World War II. And more recently a letter to the Auschwitz museum was signed by 13 artists, art dealers and museum curators, including a former executive director of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.

“Reuniting Mrs. Babbitt with her paintings would be a sign of the museum’s dedication not only to history but also to humanity,” said the letter, which was organized by the David S. Wyman Institute for Holocaust Studies in Philadelphia.

The Auschwitz museum, which considers the watercolors to be its property, has argued that they are rare artifacts and important evidence of the Nazi genocide, part of the cultural heritage of the world. Teresa Swiebocka, the museum’s deputy director, wrote by e-mail that the portraits “serve important documentary and educational functions as a part of the permanent exhibition” about the murder of thousands of Gypsy, or Roma, victims. The portraits, she added, “are on permanent exhibition, although they have to be rotated to preserve them, since they are watercolors on paper.”

She added that “we do not regard these as personal artistic creations but as documentary work done under direct orders from Dr. Mengele and carried out by the artist to ensure her survival.”

In a statement issued in 2001, she noted, the memorial’s international council asserted that six of the original watercolors had been purchased by the museum in 1963 from an Auschwitz survivor, and that the seventh was acquired in 1977.

Mrs. Babbitt’s case is unusual among the property disputes to emerge from the Holocaust because it involves artwork created under the duress of Nazis, not property confiscated by the Nazis.

“You have the natural dilemma between something that is clearly significant historical documentation of events and the claim of someone, which can’t be dismissed outright, that this was her creative work,” said Rabbi Andrew Baker of the American Jewish Committee, a lobbyist group, and a member of the International Auschwitz Council, which advises the museum. “I don’t know of a case quite like it.”

Dina Gottliebova was a 19-year-old art student in Prague in 1942 when she first went to a concentration camp. In September 1943 she and her mother, Johanna, were moved to Auschwitz, where she tried to cheer the imprisoned children by painting a mural of a Swiss mountainside and “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.”

The work drew the attention of Mengele, whose experiments sought scientific evidence to support Nazi racial theories. Frustrated that photographs did not accurately depict Gypsy skin tones, Mrs. Babbitt said, he wanted her to paint them.

Mengele singled her out, Mrs. Babbitt recalled, in March 1944, on a day when thousands of other prisoners were being taken to be exterminated. She said that she demanded of Mengele that he also spare her mother or she would commit suicide by touching an electrified fence. She and her mother were among the 27 Czechoslovak Jews to survive from their group of more than 5,000.

Her first subject was a Gypsy woman named Celine, who had recently lost her newborn to starvation. Celine is shown with a scarf covering her shaved head and one ear protruding, Mrs. Babbitt said, because Mengele linked the shape of Gypsy ears to inferiority.

After two months of painting — she believes that she did 11 portraits — all of the camp’s Gypsies were killed. Then she was forced to paint medical procedures for Mengele.

Mrs. Babbitt and her mother survived internment in two more concentration camps before liberation in May 1945.

After the war she pursued work as an animator in Paris and was hired by the American who would become her husband, Art Babbitt. They married, moved to California and had two daughters. The Babbitts divorced in 1962, and Mrs. Babbitt returned to animation, working on characters like Tweety Bird, Wile E. Coyote and Cap’n Crunch.

In 1973 the Auschwitz museum told her that the watercolors had survived. The curators had determined that she was the artist by comparing her signature — “Dina 1944” — to the ones on artworks she had done shortly after the war for a book on the Holocaust.

The artist borrowed money to fly to Poland to authenticate the work, carrying a briefcase that she planned to use to take the watercolors home. When museum officials refused to give them to her, the long-running dispute began.

Negotiations seemed promising in the late 1990’s when Rabbi Baker and others tried to arrange compromises. Mrs. Babbitt rejected a suggestion that the museum lend the art to her for the remainder of her life; she said she wanted ownership and the right to hang the works in an American museum.

“She wanted all or nothing,” said Stuart E. Eizenstat, a former State Department official who mediated the talks. “I understood that, but in these kinds of claims, where you don’t have clarity in terms of legal doctrine, you have to work out these kinds of compromises.”

The Auschwitz museum has also wavered on compromise proposals; it was unwilling to give up just a portion of the works for fear of setting a precedent under which other survivors could claim additional artifacts on display.

“Nearly every item left or contributed to the museum in Auschwitz-Birkenau could be claimed by a rightful owner as personal property,” wrote the Polish ambassador to the United States in 2001, Przemyslaw Grudzinski, in a letter to Ms. Berkley. “Should they be returned?”

Ms. Berkley, one of Mrs. Babbitt’s strongest advocates, helped pass a resolution in 2002 that directed the State Department to work toward securing the paintings for Mrs. Babbitt. Ms. Berkley said in a telephone interview that she had also raised the issue with the president of Poland when she visited a few years ago.

“The Auschwitz museum has a lofty goal not to dismantle the museum,” she said. “I can relate to that. The Roma people have a stake in it because it’s their images. But to Dina, this is her life. This is the life of her mother.”

The museum insists that it respects Mrs. Babbitt’s position, informing her regularly about the status of the material and asking her permission whenever the works are to be reproduced or published. To Mrs. Babbitt, this is an acknowledgment that the museum recognizes that the works belong to her.

Displayed on an easel in her cottage is her attempt to repaint the Gypsy woman Celine as the young woman might have wanted to be painted — with longer hair and without her ear protruding from her scarf. But it’s not the same as having the original portrait.

“Every single thing, including our underwear, was taken away from us,” Mrs. Babbitt said. “Everything we owned, ever. My dog, our furniture, our clothes. And now, finally, something is found that I created, that belongs to me. And they refuse to give it to me. This is why I feel the same helplessness as I did then.”

Al Horne contributed reporting for this article from Paris.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/30/arts/design/30surv.html?_r=1&ref=arts&oref=slogin

AFP 29.08.06 | 10h42, Le Monde

Le ministre français de la Culture, Renaud Donnedieu de Vabres, a jugé "urgente" la ratification par les pays de l'Union européenne (UE) de la Convention de l'Unesco sur la protection et la promotion de la diversité culturelle, lors d'une visite mardi à Helsinki.
M. Donnedieu de Vabres a indiqué qu'il proposerait à la Finlande -seul pays de l'UE, avec la France, à avoir fait adopter le texte par son Parlement- d'adhérer officiellement à la Convention sans attendre que les 23 autres Etats membres aient achevé leur processus de ratification.

"La Finlande et la France ont été des éclaireurs (...). Nous ne devons pas rester à l'écart de sa mise en pratique", a-t-il déclaré à des journalistes, reconnaissant que sa proposition "heurte les habitudes européennes".

Pour entrer en vigueur, la "Convention sur la protection et la promotion de la diversité des expressions culturelles" de l'Unesco (Organisation des Nations unies pour l'éducation, la science et la culture) doit être ratifiée par au moins trente pays dans un délai de deux ans.

Symboliquement, M. Donnedieu de Vabres souhaite qu'un pays européen soit le 30e Etat signataire.

Outre la France et la Finlande, l'Espagne, le Luxembourg, l'Italie, l'Autriche, Malte et la Suède sont les pays de l'UE les plus proches de la ratification, selon le ministre.

Lancée en 2002 et promue par la France et le Canada, cette convention a été approuvée par l'Unesco lors de sa 33e session, le 20 octobre 2005 à Paris. Seuls Israël et les Etats-Unis, sur un total de 150 pays, ont voté contre, quatre se sont abstenus.

Les Etats-Unis craignent qu'elle ne représente une entrave aux ventes de films et de musique.

Le texte a en effet pour objet principal d'affranchir les diverses "expressions culturelles" des règles régissant le commerce international, faisant ainsi de la culture une exception pouvant être subventionnée par les Etats.

M. Donnedieu de Vabres a souligné que des difficultés "techniques" justifiaient la lenteur du processus de ratification dans certains pays. C'est notamment le cas de l'Allemagne avec la question des Länder.

Parmi les obstacles, il a également relevé le fait que "certains aspects de la Convention relèvent du droit communautaire (européen, ndlr), d'autres des accords intergouvernementaux", et que la ratification se fait selon les Etats soit par voie parlementaire soit réglementaire.

Le ministre a enfin évoqué, sans les nommer, ces pays qui "sont à la manoeuvre pour freiner" la ratification de la Convention.

Les Etats-Unis, qui s'étaient déclarés déçus après le vote écrasant à l'Unesco en faveur du texte, avaient annoncé qu'ils tenteraient d'agir auprès des pays l'ayant signé pour empêcher sa ratification et, à défaut, son utilisation abusive.

http://www.lemonde.fr/web/depeches/0,14-0,39-27995181@7-37,0.html

Guillemette Faure .
Publié le 29 août 2006, Le Figaro
Actualisé le 29 août 2006 : 10h27

Le MoMA, le Met et le Guggenheim ont augmenté leurs prix d'entrée, ce qui les rend moins accessibles.

LE MOMA, musée d'art moderne, avait à sa réouverture à l'hiver 2004 fait grimper son prix d'entrée de 12 à 20 dollars. Depuis cet été, celui du Metropolitan Museum of Art (Met) s'est aligné, passant de 15 à 20 dollars. Les billets du musée d'histoire naturelle et du Guggenheim sont à peine moins chers, à 18 dollars.
Bien sûr, dans le hall du Met, il est écrit, en petit, qu'il s'agit d'une «donation suggérée». Théorique ment, chacun paie ce qu'il veut, c'est une des conditions fixées à un groupe d'institutions culturelles qui en contrepartie reçoivent des subventions de la Ville.
«C'est injuste de demander 20 dollars, d'autant que seuls les New-Yorkais savent que c'est le montant de la donation suggérée, les touristes paient plein pot», s'indigne Dan Levenson, un artiste de Brooklyn, qui l'an dernier avait lancé une croisade pour obtenir, sans succès, que l'entrée du MoMA soit gratuite. «Le MoMA a comparé sa politique tarifaire à celle de l'opéra. Mais ça me semble justement être l'exemple parfait d'une activité culturelle qui était grand public et qui ne l'est plus.» Le Met s'est justifié par un déficit d'exploitation de 3,5 millions de dollars pour la dernière année fiscale et assure que sa fréquentation n'a pas baissé depuis.
La Neue Galerie, musée consacré à l'art allemand et autrichien, avait envisagé des après-midi semi-privés le mercredi pendant lesquels les visiteurs pourraient payer 50 dollars pour profiter jusqu'au 13 septembre de son exposition des cinq tableaux de Gustav Klimt, dont Adele Bloch-Bauer 1, le portrait dont Ronald Lauder, principal bienfaiteur du musée, a fait l'acquisition pour 135 millions de dollars. «Mais on a reconsidéré la question et éliminé cette offre», explique Laura Lauder, à la Neue Galerie. Les mercredis après-midi en petit comité sont donc finalement exclusivement réservés aux membres donateurs du musée.

http://www.lefigaro.fr/culture/20060829.FIG000000103_la_culture_hors_de_prix_a_new_york.html

By Alexandre Deslongchamps

Aug. 28 (Bloomberg) -- The Federal Court of Canada today rebuked Sotheby's for fixing prices from 1993 to 2000, ordering the auction house to prevent ``future illegal activities'' and pay for competition regulators' investigative costs.

The order, obtained by Canada's Competition Bureau, directs Sotheby's to take measures to ensure it complies with existing rules. Sotheby's also must pay for the C$800,000 ($720,000) probe and is barred from ``doing any act or thing directed in the commission of an offence'' forbidden by Canada's competition law.

Sotheby's, the world's second-biggest auction house, admitted to a U.S. court in October 2000 that it had conspired with larger rival Christie's International to fix prices in international auctions.

Canadian investigators focused on the potential for harm to Canadian customers, Denyse MacKenzie, the bureau's senior deputy commissioner of competition, said today in a telephone interview. While the regulator found no evidence that auctions in Canada were affected, it said the price-fixing may have hurt Canadians participating in international auctions.

Sotheby's profit from continuing operations rose 75 percent to a record $1.17 a share in the second quarter, helped by strong London sales and the auction of a Picasso portrait in New York, the company said Aug. 2. Net income climbed to $72.4 million, from $42.5 million, or 67 cents a share, a year earlier.

Christie's won't face a similar order from the Canadian court, because it benefits from immunity after cooperating with the investigation, MacKenzie said.

To contact the reporter on this story: Alexandre Deslongchamps in Ottawa at adeslongcham@bloomberg.net .

Last Updated: August 28, 2006 12:58 EDT

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601088&sid=a9jM.RGPoaRM&refer=muse

By Catherine Hickley and Linda Sandler

Aug. 28 (Bloomberg) -- Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, a German expressionist painter, has entered the campaign for a regional election taking place in Berlin -- 68 years after his death.

The restitution last month of his 1913 painting ``Berlin Street Scene'' to a descendant of the Jewish family who owned it before World War II has sparked an indignant response from art experts and the regional parliamentary opposition.

London-based Christie's International estimates the oil painting may fetch as much as $25 million at its Nov. 8 auction in New York. Berlin's opposition Christian Democrats, Greens and Free Democrats accuse Culture Senator Thomas Flierl of handing the work back too readily and failing to inform either parliament or the public. They are questioning advocates and critics of the restitution at a parliamentary hearing today, just three weeks before the Berlin state election on Sept. 17.

``This painting is central to Berlin,'' Alice Stroever, the Green Party's spokeswoman on cultural issues, said in an interview. ``It captures the mood in the city at that time, just before World War I. Why didn't the Senate try to raise public money to buy it back? It seems incredible that they're attempting to sell this restitution as a pre-election success.''

The painting is one of several famous and valuable works recently restored to the heirs of Nazi victims. In a private sale organized by Christie's, cosmetics magnate Ronald S. Lauder paid $135 million in June for Gustav Klimt's ``Golden Adele'' after the Austrian government returned it to heirs.

Woman in Red

``Berlin Street Scene,'' which had been housed in the city's Bruecke Museum since 1980 and has now been moved to New York in preparation for the Christie's sale, is one of Kirchner's most famous paintings. It shows two elegantly dressed women, one dressed in red, and men in dark hats and suits. The figures and faces are angular and elongated, typical of Kirchner's work.

The artist, a victim of Nazi persecution whose works were included in the 1937 ``Degenerate Art'' show in Munich, might have been surprised to discover that his painting would be the focus of a political wrangle in 2006. A month before the Berlin election, opinion polls showed Mayor Klaus Wowereit's coalition of Social Democrats and the Left Party holding on to power, though with a reduced majority.

The conflict over the restitution centers on differing views over what happened more than 70 years ago. Alfred Hess, who owned the painting, ran a shoe-manufacturing business in the eastern city of Erfurt. The family had one of the most comprehensive collections of German expressionist art at that time, with about 4,000 works.

Gestapo Threats

Hess died in 1931. His son, Hans Hess, lost his job at a publishing company following the rise of Hitler in 1933, and the family was eventually forced to leave Germany. Tekla Hess, Alfred's wife, said the Gestapo used threats to compel her to return the now scattered art collection to Germany. She sold ``Berlin Street Scene'' to a Cologne-based collector.

Under the headline ``Amateurs at the Berlin Culture Senate,'' a statement released last week by three art historians accused the authorities of inflicting ``dramatic damage'' on Berlin's public collections by ``acting like dilettantes.''

Bernd Schultz, an expert in 19th- and 20th-century art at Berlin auction house Villa Grisebach Auktionen GmbH and one of the three signatories, says there is no evidence that Hess was forced by the Gestapo to return the paintings and no suggestion that she didn't get the purchase price for the painting.

``Why didn't the Senate do its homework?'' Schultz asked in an interview. ``They did too little to keep the picture in Germany. Why wasn't the public informed about the loss of a big German painting? This policy of secrecy prevented us from exploring ways of keeping the painting.''

Secret Negotiations

Torsten Woehlert, Culture Senator Flierl's spokesman, disagrees. ``That's rubbish,'' he said. ``Secret negotiations were our only chance of buying the painting back at a reasonable price. If we'd acted in public, then we would be in the same position as now, competing with international art buyers.''

``You can tell we are in an election campaign,'' Woehlert said. ``Can you imagine the outcry if we hadn't returned it?''

Woehlert said that to avoid the restitution, the burden would have been on the Senate to prove that the paintings weren't sold under pressure and that Hess got the purchase price for them. That was impossible, he said.

``It is very clear that the Hess family was persecuted by the Nazis,'' said David Rowland, a partner at the New York law firm Rowland & Petroff, which is representing the Hess heir and specializes in East German restitution. The heir is a London- based descendant of the Hesses, who wishes to remain anonymous.

``It's a very clear-cut, normal restitution case,'' Rowland said. ``It is not even a case where there is any gray zone. It's only controversial because this is a valuable painting.''

Debt-Ridden Berlin

Berlin's debts of more than 60 billion euros ($76 billion) make it the most indebted German state on a per capita basis. Secret talks between the heir's lawyers and the cash-strapped city government on a sale that would keep the painting in Berlin failed because they couldn't agree on a price.

``We disagreed with the Senate about what was the fair market value,'' said Rowland. ``They didn't come with the right price at the right time.''

By the time the Senate found a sponsor willing to pay 10 million euros or more, the heir was ``contractually bound'' to Christie's, Woehlert said. The Senate will get back the price it paid for the painting in 1980 -- about 900,000 euros.

Awaken Interest

Christie's expects the painting will awaken interest from collectors worldwide. The auction house, owned by the French billionaire Francois Pinault, set Kirchner's current record of $8.8 million in London in February, when it sold his 1908 portrait of a woman in a white dress, according to sale tracker Artnet AG. ``Berlin Street Scene'' is a more important painting.

``It really is such an iconic work that pointing out countries is irrelevant,'' said Bendetta Roux, a spokeswoman for Christie's in New York. ``A work of this caliber is also something that could attract buyers from the emerging markets, such as China or Russia.''

Given such international interest, will Berlin get together a group of private and/or public sponsors, and could they offer the highest price for the painting on Nov. 8?

``I don't know,'' says Woehlert. ``It is the only chance.''

To contact the writers on this story: Linda Sandler in London at lsandler@bloomberg.net ; Catherine Hickley in Berlin at chickley@bloomberg.net .

Last Updated: August 28, 2006 00:52 EDT

AFP 26.08.06 | 04h36

Le Monde

Un responsable de la Cité interdite de Pékin a été condamné vendredi à dix ans de prison pour corruption, une affaire révélée en pleine période de restauration du monument le plus connu de Chine visité chaque année par sept millions de visiteurs.
Liu Zhen'an, 30 ans, a été reconnu coupable par un tribunal de Pékin d'avoir reçu entre octobre 2004 et octobre 2005 pour 240.000 yuans (30.000 dollars) de pots-de-vin de la part de trois entreprises privées, selon l'agence Chine Nouvelle et le journal Nouvelles de Pékin.

L'ancien vice-directeur du Laboratoire du département scientifique et technique pour la protection des oeuvres d'art a expliqué avoir utilisé l'argent comme dépôt de garantie pour l'achat d'un appartement et pour s'acheter un ordinateur et un téléphone portables.

Le reste de l'argent a été déposé sur son compte en banque, a-t-il dit.

Cette affaire intervient alors que la Cité interdite, située au coeur de Pékin, est l'objet du plus important programme de rénovation depuis l'avènement de la République en 1911 afin d'augmenter la surface ouverte au public avec l'objectif de la faire passer de 300.000 m2 actuellement à 400.000 m2.

Engagé en 2002, il doit s'achever en 2020, la première partie de la rénovation devant cependant être terminée avant les jeux Olympiques de 2008, pour un budget total de 2 milliards de yuans (250 millions de dollars).

Cependant, Wang Huichun, vice-secrétaire du Parti communiste de la Cité interdite, cité par les Nouvelles de Pékin, a affirmé que cette affaire de corruption n'allait pas influencer la restauration.

"Les faits de corruption de Liu Zhen'an se sont passés durant la phase de restauration, mais les trois programmes concernés proprement dit ne s'intègrent pas dans le programme de rénovation", a affirmé M. Wang au journal, après avoir accompagné une centaine de responsables de la Cité interdite pour assister à l'audience.

Pendant cinq siècles, à partir de la dynastie des Ming (1368-1644), la Cité interdite a été le siège du pouvoir et le lieu de résidence des empereurs de Chine. Malgré l'avènement de la République en 1911, le dernier empereur, Pu Yi, a continué à y séjourner jusqu'en 1924.

Le musée de la Cité interdite a fêté ses 80 ans en 2005 et le monument a été inscrit au Patrimoine mondial de l'humanité de l'Unesco en 1987.

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