Kevorkian, Safani, Unnamed London Gallery and a Poorly-Papered Dugup Head of Alexander

A New York art gallery filed a lawsuit last week asking a federal judge to block the forfeiture of a marble antiquity that was seized last year by the Manhattan district attorney and ordered to be returned to Italy (Josh Russel, 'In Pursuit of Alexander the Great: Establishing Ownership of Ancient Art', Courthouse News November 13, 2019)

Safani Gallery, one of the oldest galleries of ancient art in the United States, bought the statue, a broken off head reputedly of Alexander the Great, from a private collector through an unnamed London-based dealer in June 2017. The following February, the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office executed a warrant for the seizure of the head from Safani’s Upper East Side gallery. It is reported that the "fragment of the statue was exported from Italy without permission, and as such, it was and remains exclusively the Italian Republic’s property under Italy’s patrimony law". Manhattan prosecutors alleged that the statue turned up at auction at Sotheby’s in 1974 and then disappeared for 37 years until it was sold there again in 2011 for $92,500 to the private collector from whom Safani purchased it for approximately $152,625 in 2017.

The Manhattan District Attorney’s Office said in court filings that the statue lacks the kind of paper trail that typically accompanies ancient artifacts exported out of Italy.
“To date, no one has ever produced any records of bill of sale for any pre-1974 transaction for the Head of Alexander. Nor has anyone ever produced any records or invoice for the 1974 sale by Sotheby’s to ‘Alterrtum Ltd.’ Nor has any party ever produced an export visa or stamp authorizing the Head’s removal from Italy. No bill of lading. No transportation documents. No mention in any written record of any kind,” Assistant District Attorney Matthew Bogdanos wrote in July 2018.
“Nothing exists except questions: How did the Head leave Italy? Directly from Rome to New York? Or were there intermediary, laundering countries?” Bodganos wrote in the city’s application for a turnover order. “Experience tells us that this is exactly what the black market in looted antiquities always looks like: a disappearance from a source country and then a miraculous reappearance many years later in a market country with no paper trail followed by a questionable sale designed to created an ownership history,” Bogdanos wrote. “A neon sign flashing ‘stolen’ would be less subtle.”

Safani Gallery is now seeking a federal judge’s order to stop the statue from being returned to Italy, arguing that "no sufficient evidence establishes a claim that the artwork was ever stolen from Italy or that the Italian government is the rightful owner [and] [...] that any valid theft claims would be barred by the applicable statute of limitations". This turns the argument around, the people handling this antiquity feel under no obligation to pay any attention to having and paperwork for it, establishing their title, but in its absence defy anyone to prove that they don't. Furthermore, they want us to accept that because nobody saw any irregularity had taken place, it follows that it cannot be considered in any way important when somebody sees it now:

“Upon information and belief, at no time ever, prior to February of 2018, has any agent of Italy or any custodian of the Head of Alexander, notified any law enforcement official or made any claim in any forum in any way contending or even suggesting that the Head of Alexander ever was stolen or constituted stolen property,” the complaint states. “There is no competent evidence at all that the head was ever stolen.”

That's like a sex pest claiming that if the victim did not complain at the time it happened, but only much later and nobody suspected or saw it going on, we should consider that the offence never actually happened and the victim's lying? But the dealers' old standby is rolled out:  

According to Safani’s suit, in June 2017 the Art Loss Registry confirmed that it knew of no claims that the Head of Alexander was missing or stolen and confirmed that it been had been acquired by Armenian-American archaeologist and art collector, Hagop Kevorkian, likely prior to World War II. The provenance in Sotheby’s 2011 auction listing corroborates Kevorkian’s ownership and the likely timing of his acquisition.

The ALR confirms who was the buyer pre-1939? Odd. Since Kevorkian died in 1962, if there was no paperwork how he got it, he cannot be asked about the details of the transfer of ownership. But anyway, in the hands of X "by" a certain date is (if verifiable) proof only that an object was in somebody's hands by that time, not how it got there.  As a result of their lines of argument:

The gallery seeks a judgment declaring that it is the exclusive owner of the bust and that Italy has no claim to it. Safani also seeks the immediate return of the statue and damages for the losses incurred as a proximate result of Italy’s alleged conduct.

We will see soon where this line of argument gets the dealer.  

UPDATE Dec 3rd 2019.

See now: Safani Gallery of NY Files Lawsuit to Recover “Head of Alexander” Gallery Says Manhattan DA/Italian Republic Seized Legal Antiquity Without Evidence Cultural Property News December 2, 2019. It names the London gallery.