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tonantzinagainsttrafficking · 6 years

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Mexico celebrated a milestone success in repatriation of cultural heritage this year. Others have not been so lucky. These 6 countries are still attempting to recover from the illicit trading habits of one collector: Leonardo Patterson.

Leonardo Patterson with pieces of his collection. (Image source:

https://bit.ly/1SNOy2g)

Born in 1942 in Costa Rica to Jamaican parents, Leonardo Patterson is a antiquities dealer and collector renown for the controversy and litigation surrounding him. A 2015 New York Times article describes him as an “orphan who rose from [digging] artifacts out of Central American yam fields to holding multimillion-dollar exhibitions of pre-Columbian treasures in Manhattan and Munich” (Mashberg). He got into the business through Everett Rassiga, a New York gallery owner known for trafficking. In the 1970s, Rassigna was involved in the theft of a priceless Maya object, La Fachada de Placeres. Patterson began as a salesman in one of Rassiga’s galleries, but likewise took advantage of lax antiquities trade laws in the 1960s and 70s and started dealing prior to changes prompted by the 1970 UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) convention on the illegal export of cultural property (López).

Patterson & Rassiga (Image source: https://bit.ly/2Cz4lVE &

https://bit.ly/2eZwXLU)

Rassiga was involved in the theft of this piece, La Fachada de Placeres (Image source: https://elpais.com/internacional/2018/04/06/la_serpiente_emplumada/1523042975_396958.html)

As restrictions tightened, Patterson became the subject of several legal cases regarding the sale and repatriation of illicit and inauthentic Precolumbian (a standard but problematic term in the art world) artifacts. In fact, Patterson has one of the longest criminal records of any prominent art dealer/collector: three detentions and five sentences for different offenses. In a May 2016 report in Der Spiegel magazine, he admits to journalist Konstantin von Hammerstein, “all these objects of art came into my possession thanks to a network of collaborators who explored archaeological sites in different countries” (quoted in López).

In 1984 the FBI charged Patterson with wire fraud via his attempt to sell an inauthentic Maya fresco to dealer Wayne Anderson for $100,000. Allegedly, he told Anderson that the fresco had been authenticated by Donald Hales, a Maya researcher in California that is associated with some of the publications of Maya vases that went on to become part of the November Collection, discussed in our last blog. Hales clarified that Patterson brought him to Switzerland to asses five frescos in a Swiss collection, but that the fresco in question was not among them. Patterson also claimed that Paul Clifford, an appraiser in North Carolina, had authenticated the fresco. Once Patterson was arrested, the fresco was deemed a fake by Clemency Coggins, the same archaeologist and art historian that went on to advise the Museum of Fine Arts Boston not to acquire the November Collection. Patterson was sentenced to probation (Yates).

The following year, while still on probation, he was arrested at the Dallas-Fort Worth airport, found to be in possession of an undeclared Precolumbian figurine (dated between A.D. 650 and A.D. 850) and, bizarrely, 36 endangered sea turtle eggs that he claimed were part of a diet for his health. This time, he was sentenced to a year in prison on smuggling charges (Yates & Mashberg).

Patterson’s time in the U.N. was brief. (Image source: https://bit.ly/2eZwXLU)

Despite these convictions, he was appointed cultural attaché, or cultural diplomat, to the UN in 1995; he resigned, however, when questions about his past began to loom. He then began spending more time in Europe, particularly Germany where he now resides. He started hosting exhibitions and sales in France and Spain, but curators became suspicious of both the items’ authenticity and provenance. In 1996, Patterson put his private collection of Precolumbian art on display in Santiago de Compostela, Spain. This exhibit led to an Interpol alert regarding the illicit provenance (origin) of his collection (López).

That same year, Peruvian collector Raúl Apesteguía was brutally murdered. The day of the crime, one of his most important pieces, a golden Moche headdress, disappeared from his home in Lima. In 2006, a decade later, it was found at the home of Patterson’s lawyer in London. This connection to Patterson is certainly alarming, but Peruvian prosecutors failed to investigate the links to this case, which remains unpunished (López). Peru has, however, sought repatriation of the objects found in Patterson’s collection displayed in Spain.

The Moche headdress stolen from Apesteguía the day of his murder. (Image source: https://bit.ly/2yPSG1m)

In fact, the Interpol alert following the 1996 exhibit in Santiago de Compostela prompted five countries, Peru, Guatemala, Costa Rica, Mexico, and Colombia to press charges against him in 2004, while a 6th, Ecuador, did not press charges but sought repatriation (López). Spanish officials attempted to keep his collection in Spain as these claims were addressed, but Patterson was able to send most of it “home” to Germany (Mashberg).

Unfortunately for the countries seeking repatriation, Germany has placed significant (and arguably ridiculous) financial and infrastructural roadblocks in their way. Germany demands 90,000 euros from each of the claimant states in order to pay for the investigation and storage of the objects. Furthermore, the German Law on the Repatriation of Cultural Heritage requires the the affected state to show that the item is registered in a database of all cultural artifacts that is not only available to the general public but the GERMAN public as well. To add insult to injury, the law also determines that only objects that entered Germany AFTER 2007 can be returned because Germany only chose to ratify the UNESCO Convention on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property in November 2007, 35 years after its establishment. Due to this rigid framework, the Bavarian Supreme Administrative Litigation Court rejected requests from Peru, Mexico, Guatemala, Costa Rica and Colombia for restitution of archaeological pieces in 2010 (López). However, some monumental yet minuscule victories have been won by those with sufficient resources.

This graph shows how GDP per capita in these regions compares to global superpower the United States (The “1” in the graph represents 100% of the U.S. GDP per capita). It demonstrates the effects of barriers to growth in Latin America by showing how the region has fallen economically as others rise. In 1950, the average Latin American country’s GDP per capita was 28% of that of the U.S., but this fell to 22% by 2000. Meanwhile, the average European country fared much better, enjoying a rise from 40% in 1950 to 67% of U.S. GDP per capita in 2000 (Image source: https://bit.ly/2S5bKBt).

This illustrates the weakening of Latin American countries in this period, during which looting and illicit trafficking of cultural property was most rampant. It is no wonder that many of these countries that brought suit against Germany were no match for its economic advantage and significant financial barriers to repatriation.

Peru

Peru got lucky; it was the first country to discover the illegal origin of Patterson’s collection and in 2006 began diplomatic negotiations with Spain to repatriate items. 273 items that had been stored in a warehouse in Santiago de Compostela were returned to Peru; however, four textiles (from the Chimú and Nazca-Wari cultures) remain outstanding and nine pieces of Prehispanic goldsmithing, found in the 1996 exhibition catalogue, were not recovered at the warehouse. Peru’s Ministry of Culture has sent four letters to Germany requesting their recovery and return, all rejected (López).

This is not one of the Moche textiles Peru is requesting from Germany. However, while searching for a photo example I stumbled upon this site, antiques.com, that appears to list artifacts like these available at galleries worldwide. How jarring it is to see an invaluable piece of cultural heritage available for just a few hundred dollars online. (Image source: https://bit.ly/2yqdYn1)

Guatemala

Guatemala attempted to recover 369 Maya artifacts from Patterson’s collection but has been forced to desist due to being unable to meet the requirements set by Germany. The main issue is that the objects do not appear in an official registry because they were looted from sites that had not yet been formally explored! Furthermore, Guatemala did not allocate a sufficient budget for an expert to travel to Munich and investigate; therefore, an investigation of the objects was conducted only using photographs. The state also did not invest in legal counsel. The country’s resources are simply lacking (López).

In 2013, both Peru and Guatemala requested the extradition of Patterson while he was in Spain. He appeared in court in Santiago de Compostela on charges of smuggling cultural property, prompted by the illegal shipping of his collection to Germany when he began to face allegations. Unfortunately he was acquitted, after which he returned Munich, where the extradition requests were voided as Peru and Guatemala do not hold extradition treaties with Germany. Furthermore, Germany does not consider the possession of cultural assets in private hands as a crime (López).

Costa Rica

Costa Rica, Patterson’s home country, sought to repatriate 497 items, but also lacked resources to to undertake a proper investigation. In 2009, the National Museum of Costa Rica found itself unable to afford the expenses required by Germany to conduct the investigative process. Costa Rica was only able to procure two objects that had been left by Patterson in Spain, a vase and a grinding stone. Yet, they never made it home— both disappeared from the Costa Rican Embassy in Madrid in 2010. As if that wasn’t enough of a blow, Germany offered Costa Rica the opportunity to to be appointed legal custodian of the Patterson Collection, but this was contingent on a provided guarantee of several million euros! The country could not spare such a great expense. Rocío Fernández, Director of the National Museum of Costa Rica, says of Patterson and the art trade:

Patterson made a business out of archeology and the falsification of objects. He linked himself politically with the ruling class in Costa Rica during all its governments. He had a gift for deceiving people. That is what makes one wonder how the [art] market works. (quoted in López)

Ecuador & Colombia

Ecuador and Colombia were also unsuccessful in procuring their stolen items. Ecuador identified 121 cultural artifacts from photos on a disk provided by Interpol in 2008. It, however, did not place a criminal complaint against Patterson (for reasons I was unable to determine). Though it filed a complaint with German authorities for not providing access to documents regarding the case against him in Munich, Ecuador suspended its requests for repatriation in 2010. I was not able to find much information on Colombia’s efforts for repatriation, but it has also suspended its claim within the last few years (López). Though sources were not clear, it seems that as of 2016, both countries may have backed down due to the unreasonable stipulations within the German Law on the Repatriation of Cultural Heritage mentioned earlier.

Mexico

Mexico, however, has recently made headlines in its successful repatriation of two 3,000 year-old wooden Olmec busts earlier this year (2018).

One of the busts repatriated to Mexico. The busts are examples of the Olmec culture from the El Manati site, thought to be looted shortly after its excavation in the 1980s. (Image source: https://bit.ly/2q2ufKb)

The Patterson Collection has 690 pieces of Mexican origin, and Mexican officials claim to have linked more than 200 pieces to Luis Bianchi, a deceased forger of pre-Columbian artifacts (teleSUR; Mashberg). They describe these pieces of his multi-million dollar collection as consisting of a mixture of “terra-cotta, basalt stone and limestone busts; terra-cotta kettles and urns; obsidian and stone projectile tips and knives; braziers and incense burners; obsidian ornaments; stone seals; incense holders; cases; and necklaces and strings” (Mashberg).

The second Olmec bust repatriated to Mexico.

Though he was acquitted in the 2013 trial in Spain, in November 2015 Patterson was found guilty by a Munich court for both dealing inauthentic works and possessing looted artifacts. He was fined $40,000, his passport was confiscated, and he was sentenced to probation and house arrest for three years. He was also, in a monumental victory for repatriation in Mexico, ordered to return two carved wooden Olmec heads, valued at over $50,000 each. Though the lawyer representing Mexico, Robert A. Kugler, calls this a “milestone verdict,” the fight is not over. Mexico still has motive to reclaim other items from Patterson’s collection of at least 1,029 Aztec, Maya, and Olmec artifacts (Mashberg). After a ten-year trial, and over two years after the ruling, the Olmec heads were handed to Mexican authorities this spring.

Countless other items are still in limbo.

What is significant and maddening about these cases is the stringent guidelines placed by Germany in order for these countries to recoup what has been stolen from them. The financial restrictions are especially telling; Germany knows countries that have lost cultural artifacts to illicit means are often suffering from weakened infrastructure due to war, poverty, and other devastations. It holds much greater economic power yet has inflated financial restrictions to offset what little chance countries like Guatemala, still recovering from over 30 years of civil war and foreign extraction, have to recover the pieces of cultural patrimony they have been stripped of. It even had the audacity to suggest that claims before 2007 are not valid, but that is only because that is the year Germany CHOSE to ratify the UN Convention on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property. Germany has the money and the power to make its own rules and force disenfranchised countries to abide by them. I hope that countries like Guatemala, Costa Rica, Ecuador, and Colombia in the future will share similar successes with Peru and Mexico and that all will continue to push back against these oppressive and unreasonable guidelines set by German law.

This graph shows countries/regions’ share of global GDP. Note Germany’s percentage of 4.54%, while Mexico is the only one of the Latin American countries discussed today that even registers here, at 1.54%. This is just a further illustration of Germany’s significantly greater economic advantage. (Image source: https://bit.ly/2lyEhzH)

***Just added 11/9/18***

Video of the repatriation with background information

https://youtu.be/CvGuli-0g1s

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Works Cited/Learn more

López: https://memoriarobada.ojo-publico.com/investigaciones/diplomats-and-collectors-under-suspicion-in-the-trafficking-of-latin-american-art/

Mashberg: https://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/09/arts/design/antiquities-dealer-leonardo-patterson-faces-new-criminal-charges.html

Yates: https://traffickingculture.org/encyclopedia/case-studies/maya-fresco-fake/

#cultural heritage #leonardo patterson #antiquities trafficking #art crime #cultural patrimony #latin america #mexico #peru #guatemala #costa rica #ecuador #colombia #tonantzin society

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