Sacred and Stolen

by Gary Vikan

  The facts of the case as presented later that day were not much in doubt. Peg Goldberg, a small-time dealer in mostly modern art from suburban Indianapolis—that really big and boney blond woman sitting just in front of me—had gone to Amsterdam at the end of June in 1988 to check out a Modigliani nude on behalf of a Japanese client who wanted to buy one. Had the deal gone through, it would have been her biggest to date by far. Peg met up there with her sometimes Indianapolis partner, Robert Fitzgerald, who had in tow his nattily dressed California lawyer, Ronald Faulk.

  Bob Fitzgerald was in those days a handsome, husky guy with bushy white hair who had many ingenious ways of making money, inside and outside the art world, and an amazing menu of aliases, including Bob Jones. The Fitzgerald scheme that stuck in my head I learned about in a two-part article on the trial in The New Yorker by Dan Hofstadter, and it had to do with ocelots, which are “dwarf leopards,” and Las Vegas. Bob Fitzgerald’s idea, that apparently worked, was to parade these exotic cats through the gaming halls of the casinos late at night. And sure enough, some pretty blonde on a rich someone’s arm would coo, and that rich someone would be engaged by Bob in conversation that would lead to the sale of the ocelot. Bob took care to give his phone number because he knew that when the couple had sobered up and the cat had chewed up the sofa in their room and pissed on the carpet they would want to give it back—so Bob could sell it again. Very clever.

  Peg had a cash commitment from her banker friend and neighbor, Otto “Nick” Frenzel III, Chairman of the Board of his family-owned Merchants National Bank. And so she could have closed the Modigliani deal on the spot, with Frenzel’s backing, at £3 million. The trouble was it was obvious to her and to Bob that the Modigliani was not a Modigliani. So there they were, on Friday, July 1st, flush with cash and consoling themselves at the outdoor café of the Amsterdam Marriott Hotel, just a few blocks west of the Rijksmuseum. Who should show up just then but Bob Fitzgerald’s old friend Michel van Rijn—a descendent, he claimed to Peg, of Rubens on his mother’s side and Rembrandt on his father’s side.

  After introductions and Michel’s cautionary aside that he had been falsely convicted in France of having forged Chagall’s signature on some prints, he pulled out black and white photographs of the four Kanakaria mosaic fragments now in the Indianapolis bank vault. It seems that their owner, a Turkish “archaeologist” living in Munich named Aydin Dikmen, had stomach cancer and was now forced to sell. (Dikmen, of course, was the same person who was the un-named “Turk” of my midnight conversation with Hopps in June 1983 regarding the Lysi frescoes.) The mosaics had been found in the “rubble” of an important early Byzantine church on the island of Cyprus, a church that was now “extinct.” It had been studied and published by Dumbarton Oaks, and this official Turkish archaeologist, Aydin Dikmen, had all the appropriate export papers. As her story goes, Peg immediately “fell in love”—I guess sort of like Dominique de Menil fell in love five years earlier when Yanni Petsopoulos showed her photographs of the Lysi frescoes.

  The game was afoot and proceeded with lightning speed. By the following Thursday, the four Kanakaria mosaics and $1.2 million in cash had changed hands. The plan was that Goldberg and Fitzgerald would go to the free port of the Geneva airport to meet Dikmen and examine the mosaics close up. The deal for $1,080,000 was drafted by Faulk and signed by Goldberg on July 4th. Lawyer Faulk got $80,000 for his legal expertise. And Peg held back $120,000 to “cover expenses,” which she did not mentioned to Frenzel. Because this was presented as a cancer-driven “fire sale,” it was understood by all that the resale price of the mosaics Peg Goldberg had fallen in love with, yet was eager to sell, would be much higher than the purchase price. As evidence of that, van Rijn and his sometimes business partner Robert Roozemond each wrote appraisals in the $3 million to $6 million range, backdated to July 1st, three days before the contract was signed.

  The initial price quoted to Peg was $3 million, at which she “hemorrhaged,” as she later told Bill Honan of The New York Times. (Sadly, both van Rijn and Fitzgerald were just then having cash flow problems and so couldn’t cover any of that nut.) But Peg had soon bargained them down to $1,080,000, contingent on their retaining hold of nearly one-half of the proceeds from the resale as finders and negotiators. So Peg called Nick Frenzel late at night Indianapolis time and got him out of bed. After telling him that she had passed on the fake Modigliani—news which likely bolstered Nick’s faith in her judgment—she went on in rapturous tones to describe her all-but-miraculous find. She told him about the appraisals and then asked that he wire $1.2 million to a bank in Geneva in her name. And he did.

  It was not clear that the real Dikmen was even in Geneva for the meet-up on July 5th, but the mosaics were, and they fully lived up to the love Peg had already bestowed on them. She was “in awe.” The wire transfer took a bit longer than expected, but finally, on July 7th, it was time to close the deal, with Peg literally holding two big bags filled with strapped $100 bills. As for her old friend Bob Fitzgerald and her new friend Michel van Rijn, they, together, were guaranteed 45 percent of the proceeds from the resale, with Faulk in at 5 percent. After Fauk’s fee and what she had withheld there remained a balance of $1 million in cash in those two bags, which Peg assumed was mostly destined for Aydin Dikmen’s bank account. (Some months later van Rijn and Fitzgerald sold one-half their 45 percent resale cut to an Indianapolis doctor named Stewart Blick for $780,000. Blick, in turn, sold an 8 percent interest for $390,000 to banker Frenzel, who, as part of the initial loan of $1.2 million, already had a guaranteed 5 percent interest in the resale. Again, very clever.)

  But in fact, Faulk had secured the mosaics from Dikmen for just $350,000. So, do the math. Let’s assume that Bob or Michel picked up the tab for the coffee at the Marriott: Dikmen gets $350,000, which leaves $650,000 in play for Fitzgerald and van Rijn to split, as they delectate over the prospect of another $1 million-plus each if the mosaics do in fact sell for $5 million. All of this, for less than a week of work and with no cash outlay. And, of course, the lucrative Blick transaction for $780,000 lay just a few months ahead. Brilliant. So the mosaics were packed up, very poorly as it turned out, and shipped off to Indianapolis on July 8th. Some of the tesserae fell off in transit, so Peg hired a conservator from the local children’s museum to stick them back on; he used Elmer’s Glue.

  What got us into this Indianapolis courtroom? It was the hubris of one of the several dealers who were fronting the mosaics for Peg that fall, namely, that (slightly) Hapsburg-jawed great-great grandson of Emperor Franz Joseph I, Géza von Hapsburg (a.k.a. Archduke Géza of Austria), an aristocratic dealer in things mostly Fabergé. In October he contacted Marion True at the Getty, where she was then Curator of Antiquities, and offered the Kanakaria mosaics at $20 million. (“Holy Doodle!” Marion muttered to herself, as we learn in the book Chasing Aphrodite: The Hunt for Looted Antiquities at the World’s Richest Museum, by Jason Felch and Ralph Frammalino.)

  Was it because curator True was then preoccupied with buying that spectacular mega-statue of Aphrodite, that had been smuggled out of Sicily, for $18 million (and that has since been repatriated)? Or was it because the Getty just doesn’t buy this kind of stuff, as she said in her deposition? In either case, she sent Géza packing. And then she tattled on him to her dear friend Professor Vassos Karageoghis, Director of the Department of Antiquities of Cyprus and, for most of his professional life, the very personification of Cypriot archaeology. (For this, Judge Noland saw in Marion True—“the aptly-named Dr. True”—the very embodiment of curatorial ethics.)

  Karageoghis in turn contacted US officials by way of the Embassy of Cyprus, and US Customs took the lead, initially staking out von Hapsburg’s New York shop, while all the while, the mosaics were chez Peg, in the Indianapolis suburb of Carmel, which they soon figured out. Lots of fancy lawyers got involved, Peg retained her own high-end public relations agent, with ties to the Reagan White House, and even Indiana’s Senator Richard Luger got
into the action. But by late February, word came from on high at US Customs that Peg had violated no laws. So, on March 29, 1989, Cyprus filed a civil suit in her home town.

  The trial was covered day-to-day for a week by Bill Honan for The New York Times and Steve Mannheimer for The Indianapolis Star. Steve happens to be an artist as well as a journalist, and he did a drawing of me on the stand that I treasure. Mostly, as I said, it was about due diligence. Who tried harder? Later on day one, we heard the gnarly caretaker of the Kanakaria church, Theodoros Avraam, whose forlorn face was straight off that children’s art wall in the Embassy of Cyprus. Through an interpreter he told his chilling story of what happened in his little town of Lythrankomi after the Turkish invasion: “We were loaded in busses, taken to Turkey, where we were beaten up, imprisoned for thirty-five days, then returned home.” When he left for the southern part of the island in 1976, Avraam locked the church. Three years later, in November 1979, visitors to that town reported that Panagia Kanakaria had been looted.

  My time to testify was rapidly approaching, and it was clear that I would be the linchpin for Cyprus, provided that I performed as they hoped I would. But was I up to it? It was just after eight in the evening on that Tuesday, May 30th, and I was in a conference room on the 18th floor of the First National Bank of Indianapolis. I had just returned in my Celica convertible from what I was told was the second best restaurant in Indianapolis. I was being paid well for my time and expertise in Indianapolis and I intended to enjoy myself. Monday evening I asked the concierge what the best restaurant in town was, and he said Peter’s, so I went there and ate alone. And the second evening I asked for the second best restaurant, and this continued through the week. I had spent the day on a rock-hard, church-pew-like bench in the courthouse, just across the street to the west of the First National Bank. So it was all very convenient and meant I didn’t drive that nifty red convertible very much.

  Venus with a Mirror, oil on canvas, Titian; Venice, around 1555. The National Gallery of Art, Andrew W. Mellon Collection. (Photo courtesy the National Gallery of Art)

  The first painting I fell in love with—at age eight.

  Cub Scout Gary Vikan at age ten in the basement of Hope Lutheran Church, Fosston, Minnesota, 1957. (Photo by Franklin Vikan)

  Warner Sallman’s Head of Christ is in the background, as if speaking in my ear.

  I was with my professor, Kurt Weizmann, at Princeton University in 1993, shortly before he died. (Photo courtesy Princeton University)

  Illuminated Greek Manuscripts from American Collections, the Princeton University Art Museum, 1973. (Photo by Gary Vikan)

  My first exhibition: no visitors, no review.

  Last Judgment, fresco, Voroneţ Monastery, Romania; Post-Byzantine, 1547. (Photo by Adam Jones; adamjones.freeservers.com)

  Romania’s answer to Michelangelo.

  Wedding party, Agapia, Romania, 1975. (Photo by Gary Vikan)

  The day we became guests at a wedding.

  Signet key ring of “Panaretos,” gold and niello, from Constantinople; Byzantine, 9th century. Ring: Dumbarton Oaks, Washington, DC. Key: the Menil Foundation, Houston. (Photo courtesy the Menil Foundation, Houston)

  I reunited the key and the ring in 1979 after a separation of more than a millennium.

  Paralytic Raising His Bed, painted limestone relief, reputed to be from Sheikh Ibada, Egypt; 20th century forgery. The Brooklyn Museum. (Photo courtesy of the Brooklyn Museum)

  One of the most audacious of the huge group of Sheikh Ibada fakes that I uncovered in the late ’70s.

  Healing of the Blind Man, marble relief, reputed to be from Constantinople; 20th century forgery. Dumbarton Oaks, Washington, DC. (Photo by Gary Vikan)

  My discovery of this fake caused a firestorm at Dumbarton Oaks in 1981.

  Saint Peter (detail), icon, tempera on wooden panel, reputed to be from the Church of Saint Prokopios, Verioa, Greece; Byzantine (Macedonia), early 14th century. Dumbarton Oaks, Washington, DC. (Photo by Gary Vikan)

  Residue in the rows of small aging cracks in the saint’s hair told me a disturbing story.

  Looter’s drawing of a nonexistent Byzantine church reputedly discovered by workmen bulldozing the dirt from a hillside to build a youth hostel in the area of Binbirkilisse in southeastern Turkey. (Photo courtesy the Menil Foundation, Houston)

  Church of Saint Euphenianos, Lysi, northern Cyprus; Byzantine, 13th century.

  The real church from which the “Lysi frescoes” were looted.

  Christ Pantocrator with Angels, fresco, dome looted from the Church of Saint Euphemianos, Lysi, northern Cyprus; Byzantine, 13th century. Now in the Byzantine Museum, Nicosia, Cyprus. (Photo courtesy the Menil Foundation, Houston)

  Lysi dome fresco showing the looter’s cutting lines. The image (sans cutting lines) was copied from the Annual Report of the Director of the Department of Antiquities for the year 1972 (Nicosia, 1973).

  Security in Byzantium, Dumbarton Oaks, 1979. (Photo courtesy Dumbarton Oaks)

  I managed to put an entire exhibition in a single mind-numbing wall case.

  Holy Image, Holy Space: Icons and Frescoes from Greece, the Walters Art Museum, 1988. (Photo courtesy the Walters Art Museum)

  The day I captured the “numinous”—and the Plexiglass was covered with kisses.

  Peach Bloom Vase, porcelain with peach bloom glaze; Chinese (Qing), 1710–1722. The Walters Art Museum. (Photo courtesy the Walters Art Museum)

  This Walters treasure was missing from its case for days, and no one noticed.

  Greg Bartgis, 2016. (Photo courtesy Greg Bartgis)

  The Walters’ master art thief.

  The Baltimore Sun, August 25, 1988.

  An inside job.

  Church of Panagia Kanakaria, Lythrankomi, northern Cyprus; Byzantine, 6th century. (Photo courtesy Alamy)

  The church from which the “Kanakaria mosaics” were looted.

  Reporter Steve Mannheimer’s drawing of a dour Gary Vikan on the stand during the Kanakaria repatriation trial in Indianapolis, 1989.

  The New York Times, August 4, 1989.

  Our day of triumph, on the front page of the Times.

  Walter Hopps and Dominique de Menil, 3363 San Felipe Road, Houston, 1980s. (Photo courtesy the Menil Foundation, Houston)

  The first, and last, Christmas card I ever received from the president of Cyprus, in 1991.

  “I simply love them, Patriarch Abune Paulos of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church says of the protesters who dog his every step in this country.”

  The Abune Paulos, The Washington Post, October 15, 1993.

  Ethiopian demonstrators at the Walters Art Museum, October 16, 1993. (Photo by Gary Vikan)

  Mary and the Infant Jesus Flanked by Archangels (left half of a diptych), tempera on wooden panel, Fere Seyon; Ethiopian, later 15th century. The Walters Art Museum. (Photo courtesy the Walters Art Museum)

  One of the finest icons in the finest collection of Ethiopian art outside of Ethiopia.

  The Thirteen Towns, November 1, 1993.

  What drew me to becoming a museum director? It was my father’s obituary on the front page of the newspaper he ran for half a century.

  Raoul Middleman’s oil portrait of Gary Vikan, The Baltimore Sun, February 15, 1996.

  I look like I am ready to explode.

  My aborted ad campaign for Pandora: Women in Classical Greece, 1995.

  That girl was fine for New York, but not for Baltimore.

  Gary Vikan and others examining the Lailash Pentateuch, Institute of Manuscripts, Tbilisi, Georgia, 1998.

  An overpowering smell of turpentine was in the air that day.

  Archaeology Odyssey, January/February, 2000.

  The failure of my Georgian exhibition was announced with a banner headline.

  The “Cabinet of Wonders,” the Walters Art Museum. (Photo courtesy Lee Sandstead)

  Door from a Torah ark, wood with traces of paint, Ben Ezra Synagogue, Cairo; 11th century and later. Jointly owned by t
he Walters Art Museum and the Yeshiva University Museum, New York City. (Photo courtesy the Walters Art Museum)

  How did this ancient wooden door get from Cairo to Miami?

  Intact Torah ark, wood with traces of paint, Ben Ezra Synagogue, Cairo; 11th century and later. (Photo from The Torah [Israel Museum, Jerusalem, 1978])

  Who took that photo—and, more important, when?

  Cross flanked by Apostles, chalice from the Kaper Koraon Treasure, silver, dug up by looters in northern Syria in 1908; Byzantine, early 7th century. The Walters Art Museum. (Photo courtesy the Walters Art Museum)

  Story of the Magi, reliquary, champlevé enamel, reputedly stolen from the Church of Saint Martin, Linard, France; French, 13th century. The Walters Art Museum. (Photo courtesy the Walters Art Museum) Volée (“stolen”) the French local mayor proclaimed.

  Medieval Galleries, the Walters Art Museum. (Photo by Gary Vikan)

  Paysage, bords de Seine, oil on linen, Pierre-Auguste Renoir; 1879. The Baltimore Museum of Art. (Photo courtesy the Baltimore Museum of Art)