Chasing Aphrodite

D.A. Bragg Announces Return Of Antiquities To Spain, Italy And Hungary The Manhattan District Attorney’s Office announced the recent repatriation of antiquities to three countries, including 31 antiquities, some dating to the 6th century B.C.E., to the people of Italy; t...

Manhattan DA has announced the recent return of looted antiquities to several countries:

- 31 antiquities to the people of Italy;
- two 6th century C.E. Visigoth pendants to Spain;
- and a 17th century C.E. Jesuit manuscript to Hungary.

manhattanda.org/d-a-bragg-an...

US Government To Auction Works By Jean-Michel Basquiat, Pablo Picasso and Diane Arbus Purchased With Funds from 1MDB Scandal The artworks by Jean-Michel Basquiat, Pablo Picasso and Diane Arbus were surrendered by actor Leonardo DiCaprio and producer Christopher McFarland.

For ARTnews, I looked into the four artworks by Pablo Picasso, Jean-Michel Basquiat and Diane Arbus now being auctioned online by the US government with connections to the 1MDB scandal. Three were gifted to Leonardo DiCaprio by Jho Low and one was forfeited by a producer of THE WOLF OF WALL STREET.

News - Newly Deciphered Cuneiform Tablet Contains Unknown Sumerian Myth - Archaeology Magazine CHICAGO, ILLINOIS—A riveting lost Sumerian myth was recently rediscovered thanks to University of Chicago Sumerologist […]

The text tells how the Sumerian storm god Ishkur was trapped in the netherworld, causing chaos on earth due to the lack of rain. Ishkur’s father Enlil summons a divine assembly and asks them to retrieve Ishkur. No gods volunteer, but, surprisingly, a lone fox does.

archaeology.org/news/2025/07...

Fascinating 100% hallucination — claims, numbers, references, everything…. [Followed by a Grok post which purports to cite demographic figures from various sources, including one supposedly by Scheidel himself.]

Meanwhile over on the other site:

More on the Art Market Integrity Act >

bsky.app/profile/chas...

This case illustrates how organized crime groups use the US art market for trade-based money laundering — precisely the issue targeted in the new bipartisan legislation championed by several senators and @combatlooting.bsky.social

French culture minister Rachida Dati to face trial for alleged corruption The minister is accused of having secretly lobbied for the carmaker Renault-Nissan

The French culture minister Rachida Dati is to face trial in Paris on charges of alleged corruption and “influence peddling”

Dati is accused of having secretly worked as a lobbyist for the carmaker Renault-Nissan while she was in the European Parliament.

www.theartnewspaper.com/2025/07/23/f...

U.S. Marshals Service Art Online Auction Online Art Auction on Behalf of U.S. Marshals Service; Pablo Picasso, Jean-Michel Basquiat

Picasso's "Nature Morte au Crane de Taureau, Basquiat's Redman One & other high value artworks purchased with criminal proceeds connected to fugitive financier Low Taek Jho and the 1MDB scandal are up for auction via U.S. Marshals Service asset recovery division.

www.txauction.com/auctions/308...

Entire annual budget of the National Endowment for the Arts: $210 million

Iran’s leaders reach back to pre-Islamic times to stoke nationalism Officials in the Islamic republic are seeking to rally a population rattled by war and increasingly averse to the Muslim theocracy’s dominant ideology.

Iran’s leaders reach back to pre-Islamic times to stoke nationalism

www.washingtonpost.com/world/2025/0...

The Met continues to negotiate with Phnom Penh over its firm demand for the Harihara and 31 other artifacts, many directly linked to Latchford, that remain in the Met’s collection today.

Earlier this year, the Met presented Cambodia with a non-disclosure agreement that would have compelled Cambodia to pay damages for any breach and waive sovereign immunity – terms the Cambodian government unequivocally rejected.

This move not only legitimized the artifact using the Rockefeller name but also provided Latchford and Spink a powerful institutional endorsement, allowing them to leverage the Met's collection status to boost the perceived value and facilitate other private sales of their trafficked inventory.

While the museum appears to have partially purchased the Harihara, the remainder of its acquisition was covered by a donation from Laurance S. Rockefeller, John D. Rockefeller III's brother, and an "anonymous donor” who was, in fact, Douglas Latchford himself.

By December 1976, Spink had found a solution: Martin Lerner, then a curator at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, would arrange for the museum to pick up the statue.

After leaving the Met, Lerner worked as a consultant for Latchford, appraising newly excavated statues.

But the new letters from the Rockefeller family archives reveal a critical, previously unknown chapter: the Harihara's failed sale and its subsequent diversion through one of America's most powerful families.

A 1974 letter between executives of Spink & Son, a prominent London art dealer, details their efforts to sell the Harihara for $300,000 – approximately $1.8 million today – with a 25% cut for Spink and the remainder for the British antiquities trafficker Douglas Latchford.

These revelations, exposing a sophisticated strategy to "wash" a looted artifact through one of the world's most prestigious museums, are adding fresh pressure for its return to Cambodia – pressure intensified by the fact the statue was trafficked during the country's genocide in the late 1970s.

Explosive Rockefeller Letters Expose Met Museum's Looted Harihara At Whale Hunting, we illuminate hidden worlds and expose closely-held secrets. Today, we’re pulling back the velvet curtain on one of the world’s most prestigious museums: the Met. Our latest investi...

New explosive letters from the Rockefeller family archives, obtained by Project Brazen, detail how a prized Cambodian antiquity – the Harihara statue – landed in the Metropolitan Museum of Art's collection after a failed $1.8 million sale attempt.

whalehunting.projectbrazen.com/explosive-ro...

Senator John Fetterman Proposes Bill To Apply Anti-Money Laundering Protections to US Art Market The Art Market Integrity Act would amend the Bank Secrecy Act to require art dealers and auction houses to report suspicious transactions.

The Art Market Integrity Act would give the US Treasury the authority to subject art professionals and institutions to adopt certain AML policies and safeguards, such as conducting due diligence on clients, maintaining records, and reporting suspicious transactions

www.artnews.com/art-news/new...

At the nub of the protracted border dispute is a set of 9th- to 11th-century temples that believed to have initially been built as Hindu shrines but later moved into the Buddhist fold as the region's religious preferences moved too.

www.hindustantimes.com/world-news/w...

Thai and Cambodian Troops Fire at Each Other as Relations Implode

Thai and Cambodian Troops Fire at Each Other as Relations Implode

Shots were heard at 8.20 a.m. and came from an area about 650 feet east of Prasat Ta Muen Thom, an ancient Khmer-Hindu temple along the disputed border, according to the Thai army.

www.nytimes.com/2025/07/23/w...

Unearthing a Network: Seven arrested in Spain over the illegal sale of archaeological material. "A blog about art crimes, illicit trafficking, forgery, art theft and cultural heritage protection."

Unearthing a Network: Seven arrested in Spain over the illegal sale of archaeological material.

art-crime.blogspot.com/2025/07/unea...

How heritage defenders are rescuing Gaza’s artifacts, preserving cultural identity LONDON: It is one of the more extraordinary and unexpected images to have emerged from the chaos and destruction in Gaza. Two men, wearing high-visibility vests and stepping carefully through the rubb...

Palestinian archaeologists with Heritage Guardians Team from the Khan Younis-based Mayasem Association for Culture and Arts are racing to safeguard ancient objects from bombed museums, private collections, and historical sites

www.arabnews.com/node/2609058...

The art market, a $25 billion industry in the United States and the largest of its kind globally, is one of the last major markets not required to meet these standards, making it vulnerable to exploitation by sanctioned individuals, terrorist financiers, and other criminals.

Fetterman, Colleagues Introduce Legislation to Crack Down on Money Laundering and Terror Financing in the Art Market - U.S. Senator John Fetterman Washington, D.C. – Today, U.S. Senators John Fetterman (D-PA), Chuck Grassley (R-IA), Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), Bill Cassidy (R-LA), Andy Kim (D-NJ), and David McCormick (R-PA), introduced the Art Ma...

The bipartisan Art Market Integrity Act would require art dealers and auction houses to comply with anti-money-laundering (AML) and counter-terrorism financing regulations under the Bank Secrecy Act (BSA)

www.fetterman.senate.gov/fetterman-co...

Prominent Art Advisory Implodes After 37 Years, as Ex-Partners Fire Off Lawsuits | Artnet News Art advisors Barbara Guggenheim and Abigail Asher are locked in a $20 million legal fight, with explosive claims of fraud, and abuse.

Allegations of fraud, tax evasion, misappropriation of funds, abuse, and exploitation shatter the polished veneer of Guggenheim-Asher, an ultra-high-end firm whose clients included celebrities like Tom Cruise and corporations such as Sony and Coca-Cola.

news.artnet.com/market/promi...

RARE AZTEC / MIXTEC TURQUOISE MOSAIC MASK OF JAGUAR Ca. AD 1400 - 1521. A mask formed from a stucco core inlaid on the exterior with turquoise tesserae. The wide, circular eyes are set with dark stone inlays. The nostrils are cut through the surface, ...

Meanwhile, an affidavit from an art dealer is not convincing provenance for this Mixtec jaguar mask: auction.apolloauctions.com/lots/view/5-...

The grasshopper’s “strong and well-documented ownership history” contains some red flag names: “Prince Collection (1990s–2014); acquired in 2007 from the Merrin Gallery; the collections of Howard Carter, Joseph Brummer in New York, the Guennol Collection, and a private collection in the US.”

“Relative” compared to Sotheby’s Christie’s etc seems right