In one instance, Ms. Wiener, along with another dealer, purchased an 11th Century Baphuon Shiva from Cambodia for $250,000 in 2008.

 

The Nancy Wiener Gallery on the Upper East Side in Manhattan, New York. Photo: Claudio Papapietro for The Wall Street Journal

New York Art Dealer Charged With Trafficking Illegal Antiquities

Nancy Wiener, who sold Asian objects to Sotheby’s and Christie’s, surrendered to authorities and arraigned before being released

Wall Street Journal | 21 December 2016

As part of a sweeping investigation into international antiquities trafficking, the Manhattan District Attorney’s office charged a high-profile New York art dealer Wednesday with possession of stolen property and conspiracy to buy, smuggle and launder millions of dollars of antiquities from East Asia.

The dealer, Nancy Wiener, has sold illicit Asian objects to Sotheby’s and Christie’s auction houses, according to the criminal complaint filed in Manhattan Criminal Court. The case is likely to revive questions about the auction house’s due diligence procedures before they sell antiquities.

Ms. Wiener, the owner of the Nancy Wiener Gallery on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, surrendered today to authorities and was arraigned at Manhattan Criminal Court before being released. A lawyer for Ms. Wiener said: “We are examining the charges and will respond at the appropriate time.”

In the complaint, the Manhattan district attorney, working with federal agents from the Department of Homeland Security Investigations, alleges that from 1999 until 2016 Ms. Wiener purchased and provided false paperwork for objects that she knew had been smuggled illegally from archaeological sites, temples and other rural sites in Asia. She then cleaned up and sold the pieces to auction houses, to private buyers as well as to international museums, according to the complaint.

The Wiener case highlights the ongoing issue of policing looted antiquities in an unregulated international art market. Auction houses have come under pressure from law-enforcement officials and archaeologists in recent years to use better due diligence in tracing the provenance of the antiquities they sell. Some collectors, meanwhile, argue that most antiquities were sold on a handshake in the past and have no papers. They argue that legal intimidation is hurting their ability to collect.

In the complaint, prosecutors describe an extensive system of art trafficking that eluded authorities and art experts alike, allegedly involving illegal excavations, straw purchases and the creation of elaborate fake histories detailing the art’s origin.

In one instance, Ms. Wiener, along with another dealer, purchased an 11th Century Baphuon Shiva from Cambodia for $250,000 in 2008. The statue, which depicts a standing Shiva, was later consigned to Sotheby’s New York, where an employee noted “cracks” in the statue “dressed up with paint splatters to mask repairs,” suggesting damage from looting, according to the complaint. Ms. Wiener told Sotheby’s that the Shiva statue had been purchased from another dealer around 1968 but that she had no written proof, according to the complaint.

Despite the cracks, Sotheby’s sold the Shiva in its showroom in March 2011 for $578,500.

“Sotheby’s has been cooperating fully with the government’s investigation,” a spokesperson for the auction house said.

The Manhattan District Attorney’s office declined to comment.

One of the more high-profile transactions involved the sale of her mother Doris Wiener’s collection of hundreds of sculpture and paintings from Gandhara, the Himalayas, India and Southeast Asia. Doris Wiener was a pioneer in Southeast Asian and Indian art who was one of the first dealers to hold exhibitions and sales of Asian art in the late 1960s. Among her clients were Jacqueline Kennedy, Igor Stravinsky and John D. Rockefeller III, according to her obituary. After her death in 2011, her daughter removed all the records of “where, when, from whom and for how much” each piece was acquired, according to an informant in the case.

At Christie’s Ms. Wiener provided false documentation about the history of her mother’s works, according to court documents, but sculptures and paintings sold anyway. In March 2012, the collection resulted in almost $13 million in sales.

“We are aware of these very serious allegations against the defendant and are monitoring the legal proceedings closely,” said a spokeswoman for Christie’s.

The arrest of Ms. Wiener flows out of Operation Hidden Idol, a massive federal investigation into antiquities smuggling from South Asia, according to a person familiar with the case. In 2011, Subhash Kapoor, a New York-based art dealer was accused by Indian officials of selling more than 2,500 items from South Asia worth more than $100 million to museums, auction houses and dealers. Mr. Kapoor, the owner of the Art of the Past gallery, is now on trial in India on charges of trafficking in stolen artifacts. He has pleaded not guilty.

Federal officials and the Manhattan prosecutor have been cracking down on trade in Asian art recently, raiding several New York galleries last March, including Ms. Wiener’s gallery. They seized two Indian statues from Christie’s just days before they were set to be auctioned alleging they had been smuggled illegally from India.