0:02 [SPEAKER_00]: December 11, 1969, a date the map museum won't soon forget. 0:10 [SPEAKER_00]: The night was chillingly cold, with a thick fog rolling through the streets of New York City, obscuring the facade of the famous museum. 0:21 [SPEAKER_00]: Inside, the galleries to its silent and majestic, every piece of art exuding the aura 0:31 [SPEAKER_00]: unknown to the guards and the visitors who had left for the day. 0:35 [SPEAKER_00]: A sinister plot was about to unravel, and one that would shake the very foundation of the institution. 0:47 [SPEAKER_00]: Two figures approached the museum. 0:51 [SPEAKER_00]: To any on-lucker, they were just a pair of maintenance workers, equipped with the usual tools and uniforms, 1:00 [SPEAKER_00]: Their unassuming appearance was a calculated ruse. 1:05 [SPEAKER_00]: For beneath the facade, there was a plan. 1:09 [SPEAKER_00]: A plan worth $5 million. 1:13 [SPEAKER_00]: They reached the surface entrance. 1:17 [SPEAKER_00]: Exploring a temporary lapse in security. 1:21 [SPEAKER_00]: Perhaps an inside source. 1:24 [SPEAKER_00]: An infiltrated the silent halls of the museum. 1:30 [SPEAKER_00]: Guided by the dim UCM lights, they made their way through corridors of ancient artifacts, always lined with paintings, in rooms adorned with sculptures. 1:45 [SPEAKER_00]: Their destination was clear, the illustrious jewelry exhibit that boasted pieces from around the world, treasures that told stories of emperors, queens, and revolutions 2:02 [SPEAKER_00]: The value of these jewels were not merely in their price, but in the centuries of history, they represented. 2:09 [SPEAKER_00]: With an eerie calm, the duo began their operation, the soft hum of their tools, and the gentle clicking of the locks, where the only sound echoing in the chamber. 2:25 [SPEAKER_00]: Each case they opened, released a tantalizing spark, as the gems seemed almost to back in them. 2:35 [SPEAKER_00]: One by one, 13 irreplaceable pieces vanished into their bags. 2:43 [SPEAKER_00]: As silently as they entered, they retraced their steps back to their van, outside the service 2:53 [SPEAKER_00]: As dawn approached and the fog lifted, the enormity of their crime became clear. 3:01 [SPEAKER_00]: The news of the highest spread-like wildfire in the map museum faced a barrage of criticism. 3:10 [SPEAKER_00]: Questions were raised about the lack security, the potential for inside help, and the 3:23 [SPEAKER_00]: The scandal wasn't merely about the stolen jewels. 3:27 [SPEAKER_00]: It was about the trust of Sproken and the stories lost. 3:33 [SPEAKER_00]: In the aftermath, the met undertook a rigorous review of its protocols, new security measures were implemented. 3:41 [SPEAKER_00]: Surveillance systems upgraded and staff training intensified the impact of that December night continued to reverberate for years. 3:55 [SPEAKER_00]: Shadows of deceit, forgeries, and theory, run rampant in the halls of the Met, and the story today isn't just about thieves stealing from the Met Museum. 4:09 [SPEAKER_00]: It's about the thieves in the Met. 4:13 [SPEAKER_00]: The people who work there, curators and staff members, historians and collectors and donors, 4:30 [SPEAKER_00]: welcome back to hometown history. 4:33 [SPEAKER_00]: This is the second episode in our series on the secrets from the Met Museum. 4:40 [SPEAKER_00]: In the first episode we traced the journey of the museum, from the Doddworth building to its current location. 4:48 [SPEAKER_00]: But today we're digging deeper into the stories the Met does not want you to know. 4:54 [SPEAKER_00]: Stories that expose laps in judgment, fake artwork, and internal schemes to rob historical artifacts. 5:06 [SPEAKER_00]: This is the Met, as you've probably never seen before. 5:11 [SPEAKER_00]: In the Grand Tapestry of Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, known as the Met, holds an unparalleled position 5:21 [SPEAKER_00]: It's not just a building, it's a universe unto itself, teaming with masterpieces that spans epics and continents. 5:31 [SPEAKER_00]: From the stoic visages of Egyptian pharaohs, to the vivid strokes of the impressionist painters, the met offers a journey through time and culture that few institutions can rival 5:48 [SPEAKER_00]: but who powers this behemoth apart? 5:52 [SPEAKER_00]: Behind its grain of Assad, it beneath its marble floors, there's a mosaic of patrons who have championed the Metz's cause over the decades. 6:04 [SPEAKER_00]: Phelanthropists, business magnets, and celebrities alike have been drawn to the allure of leaving a lasting legacy within these hollowed halls. 6:16 [SPEAKER_00]: their generous contributions, whether art pieces or hefty financial endowments have enabled the Met to become the giant it is today. 6:26 [SPEAKER_00]: Yet with great power and influence, come great responsibility and temptation. 6:36 [SPEAKER_00]: With a collection as vast and diverse as the Met's, ensuring 6:45 [SPEAKER_00]: and while the met boasts some of the finest curators and historians in the world, even they are not immune to the sophisticated perceptions of the modern art forgery world. 6:59 [SPEAKER_00]: After all, where there's immense value, there's also a tantalizing lore for those with less than noble intentions. 7:10 [SPEAKER_00]: Despite its state-of-the-art security systems, 7:14 [SPEAKER_00]: and funding that rivals the GDP of some smaller countries. 7:19 [SPEAKER_00]: Scandal still snake their way through its corridors. 7:24 [SPEAKER_00]: There are whispers never too loud of paintings with dubious origins. 7:31 [SPEAKER_00]: Of sculptures whose provenance seems attached to convenient, 7:41 [SPEAKER_00]: may not be as ancient as they first appear. 7:46 [SPEAKER_00]: But why? 7:46 [SPEAKER_00]: How could such mistakes occur in a place so revered? 7:52 [SPEAKER_00]: It's a good question. 7:55 [SPEAKER_00]: And while the reasons behind such oversights are manifold, occasionally, they can be tracked back to a single point of failure. 8:13 [SPEAKER_00]: at the dawn of the new millennium, an unsettling revelation rocked the art world. 8:20 [SPEAKER_00]: It emerged that a considerable number of paintings which have been proudly displayed within the walls of the metmuseum were nothing more than masterful forgeries. 8:33 [SPEAKER_00]: The illusion was so complete that even seasoned art officials had been duped 8:41 [SPEAKER_00]: The provenance of these paintings, their supposed history, and authenticity, was all carefully crafted lie. 8:52 [SPEAKER_00]: The source, a dealer whose reputation was already tainted, with the stain of art fraud. 9:01 [SPEAKER_00]: It was astonishing that, despite his past convictions, he had managed to infiltrate the 9:10 [SPEAKER_00]: weaving a web of deception that spanned several pieces. 9:15 [SPEAKER_00]: The aftermath was swift and unrelenting. 9:20 [SPEAKER_00]: The met stained with the brush of embarrassment was forced to remove the four trees from its revered collection. 9:29 [SPEAKER_00]: The paintings were returned to the dealer. 9:32 [SPEAKER_00]: Their once lofty positions now taken over by a void in a bitter taste of betrayal. 9:41 [SPEAKER_00]: This scandal was a blow to the museum's reputation, and it called for stricter rules. 9:48 [SPEAKER_00]: Every artwork, a respective of its source, now demanded a deeper, more stringent examination. 9:58 [SPEAKER_00]: Sometimes, the very patrons, who've bolstered the Met's reputation, are also the ones who unwittingly or otherwise, introduce elements of doubt. 10:10 [SPEAKER_00]: Donating art, after all, is a matter of prestige. 10:16 [SPEAKER_00]: And sometimes, the desire to possess a masterpiece can overshadow the due diligence, 10:26 [SPEAKER_00]: instill. 10:28 [SPEAKER_00]: All this is only a fraction of what happens behind closed doors. 10:34 [SPEAKER_00]: Sometimes, the artifacts are genuine, but are acquired through an ethical means with a sake of showcasing. 10:46 [SPEAKER_00]: Case in point, 2007, 10:50 [SPEAKER_00]: The Met Museum has long displayed a 4,000 year old Sumerian statue for my rack, and it has been one of the centerpieces of the museum since 1948. 11:02 [SPEAKER_00]: Though a valuable piece of history deserving recognition, it mattered how it was acquired, and it turns out the story is less than savory. 11:17 [SPEAKER_00]: The statue came from a dealer, it didn't belong to. 11:20 [SPEAKER_00]: Giving neither him nor the museum, any right to hold this Iranian artifact, and it doesn't end there. 11:31 [SPEAKER_00]: Hidden among the museums, vast collection, are a number of antiquities that were inquired through one ethical means. 11:41 [SPEAKER_00]: These artifacts are a reminder of the dark side of the art world, and of the damage that can be done when cultural heritage is stolen. 11:53 [SPEAKER_00]: One such artifact is a statue of Shrine Arvishnu, the Hindu Protector God. 12:01 [SPEAKER_00]: The statue was carved by master artisans nearly 1,000 years ago, 12:07 [SPEAKER_00]: and it was carefully tended in worshiped by local people in the village of Bungmati and Nepal. 12:15 [SPEAKER_00]: But in the early 1980s, the statue was stolen. 12:20 [SPEAKER_00]: By whom it still unknown, but the community was devastated, and their traditions were forever changed. 12:30 [SPEAKER_00]: The statue eventually made its way to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, where it was donated by a wealthy American collector, 12:39 [SPEAKER_00]: The museum did not know that the statue had been stolen, and it displayed this sacred idol for nearly 30 years. 12:48 [SPEAKER_00]: It wasn't until 2001 that a Facebook account called Lost Arts of Nepal finally identified the statue. 12:58 [SPEAKER_00]: The Met removed the statue from its collection and is now being returned to Nepal. 13:06 [SPEAKER_00]: The story of this statue is just one example of the damage that can be done when cultural heritage is stolen. 13:15 [SPEAKER_00]: In 2023, a total of 27 ancient relics, hailing from ancient Rome, Greece, and Egypt, and valued at a staggering $13 million, were seized for the way they were acquired by the museum staff. 13:33 [SPEAKER_00]: While the museum showcased these treasures, as symbols of the grandeur of a bygone era, the grim truth was that these relics had exchanged hands with notorious smugglers, like Jean-Franke of Beaconah. 13:49 [SPEAKER_00]: This art dealer, operating a gallery out of Switzerland, had been under the radar of the Italian authorities since 2001. 14:02 [SPEAKER_00]: The art dealers' checkered past includes a conviction by Greece for trafficking stolen antiquities. 14:11 [SPEAKER_00]: In Italy, after a relentless investigation spanning a decade, a trove of 6300 Greco-Roman artifacts were wrestled from his possession in 2011. 14:25 [SPEAKER_00]: Determined to be the spoils of looting since the early 1970s, 14:32 [SPEAKER_00]: It's worth noting that a significant portion of the artifacts entered the Mets' possession well before the public allegations against Beaconah to shape. 14:43 [SPEAKER_00]: But these shadowy dealings cast out over the artifacts' authenticity. 14:50 [SPEAKER_00]: Under the enforcement of three distinct search drawings in the previous six months, 14:56 [SPEAKER_00]: But these pilfer treasures are now set to journey back home, 20 want to Italy and 6 to Egypt. 15:07 [SPEAKER_00]: In the obscure and often shadowy realm of antiquities, the want's immaculate reputation of the Met has started to face unsettling scrutiny. 15:18 [SPEAKER_00]: Over the past couple of years, the international consortium of investigative journalist, 15:24 [SPEAKER_00]: along with their media allies has cast out on the Met's methods of acquisition. 15:32 [SPEAKER_00]: Their spotlight is especially intense, on a cache of treasures from Cambodia, acquired during a tumultuous period when the nation's prize cultural artifacts were essentially auctioned to the wealthiest patrons. 15:49 [SPEAKER_00]: a more expansive investigation by the ICIJ and various media cohorts has raised alarm bells regarding the origin of the Metz's fast collection of ancient statues, engravings, and other age-old remnants. 16:09 [SPEAKER_00]: But why acquire rare and coveted antiques illegally 16:15 [SPEAKER_00]: Surely, there are ethical ways to acquire artifacts and display them for the sake of knowledge and cultural understanding. 16:24 [SPEAKER_00]: Why would curators of the Met put themselves in a difficult position? 16:29 [SPEAKER_00]: The answer might surprise you, but it's not out of ignorance or greed. 16:35 [SPEAKER_00]: It's about wanting to be the best. 16:41 [SPEAKER_00]: Founded in 1870, and inaugurated, at its present location in 1880, New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art, was a relatively late entrant, compared to its European counterparts. 16:56 [SPEAKER_00]: Its inception saw the purchase of 174 paintings, a numbered dwarfed by the vast expanse 17:11 [SPEAKER_00]: of the 1960s, North America's grandest museum, was racing to level the playing field, under the stewardship of the director Thomas Voying. 17:24 [SPEAKER_00]: The met was desperately trying to acquire anything it could get a chance on, mainly to rival the vast collections in Europe. 17:34 [SPEAKER_00]: If you were wondering in the last episode, 17:37 [SPEAKER_00]: How within a decade, the Met managed to move in and out of two buildings due to lack of space. 17:44 [SPEAKER_00]: This is why their collections grew faster than they could handle. 17:50 [SPEAKER_00]: And as the decades rolled on, the Met's defaults began brimming with rareties. 17:56 [SPEAKER_00]: From Greece, Italy, Egypt, and Cambodia. 18:01 [SPEAKER_00]: quote, no era, no civilization on earth goes unrepresented in our halls, hoping once boasted. 18:12 [SPEAKER_00]: So, as time went on, journalists found over a thousand artifacts with dubious ownership histories. 18:20 [SPEAKER_00]: shockingly, only a fraction had comprehensive records detailing their exit from their native lands. 18:29 [SPEAKER_00]: And several had once been under the custody of individuals or establishments with criminal ties to artifact theft. 18:39 [SPEAKER_00]: A glance at the museum's assortment, of Napoli and Kashmiri pieces, showed a mere three artifacts, with clear origin prails despite the known extensive looting of these regions. 18:55 [SPEAKER_00]: The museum did return a handful of these pieces willingly, while others were forcibly retrieved by authorities. 19:04 [SPEAKER_00]: The growing skepticism, surrounding the Metz's collections, amplified by media attention, has had experts contemplating the number of pieces that might be subject to repatriation, and what this means for other museums that have acquired artifacts from around the world, but hoping isn't the sole individual to blame 19:37 [SPEAKER_00]: During the 1950s, the Met initiated transactions with Robert E. Hect. 19:44 [SPEAKER_00]: This American antiquities merchant consistently found himself at odds with the law, and even stood trial and Italy on smuggling allegations. 19:55 [SPEAKER_00]: Italian authorities press charges against Hect twice in the late 1950s, and even issued a capture order in the early 70s, 20:08 [SPEAKER_00]: Despite these red flags, the Metz's business with Hacked persisted. 20:13 [SPEAKER_00]: While Hacked, who passed away in 2012 at a US-92, was never convicted due to the expiration of the Statue of Limitations, he consistently refuted any role in illegal art transactions. 20:30 [SPEAKER_00]: Bruce McNall, a former associate of Hect, and a key player in facilitating sales to the mat, shared with the museum rarely asked about the true origins of acquisitions. 20:44 [SPEAKER_00]: McNall recalls Hect saying, quote, 21:00 [SPEAKER_00]: He recounted an instance where he brokered the sale of a Greek vessel to the mad. 21:06 [SPEAKER_00]: Even though he was oblivious, two hex acquisition means. 21:11 [SPEAKER_00]: McNall also recollected, Dietrich Vombrothmer, the Metz's renowned classic specialist, having little interest in the artifact's backstory. 21:23 [SPEAKER_00]: The Metz's current collection includes approximately two dozen items, once under Hex's ownership, among them seven-greation earns. 21:34 [SPEAKER_00]: Strikingly, none of these relics associated with Hex display any historical documentation that might explain how they left their native lands. 21:45 [SPEAKER_00]: Or why? 21:48 [SPEAKER_00]: Among the Metz's prize exhibits from contemporary India stands the Celestial Dancer. 21:55 [SPEAKER_00]: This piece found its way to the museum via art of the past. 22:01 [SPEAKER_00]: A gallery once overseen by Kapoor in Manhattan. 22:06 [SPEAKER_00]: Following Kapoor's detention in 2011, by 2013, his gallery's manager admitted to pedaling 22:19 [SPEAKER_00]: astonishingly, even Escapor was embroiled in smuggling trials in India by 2015. 22:25 [SPEAKER_00]: The Met embraced the Celestial Dancer as a benevolent gift from a fluent patrons who had earlier bought it from Capor's establishment. 22:39 [SPEAKER_00]: The Met's public records remained cryptic about the Celestial Dancer's journey from 22:47 [SPEAKER_00]: an older version of the Metz's online platform, dated in 2016, suggested the artifact once adorned a Hindu shrine in what is now Uttar Pradesh. 23:00 [SPEAKER_00]: This descriptor has since vanished from the museum site. 23:05 [SPEAKER_00]: When Probe by Journalists 23:08 [SPEAKER_00]: The Met remain tight-left, about their insights, regarding the artifact's provenance, and provided no clarity on how they believe it might have been exported from its homeland. 23:25 [SPEAKER_00]: If there's anything we can take from this story, it's this. 23:29 [SPEAKER_00]: Not all that glitters is gold. 23:37 [SPEAKER_00]: But the story of how it got there isn't one they are particularly proud of sharing. 23:44 [SPEAKER_00]: Thevery continues to run rampant in the halls of the Metropolitan Museum. 23:50 [SPEAKER_00]: And the donors and curators very much have a hand in it. 23:56 [SPEAKER_00]: You might say the Met has stolen more artifacts from the world than any robber that's stolen from them. 24:04 [SPEAKER_00]: What do you think? 24:06 [SPEAKER_00]: And what other story from the Met Would you like us to explore On hometown history? 24:14 [SPEAKER_00]: As always, thank you for listening.
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