Competing or Complementing: Art Loss Databases Proliferate

By Mia Tomijima

Stolen art seems to be ubiquitous and difficult to track. It is relatively easy to ship and sell around the world, and can remain easily hidden for decades. The owner faces the conflict of wanting to publicize the loss widely, while also keeping their personal lives private. The development of databases to record losses was first preceded by newsletter alerts of stolen art that proliferated in the arts community to halt sales with questionable provenance. Next, the emergence of the Internet caused law enforcement agencies, international organizations, and private companies to establish online databases of stolen art. The increased organization and transparency created by these databases helps collectors and art professionals with due diligence searches for acquisitions, loans, and insurance, which ultimately helps ward off costly title disputes. However, a database is only as useful as the breadth, accuracy, and accessibility of information it contains. New technology and the market’s demand for other potential uses of art registries, such as for collection management, could push these databases to new, uncharted territories. The usual suspects for searches include: the Art Loss Registry, the FBI’s National Stolen Art File, and Interpol’s Database, among a few others. One new company that is pushing the boundaries is the ArtClaim Database.

On March 5, 2015, the ArtClaim Database (“ArtClaim”) had its U.S. launch party at the Hirschl & Adler Gallery in New York City. Members of the art, auction, insurance and legal communities arrived if not to learn about the new company than to support its founders on the new venture. After more than one year of strategizing, ArtClaim, owned and operated by the Art Recovery Group LTD, launched their new database in January 2015. Christopher A. Marinello, CEO of Art Recovery Group, along with several former employees of the Art Loss Register (“ALR”) established a competing company that could expand the concept of these databases to new areas beyond just thefts. According to Ariane Moser, Client Relations Director of Art Recovery Group, ArtClaim holds itself as the first private database created as an “all claims and all interests” database. This means that in addition to stolen art, the database contains information regarding art encumbered by financial liens, insurance claims, museum objects on loan, possible fakes and forgeries, and collections management, among other claims. The ArtClaim Database may also be used to register work directly from artists, which would help them to, for example, keep track of consignments with galleries or resale royalties. The ArtClaim Database joins a limited group of databases that record art ownership. The two best-known government-sponsored databases are aimed at assisting law enforcement to recover art or cultural artifacts that have been involved in thefts or looting are the one maintained by Interpol and the one maintained by the FBI. Interpol, the world’s largest international police organization, first started maintaining a database of stolen art from police reports in 1947. The database is accessible by law enforcement agencies, authorized private users, and, since 2009, the general public can access limited amounts of data, including the most recently reported works, recovered works, and recovered works that remain unclaimed. The FBI maintains a similar database of stolen art and cultural property, called the National Stolen Art File (“NSAF”). Entries into the NSAF are submitted by law enforcement in the U.S. and abroad, and the general public can access limited parts of the database, but not information related to ongoing investigations. Unlike other databases, the NSAF has some qualifications for entry, including that the object must be “uniquely identifiable and have historical or artistic significance,” must be worth at least $2,000 (or less if associated with a major crime), and the request for entry must come through law enforcement. Thus, the database is limited to only those reported to them, and excludes art that is not necessarily associated with crimes. Bonnie Magness-Gardiner, who manages the FBI’s art theft program, said to the NY Times that “It is not an absolutely complete database […] We get what they choose to send us.” When a work of art is recovered, it is removed from the database. Interpol’s and the FBI’s databases are unquestionably useful, but are limited by the finite resources of time and funding that often plagues government-run agencies.

To supplement and/or overcome the limitations of government funding, privately run databases have emerged as useful alternatives. Dominating this sphere is the Art Loss Register, the oldest and most-prominently established private art database. Started in 1976 by the non-profit IFAR (International Foundation for Art Research) as a “Stolen Art Alert” to deter international art theft and sales, the ALR formed a partnership with the organization and moved its headquarters to London in 1990. According to Julian Radcliffe, Chairman of the ALR, the database sets itself apart from others in the field via its exclusive collection of 25 years of data on art that is stolen, missing, lost, fake or forged. It offers registrations for art subsequent to loss or theft (at a cost of £15/ US$25 per item for 1-5 items; for 6 - 10 items: £12.50/ US$20 per; or for 11+ items: £10/ US$18 item). Reportedly, the ALR database currently holds about 435,000 objects. There is no public access to the data held and a single search may be performed at a cost of $95 or £60. Radcliffe notes that the company performs over 400,000 paid searches every year from auction houses, galleries, and other vetting organizations.