Antiquities dealer convicted in landmark case - Front Page - Brief Article

On Feb.12, a federal jury found Manhattan dealer Frederick Schultz guilty of conspiring to receive stolen Egyptian antiquities in violation of the 1934 U.S. Stolen Property Act. The verdict is certain to have far-reaching consequences for the antiquities trade by criminalizing a dealer's conduct based on a foreign law--in this case a 1983 Egyptian patrimony statute declaring all newly discovered antiquities and those still in the ground to be the property of the Egyptian state.

Court documents identify Schultz's main co-conspirator as Jonathan Tokeley-Parry, a British restorer who has already served three years in a U.K. prison for smuggling the antiquities in question out of Egypt. He was also the prosecution's star witness at Schultz's trial. Tokeley-Parry's modus operandi, intensively documented in the 2,500-page journal he kept as a record of his activities, was to buy freshly unearthed antiquities, coat them in plastic, then cover them with plaster and paint so that they resembled cheap tourist souvenirs. Once he had gotten the objects safely out of Egypt, he would strip away the camouflaging exterior and offer them to Schultz, who would then attempt to sell them in his 57th Street gallery. To provide a credible provenance for the works, he and Schultz concocted a nonexistent British collector, named after Tokeley-Parry's great uncle Thomas Alcock, who they claimed had obtained them in the 1920s and '30s, when it would have been legal to do so. Ersatz labels bearing the made-up insignia of the Thomas Alcock Collection furthered the deception; Tokeley-Parry described baking the labels in an oven and daubing them with tea bags to give them an antique appearance.

Among the objects Schultz was accused of selling is the head of a statue of 18th-Dynasty pharaoh Amenhotep III, which he bought from Tokeley-Parry in 1992 for $915,000 and later resold to a British collector for $1.2 million. Also in 1992, Schultz purchased from Tokeley-Parry a striding figure in limestone, said to represent a nobleman from the 6th Dynasty, ca. 2000 B.C. He offered the object to the Brooklyn Museum for $600,000, but the sale did not take place.

Schultz's defense was crucially based on his assertion that during the period covered by the indictment, 1991-95, he was completely unaware that Egypt had cultural patrimony laws of any kind. In other words, though he was an experienced antiquities dealer with a gallery on 57th Street, he insisted that he did not know that it was a crime to remove ancient objects from Egypt. In an effort to make this claim plausible to the jury, Schultz's own attorney characterized him during closing arguments as "unbelievably gullible."

Schultz's conviction is the latest and perhaps defining chapter in the ongoing debate about how to handle foreign antiquities that are subject to national patrimony laws. Many dealers, supported by many museum curators, maintain that such objects ultimately belong in public collections, where they can be seen by the widest possible audience and also be protected from damage or destruction in their source countries, which are often too poor or unstable to keep them secure. Conversely, archeologists argue that, without tight regulation, the highly profitable antiquities trade inevitably leads to the looting of archeological sites, thus depriving ancient objects of their historical context and making it impossible to learn more about them. In vigorously prosecuting the Schultz case, the U.S. government signaled its intention to crack down on the illicit antiquities trade, using foreign patrimony laws as its instrument when necessary. In addition, many observers suggest, the State Department has lately found it increasingly convenient to comply with foreign cultural-property laws in exchange for cooperation from source countries on drug enforcement and anti-terrorist measures. Be that as it may, Schultz's conviction is bound to have a chilling effect on the antiquities trade, as dealers anticipate much more stringent policing in a field where, according to expert testimony at the trial, the great majority of objects that find their way to market arrive without a reliable provenance. Under the threat of criminal penalties, many antiquities dealers, perhaps most, may decide the game is no longer worth the risk.

Schultz faces up to five years in prison and more than $1 million in fines. He has said he will appeal. Sentencing is scheduled for May 30.

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