MOSCOW - Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Attaché Moscow and U.S. Ambassador to Russia John Beyrle today returned to Russian authorities a rare Russian book entitled, Catalog of the Art Gallery of the Emperor's Hermitage.
The art recorded in the catalog was assembled over more than a century, beginning in the 1700s, as the private collection of Catherine the Great. The catalog, which listed the holdings of the collection, itself dates to 1889. Nazi soldiers stole the catalog from Catherine's Gatchina Palace outside St. Petersburg, which was a museum at the time, during World War II.
In 2007, the Russian government alerted ICE Attaché Moscow to the online sale of the book on a Chicago-based website. ICE agents visited the home of the website operator, where they were given several items that were listed for sale on the website, including the Russian catalog.
ICE agents determined that the book appeared to match a description provided by Russian authorities. Distinctive ink and pencil markings in the book's brown binding included a stamp bearing a pre-revolutionary inventory number and another inventory number assigned by Russian authorities in the 1920's. In December 2007, agents formally seized the book and worked with Russian authorities to verify its authenticity. In January 2008, a Russian cultural scholar positively identified the catalog as the same book described in the Gatchina Palace Museum Inventory.
Gatchina Palace, built in 1766 and purchased in 1783 by Catherine the Great for her son, Emperor Paul I, was one of the main imperial residences until the Russian Revolution in 1917. After the Revolution, like many royal residences, the palace was nationalized and became a museum. During World War II, the German army made Gatchina Palace one of its headquarters buildings. During the German withdrawal, the palace was severely damaged, although much of the artwork had been evacuated.
Since the end of the war, some of the original Gatchina Palace artwork has been recovered and returned to the palace. Restoration began immediately following World War II and is still in progress, although the palace reopened to the public in 1985.
Cultural artifacts, such as the catalog, illegally brought into the United States are subject to the Convention on Cultural Property Implementation Act (CCPI). The CCPI Act allows the United States to impose import restrictions on archaeological or ethnological material when pillage of these materials places a nation's cultural heritage in jeopardy.
The book is the latest cultural property that ICE agents have seized and returned to their rightful country in recent years. Some other cases investigated by ICE include:
ICE's Office of International Affairs and Office of Investigation work to identify and return items of cultural and historical value to their countries of origin. ICE attaches in over 50 locations around the world work closely with their host governments, the State Department and U.S. Customs and Border protection to identify antiquities that are smuggled into the United States.
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