Stolen Art Alert

15 paintings and watercolors returned to artist in ceremony at FBI headquarters in Philadelphia; six persons named in indictment

Charles Heller, suspected con man (see SAA, October 1982) arrested in Arizona, due to a skeptical and determined dealer, Tom Sawyer.

Implementation legislation for the 1970 UNESCO Convention on Cultural Property is finally passed, signed by the President on January 12, 1983. Unlike most other ratifying countries, the U.S. has limited the scope of the Convention and puts stringent conditions on U.S. assistance to countries seeking to curb international traffic on designated material. A new bill has also been introduced to the Senate to neutralize the McClain decision and revise the National Stolen Property Act so that no archeological or ethnographic material will be considered stolen solely on the basis of a country’s declaration that it owns all the cultural property found within its territory.

Japanese breastplate.