SMUGGLED WORKS OF ART.

Dominion, Volume 6, Issue 1569, 12 October 1912, Page 5

SMUGGLED WORKS OF ART.

ITALIANS SENT TO GAOL, i By TeleiriDh-Presa ifisoclation-Ooryrisht Rome, Ootober 10. An artist named Finarolo has been sentenced at Florence to five years' imprisonment, and five accomplices to lesser terms, for smuggling works of art out of the country. ITALY'S UNSATISFACTORY LAW. If ever the time should come when we follow the example of Italy, and protect the art treasures of England by legislation; says a writer in "The Times," it is to be hoped that we may at least.avoid the great error that renders the Italian law bo difficult to apply and offers such a temptation to fraud. The Italian law is not content with declaring that no object of art placed on the list of great value can be exported from the country or even change possessors without official permission, but it subjects every artistic object for export to scrutiny in caso it may have escaped previous consideration. Os} the list of inalienable objects are. placed an infinity of pictures and sculptures which the country can perfectly well spare. To carry out the law in any reasonable fashion, would require the service of hundreds of highlyrtrained and highly-paid experts. One may fairly doubt if a dozen such experts exist in Italy or any other country, considering the knowledge that would be required of them.

The inevitable result is that the law is not enforced reasonably, that it inflicts great vexation and even injury upon many people, whose only fault is that they are not so rich as their forefathers, that it encourages the practice of fraud and the existence of art dealers whose laison d'etre is their ability to escape the legal net which is supposed to enclose their commerce, and gives them an excuse for buying cheaply from the Italian owners and selling dearly to the foreign collector. •