Canadian collectors cry foul on report The tale of the disputed Rodin plasters is back in court

Lawyers for a who's who of prominent Canadian businessmen, including Rolling Stones' tour manager Michael Cohl and broadcasting billionaire Allan Slaight, will appear in a Toronto court tomorrow to argue that a judge was wrong last year to let French authorities receive information critical of 28 plaster sculptures the businessmen owned and planned to donate to a small Ontario gallery.

The dispute is the latest in a nearly six-year battle over the authenticity of a group of plasters attributed to the French master Auguste Rodin and destined for the MacLaren Art Centre in Barrie, Ont. The Rodins, 52 plasters and several dozen bronzes in total, were to have served as leverage for the creation of an ambitious "international sculpture park dedicated to 20th- and 21st-century sculpture" in the small city 90 kilometres north of Toronto. That plan is now in ruins and the MacLaren is more than $4-million in debt.

Tomorrow's hearing at Ontario's Court of Appeal pits 10 wealthy Canadians against the government of France and its agency, the Musée Rodin in Paris. Besides music and theatre producer Cohl and Slaight, executive chairman of Standard Broadcasting, the businessmen include Toronto investment banker Robert Foster, pollster Martin Goldfarb, developers Garnet Watchorn and Graham Goodchild, Standard Broadcasting CFO David Coriat, venture capitalist Anthony Lloyd, Mad Catz Interactive founder Pat Brigham and the estate of the late John M. S. Lecky, Calgary-based founder of Canada 3000 airlines.

At stake is the fate of versions of some of the world's most famous sculptures, among them three plaster renditions of The Kiss, two of The Thinker and three of The Age of Bronze, part of a collection that the 10 businessmen bought from an Italian dealer in 2000. By donating their 28 plasters to the MacLaren, a registered Canadian charity, they would have been able to claim their full market value as a break against taxable income. At one time, the MacLaren valued the entire Rodin project at more than $40-million.

In November, 2004, however, the French, acting on behalf of the Musée Rodin, which was created by the French government after Rodin's death in 1917, obtained an order from Ontario Superior Court Justice Jean A. Forget allowing them to send an expert to Canada to examine the plasters and prepare a report on them for the Musée Rodin, which has still not been made public.

The museum has zealously presented itself for decades as virtually the sole arbiter and purveyor of genuine Rodins. When the MacLaren announced in early 2001 that it was acquiring allegedly authentic plasters that had been used by Rodin's so-called "preferred foundry" in France, the Musée went on the offensive to discredit them. Its efforts became especially pronounced in the fall of 2001 when Toronto's Royal Ontario Museum hosted what the MacLaren hoped would be the start of a worldwide touring exhibition of its Rodins.

The Paris museum has claimed, variously, that the plasters are fake or "too far removed from the master's hand" and lacking in provenance, or, if they are genuine casts made during Rodin's lifetime, that they should have been given to the museum after Rodin's death. Last June, according to documents filed with Ontario courts, some French police officials were claiming the MacLaren plasters "certainly came from" a foundry in northern Italy that had been manufacturing bogus casts since the late 1990s.

Lawyers for the Canadian businessmen became aware three years ago that the French wanted an expert to inspect their plasters, which, at the conclusion of the ROM exhibition in early 2002, were placed in storage in Ottawa and Barrie. Previously, the French had been making noises about seizing the plasters with the intention of exposing them as "fake and illicit works," then destroying them.

The businessmen told Canada's Department of Justice that while, in principle, they had no objection to such an inspection, it had to be done by someone "mutually acceptable" to all relevant parties and the tests could not damage the plasters. In June, 2004, they consented to the tests.

That consent, however, was yanked in the fall because, the businessmen argued, the expert assigned to the case wasn't a Rodin specialist but someone more familiar with "the restoration of medieval wood ecclesiastical sculpture." Moreover, the expert was in the pay of the Musée Rodin, they said, and, as such, his presence represented "a breach of Canadian sovereignty."

In a Nov. 4, 2004, letter to the Justice Department, Ottawa lawyer Paul Lepsoe declared: "There can be little doubt the Musée Rodin is looking to use an inspection as a tool to renew its baseless disparagement of [my clients'] collection." One of the collectors, Robert Foster, also asked Justice Forget "to bear in mind that the existence of the plasters and the possibility of the MacLaren marketing high-quality posthumous bronze castings [made from those plasters] would threaten the de facto monopoly long held by the Musée over such bronzes." (Rodin copyright expired in 1982.)

Justice Forget nevertheless agreed to have the disputed expert carry out the inspection. But he stipulated it would have to be conducted in the presence of an RCMP officer and whatever "things (samples), documents and notes" were collected had to be sealed and kept in Canada until an application was received "to forward those documents and things to the French authorities."

The judge also impounded the 28 plasters, detaining the works under RCMP protection.

A French application to have the documents forwarded was heard by the judge in late June of last year. Earlier, Justice Forget also gave approval to the businessmen to have their own experts look at the French expert's findings. Both later filed affidavits harshly critical of those findings and urged Justice Forget to forbid the transmittal of any documentation on the Rodins since the expert's report would be "neither reliable nor fair."

Just before Christmas last year, however, Justice Forget agreed the expert could prepare a report to send to France. At the same time, he lifted his impoundment order and ruled that the French, upon completion of the expert's report, had to "immediately" provide a copy of that report to the Canadian businessmen.

It's this decision on sending the report to France that lawyers for the Canadians are appealing at tomorrow's hearing. They'll be arguing that the inspection of their plasters was done without their permission and that any such search should have been "conducted by a Canadian peace officer named in a search warrant."

What I understand about Rodin's work is that there were many plasters of uncast works in his studio at his death and that various authorities (museums included?) cast a great many of them. This was rather unethical, as the artist could not fix, polish, etc., the final casts as he would have normally. Also, the more works that are cast, the less each one is worth.

I know nothing about so many plasters, but I expect that if they were by Rodin, they would be less in number than the 28 in Toronto. But I do know that Rodin would repeat the same image in various sizes, so if you recognize any of these plasters as a different size than you are used to, that in itself does not suggest a fake.

I'm more interested in the industry of tax deductible contributions.

How much was actually paid for these pieces of "Art" ?
How much were they reappraised for before they were donated to the museum?

What was the total write off taken?

The French would be wise to move the entire Musée Rodin to Toronto. When the Muslims take over France, they will blow the Musée up.

But then, if the French were wise, the Muslims would not be taking over France in the first place.

I say, let's back a plan to move ALL French Musées to somewhere safe--somewhere in America perhaps--or, as an alternative, maybe to Antarctica.

As I told my (displeased) tour guide in Athens, when she grumbled about the Elgin Marbles' being in the British Museum: "I wish Lord Elgin had gotten the Victoire de Samothrace before she got her head and arms blown off and the Venus de Milo before she got her arms blasted away."

Maybe we should just storm France and take the art treasures away for safe keeping. After all, the French stole many of them (the Venus, the Victoire, the Mona Lisa) e.g. And as for the rest--well it would be like holding Grandma's nice things for her in a safe place as long as she's...well...you know...not herself (i.e. totally demented, completely incompetent, and out of her cotton pickin' mind).

Great comments. I love what you said to the Athens guide. Right on.

The museums themselves in France are works of art. Can you move them too?

I think Leonardo had the Mona Lisa with him when he died in France and thus the King got it, and thus it went to the Louvre. But the others may easily have been "discovered" and taken to France.

There is quite a nice Musee Rodin in Philadelphia actually. Maybe they should just expand that one; it's at least on the same continent.

"Can you move them too?"

London Bridge was moved to Arizona. I'm thinking about moving the cathedrals, the chateaux, the Eiffel Tower, the Bridge at Avignon. When the takeover is imminent, France is going to look like sale day at Filine's--and the exodus is going to look like the Russian aristocracy fleeing the Bolcheviks.

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