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“Over the last decade the benign image of the antiquities collector has given way to a far more sinister one. Once cast as generous lenders and donors — the lifeblood of American museums — such collectors are now seen as central cogs in a conspiracy to move artifacts looted from foreign soil into museum display cases… Museum officials argue that the public has forgotten why collectors are so important and, by implication, what museums are all about. To make their position clear, they have drawn up new ethical guidelines for loans of antiquities that vigorously defend the museum-collector relationship.”

Museums are falling all over themselves to tell the world that, while they may have been taken by surprise when the rules surrounding antiquities acquistion changed recently, they are more than willing to adapt. The truth, says Guy Dammann, is that the rules haven’t changed at all. “What has changed [is] the willingness of the museum to follow them.”

An arbitration panel ruled against the so-called “Painter of Light.” “The dealers and other ex-dealers allege that Kinkade used his religious beliefs — and manipulated theirs — to induce them to invest in Thomas Kinkade Signature Galleries, independently owned stores licensed to deal exclusively in his work. They also allege that they were stuck with unsalable inventory, forced to open additional stores in markets that could not sustain them and undercut by discounters that sold Kinkade prints at prices they were forbidden to match. And they accuse the artist of scheming to devalue Media Arts Group before he took the company private for $32.7 million in early 2004, renaming it Thomas Kinkade Co.”