Suspected theft prompts cancellation of Bergman auction

Photos, letters—most of them addressed to his fourth wife, pianist Kaebi Laretei, now 90—and a sketch from a 1944 draft manuscript were to have gone under the hammer at Bukowskis auction house in Stockholm on May 28.

But Bukowskis chief curator Carl Barkman said the auction had been scrapped after "irregularities concerning the origin of the items."

Police officer Lars Alm said one of Bergman's sons, Daniel, had filed a complaint after seeing an article about the auction in Swedish daily Dagens Nyheter.

"He was very surprised because he thought these objects were in the possession of his mother, Kaebi Laretei," said Alm.

"It turned out that it was Kaebi's daughter, Linda, who took them, pawned them, and sold the pawn shop receipt to an antique dealer who picked up the items and brought them to Bukowskis," added Alm.

Daniel Bergman and Linda do not have the same father.

Police said they had launched an investigation into the suspected theft and planned to interrogate suspects.

"We have previously worked with the family and we reacted as soon as we were informed of the situation," Bukowskis curator Barkman said.

He stressed the decision to cancel the sale was taken together with the family and the seller.

Ingmar Bergman died on July 30, 2007, at the age of 89 after directing more than 40 films during a career that spanned the second half of the 20th century.

In 2009, Bukowskis organized an auction of his possessions, in line with Bergman's wishes to avoid disputes within his large family—he had nine children by six women—over his belongings.

His home on the Baltic Sea island of Faaroe, off Sweden's southeastern coast, was sold the same year to a Norwegian businessman for an undisclosed sum.

Housekeeper gets 6 years in Ben Franklin bust theft

Andrea Lawton, 47, of Mobile, Ala., was living in Philadelphia when the bust was taken Aug. 24 from a home where she had worked as a housecleaner. She fled to Alabama with the bust and was arrested Sept. 21 in Elkton, Md., where she planned to sell it.

Lawton pleaded guilty in December to a federal charge of interstate transportation of stolen property. She pleaded guilty in April to a separate state charge of burglary.

The 25-pound bust was made by French artist Jean-Antoine Houdon while Franklin visited Paris in 1778.

It was broken while in Lawton's possession and is being repaired.

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AP-WF-05-20-13 1812GMT

2 Danes sentenced for stealing WWII documents

The Copenhagen City Court on Friday gave sentences of two years to one man and 21 months to the other for stealing 1,045 documents between 2009 and their arrests in late 2012.

The men told the court how they used, among other items, a carved-out notepad to hide the documents that included torn-out book pages and photos. The documents were estimated to be worth between 1.5 million kroner ($260,000) and 3 million kroner ($520,000).

The men claimed they were planning to write a book about the war. The prosecutor said they were collectors, adding many documents have been recovered but others have been sold.

They did not appeal the sentences.

Copyright 2013 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

AP-WF-05-17-13 1459GMT

Poland seeks return of art seized by Soviet Russia in 1945

"Of 31 official restitution requests by Poland, 18 concern works located in Russia," Culture Minister Bogdan Zdrojewski told reporters.

Most are paintings, including some several centuries old, such as works by the Baroque-era Jan Brueghel the Elder and German Renaissance painter Lucas Cranach the Elder.

The landscape by Brueghel, Cranach's Madonna and Child, and a painting of a merchant by German painter Hans Holbein the Younger are currently at Moscow's Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts, the minister said.

Other requested items include coins of the Order of the Teutonic Knights, warrior-monks who wielded power along the Baltic coast from the 13th century.

In most cases, Germany was first to seize the works after invading Poland in 1939, before the Soviet Union's Red Army claimed them in 1945 as war spoils.

Poland's borders were redrawn following the war, muddying the question of restitution.

But Zdrojewski noted "progress" in Poland's dealings with Moscow regarding the claims, most of which it filed in 2004 and 2012.

"Only a few years ago, our restitution claims were dismissed as unfounded. Today, our requests are no longer called into question."