Solving legal mysteries
Equal parts detective and lawyer, James Ratcliffe sits down with GC to explain how a passion for archaeology and a degree in law spawned a career hunting down plundered art from around the world.
James Ratcliffe has a curious job – one in which art, argument and puzzle-solving come together across global jurisdictions to meet at the crux of the international luxury art market. Ratcliffe, who has a background in archaeology and commercial litigation, is general counsel and director of recovery at the Art Loss Register (ALR), a London-based private company that holds the world’s largest private database of lost and stolen art. Mired in criminality, old money, loss and recovery, this is a job made for the movies.
The business is split into two parts: registering valuable art works onto the ALR database; and then searching against the database for valuable items as they resurface. Art theft exists in a secretive, underground world where pieces change hands swiftly and regularly, because they are either too valuable or it is too dangerous for them to see the light of day. ‘Art appreciates in value so it can disappear, often for a long period of time. People buy it and keep it – it is not like a house which is publicly on display, so it is relatively rare that you can find it,’ says Ratcliffe. Eventually many things do turn up for sale though, and this is where the ALR steps in.
