The UNESCO Convention on the illicit movement of art treasures

United States Customs officials on January 7, I971, seized a tiny Raphael portrait of an attractive young woman believed to be the daughter of the Duke of Mantua. The event was newsworthy not because of the high value of the portrait - estimated by officials to be St.5 million-or because it was removed illegally from Italy. The shocking part of the incident was that the seizure did not take place after a raid on a den of thieves or smugglers, but at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, where the painting had been on display for more than a year.