Sarcophagus fragment: Greece, Basel, and New York

Source: Becchina archive

One month ago I was informed that a sarcophagus fragment had been seized from a New York gallery. The identification of the piece with an image in the Becchina archive had been made by Dr Christos Tsirogiannis.

It is worth reviewing the collecting history for the piece:

• piece handled by Greek trafficker, Giorgos Ze[ne...]
• 25 May 1988: Gianfranco Becchina paid SF 60,000 to Zene[]
• Object placed in the Basel Freeport
• Andre Lorenceau cleaned and then drilled the fragment to create holes for mount
• April 1991: Swiss art market
• Attributed by Dr Guntram Koch [date of attribution not provided]
• 1992: Royal-Athena Galleries, Art of the Ancient World vii, no. 57
• 2000: Royal-Athena Galleries, Art of the Ancient World xi, no. 30
• April 2000: Dr H collection, Germany
• 2016: Royal-Athena Galleries, Art of the Ancient World xxviii, no. 6 [online] Price on Request
• 2017, 14 January: fragment seized
• 2017, 10 February: sarcophagus returned to Greece

The identity of the vendor on the Swiss art market in April 1991 is not made clear in the history. Who sold the sarcophagus fragment to the Royal-Athena Galleries? What other pieces have been derived from the same source? When did those transactions take place?

Will there be further clues in the Becchina archive showing how material passed from Switzerland to North America?

For further information and images see ARCA.