Further Shelby White Antiquities Return to Italy

Source: Manhattan DA (September 6, 2022) / Lynda Albertson (on Twitter)

I was looking through the images of the handover of the antiquities to Italy yesterday. The press statement did not clarify the collections linked with all the objects:

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin L. Bragg, Jr., today announced the return of 58 antiquities valued at nearly $19 million to the people of Italy. The pieces were trafficked by Giacomo Medici, Giovanni Franco Becchina, Pasquale Camera and Edoardo Almagiá.

My main interest was in "21 of the pieces ... seized from the Metropolitan Museum of Art" (see here).

I then thought that two of the pieces looked familiar. On the right side of the table is an Attic black-figured psykter with a procession of riders. A quick search in the Beazley Archive pointed me to the psykter in the Shelby White and Leon Levy collection (Glories no. 112; BAPD 43272). The psykter was known from images in the Medici Dossier and had been discussed on LM back in 2008.

Balancing the psykter on the back left corner is an Attic black-figured skyphos showing Odysseus in the Cave of Polyphemos. This too is in the White-Levy collection and was attributed to the Theseus painter by Dietrich von Bothmer (Glories no. 113; BAPD 43271).

Does this mean that the Italian authorities are revisiting the Shelby White / Leon Levy collection? Will there be further revelations? Are there other items from this collection included in the return?

Does this open the way for the British Government to request the immediate return of the Icklingham Bronzes?

It should be noted that the identification of the Shelby White skyphos and psykter were made by Associate Professor Christos Tsirogiannis. 

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