Oscilla from the Steinhardt Collection

Source: Manhattan DA

Among the objects returned to Italy from the collection formed by Michael Steinhardt were four Roman oscilla. The Manhattan DA Statement of Facts expands:

A set of four marble oscillum (collectively “the Marble Oscilla”), or Roman disks suspended on chains between columns in gardens, appear in dirt-encrusted fragments in multiple Polaroid photographs recovered from the Medici Archive. ... Depicting satyrs and female followers of Dionysus, the Marble Oscilla were crafted in Italy between 100 B.C.E. and 100 C.E. The Marble Oscilla first surfaced on the international art market in 1992, when Steinhardt purchased the antiquities from Robin Symes with no prior provenance for $175,000. In 1998, Steinhardt sent the Marble Oscilla to a Brooklyn-based restorer for“cleaning and repair.” 

The suggestion is that these oscilla probably came from the garden of a residence. Was this a residence buried during the eruption of Vesuvius?

Two further oscilla are known from Polaroids: these are now displayed in the Miho Museum, Japan. Concerns about their origins were first raised in 2007. Daniella Rizzo and Maurizio Pellegrini have recently indicated that the oscilla feature, like the Steinhardt ones, in the Medici Dossier. They also suggested that they come from 'the Vesuvian area'. Carlos Picón separately has indicated that the parallels for such items come from the area around Vesuvius.

One wonders if the Steinhardt and the Miho oscilla come from the same complex but we will have to await the definitive publication of the Steinhardt examples. 

Will the return of the Steinhardt oscilla place renewed pressure on the Miho Museum to return their pieces so that the series, perhaps originally displayed in the same garden space, can be reunited in Italy?

The identifications of the Steinhardt oscilla were made by Associate Professor Christos Tsirogiannis. 

Source: Miho Museum

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Roman Sarcophagus due to be returned to Italy

Source: ICE

Ric St Hilaire has written about the likely return of the Roman sarcophagus lid to Italy ("Stipulation Puts a Lid on Litigation Over Roman Sarcophagus Cover Featured in the Becchina Archive", September 22, 2014). The sarcophagus was recognised from the Becchina archive. The sarcophagus has been handled by Noryioshi Horiuchi.

Horiuchi has been at the centre of the the Italian Operation Andromeda. Some 20000 antiquities have already been seized from the dealer.

If the sarcophagus is indeed returned to Italy it will increase the pressure on the Miho Museum in Japan to resolve Italian claims on a number of objects that have also featured in the seized photographic archives.

But where are the antiquities that Horiuchi has handled over time? Who purchased them? Which other dealers are linked?

The Horiuchi Sarcophagus

Source: HSI

Colleagues over on "Chasing Aphrodite" have provided further information about the seized Roman sarcophagus. It now appears that the sarcophagus went from Nino Savoca to Becchina, sold to Becchina (August 1981), imported to Switzerland (August 1981), sold to George Ortiz (1981), offered to the Getty (1982), displayed at the Historical Museum in Bern (1982-83); jointly owned by Becchina and Ortiz (1986); subsequently acquired by the Japanese dealer Horiuchi.

This seizure is likely to bring renewed focus on the Miho Museum in Japan. It also raises concerns about the role of George Ortiz, the subject of detailed research work by Gill and Chippindale.

Do museums respond to photographic evidence?

Caught in the net?

Will the publication of parts of the photographic dossiers seized in Switzerland and Greece change the attitudes of museums? The answer is probably not, at least in Europe.

The Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek in Copenhagen has refused to hand over material requested by the Italian authorities. The Museum of Cycladic Art in Athens holds an Athenian pot recognised from the Medici dossier. The National Archaeological Museum in Madrid has yet to resolve its disagreement with Italy. And there are museums in the UK where material has been linked.

Looking further afield there is the unresolved situation with the Miho Museum in Japan.

And museums form only one element. Identification of stock with dealers and in auctions has made little difference to some.

It seems to me that the major issue is compliance with international agreements. And there seems to be little willingness to demonstrate co-operation in some quarters.

Polaroids and unresolved issues

Over the last five years some 130 antiquities have been returned to Italy from North American public and private collections. We know that more than 130 antiquities were identified in those museums and private collections that co-operated with Italian authorities. In addition, several objects have been identified at auction houses and galleries in New York and London.

However there are still unresolved cases. One of the most pressing is the krater in the Minneapolis Institute of Arts (MIA), in Europe Copenhagen and the National Archaeological Museum in Madrid have yet to sort out the claims against some of its objects, and the Miho Museum in Japan has been placed under pressure.

Over the next few months another European museum (or rather the private collectors behind it) will be shown to have acquired material that has been identified from the Polaroid archives.

LM will keep you informed of these developments.

Operation Andromeda: Getting an Overview

In December 2008 premises in the Geneva Freeport were raided as part of a wider investigation into the antiquities market. The raid had resulted from an investigation into the activities of the London-based dealer Robin Symes. Symes has been linked to antiquities returned to Italy by the J. Paul Getty Museum, and the private collector Shelby White. The latest trail led to a Swiss-based businessman and has yielded an important dossier showing transactions.

The Geneva Freeport raid yielded some 20,000 objects. (A raid on a similar facility run by a husband and wife team in Basel in 2002 yielded some 5500 objects; 4,400, filling three trucks, were returned to Italy.) This latest raid is likely to have more impact than the ones on the Geneva Freeport facilities linked to Giacomo Medici that took place in the mid 1990s. Those seizures led directly to a series of returns from major North American public and private collections (discussed here).

As a result of the latest Geneva raid some  337 antiquities (worth 15 million euros) were returned to Italy. They were presented at a major press conference in the setting of Rome's Colosseum. Among them were 10 frescoes that appear to have come Pompeii (or the close vicinity) as well as Athenian and South Italian pottery.

The Japanese dealer who is linked to the Geneva facility has been named as Noryioshi Horiuchi. This dealer has been reported to have helped develop the collections at the Miho Museum in Japan. It appears that the Italian authorities are investigating some 50 objects in this collection. It appears that at least one of the pieces now returned to Italy as a result of the latest raid was identified thanks to images seized from the Geneva premises of Giacomo Medici. Horiuchi appears to have business connections with the dealer Gianfranco Becchina.

A number of issues remain. What will happen to the remaining antiquities that were seized in Switzerland? Will the Japanese dealer face prosecution? Will the seized documentation lead investigators to other museums and private collectors? What are the implications for the Miho Museum that is known to be under investigation?

More importantly, is this the tip of the iceberg? There have now been three major raids in Switzerland: two in Geneva and one in Basel. Will there be more? And what are the Swiss authorities doing to stop the movement of recently-surfaced antiquities across its boundaries (or at least into its freeports)?


Image
© MiBAC / Carabinieri.

Operation Andromeda: Geneva, the Japanese Dealer and the Miho Museum

The return of 337 antiquities to Italy after their seizure in Geneva Freeport as part of Operation Andromeda has turned a spotlight on the Miho Museum. The reason is that the Japanese dealer whose premises were raided has been named in the Italian press as Noryioshi Horiuchi. This dealer has been linked as one of the key suppliers for the Miho Museum.

It emerged during the Rome trial of Robert Hecht that the Medici Dossier had included images of an oscillum in the Miho Museum. It also appears that there are some 50 objects in the Miho Museum that are under investigation. (Compare the 22 in Madrid.)

The authorities at the Miho Museum would be wise to open negotiations with Italian authorities before there are further damaging revelations.

Image
Composite of Polaroid from the Medici Dossier and an oscillum acquired from unstated source by the Miho Museum.

Operation Andromeda: Detailed Report

Fabio Isman has written on the seizure of antiquities from a Japanese dealer operating out of the Geneva Freeport ("Operazione Andromeda", Il Messaggero July 17, 2010). The report names the Japanese dealer as Noryioshi Horiuchi who appears to have supplied antiquities for the Miho Museum. Colonel Raffaele Mancino confirmed that the raid on the Japanese dealer's premises in the Geneva Freeport had opened up a line of inquiry that looked to the east.

The seizures also appear to confirm links with Robin Symes and Gianfranco Becchina (see seizures in Basel).

Among the returned items were 10 Roman frescoes that appeared to have come from Pompeii, an Athenian cup attributed to the Brygos painter, a black-figured pot attributed to the Priam painter (and see the amphora in Madrid), and an Apulian pot attributed to the Darius painter.

Image
© MiBAC / Carabinieri.

Operation Andromeda: Japanese Dealer Named

Rome-based investigator Fabio Isman has confirmed to Looting Matters that the identity of the Japanese dealer at the centre of Operation Andromeda is Noryioshi Horiuchi.

In March this year I asked if it was time for the Miho Museum to resolve the issue of disputed antiquities. (See also my article in Present Pasts.) Horiuchi is said to have been a key figure in the acquisition of the Miho Museum's collection.

Peter Watson and Cecilia Todeschini write in The Medici Conspiracy (p. 295):

Among the Becchina documents is an agreement signed after a creditors' meeting held in Geneva in 1991. This was a meeting held between four creditors—all Swiss antiquities dealers, of which Becchina was one—called because Horiuchi owed each of them substantial amounts of money and showed no prospect of paying.

It now looks as Horiuchi's stock has been dented by a further 15 million euros. What is more shocking is that 1500 items from the raided stock in the Geneva Freeport looked as if it came from Italy.

The curatorial staff at the Miho Museum would be sensible to come to an amicable agreement with Italy before there are any further damaging revelations.

Image
© MiBAC / Carabinieri

Looting Matters: The Miho Museum and Italy

Looting Matters: The Miho Museum and Italy
-- SWANSEA, Wales, April 2 /PRNewswire/ --

A discussion of why the time has come for the Miho Museum to resolve the dispute with Italy.

The Miho Museum: time to resolve its dispute with Italy?

Lord Renfrew has reminded us of the unresolved case of the antiquities in the Miho Museum. He mentioned the museum at several points through his Rome lecture and wove it into his closing words:

If the striking advances recently achieved by the Italian authorities in combating the illicit traffic in looted antiquities are to be of wide general, indeed international value, a number of steps will be necessary. The first of these could be the formal and published acceptance of the 1970 Rule by museums and then by private collectors in all countries. 

The second should be the true internationalisation of such a position. That would include, for instance, the recognition by Japan of its obligations under the 1970 UNESCO Convention, and the equivalent recognition by the Trustees of the Miho Museum of their own responsibilities. I do not imply here that the Miho Museum is alone in flouting the conventions of good conduct in this respect, but it is certainly prominent. And here it should be remembered that many museums, even private museums, have charitable status in relation to taxation. That status should be questioned by national authorities if the institution is seen to be flouting either international law or the widely shared ethical standards implied by the UNESCO Convention. Only then can progress be made.

Details of the controversial acquisitions by the Miho Museum emerged in the Rome trial of Robert Hecht and Marion True in June 2007. The Italian prosecutors had images of a Roman marble oscilla. Although these are images that are likely to have been seized in the Geneva Freeport, there was a comparable dossier seized in Basel. Earlier reports have indicated that there are some 50 objects in the Miho Museum that are under investigation by the Italian authorities. (Other countries, including Iran, may also be looking at their collection.) There are also indications that some antiquities in the Miho Museum were supplied by Gianfranco Becchina.

The Miho Museum opened in 1997 with a list of high-profile guests including museum directors and private collectors. The collection of European antiquities was reportedly formed from 1990. One of the key figures was the dealer Noriyoshi Horiuchi who trained as lawyer but turned into an antiquities dealer under the guidance of Dr Elie Borowski (Souren Melikian, "A Splendid Art Collection Goes On Display in Japan", International Herald Tribune November 6, 1997). Horiuchi spoke about concerns relating to authenticity as well as "illegally excavated objects" (Rita Reif, "A Japanese vision of the ancient world", New York Times August 16, 1998):

"We bought only from major dealers ... And we invited museum curators, scholars, collectors, restorers and dealers to look at the collection and urged everyone to tell us of any problems they saw."

It would be interesting for the Miho Museum to declare the names of the major dealers who provided the antiquities for the collection.

The Miho Museum needs to find a reasonable resolution with the Italian authorities or it will continue to be perceived as a museum that does not hold an internationally recognised ethical standard for acquisitions.

In 2000 the Miho Museum returned a statue of a bodhisattva, purchased "legally through a reliable art dealer based in Switzerland", to China (Mari Yamaguchi, "Japanese museum investigating Chinese statue's history", AP April 20, 2000). Hiroaki Katayama, the chief curator at the Miho Museum was quoted:

we decided to investigate because we want to know the truth and serve our research purposes.

The Shinji Shumeikai, the sect linked to the Miho Museum's founder, has as its values the "pursuit of truth, virtue and beauty". Now is the time for the Miho Museum to investigate the Italian claims with rigour.

There is also a lesson for other museums that have been seeking to build up collections of antiquities in an age when the finite archaeological record has been under so much threat from looting and the illicit trade in antiquities.

Image
Composite of Roman marble oscilla in the Miho Museum that have no declared collecting histories.

Oscilla and the Miho Museum

I have been reflecting on which museum would be the next to return antiquities to Italy. Francesco Rutelli has pointed a finger at the Miho Museum in Japan.

Most sources are quiet on this lead, but last June there was a hint from the Hecht/True trial in Rome (Kazuki Matsuura, "Witness fingers Japanese museum in Italian art-trafficking case", The Daily Yomiuri (Tokyo), June 4, 2007 [archived]).

It was reported:

The expert witness for the prosecution in a trial in Italy over the trafficking of stolen art objects to the United States has claimed a Japanese museum is housing items unearthed illegally in Italy.

As the witness named the Miho Museum in Koka, Shiga Prefecture, the Italian prosecutors likely will begin a full-scale investigation into possible trafficking of stolen items into Japan, sources said.

An example was cited:

some artwork housed in the Miho Museum, including a decorative sculpture of marble from ancient Rome, known as an oscilla, were identified from pictures of stolen items seized from a smuggling syndicate by the prosecutors.

I presume the 'pictures' were the Polaroids seized in Geneva.

But what about the oscilla?

Intriguingly, the Miho Museum has "Two Oscilla with Mythological Figures". They are 34 cm in diameter and made of marble.

The catalogue entry describes them as follows (and I have put line breaks in to make the text easier to follow):

On one side of tondo A is a standing, bearded satyr wearing an animal's skin tied around his neck and gesturing toward a theater mask that is positioned atop a rocky outcrop. On the reverse, a youthful Artemis wearing a chiton and tall boots sits on a rock and aims her arrow at a target outside the frame. Her hound, at her feet, leans forward, sniffing the air.

Tondo B likewise juxtaposes a generic Dionysiac figure shown standing and a specific deity depicted seated on a rock. This time, a fully draped maenad holds a thyrsus with her right hand as she leans against a stepped pillar in front of which a small herm is placed. The other side of the sculpture features a youthful, semidraped Ganymede holding out a bowl to a thirsty and eager Zeus, who has transformed himself into an eagle.

The Miho Museum catalogue entry makes the point that parallels for such oscilla are known from "excavations at Pompeii and other Vesuvian sites destroyed in the eruption of A.D. 79".

So what is the source for these oscilla in the Miho Museum? Where were they found? Was it Italy? Which dealer sold them to the museum?

Or are there other oscilla in the collection?

Image from the Miho Museum.

2008: looking ahead

The last two years have seen major shifts in the institutional attitude towards acquiring newly-surfaced antiquities. Antiquities have been returned to Italy from the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, the J. Paul Getty Museum, and the Princeton University Art Museums.

So which museums will be next? The Cleveland Museum of Art is certainly a likely candidate in North America. And will the focus shift to Europe and Japan?

And what about the collection in the possession of Shelby White? Will she come to an agreement before the opening of the Institute for the Study of the Ancient World later this year? Failure to do so will tarnish the reputation of the Institute.

The staff of the Art Loss Register are keen to be seen addressing the issue of antiquities. So will we see a reform of their policies? A certificate from the ALR should no longer be seen as guarantee that an object was known prior to the 1970 UNESCO Convention.

Egyptian antiquities are a major element at auctions in spite of Zahi Hawass' raising of the issue of looting. Will there be an effective curtailing of site destruction in Egypt to restrict the supply of objects entering the market?

2008 will see the opening of the New Akropolis Museum in Athens that will put renewed and increasing pressure on the Trustees of the British Museum to return the Parthenon marbles. Will there be more discussion of the "Universal Museum" to justify such international collections? What is the place of such varied collections in the second millennium?

We will see the outcome of the legal challenge to the US State Government concerning the memorandum of agreement with Cyprus over the import of antiquities. Will the collecting lobby win out over the desire to protect and preserve archaeological context?

Perhaps the most important change will be in public attitude. Conservation is a key issue and archaeological sites are a finite resource. There needs to be a move away from the idea of "ownership" of cultural property to protection.

Happy New Year! Blwyddyn Newydd Dda!

Image © David Gill.

Returning antiquities to Italy: next moves?

There has been a pattern of approaches to North American museums for the return of antiquities to Italy:
a. New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art: 2006, February [press release]
b. Boston, Museum of Fine Arts: 2006, September [press release]
c. Malibu, J. Paul Getty Museum: 2007, August [press release]
d. Princeton, University Art Museums: 2007, October [press release]

Then there are the pieces in the University of Virginia Art Museum in Charlottesville.

But where do the Italian investigations go from here?

The New York Times reports:

"Negotiations continue with private collectors of antiquities in the United States, as well as museums in Europe."

Material formerly owned by Lawrence and Barbara Fleischman has been returned from the Getty. And one of the significant North American private collectors is Shelby White.

Other news reports are more specific. Maurizio Fiorilli ("Italy, Princeton museum reach deal to return disputed antiquities") is quoted as saying that talks are now concentrating on "the New Carlsberg Glyptotek in Copenhagen, Denmark, the Cleveland Museum of Art and the Miho Museum in Shiga, western Japan".

The Cleveland Museum of Art holds disputed material. This includes an Apulian volute-krater attributed to the Darius painter. James Kopniske is quoted as saying that Cleveland "had received a request for the return of a number of objects and has been conducting research on the artifacts".

The Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek in Copenhagen appears to have purchased material from Robert Hecht. Bloomberg reported back in November 2005:

the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek in Copenhagen has six allegedly looted items, all of which came through Medici, including the decorations of an Etruscan chariot for which Hecht is also charged ...

The Miho Museum may contain, according to one 2007 report ("Is Japan a Cultural Looter?"), some 50 items which are reported to be under investigation. Japanese press reports have suggested that some of the material may have come via Gianfranco Becchina ("Records Tie Japanese Dealer to Looted Antiquities").

With thousands of Polaroids to study it is likely that there will plenty more revelations.