Funerary reliefs from Ostia

Funerary reliefs of the Caltilii.
Source: Tampa Museum of Art (L), The J. Paul Getty Museum (R).

The Italian Senator, Margherita Corrado, has raised the issue of funerary reliefs from the tomb of the Caltilii in Ostia ("Italian Senator Margherita Corrado commenting on two suspect Roman altars at the J. Paul Getty Museum and the Tampa Museum of Art", ARCA blog, December 8, 2020).  She has identified two Roman funerary reliefs that appear to come from a family burial area on the Via dei Sepolchri. One is in the J. Paul Getty Museum (inv. 83.AA.209), donated by Achille Moretti, and the other in the Tampa Museum of Art (inv. 1991.001), purchased by The Collectors. 

The Tampa relief is the monument of L. Caltilius Diadumenus (with a mention of L. Caltilius Euhodus) (AE 2001 [2004], no. 621, 'fouilles clandestines'), and the Getty shows the funerary altar of L. Caltilius Stephanus and Caltilia Moschis. Caltilia Moschis also appears in a second relief now in the Palazzo Mattei in Rome (and discussed in Roman Funerary Sculptures no. 27). The Getty relief surfaced in an exhibition, partly arranged with J. Frel, at Geneva's Musée d'histoire et d'art in 1982. Corrado's press release claims that documentation in the seized Becchina archive shows that Palladion Antike Kunst tried to sell the altar to a US museum on behalf of a Swiss-based collector. 

Did the curatorial team at Tampa investigate the history of the relief when concerns were raised about it in 2004? Who handled the relief before it was sold to Tampa?

Cleveland Museum of Art: new curator of Greek and Roman Art

Seth Pevnick will be moving from Tampa to the Cleveland Museum of Art where he will be the curator of Greek and Roman Art (Steve Litt, "Cleveland Museum of Art hires Seth Pevnick as ‘profoundly ethical’ curator of ancient Greek and Roman art", cleveland.com 20 December 2018).

One of the acquisitions that will need to be addressed is the "Leutwitz Apollo". The modern history of the monumental bronze does not seem as secure as it has been presented by the museum (see here). It is time for some of the analyses to be made public and open to debate.

The case of the acquisition of the portrait of Drusus Minor is, perhaps, illustrative of the museum's policy towards acquisitions in recent years (see here).

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Tampa and Almagia

Detail of Apulian loutrophoros.
Gift of Mr & Mrs C.W. Sahlman.

I am grateful to Todd Smith, Executive Director of the Tampa Museum of Art, for clarifying which item in the collection is linked to Edoardo Almagià. The piece is an Apulian loutrophoros attributed to the White Sakkos painter acquired in 1987 from a private collector (inv. 1987.037). The private collector is reported to have purchased the pot from Almagià.

An Apulian loutrophoros features in an article by Michael Padgett ("A modern delight at the Tampa Museum of Art", Tampa Bay Magazine January / February 1991, 29-31 [p. 30]).  It is recorded as the gift of Mr & Mrs C.W. Sahlman.

Tampa also holds pieces from the Keros haul of Cycladic figures. They, too, are derived from the Sahlman family.