A Roman fresco fragment and some apparent cut marks

Malibu 83.AG.222.9
Source: J. Paul Getty Museum

Among the fresco panels and fragments from ‘a wealthy Roman’s seaside villa in the area of the Bay of Naples’ acquired by the J. Paul Getty Museum in 1983 from Palladion Antike Kunst is this panel with two fish (inv.  83.AG.222.9). Someone appears, at some point prior to acquisition, to have tried to cut a square panel from the fragment.  Why would they want to damage the panel in that way? 

Is this evidence of how the panel(s) was (were) removed from the archaeological context?  Or was someone trying to cut down the panel to make it easier to move? What would have happened to the remaining section of the fragment?

Such an indication is reminiscent of the panel returned from the Shelby White collection (no. 142; 86.2 cm by 86.5 cm) that came from the same composition as two fragments from the Fleischman collection and acquired (and returned) by the Getty (nos. 125 and 126; 91 cm by 80.5 cm, 61 cm by 81 cm). [See discussion here.]

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Two octagonal panels probably from the Bay of Naples

Two octagonal panels. Malibu inv. 83.AG.222.5, 7

Yesterday I noted three panels apparently from the same room of a villa that probably stood somewhere in the vicinity of the Bay of Naples. Like the other panels, this pair of frescoes was derived from Palladion Antike Kunst in 1983. Unlike the other pieces these two are not currently on display. 

How did these fragments leave their villa and move to California? Will the curatorial team at the Getty be raising this with their Italian colleagues?

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The Steinhardt Fresco from Herculaneum

Source: Manhattan DA

Among the antiquities seized from the collection of Michael Steinhardt was a fragment of Roman fresco showing the infant Hercules killing a snake (Exhibit 87). The Manhattan DA Statement suggested that the fresco had been looted in 1995 from a villa destroyed in the eruption of Vesuvius somewhere in the vicinity of Oliva dei Monaci. A letter sent to the Italian authorities, along with photographs of the finds, identified Pasquale Camera who had sold on the pieces to Raffaele Monticelli for $120,000. Monticelli then sold the fresco to to Robert Hecht for $240,000.

Steinhardt was reported to have been in correspondence with Jasper Gaunt on November 10, 1995 relating to the delivery of a "crate": Steinhardt received an invoice for the fresco from Harry Bürki on November 22, 1995 ($650,000). Bürki later (February 17, 1999) claimed that the fresco had been in his family's collection for some 25 years and that it had been acquired from a "Bulgarian medical doctor".

The interplay between Bürki and Hecht should be noted, as well as the creation of a false collecting history.

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Roman Fresco Fragment: The Woman on a Balcony

Fresco Fragment: Woman on a Balcony,
10 B.C.–A.D. 14, Fresco
60 × 45.2 × 3 cm (23 5/8 × 17 13/16 × 1 3/16 in.),
96.AG.172
The J. Paul Getty Museum,
Villa Collection, Malibu, California,
Gift of Barbara and Lawrence Fleischman

The research of Christos Tsirogiannis has been highlighted in The Observer (Dalya Alberge, "Fresco fragment from Pompeii reopens row over 'looted' antiquities", March 20, 2021). The Roman fresco fragment had formed part of the Barbara and Lawrence Fleischman collection. The fragment had been acquired from Fritz Bürki in 1987, but it had also featured in the photographic archive of Robert Hecht. 

There are some 60 items in the Fleischman collection that were acquired from Bürki; only four are formerly listed as derived from Hecht. 

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Pompeii fresco stolen

Pompeii, Regio VI. Source: Google Earth

There are reports in the Italian news media that a fresco of Apollo and Artemis has been damaged and Artemis removed from Room 20 of the House of Neptune (VI.5.3) at Pompeii. An image of the fresco can be found here (Pompeii in Pictures: December 2007). It appears that the fresco was removed earlier in March.

The house was damaged by Allied bombing in 1943 during an attack on the nearby railway.

Presumably somebody thought that they could sell this documented painting on the market. Perhaps it would have surfaced as formerly in an "old European collection". Hopefully the publicity will mean that the fragment, measuring some 20 by 20 cm, will be returned.

The damaged fresco
with Artemis removed
Source: ANSA

This incident reminds us of the difficulty of policing such a huge archaeological site of such international importance.

It is worth remembering that North American collectors acquired fresco fragments that clearly had been derived from the area of the Bay of Naples, and that these have formed part of the returns to Italy. For further details see here.

From Malibu to Rome: implications for Shelby White

AP has reported that the first four of the items to be returned from the Getty left on Tuesday ("4 Getty items back in Italy", LA Times, October 3, 2007). One of the four was "a fragment of a wall fresco from the 1st century BC depicting Hercules". This had formed part of the the Barbara and Lawrence Fleischman collection (Getty [deaccessioned] 96.AG.171). As I had commented earlier, this fresco fragment had been purchased from Fritz Bürki who features prominently in The Medici Conspiracy. Maxwell L. Anderson, who published the fragment in the exhibition catalogue A Passion for Antiquities (no. 126), noted,

"The upper portion of the fresco matches precisely the upper portion of a fresco section in the Shelby White and Leon Levy collection ... and is from the same room, as is catalogue number 125".

The two other fragments alluded to by Anderson are:

a. The White/Levy fragment (Glories of the Past no. 142), also published by Anderson, which is noted as "part of the upper zone of a wall from a Second Style house". b. An ex-Fleischman fragment that appears to be remaining in the Getty (96.AG.170). This too is listed in The Medici Conspiracy (p. 350). (See also my earlier comments.)

Watson and Todeschini have reported a fourth fragment from the same room that was seized in Geneva from Giacomo Medici. They quote the prosecutor Paolo Ferri, it "would appear to be a twin to another fresco" (i.e. the returning fragment, no. 126). Maurizio Pellegrini came across evidence of a looted Second Style complex in Medici's documentation (The Medici Conspiracy, pp. 69-71, 119, and plates). It is reported that "at least nine walls of the Pompeian villa were photographed in situ by the tombaroli". (The presence of lapillae in the photographs is suggestive of a structure destroyed in the eruption of Vesuvius in AD 79.) What is more, "Two of the walls depicted in the photographs were found in the [Geneva] Freeport, packed in bubble wrap and leaning against a wall, as though they were about to be shipped out". Watson and Todeschini reflect on the implication of this find:

"It revealed the scale of the traffic in illegally excavated antiquities, and the brutality shown by the tombaroli and those above them in respect to important and beautiful ancient objects, as well as the utter indifference to the archaeological importance of Italy's heritage ... The frescoes ... had been rudely and crudely ripped from their context and sold off to people ("collectors") who might profess to care about archaeological objects but obviously had no interest in the original and proper context."

Who knows if the ex-Getty/Fleischman, present-Getty, present-White, and surfaced-Geneva fragments came from this looted Campanian villa? But they are reported as coming "from the same room" (even if we do not know where that room is located). How is it known that they come "from the same room"? Does (or did) a photograph exist that was taken at the time of its opening? Can the acquiring of such paintings be considered to be "a very public-spirited thing to do"? (I take the quote from Shelby White's interview in The New Yorker, April 9, 2007.) Has the time come for Shelby White to make a grand gesture? Imagine the reuniting of the fragment presently in her possession with the one that is now back in Italy. That would be the public-spirited thing to do.