Recovered Masterpieces: The Objects

A full list of the objects that appear in the Rome exhibition, "Nostoi: Capolavori Ritrovati", has now been issued. (The numbers refer to the official handlist.)

Objects from the following museums are listed:

Boston, Museum of Fine Arts (12): 6, 8, 15, 17, 28, 29, 41, 42, 44, 50, 53, 67.

Malibu, J. Paul Getty Museum (44): 2, 4, 5, 7, 10, 11, 12, 13, 18, 19, 20, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 30, 31, 32, 34, 36, 37, 39, 40, 43, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 52, 54, 55, 56, 57, 58, 59, 61, 62, 63, 65, 66, 68.

New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art (5): 3, 9 [Sarpedon krater still in New York on loan], 14, 16, 51.

Princeton, University Art Museums (1): 1.

There are also items from dealers:

The Royal Athena Galleries, New York (5): 21, 33, 35, 38, 64.

Robin Symes (1): 60.

As far as the fabrics and types of object are concerned:

Pottery

Protocorinthian: 1, 2
Laconian: 3
Attic, black-figured: 4, 5, 6, 7, 8
Attic red-figured: 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31
Etruscan: 32, 33, 36
Lucanian: 41, 42
Apulian: 43, 44, 45, 46, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54, 55
Paestan: 47, 48

Terracotta:

Etruscan: 34

Bronzes:

Etruscan: 35, 37, 38
South Italian: 40
Campanian: 64

Inscription:

Selinus: 39

Sculpture and works in marble:

South Italian: 56, 57
Other: 58, 61, 65, 66, 67, 68

Wall-painting: 59, 60, 63

Ivory: 60

It is striking that 15 pieces were represented by South Italian pottery: Apulian (11), Lucanian (2) and Paestan (2). Seven bronzes and pots are Etruscan in style. Twenty-eight of the objects are Attic pots, both black-figured (5) and red-figured (23). Such pots are regularly found in Etruscan tombs as well as the cemeteries of the western Greek colonies.

Image
Attic red-figured column-krater showing Dionysos (no. 20). Attributed to the Geras painter. From the Royal Athena Galleries, New York.

Update: One of the pieces (no. 10) reported to be from the Metropolitan Museum of Art was mis-catalogued and is correctly placed here as ex-J. Paul Getty Museum.

Homecomings: Recovered Masterpieces

An exhibition, "Nostoi. Capolavori ritrovati", is about to open in the Palazzo del Quirinale, Rome (press statement; Elisabetta Povoledo, "After Legal Odyssey, Homecoming Show for Looted Antiquities", New York Times, December 18, 2007; Ariel David, "Looted Art Displayed in Rome", AP). Some 68 antiquities will be displayed. They include material returned from the J. Paul Getty Museum, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, and the Princeton University Art Museums. Among the pieces is the ivory mask handled by Robin Symes and seized in 2003. Some of the objects had passed through private collectors such as Barbara and Lawrence Fleischman. Five pieces were returned from the Royal Athena Galleries.

Missing from the display is the Sarpedon krater on loan to the MMA. It is perhaps the acquisition of this krater by the MMA that generated such intense debate about the collecting of recently surfaced antiquities.

There are still some outstanding questions. Although it has been possible to understand the routes by which some of these antiquities passed to the MFA or the J. Paul Getty Museum, the information on other items has not been made so freely available.

It needs to be remembered that the archaeological contexts for each one of the pieces on display in this exhibition has been lost for ever. Greed and the desire to collect have snatched this information away.

Have museum attitudes in North America changed? Philippe de Montebello's interview with Richard Lacayo in late November 2007 hints that old positions are hard to shift. And what about the disputed items in the Cleveland Museum of Art, the Minneapolis Institute of Arts and the Shelby White collection?

Image
Portrait of Sabina, purchased from Fritz Bürki of Zurich, through Robert E. Hecht to the Boston Museum of Fine Arts in 1979. Returned to Italy in 2006.

Coins and Cyprus: the ACCG responds

The ACCG triumvirate of Peter Tompa, Wayne Sayles and David Welsh have come together in another posting, "ACCG Queries Cypriot Director of Antiquities" (December 15, 2007), about the US restrictions on the import of coins from Cyprus.

Their implication is that the "best repositories" for these coins are the cabinets of ACCG members.

As usual they miss the archaeological point. This discussion is not about ownership. It is about the protection of archaeological sites and cultural information.

Tompa's lack of a grasp on archaeological methodology is made clear in his comments to one of my recent postings:

Suffice to state, only ancient coins from "secure contexts," i.e. under flooring have any real use for dating purposes. Even then, the long periods of circulation of ancient coins makes them of much less use for dating than other artifacts, notably pottery shards.

Are "floors" the only archaeological sites that can be considered to be "secure contexts"? Of course not.

Has he ever thought that "pottery shards" are often dated thanks to contexts in which coins have been found?

And has it struck the trio that the US Restrictions were about preservation?

Bonham's, antiquities and a postive spin?

Bonham's have not been receiving too much positive publicity about the sale and display of antiquities. But now it is being suggested that it was Bonham's that helped to unmask the forgers behind the Bolton Amarna princess.

Ivan Macquisten reports in the Antiques Trade Gazette (archived):

The British Museum were credited with uncovering the fraud that led to the jailing of serial faker Shaun Greenhalgh two weeks ago, while auction houses and the trade were criticised for selling his work.
... it was trade specialists who raised the alarm after the British Museum had enthusiastically endorsed examples of Greenhalgh’s work as genuine, unwittingly giving him and his family the verification they sought to pursue their fraud.

These revelations are made by Richard Falkiner

who chairs the antiquities vetting committees at both the Grosvenor House and Olympia fairs, and is consultant to auction houses, dealers and collectors, first came across one of the Greenhalgh fakes in early 2006 on a visit to Bonhams, where he advises the antiquities department.

Clearly bad publicity over antiquities would damage his interests and activities.

So why the spin at this point? Again it is reported:

Mr Falkiner said that he decided to make the revelations public because he was unhappy that, far from being credited with their contribution to exposing the fraud, Bonhams and the trade in general had been criticised in the press for helping put fakes in circulation.

Perhaps what this case has shown is that "old collections" can be fabricated, a feature seen in the surfacing of genuine antiquities in North American cases.

And if Falkiner is wanting to deflect criticisms of "Bonhams and the [antiquities] trade in general" could he explain how newly surfaced antiquities continued to be sold on the market?

And equally worrying is the way that museum officials seem to have authenticated these Greenhalgh forgeries. Will those institutions explain how their staff made such a serious error of judgement?

From Switzerland to Italy: Another Etruscan Return

The seizure of Polaroids in Geneva continues to have an impact. ANSA reported last week (December 5, 2007) on "Etruscan Bronze Recovered in Switzerland". The 2nd century BC bronze figure is said to have been taken from an Etruscan tomb at Vulci in modern Tuscany. It was identified, thanks to the evidence provided by the Polaroids, in a Swiss private collection and the owner has agreed to return it to Italy. The name of the collector has not been released.

Coins and Cyprus: a response from the Department of Antiquities of Cyprus

Jessica Dietzler has interviewed Dr. Pavlos Flourentzos, the director of the Department of Antiquities of Cyprus ("The case for Cyprus", SAFE Interviews). It includes discussion of the US decision to restrict the import of coins from Cyprus. Flourentzos comments:

We deeply appreciate the decision of the Department of State to include ancient Cypriot coins in the MOU [sc. Memorandum of Understanding]. This act shows sensitivity to the importance of preserving world cultural heritage, a principle highly esteemed by the international scientific community.

He makes the point that is understood by archaeologists but not by some in the collecting community that coins form an integral part of the archaeological record and should not be treated as a special case.

You have very rightly pointed out that coins are an essential part of the corpus of the archaeological data. Actually, there is no scientific reason to set coins apart from the rest of archaeological finds. And it is important to understand that there is no way of retrieving coins without destroying the stratigraphy of a site.

He emphasises context, something ridiculed by some in museum (e.g. Philippe de Montebello) and collecting (e.g. Peter Tompa) circles,

In contemporary archaeology the ultimate value is context and not any isolated artifact. Thus, destroying stratigraphy to retrieve a coin is equal to destroying archaeology.

He also emphasises the transformation of the discipline of archaeology from antiquarianism to scientific study.

I am afraid that arguments about “responsible” collecting are based on the nineteenth century—and thus completely out of date—tradition when it was thought that archaeology is a pleasant pastime that anyone could “enjoy”. In the decades that have elapsed, the gradual transformation of archaeology from a pastime to a science has proved the essential difference between looting and scientific excavation.

It is useful to have the archaeological case made in such a clear way. And it contrasts with the voice of some of the more radical collectors who have yet to understand the material and intellectual consequences of collecting coins.

The Robert E. Hecht Collection: any buyers?

Nathan Elkins ("A Legitimate Trade in Ancient Coins?", Safecorner, December 10, 2007) has drawn attention to the sale of the Robert E. Hecht collection of Byzantine Seals. These are on offer by the Classical Numismatic Group, Inc. (Triton Sale XI, lots 1116-1215).

Hecht has been been catching the full glare of the media spotlight for his links with some of the antiquities returned from North American collections to Italy. And his name features prominently in The Medici Conspiracy.

Elkins draws attention to a recent posting on Moneta-L where this question was posed:

With such a reputation I am wondering how people feel about a collection of his [sc. Hecht's] coming to market. Does it make you want to stay away from his material, are people more interested in it because of his colorful past?

It will be interesting to see how the sale of Part 1 of the Hecht collection goes.