Paolo Ferri: Returns are Symbolic

Fabio Isman has interviewed former Italian state prosecutor Paolo Ferri for Il Giornale dell’Arte. This has been abstracted for The Art Newspaper ("Clandestine excavation is a crime that is hard to prove", January 5, 2010). HeFerritalks about an investivagation of a statue that appeared on the London market and noted the key Swiss companies Editions Services and Xoilan Trading.

The scale of the looting is significant. Ferri talks about the 130 objects returned to Italy (from North American public and private collections) and notes:

The few restitutions that have proved possible are largely symbolic: they concern perhaps 3% of the finds from clandestine excavations which have appeared on the antiquities market.

This suggests that there are thousands more objects to be identified from the photographic dossiers and stacks of invoices. Indeed Ferri claims,

we have a database of at least 200,000 objects that come from clandestine excavations and ended up on the black market. This is why it is vital to work with the areas most affected by clandestine excavations. It is also necessary to continue negotiations with museums that have made purchases of these finds.

Isman's closing question asked,

Which antiquities have proved most difficult to retrieve and which ones still need to be tracked down?

Ferri's immediate reply was this:

Coins come to mind: the first antiquities that are found using a metal detector, they are often of crucial importance for dating an archaeological site or a tomb.

His comments are no doubt linked to the renewal of the MOU with Italy.

Paolo Ferri: an asset for Italy

Anybody who follows the cultural property debate will know that former Italian prosecutor Paolo Giorgio Ferri has played an invaluable part in doggedly pursuing "recently surfaced" antiquities so that they can be returned to Italy. He has called on major auction houses to withdraw lots after the items had been identified in the photographic dossiers. He also played a part in the case brought against Marion True, as well as the return of antiquities from a significant New York private collection.

He has continued to work with the Italian Ministry of Culture advising on recent claims.

It now appears that the Ministry has indicated that it wishes to part company with Ferri. Yet this is in spite of the growing number of identifications that have been made from the photographic archives (and which have yet to be claimed). The Italian authorities would be sensible to continue to use Ferri's formidable qualities to reclaim significant cultural property that has been removed from Italian territory (and from archaeological sites in Italy).

Paolo Ferri on Marion True

Fabio Isman has published an interview with Paolo Ferri where Marion True is discussed ("Marion True: macché assoluzione, giudici troppo lenti", Il Giornale dell'Arte gennaio 2011). This is different to the one that appeared in The Art Newspaper ("Clandestine excavation is a crime that is hard to prove", January 2011), and contrasts with the statement by Marion True ("Neither condemned nor vindicated", The Art Newspaper January 2011). Ferri particularly commented on True's comments about the Getty board and their place in making acquisitions ("True affermava che l’intero board era consapevole degli acquisti").

He also reminds us that the case against Hecht continues and thus there was a limit to what can be said without compromising the judicial process ("La Corte non poteva dire di più: sta ancora processando Hecht, non può anticipare il giudizio").

The key bit about the report is that Isman also records the legal decisions. He notes the statement from Judge Aurora Cantilòlo: "Non è possibile procedere all’assoluzione per nessuno dei reati contestati". Cantilòlo is also reported to have written:

«Le acquisizioni probatorie non consentono una constatazione di tal tipo, nemmeno per il delitto di associazione a delinquere»; dagli «atti e testimonianze, emergono gravi indizi sull’esistenza di un’articolata organizzazione a livello transnazionale, dedita alla ricettazione e al traffico internazionale di opere d’arte provento di furto o scavo clandestino, esportate in modo clandestino e destinate in molti casi all’acquisto da parte dei più prestigiosi musei del mondo».

Italian Prosecutor: "We want to repatriate those objects"

Paolo Ferri, the Italian prosecutor, has been linked to many of the returned antiquities. He is now quoted over the possible identification of three lots in a forthcoming New York auction to images from the Medici Dossier (Dalya Alberge, "Critics Say Christie's Should Pull 3 Items From Auction", Wall Street Journal June 3, 2010).

Paolo Ferri, a Rome prosecutor who specializes in art theft cases, is seeking to recover the objects. He described the Christie's sale as "very unethical," adding: "We want to repatriate those objects." He said he had been aware of the sale since the catalogue was published some weeks ago and was pursuing his efforts to repatriate the objects through diplomatic and international police channels.

Ferri added, "Christie's knows they are selling objects that appeared in the Medici archive".

Alberge, who also covered the April sale of antiquities at Bonhams in London, interviewed a range of European and North American scholars. Lord Renfrew of Kaimsthorn added: "The auction houses are doing themselves no favors in continuing to offer tainted antiquities for sale".

Cambridge University researcher Christos Tsirogiannis, who used to work with the Hellenic Ministry of Culture, has been studying the seized photographic archives. He is quoted:

Photos from the Medici archive suggest that all three objects are probably illicit, unless Christie's proves with evidence and beyond any doubt the legal provenance of the objects, by simply providing their full history after 1970.

Alberge also interviewed ICE Special Agent James McAndrew who headed the investigations that led to the seizures from Christie's in 2008 and 2009:

he is looking into the June 10 sale, as he would any sale, and with Christie's co-operation. He emphasized Christie's efforts at due diligence and compliance when offering objects for sale, and that the auctioneer doesn't always have access to all the information available to law-enforcement agencies. Still, he added: "I think they could do better."

A spokesperson for Christie's issued a statement:

"With respect to these particular lots, Christie's has not been notified of a title claim by any government authority, nor are these lots identified as problematic by the Art Loss Register or Interpol. As an added measure, Christie's has undertaken its own research into this matter and has found no evidence to support the need to withdraw these lots. Unless and until Christie's receives a title claim, we plan to proceed with the sale of these lots."

Christie's can now be expected to reveal the full collecting histories for the three pieces for the period from 1970. They also need to explain why they "forgot" to mention in the original catalogue entry for lot 139 that it first surfaced at Sotheby's London in 1992.

Shelby White: "it’s not as though she is hiding anything"

Back in 2006 Frances Marzio, a curator at the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston, was interviewed for The New York Observer (Jason Horowitz, "How Hot Vase It?", February 19, 2006). The context was the investigation by Italian authorities into objects in the Shelby White collection including an Attic red-figured calyx-krater attributed to the Eucharides painter.

The krater is one of several objects named some time ago in documents obtained by The New York Observer, in which Italian prosecutors charge that several key treasures in Ms. Shelby’s collection were mined illegally from Italian soil.

Horowitz continued:

On Monday, Paolo Ferri, a leading prosecutor in the Italian investigation, told The Observer that his team had unearthed fresh evidence on Jan. 31 linking new items in Ms. White’s collection to the Aboutaam family, the owners of the Phoenix Ancient Art gallery and the target of several investigations and convictions in Egypt and New York. ...

“Now we have new documents through Aboutaam,” said Mr. Ferri. “We have photographs and paper trails that link even more of the Levy-White collection to the Aboutaams and [Giacomo] Medici ... The connection is very strong.”

He would not specify which new pieces in Ms. White’s collection were coming under scrutiny as a result of the Aboutaam evidence.

How did Shelby White respond back in 2006?

Let me put it this way: We bought in good faith, we published everything, we supported archeology, and we supported conservation ... We acted in good faith, and if we did anything wrong, I am prepared to address that.

And that probably explains why on mid-January she handed over nine antiquities to Italian authorities (and a tenth will follow). (We are still waiting for the publication of the list, though nine of the pieces are going on display in Rome.)

So it was back in 2006 that Frances Marzio was asked about her views on Shelby White:

“In the case of people like Shelby White, it’s not as though she is hiding anything,” said Frances Marzio, a curator at the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston. “She is lending things internationally, publishing things. I don’t see any deviousness; she funds excavations. If you don’t put things out there, how will we learn about their history? You take a risk by putting things out there. People could claim it.”

What we now know is that at the time a bronze krater was on loan from Shelby White to Houston.

Frances Marzio reassures us about Shelby White:

it’s not as though she is hiding anything.

Shelby White has been quoted as saying:

I want to be helpful.

So there is nothing to hide and Shelby White wants to be helpful.

Please could the collecting history for the bronze krater in Houston be disclosed?

Image
Attic red-figured calyx-krater attributed to the Eucharides painter. Once in the Shelby White collection; once on loan to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; perhaps handed over to Italian authorities. Source: The New York Observer.

Marion True: civil charges dropped

As the Getty and Italy signed the agreement to formalise the return of antiquities, Jason Welch and Livia Borghese in the LA Times reported "Italy drops civil charges against ex-Getty curator" (September 25, 2007).

"Maurizio Fiorilli, a state lawyer representing Italy, said he would announce his intent to withdraw from the trial when the proceedings resume today. But the more serious criminal trial against True, 58, will continue."

So what is the criminal trial about?

"Ferri said the criminal trial, the first in which an American curator has been charged by a foreign county, was intended to be both punitive and preventive. 'The preventive aspect was to say to museums: Please stop this buying in an illicit fashion, and please return the objects,' Ferri said in an interview Tuesday. 'This has now been achieved, and museums that are obliged to surrender objects won't be in the same trouble.'"

The publication of research by Gill and Chippindale on (some of) the returning antiquities from the Getty is timely.

Toledo: first stage over?

Etruscan hydria

The news that the Etruscan hydria would be returned from the Toledo Museum of Art hardly comes as a surprise. In March 2006, Vanity Fair ("The Getty's Blue Period") noted:

True was indicted last April by Paolo Ferri, a tenacious Italian prosecutor who had been working on the case for many years. The primary evidence was Polaroid photos of thousands of allegedly looted antiquities, some still covered in dirt, which had been discovered in a Swiss warehouse belonging to Giacomo Medici, a Maserati-driving Italian dealer. While True is the only major museum curator to have been indicted by Ferri, the Getty is not the only U.S. museum to own objects that appear in the photographs. So do New York's Metropolitan Museum, Boston's Museum of Fine Arts, the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, the Toledo Museum of Art, and the Princeton University Art Museum, according to Italian court records.

As well the J. Paul Getty Museum, each of the museums noted in the article have returned objects to Italy. Boston led the way in a prompt and dignified manner, although museums such as Minneapolis and Toledo have rather let the affair drag out.

The "open wound" of surfacing antiquities

One of the major (and unresolved) stories of 2010 related to antiquities in the National Archaeological Museum in Madrid. One of the photographs that appeared in The Art Newspaper showed a Gnathian krater in the Zurich workshop (a bathroom?) of Fritz and Harry Bürki.

Fabio Isman has now revealed that the Apulian pyxis shown at the front of the same photograph has been spotted in a New York gallery (Fabio Isman, "Tutto iniziò negli anni Settanta, quando il Met...", Il Giornale dell'Arte gennaio 2011). Isman comments:

Una pisside apula a figure rosse del 340 a.C., una scatola di forma tonda che apparteneva a una misteriosa «collezione inglese» ed è stata acquistata a Londra nel 1990, è apparentemente ritratta invece nel laboratorio di Fritz e Harri Bürki, padre e figlio di Zurigo (Fritz era bidello nell’università dove ha studiato Hecht), perquisiti dalla giustizia italiana che ha loro sequestrato anche altri oggetti: hanno restaurato tra l’altro il cratere di Eufronio con la Morte di Sarpedonte. La pisside apula, la cui foto era tra quelle di Medici, è immortalata proprio accanto a uno degli oggetti finiti al Museo di Madrid.

The pxyis was attributed to the Baltimore painter by A.D. Trendall.

Isman's article is informed by the meticulous work of Cambridge researcher Christos Tsirogiannis. Some 16 objects were linked to the photographic archives obtained through raids in Geneva, Basel and on the island of Schinousa. Isman makes clear that how it had been possible to consult the images:

Il portfolio di Medici è stato pubblicato, e per qualche tempo era possibile consultarlo, sul sito del Comando Carabinieri per la Tutela del patrimonio culturale; anche quello di Becchina è pubblico: già da tre anni allegato al processo di Roma contro Marion True (nel frattempo prosciolta) e Robert Hecht.

Isman reviews how these images have been used in recent years to identify items resurfacing on the market in London and New York.

Nine of the items, all Attic, Etruscan or South Italian pots, had formed part of the Patricia Kluge collection. One piece, an Campanian oinochoe, had also resided in the John Kluge collection. Back in 2007 Lee Rosenbaum (Culturegrrl) reported on some bronzes that were returned to Italy:

[The dealer] told me that he had sold the bronzes in the 1980s to collector John Kluge, who put them up for auction at Christie's on June 8, 2004. [The dealer] repurchased them there (for $6,573 and $9,560, respectively). He said that he had also voluntarity returned other pieces, when he learned that they had been illegally taken from Italy.

It appears that the bronzes had been removed from Italian collections in the 1970s.

Isman also comments on the Clarence Day sale at Sotheby's New York in December 2010.

Lo stesso vale per i tre bronzetti ex Symes andati all’asta da Sotheby’s a inizio dicembre: un cinghiale valutato 50mila dollari, un giovane danzatore etrusco (60mila) e due applique anch’esse etrusche (90mila). Provengono dalla favolosa collezione del filantropo Clarence Day, morto a 82 anni nel 2009, ed erano riemersi circa 30 anni fa da Mathias Komor, mercante newyorkese deceduto nel 1984. Day, infatti, s’innamora dell’archeologia negli anni ’70, come dimostrano le fotografie dell’isola greca, in cui la polizia ellenica ha sequestrato nel 2006 il portfolio d’infinite opere di provenienza illegittima passate per le mani di Symes e di Christos Michaelides, allora suo socio, come ha ricostruito sempre Gill. Nella fotografia il giovane danzatore etrusco è ancora sporco della terra di scavo.

It looks as if the collecting histories of that collection deserved a little more scrutiny.

Isman concludes his pieces with some comments from Paolo Ferri, the former state prosecutor.

È difficile capire, 15 anni dopo, come antichità di cui alcuni tra i maggiori mercanti possedevano le immagini prima del restauro, possano essere ancora in circolazione nel mercato.

No wonder Ferri considers the appearance of such antiquities on the market an "open wound".

Objects identified from the Medici Dossier

Christos Tsirogiannis and I have reviewed the way that objects surfacing on the antiquities market can be identified through the Medici Dossier. It notes that some of the databases have been using information from the dossier, and that information has in some cases been passed to auction houses. This suggests that there needs to be an improved due diligence process for those involved with the market.

Gill, D. W. J., and C. Tsirogiannis. 2016. "Polaroids from the Medici dossier: continued sightings on the market." In Art crime: terrorists, tomb raiders, forgers and thieves, edited by N. Charney: 229-39. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

The paper is a revision of:
Gill, D. W. J., and C. Tsirogiannis. 2011. "Polaroids from the Medici Dossier: continued sightings on the market." Journal of Art Crime 5: 27-33.

Full details of the book can be found here.

Other contributors:

• George H.O. Abungu, Okello Abungu Heritage Consultants, Kenya 
• Stefano Alessandrini, Specialist Consultant to the Ministero per i Beni Culturali and the Advocate General 
• Maurizio Fiorilli, Italy 
• Colonel Matthew Bogdanos, New York County District Attorney's Office, USA 
• Toby J.A. Bull, Hong Kong Police Force, Hong Kong SAR 
• Neil Brodie, University of Glasgow, UK 
• Duncan Chappell, Australian Institute of Criminology 
• Noah Charney, Association for Research into Crimes against Art 
• Simon A. Cole, Newkirk Center for Science and Society, USA 
• Tess Davis, University of Glasgow, UK 
• Asif Efrat, Interdisciplinary Center Herzliya, Israel 
• Paolo Girogio Ferri, Former Italian State Prosecutor 
• David Gill, University Campus Suffolk, UK 
• Blake Gopnik, Art Critic 
• Patricia Kennedy Grimsted, Harvard University, USA 
• Karl von Habsburg-Lothringen, Association of National Committees of the Blue Shield 
• Jerome Hasler, Art Recovery Group International 
• Charles Hill, Formerly London Metropolitan Police, UK 
• Saskia Hufnagel, Queen Mary University London, UK 
• Martin Kemp, University of Oxford, UK 
• John Kerr, University of Roehampton, UK 
• Thierry Lenain, Université Libre de Bruxelles, Belgium 
• Simon Mackenzie, University of Glasgow, UK 
• Christopher A. Marinello, Art Recovery Group International 
• Erik Nemth, Independent Scholar 
• Vernon Rapley, Victoria and Albert Museum, UK 
• Lawrence Rothfield, University of Chicago, USA 
• Laurie W. Rush, US Army 
• Francesco Rutelli, Associazione Priorita' Cultura, Italy 
• Howard Spiegler, Herrick, Feinstein's International Art Law Group 
• Arthur Tompkins, District Court Judge, New Zealand 
• Christos Tsirogiannis, University of Glasgow, UK 
• Bill Wei, Cultural Heritage Agency of the Netherlands

The Marion True Trial in Rome: some lessons

The news that the long-running Rome case against Marion True has been dropped was expected. The Italian authorities have demonstrated that they are unwilling to turn a blind eye to the acquisition of recently-surfaced antiquities that appear to have been removed from archaeological contexts in Italy. The parading of a curator from such a high profile museum must have sent an icy blast through many a museum with displays of antiquities. Torkom Demirjian of Ariadne Galleries in New York is likely to be right to interpret the case: "Don’t deal with Italian cultural patrimony or we’ll create a headache for you". And it is clear that raids on the Geneva Freeport provided the evidence to lay the trail from Italy to North America via Switzerland.

It would be inappropriate to ask how much True knew about such networks of suppliers and dealers. But it is worth considering if she ever considered the source (or collecting histories) of each of the items as they were offered to her. Why were these high profile objects previously unknown? Did she really believe that they had been residing in some private villa beside Lake Geneva? Did she ever wonder why a Greek pot could be reconstructed from a sequence of fragments ("orphans") that all seemed to surface over a few years?

The object by object consideration of each of the 35 pieces challenged by the Italian authorities would have provided an opportunity to lay bare the networks behind the trade in such items. And it needs to be stressed that the J. Paul Getty Museum had acted responsibly and released the full collecting histories; these have received a detailed discussion (details).

The case has also revealed information about the Barbara and Laurence Fleischman collection that was acquired by the Getty.

Has every North American museum co-operated with the Italian authorities? What about the Minneapolis Institute of Arts with its Attic red-figured krater? And what will happen over the Princeton University Art Museum? And then there are the European collections (such as Copenhagen) and the Miho Museum in Japan.

Yet has there been a change in the attitude of museum curators in North America towards acquisitions? The AAMD has adapted its position over acquiring archaeological material (in spite of criticisms from James Cuno who is now perceived as being "out of touch"). And with the return of over 120 antiquities from North America to Italy, Paolo Ferri is right to say: "Italy showed that it wanted to break with past practices".

The True case will serve as a reminder to any museum curator who is tempted to buy that one object that will make their gallery world famous.

Marion True: some preliminary thoughts on the New Yorker Interview

Marion True has presented her side of the recent saga of returning antiquities in an extended interview with Hugh Eakin ("Treasure Hunt: The Downfall of the Getty Curator Marion True", New Yorker, December 17, 2007). True became curator of antiquities at the J. Paul Getty Museum in 1986.

By the second paragraph Eakin had inserted the fact:

In 1995, True had persuaded the Getty to adopt ethical standards requiring objects proposed for acquisition to have been documented and written about by scholars.

The implication is clear. True acted with integrity. And this was a point stressed by Malcolm Bell III in his opinion piece, "The Getty's Italian Job", in The New York Times, November 28, 2005.

Mr. Ferri's outrage at the looting of Italy's heritage is justified. By laying bare the archives and warehouses of major dealers, he has revealed corruption at the core of the market. But in prosecuting Marion True, he has used decades-old evidence against a curator who brought needed reform to the Getty Museum, and I can only hope the Italian courts recognize the good she has done.

But what Bell did not know back in 2005 was the case that was developing for the return of antiquities acquired under True's curatorship.

Objects that have been returned to Italy include:

a. Objects formerly owned by Barbara and Lawrence Fleischman and acquired in 1996.

b. Attic black-figured zone cup attributed to the manner of the Lysippides painter. Ex Getty 87.AE.22. Purchased from Fritz Bürki & Son, Switzerland.

c. Fragments of the Douris phiale (first fragments acquired in 1981 as a gift from Werner Nussberger). Ex Getty 88.AE.30 (purchased from Galerie Nefer); also anonymous loan L.92.AE.88.2-3.

d. Attic red-figured calyx-krater, attributed to the the Copenhagen / Aegisthus painters. Ex Getty 88.AE.66. Surfaced in Basel, Münzen und Medaillen; Freiburg, Morat-Institut; purchased from Christoph Leon.

e. Attic red-figured calyx-krater, Syriskos. Ex Getty 92.AE.6 (Robin Symes [1988]; Fleischman collection) and 96.AE.335 (New York, Acanthus Gallery).

f. Apulian red-figured pelike, attributed to the Darius painter. Ex Getty 87.AE.23. Purchased from Fritz Bürki & Son, Switzerland.

g. Apulian pelike, attributed to near the group of Ruvo 423. Ex Getty 86.AE.611. Purchased from Fritz Bürki & Son, Switzerland.

h. Marble statue of Aphrodite. Ex Getty 88.AA.76. Purchased form Robin Symes.

Further objects have been returned to Greece:

i. Marble kore. Ex Getty 93.AA.24. Purchased from Robin Symes.

j. Grave stele of Athanias. Ex Getty 93.AA.47. Purchased from Safani Gallery.

k. Gold funerary wreath. Ex Getty 93.AM.30. Purchased from Christoph Leon.

The wholesale acquisition of the Fleischman collection was clearly a mistake. But as True says in the Eakin interview:

By the time I met Larry Fleischman, he had a big collection, and many things he bought from Symes ... And I bought from Symes.

I wonder if she remembers her quote from the 1996 interview with The Art Newspaper (J.E. Kaufman, "Getty Decides Publishing Equals Provenance"; and quoted by Colin Renfrew in Loot, Legitimacy and Ownership [2000], p. 70):

This [Fleischman] acquisition is in line with exactly what we said we would do ... We went out of our way to be clear that we were not saying we would not buy any more unprovenanced material.

But there were problems with the Fleischman antiquities. Some were recently surfaced as their histories showed all too clearly. Renfrew wisely observed:

The Getty's new position as announced in 1995 is thus not quite the radical change of policy which it seemed at first to many observers.

Indeed one of the observers who has supported the Getty position is John H. Merryman who cited the museum's revised policy as an example of the way for a museum to adopt "elaborate due-diligence procedures" (see "Due-diligence procedures are not enough to satisfy them"). How misguided he was. The revised policy was fatally flawed and has led to the return of antiquities to both Greece and Italy.

Eakin could have explored issues such as these as part of a more penetrating interview. But he chose not to do so.

Image
The Athanias stele on display in the National Archaeological Museum, Athens. © David Gill.

Princeton and the Hecht Trial

My comments ("Will Princeton Follow Yale?") on the Attic psykter and the Apulian loutrophoros in Princeton were apparently timely. One of my contacts in Rome sent me an update of the September 26, 2007 hearing of the Hecht / True trial in Rome and is happy for me to share it with you.

Apparently:

"The witness, Daniela Rizzo of the Villa Giulia museum, brought up two works she said were at Princeton: an Apulian amphora and a terracotta panel depicting a horse."

It is reported that a Polaroid of the "amphora" seized from Giacomo Medici's store in the Geneva warehouse was shown.

"On the bottom of the Polaroid Medici had written "V-BO," a frequent notation of his that the prosecution contends means Medici sold an object "via Bob" Hecht."

Rizzo continued:

"during the June 2001 deposition of True at the Getty, the Italian team showed True various photos from Medici's archive and that True identified the amphora in that photo as being at Princeton. According to the Italian transcript of True's deposition, prosecutor Paolo Ferri showed True a photo, asking if she knew where the object was, and she responded, "At Princeton, the Apulian amphora, I know of that amphora from photographs... I knew that one from photos that Dale Trendall had.""

Is the Apulian "amphora" the same as the Apulian loutrophoros acquired in 1989 as an "anonymous gift"? Can a leading university museum afford to remain silent on what has become such a controversial acquisition? Or was True mistaken?

Please could somebody clarify?

Journal of Art Crime 6 (2011)

I have now seen a copy of the fall number of the Journal of Art Crime 6 (2011).

Readers of LM will be interested in the following:

• Derek Fincham, "The Empty Frame. Cerveteri: a vulnerable ancient masterpiece", 50-51.
• David W.J. Gill, "Context matters. Compliance and the antiquities market", 52-56.
• Paolo Giorgio Ferri, "Are penal procedures only a last resort?", 65-67.
• General B(a) CC Giovanni Pastore, "Archaeology and the problem of unauthorized excavation in Italy", 68-72.

Marion True: press reactions

I thought it would be interesting to look at some of the reactions to the news that the case against Marion True has been dropped.

Nadja Brandt, "Italy Drops Conspiracy Charges Against Ex-Curator Marion True, Getty Says", Bloomberg.com OCtober 13, 2010.

Brandt quotes Torkom Demirjian of Ariadne Galleries in New York:

“It was a politically motivated trial just to send the message: Don’t deal with Italian cultural patrimony or we’ll create a headache for you ... This whole thing is a bureaucratic and ideological overreach. It’s a political decision to discourage private collecting of antiquities.”

The Ariande Galleries, it should be remembered, were reported to be linked to the Icklingham bronzes.

Elisabetta Povoledo writes on the New York Times blog ("Case Involving Former Curator Marion True Ends", October 13, 2010):

Paolo Ferri, the now-retired prosecutor who built the case against Ms. True, said on Wednesday that the trial had served as a signal to museums that buying objects without provenance “had to end.” With the trial, he said, “Italy showed that it wanted to break with past practices.”

"The result of a traumatic action": Hecht and Copenhagen

The Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek in Copenhagen appears to have made several acquisitions from Robert Hecht over the years (see earlier discussions). Elisabetta Povoledo ("Danish Museum Resists Return of Disputed Artifacts", New York Times March 17, 2009) reports on the continuing negotiations.

So what are the issues?

• a. Did the Ny Carlsberg acquire objects from Hecht?
• b. What were the recorded and documented histories for the pieces?
• c. Were the pieces known for certain prior to 1970?

Povoledo records that in the February hearing in Rome,

correspondence from the early 1970s between him [sc. Hecht] and former Glyptotek officials regarding the sale of dozens of objects to the museum — including an Etruscan calesse, or two-wheeled horse-drawn carriage, excavated near Fara in Sabina, just north of Rome — was presented as evidence against him.

The tomb in the Colle del Forno necropolis had apparently been looted by tombaroli prior to its excavation in 1970. Material from the grave allegedly passed to the Ny Carlsberg. Daniela Rizzo commented:

They were visibly the result of a traumatic action ... It would have been impossible not to know that it had been illegally excavated. Archaeologists can read between the lines.

Hecht now claims that he firs saw the objects in Switzerland. Can he remember where? Who had them in their possession at the time?

The Italian prosecutor, Paolo Giorgio Ferri, is now reported to be preparing a legal case against staff at the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek.

The list of items said to have been acquired from Hecht and Giacomo Medici include:

• an acroterion of a winged sphinx
  
• an Etruscan terra cotta antefix ("similar to one returned by the Getty last year"; see report)
  
• terra cotta reliefs of warriors on horseback.

The curatorial authorities at the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek now need to demonstrate that they are willing to resolve the situation. Will they publish the documentation relating to each of the contested pieces?

A mature decision would lead to the negotiation for the return of a selection of the disputed pieces. Procrastination will only tarnish the reputation of the museum.

Christie's on cultural property

We have been reassured that Christie's "do[es] not sell works that we have reason to believe are stolen" (May 2010). G. Max Bernheimer, International Head of Antiquities at Christie's , has stated, "Provenance has always been important, and in light of recent repatriation issues, it has become paramount" (May 2010). More recently Bernheimer has commented (March 2011):

"Buying through an auction house, where due diligence is incredibly thorough and everything is openly published in the catalogue, limits the possibilities over ownership and repatriation issues later on."

Indeed he is quoted as saying, "Christie's sells only objects that it can confirm as legitimately acquired" (February 2011). Moreover, in 2009 a spokesperson for Christie's described objects identified from seized photographic archives as "stolen".

Yet in May 2010 Christie's (New York) pressed ahead with the sale of a number of items that had been identified in spite of calls by Paolo Ferri for the objects to be returned. Questions have also been raised about the recorded collecting histories of lots (April 2011).

So what will Christie's (London) do if they are requested to withdraw material by the Italian authorities this week? And have the full collecting histories been disclosed to potential buyers?

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.

Hecht Trial: Jason Felch comments

Jason Felch has commented on the expiry of the Robert Hecht Trial for the LA Times.

“There is plenty of evidence,” Ferri said, citing as an example Hecht’s own handwritten memoir, in which the dealer detailed his long career buying ancient art from Medici and other suppliers whom Hecht described as “clandestine diggers.” An organizational chart seized from a middleman in the illicit trade showed Hecht’s name at the top of a pyramid of suspected looters and smugglers.

I am grateful to Chasing Aphrodite for the link.

Correction: I misattributed this report to Vernon Silver.

Some Reunited Fresco Fragments?

One of the pieces said to have been handed over by Shelby White to the Italian authorities last week is a "Section from a fresco". Maxwell L. Anderson, who wrote the catalogue entry (Glories of the Past no. 142), noted:

This section of fresco is part of the upper zone of a wall from a Second Style house. Various details, including the ornate Corinthian capitals with inlaid stones, the distinctive mask on the lintel, and the shields on the shelf to the left, suggest that it was completed by a workshop in the environs of Pompeii during the third quarter of the first century B.C.

The piece is mentioned in the catalogue of the Barbara and Lawrence Fleischman (A Passion for Antiquities no. 126). There Maxwell Anderson wrote:

The upper part of the fresco matches precisely the upper portion of a fresco section in the Shelby White and Leon Levy collection ...

This Fleischman piece ("Lunette with Mask of Herakles") was described as follows:

The superb illusionism of Second-Style Roman wall painting is brilliantly in evidence in this fragment from the upper zone of a Pompeian wall. To judge from the scale of the fragment, the room was intimate in scale and may have been a bed-room (cubiculum) or dining room (triclinium).

The Fleischman fragment, purchased from Fritz Bürki, had been included in the Getty's August 2007 agreement with Italy (as J. Paul Getty Museum inv. no. 96.AG.171). This announcement led to my speculation (with additional information, "From Malibu to Rome: implications for Shelby White") about the piece still in the possession of Shelby White.

But Anderson also noted that these two pieces from the Shelby White and Fleischman collections are related to a third fragment once in the Fleischman collection:

... from the same room, as is catalogue number 125.

Passion no. 125, "Vignettes of Cityscapes", remains in the J. Paul Getty Museum (inv. no. 96.AG.170) and did not form part of the 2007 agreement.

There is also reported to be a fourth fragment of the wall-painting. Peter Watson and Cecilia Todeschini (The Medici Conspiracy, pp. 119 and 349) note in their discussion of the ex-Fleischman Herakles fragment (Passion no. 126):

in dimensions, subject matter, and condition, in [Paolo Giorgio] Ferri's words, it "would appear to be a twin to another fresco" seized in Geneva from [Giacomo] Medici.

The ex-Fleischman fragment with the mask of Herakles is now on display in Rome ("Nostoi: Capolavori ritrovati"), and the Shelby White piece is likely to join it.

Which dealer supplied it? Was it Bürki (as for the Fleischman piece)? Or were dismembered wall-painting fragments distributed round a network of dealers as P. Watson and C. Todeschini have demonstrated for fragments of Greek figure-decorated pottery?

Will the J. Paul Getty Museum now make a generous and gracious gesture to return the second Fleischman fragment to Italy so that the pieces can be viewed together? Michael Brand, the director of the Getty, has recently expressed his views about the return of antiquities to Italy, but he would understand that the intention of the original ancient artist was for the fragments to be displayed and seen together. Now is the time for the fragments to be reunited.

The measurements of the three pieces are:

• Glories no. 142: h. 86.2 cm, w. 86.5 cm
• Passion no. 125: h. 91 cm, w. 80. 5 cm
• Passion no. 126: h. 61 cm, w. 81 cm
  

The arrangement of the fragments has been created by David Gill and is intended to give an impression of the original design. It is not an accurate reconstruction though the fragments are at the same approximate scale.

Christie's: Overview

Here is an overview of some recent stories relating to Christie's:

• Paolo Ferri and comments in the Wall Street Journal [June 3, 2010]
• Max Bernheimer and the critical break-off date [May 31, 2010]
• Max Bernheimer and "provenance ... has become paramount" [May 28, 2010]
• A dilemma for Christie's [May 27, 2010]
• Christie's and cooperation with ICE in 2009 [May 26, 2010]
• Michael H. Miller on Christie's, "messy, murky issues" [May 26, 2010]
• Christie's Public Relations Officer on "stolen artifacts" [May 20, 2010]
• The transparency of the public auction system [May 20, 2010]
• Apulian rhyton [May 19, 2010]
• Canosan terracotta [May 18, 2010]
• "We do not sell works that we have reason to believe are stolen" [May 17, 2010]
• Roman marble youth [May 12, 2010]
• Apulian rhyton from an American private collection [May 8, 2010]
• Lessons from the Geneva Freeport [May 7, 2010]
• A Roman youth with cockerel [May 7, 2010]
• Gold jewellery and Iraq [March 1, 2010]
• Antiquities at auction in New York [January 5, 2010]
• Toxic antiquities: the sales of 1985 [December 3, 2009]
• Christie's Public Relations Officer on pots seized at auction-houses [November 4, 2009]
• Pots seized in New York: update [October 20, 2009]
• Corinthian krater recovered [June 3, 2009]
• Christie's withdraws jewellery lot [December 5, 2008]