Met artifacts questioned by Italy.

[Bozur]

Confrontation With Italy Looms at the Met


Met artifacts questioned by Italy.

By ELISABETTA POVOLEDO
Published: November 21, 2005

In its pristine glass case at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, a small black terra-cotta vase with red figures depicting Zeus cradling Dionysus says little to the casual viewer about its origins. As string music filtered into the Greek and Roman galleries on Friday night, tour groups who stopped to glance at its label saw only that the vase, known as an amphora, is attributed to a painter from the fifth century B.C. and that it arrived at the Met in 1982.


Beatrice Larco/Associated Press
Rocco Buttiglione, Italy's culture minister.


Sara Krulwich/The New York Times
Philippe de Montebello of the Met.

But for Italian investigators tracking looted antiquities, the amphora is of keen interest. They say that Polaroid photographs obtained in a 1995 raid on a warehouse in Geneva show that the vessel was among thousands of artifacts illegally excavated from Italian soil. At a meeting tomorrow in Rome, they plan to question the Met's director about the provenance of that object and about 30 others that they assert were clandestinely excavated before making their way into the museum's collection or the private trove of Shelby White, a Met trustee.

Their hope is to bring about a day of reckoning for American museums and collectors, requiring them to explain how they came into possession of such objects and even to return some of them.

"We're going to say, these pieces have emerged as evidence in the trial of a convicted art dealer, they were illegally excavated and taken from Italy, and we would like them back," said Maurizio Fiorilli, the lawyer representing the Italian government.

A spokesman for the Met, Harold Holzer, said the museum would not comment on any specific item cited by the Italians in advance of the meeting between Philippe de Montebello, the Met's director, and Italian cultural officials. Ms. White, who amassed a vast antiquities collection with her husband, Leon Levy, who died in 2003, also declined to comment on the Italians' allegations.

Mr. de Montebello faces a careful balancing act as he fields questions from Mr. Fiorilli on those Greek and other ancient artifacts. While Italy's culture minister, Rocco Buttiglione, has emphasized that his government is not out to "destroy the cultural potential of American museums," the ministry has threatened to deny loans to museums that refuse to cooperate. And in a powerful reminder of the Italians' determination, a former curator from the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles went on trial in Rome last week on criminal charges of conspiring to import looted antiquities for that museum's collection.

Much of the evidence in that case relates to the 1995 raid, in which investigators uncovered thousands of photographs and negatives of archaeological pieces neatly arranged in albums. Many photographs showed ancient vases and pots still encrusted with dirt, in some cases photographed in the open countryside, surrounded by weeds. Others showed fragments of ancient artifacts wrapped in local newspapers, to prove their Italian provenance, and still others depicted recently discovered tombs, their crude openings sealed with makeshift covers.

According to Italian court documents, seven important vases of "extraordinary artistic quality" in the Met's collection have been identified in photographs found in that warehouse, rented by the Italian dealer Giacomo Medici. The documents assert that Mr. Medici received and restored those pieces in Switzerland and then sold them through dealers like Robert Hecht, an American who is currently on trial in Rome with Marion True, the former Getty curator.

In addition to that amphora, attributed to the so-called Eucharides Painter, the Italians cite Polaroid photographs of a red-figured amphora lying in pieces on a nondescript gray carpet. One depicts a cloaked young male figure on the back of the amphora; another shows its base, photographed as it lay in a suitcase.

Attributed to the artist widely referred to as the Berlin Painter, this red-figure amphora, now expertly restored, is on display in the Met's Greek and Roman galleries. Other objects cited in the documents that reside in the Met's collection also include a kylix, or drinking cup, from the sixth century B.C.; an oinochoe, or pitcher, in the shape of a head for which the Italian government did not give a date; and a red-figured dinos, or bowl for mixing wine and water, from the first century B.C. that depicts Herakles and Busiris and is attributed to the so-called Darius Painter.

Also on the Italians' list of Met artifacts are a red-figured psykter, or vase for cooling wine, decorated with horsemen; the Euphronios krater, a renowned red-figured vase from the sixth century B.C. ; and 15 pieces of silver from the third century B.C.

The items that Italy plans to discuss with Mr. de Montebello include eight objects in the Levy-White collection. Mr. Holzer declined to say whether any of those items are on loan to the Met, but one of them - a vessel attributed to Eucharides Painter - was visible in the Greek and Roman galleries Friday night along with more than a dozen other items lent by the Levy-White collection.

Mr. Holzer said that as of Friday, Italy had "not submitted a list or supplied supporting information to the Metropolitan Museum" for discussion at tomorrow's meeting.

But Mr. Fiorilli said the delegation from the Culture Ministry would be reiterating what Italy has told the Met in earlier rogatories, or formal requests for information as part a legal discovery process - that they believe these specific works were illegally excavated and exported from Italy. He said he wanted the Met to clarify the channels through which it obtained them.

The Met's Euphronius krater and the 15 pieces in its Morgantina silver collection have long been a source of contention between the museum and the Italian government.

In both cases, the Italians say that over the years they have produced plenty of evidence to the museum indicating that the artifacts were stolen by tomb robbers and whisked out of the country. But the Met has repeatedly replied that the evidence is inconclusive, the Italians said.

To bolster Italy's claims, however, court records show that Italian prosecutors have recovered a handwritten memoir by Mr. Hecht that recounts the story of the acqusition of the Euphronius krater, beginning with a morning in December 1971 when Mr. Medici approached him with a Polaroid photograph of the piece.

Court records in the case against Ms. True, the former Getty curator, show that both she and her predecessor at the Getty, Jiri Frel, have testified that Dietrich von Bothmer, who was the Met's antiquities curator in 1972, had informed them them of the exact location of the tomb where the krater was found, in an Etruscan site just north of Rome.

Mr. von Bothmer could not be reached for comment. But he has been quoted in The Los Angeles Times as denying that this incident occurred.

In the case of the silver pieces, which Italians claim were stolen from Morgantina, Sicily, negotiations have already begun. According to an Italian cultural official involved in the matter, who declined to be identified publicly, the Met has told the Italians that it would acknowledge the Sicilian provenance as long as they could keep half of the silver on loan for 25 years.

Sensing a shift in public opinion and emboldened by the evidence that has emerged during the 10-year investigation of Mr. Medici and his associates, the Italian authorities clearly feel they have strengthened their hand. The Getty Museum has already returned several pieces to Italy, including three artifacts it described as "donations" on the eve of Ms. True's trial this month.

In exchange for cooperation from museums, Italy has promised that it will review its policies for art loans, which currently run for up to four years, and consider extending that to eight or even 12 years. But it has made clear that it will deny loans to museums that refuse to cooperate.

Among the objects shown in photos found in Mr. Medici's archives, court records show, eight have been identified as pieces in Ms. White's collection and will be broached at tomorrow's meeting.

Ms. White, an occasional freelance contributor to The New York Times, and her husband have donated millions of dollars to the Met for the creation of new Greek and Roman galleries in their name that are to open in 2007. Many in the art world have long speculated that their prized antiquities collection will one day go to the museum.

But Mr. Holzer said, "No promise of a gift of the Levy-White collection has been made."


Elisabetta Povoledo reported from Rome for this article and Randy Kennedy contributed reporting from New York.

[Bozur]

The Met May Settle With Italy

By ELISABETTA POVOLEDO
Published: November 24, 2005

ROME, Nov. 23 - For all the saber-rattling before their grueling six-hour meeting on Tuesday, Italy's culture ministry and the Metropolitan Museum of Art have mapped out a potential solution to Italy's claims on antiquities in the museum's collection, officials said Wednesday. In essence, Italy would officially own the works, which it asserts were looted within its borders, but the Met would get to keep them - or receive objects of equal value as long-term loans.


Italian Carabinieri/Associated Press
An ancient plate from Sicily in the Met's collection is among the items claimed by Italy.

Officials said the compromise, still being worked out and requiring approval from the Met's board and the Italian government, could resolve Italy's longstanding claims to some of the Met's most prized antiquities, which include a 15-piece Hellenistic silver set and an urn from the sixth century B.C. decorated by the Greek painter Euphronios.

But in an interview, Philippe de Montebello, the Met's director, underscored that Italy would have to provide "incontrovertible evidence" to the museum that the works it claims were illegally excavated in Italy. "If we are convinced by the evidence, we will take appropriate action," he said.

Restitution would in any case not be an admission on the museum's part that it had knowledge of a potentially illicit provenance when it bought the pieces, he said, adding, "Any change of title - or the return - is without prejudice."

While remarking that the dispute had been a "thorn in everyone's side," Mr. de Montebello made clear that the museum did not intend to come out the loser. "If there were to be a return or a transfer of title to the Italian state where major objects are concerned, Italy will send the Met loans - for a continually renewable period of time - of objects of equal importance and beauty," he said. The operating principle, he added, is that "at no point will the absence of major objects not be covered by like objects from Italian collections."

In the meeting, Italy pressed claims on 22 objects in the Met's collection. But rather than negotiating for an admission of wrongdoing, said Giuseppe Proietti, a top member of the Italian delegation, Italy is seeking a pragmatic outcome.

"We will provide proof that the pieces came from Italy," Mr. Proietti said. "And new elements may have emerged that perhaps were not known when the museum bought some pieces, and that may convince a prestigious institution like the Met to act on this new information."

The dispute between Italy and the Met over the Euphronios krater, a bowl for mixing water and wine, dates from 1972, when the museum bought the piece for $1 million from Robert Hecht, an American dealer. Ten years later, Mr. Hecht sold the Met 15 objects that are widely described as some of the finest examples known of Hellenistic silver from the Magna Graecia region of ancient Greek colonies in southern Italy.

In both cases, Italy contended that the pieces had been illegally dug up and sold - the krater from a site near Rome and the silver from one in central Sicily. (Magna Graecia is distinct from Sicily.)

Pietro Giovanni Guzzo, the superintendent of Pompeii and an antiquities expert who studied the silver and whose findings were published by the Met, said on Wednesday that he believed that his study had conclusively shown that the pieces were from Sicily. "Until you find other scholars that say the contrary," he said, "these silver pieces are certainly from that area of Sicily."

On Wednesday, Mr. de Montebello said he was open to hearing the Italians out. "We think the evidence is inconclusive," he said. "On the other hand, if the Italians provided information that would suggest the high probability that they were illegally excavated, we could arrive at an arrangement - also including reciprocal loans - that puts the whole thing behind us."

Mr. Hecht, who sold the silver to the Met, is on trial in Rome on criminal charges of conspiring with Marion True, the former antiquities curator of the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles, to import stolen antiquities for the Getty. The case has refocused the spotlight on the illicit international trade in antiquities and spurred the Met to take a look at other pieces in its collection.

Evidence used to convict Giacomo Medici, an antiquities dealer who was a co-defendant in the original joint indictment, last December of trafficking in looted art led the Italians to home in on at least six other objects in the Met's antiquities collection.

But Mr. de Montebello said that Ms. True's trial did not figure in his decision to seek discussions with Italy's culture ministry. With that goal accomplished, the Met is now waiting for Italy to send the museum specific documentation on the contested items.

"Until now, we have received nothing; no information has been communicated to us," said Mr. de Montebello, who added that as far as he knew, only the United States Justice Department had been officially informed of Italy's claims to the Met pieces. "We have nothing to hide. We're interested in the truth and maintaining high ethical standards."

Italian investigators, however, speaking on condition of anonymity for fear of jeopardizing the negotiations, said that the Met had received an international subpoena from the Italians regarding several objects and that it had responded to it.

Pressed on the subpoena, Mr. de Montebello characterized it as a request for information from the Justice Department rather than specifically from the Italians, but acknowledged that the museum had responded to it.

But legal action against the Met now seems to be the last thing on Italy's agenda. "We don't want to arrive at the point we got to with the Getty, and there's the will on both sides here to close this chapter," said Mr. Proietti, who added that the ministry had sought to reach a similar accord with the Los Angeles institution three years ago.

"Had the Getty listened to us then, we probably would not have arrived at the point we are now in Rome," he said.

Mr. de Montebello spoke on Wednesday of the "sea change" that had come about at museums in recent years, with the introduction of new ethical guidelines and stricter policies on acquisitions. "Before the purchase of any antiquity, rigorous due diligence is conducted, and there is no question that far fewer pieces in the future will meet our criteria," he said.

Both Mr. Proietti and Mr. de Montebello predicted that an agreement between Italy and the Met would not be long in coming, with the approval of the Met's board and the Italian government. And Mr. Montebello said the rotating loan agreement would give Italy valued exposure in the United States.

"There will be new public attention with every new loan, and heightened focus on Italy's cultural patrimony," he said, describing the Met as "a Fifth Avenue window for five million visitors."