Tag: Italy

In the News

I saw a couple of noteworthy items in the papers this morning.

First, there was an interesting note of a legal event held in London last week. Edward Fennell of the Times Online in his “In the City” feature talked about this event:

Last week Withers hosted one of the most curious legal events I have ever attended. In a gripping account to a smart multinational audience of art professionals, insurers and well-heeled collectors the firm’s art recovery expert, partner Pierre Valentin told how he helped to recover paintings from the Bakwin collection that had been stolen in America in the 1970s.

Working with the Art Loss Register (which operates in that seductive area where culture and money meet glamour and crime) Mr Valentin described a Hitchcock-like thriller featuring painstaking research, dodgy Russians and even murder – but all ending in happy success for the resolute legal sleuth. As the tale unfolded we could see on display the very “McGuffin” that had driven the drama – the collection of paintings themselves by Cézanne, Matisse, Soutine, Vlaminck By the end of an astonishing evening Withers had proved itself a true ornament to the City’s legal scene.

I take it Whithers must be a firm of Solicitors. Sounds like some fascinating stories. I do not know about this particular case, but I am familiar with Pierre Valentin. It sounds fascinating. Here is hoping he makes it up to Scotland.

Second, I noticed an AP story by Ariel David which has been picked up by a number of papers in recent weeks. I haven’t noted it before but it is an interesting story of the notorious tombaroli Pietro Casasanta who has testified at the True/Hecht trial and Rome. Here is an excerpt:

It used to be so easy for the “tombaroli,” Italy’s tomb raiders.

Pietro Casasanta had no Indiana Jones-type escapes from angry natives or booby-trapped temples. He worked undisturbed in daylight with a bulldozer, posing as a construction worker to become one of Italy’s most successful plunderers of archaeological treasures.

When he wasn’t in prison, the convicted looter operated for decades in this countryside area outside Rome, benefiting from what he says was lax surveillance that allowed him to dig into ancient Roman villas and unearth statues, pottery and other artifacts, which he then sold for millions of dollars on the illegal antiquities market.

“Nobody cared, and there was so much money going around,” he recalled. “I always worked during the day, with the same hours as construction crews, because at night it was easier to get noticed and to make mistakes.”

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Rutelli, Repatriation and Cultural Policy

Lee Rosenbaum has some very interesting things to say over at Culturegrrl on the press conference Italian Culture Minister Francesco Rutelli had yesterday at the Italian Cultural Institute in New York.

First, as Lee says,

Robert Stiriti (second from left, above), attaché at the American Embassy in Rome for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), told me that criminal charges “are pending” in Italy (but have not yet been filed) against an American private collector who owned several objects (including the marble sarcophagus of a child) recovered by ICE on Oct. 20 from his New York residence.

Also, Rutelli announced there may be a forthcoming agreement between Italy and Princeton concerning some objects, which would likely involve some loans from Italy.

The two cornerstones of recent Italian repatriation efforts have been the threat of prosecution along with cultural loans if objects are returned. It’s a strategy that has worked quite well. The engine behind these efforts is the political goodwill engendered in Italy when objects are returned. That seems to make Italy unique, perhaps in all the world, where cultural policy matters.

It brings to mind a time when perhaps cultural policy mattered in America.

There’s been a lot of discussion about President Franklin Delano Roosevelt and the Pentagon of late. I always enjoy stories of the Works Project Administration making art and building places like Red Rocks and The Supreme Court Building during the great depression. Steve Vogel has been making the rounds on npr and the daily show for his new book The Pentagon: The Untold Story. They broke ground on the building 3 months before Pearl Harbor (on September 11, 1941). The initial site was supposed to be opposite the Lincoln Memorial. But President Roosevelt was pressured by the fine arts commission to move the building site. They didn’t want to disturb the vista between Lee’s Mansion and the Lincoln memorial. The President who led America through the great depression and WWII stopped to consider the view for future generations. I couldn’t imagine the current executive taking such considerations; I think that tells volumes about how cultural policy has changed dramatically.

Questions or Comments? Email me at derek.fincham@gmail.com

Update on the True/Hecht Trial in Rome

Over the weekend, Elisabetta Povoledo of the New York Times updated the antiquities trial underway in Rome. Daniela Rizzo, an archaeologist who featured prominently in Peter Watson’s “The Medici Conspiracy” testified that the antiquities trade “was a sophisticated method of laundering,” in which private collectors would acquire looted antiquities and donate them to museums.

As Povoledo states, “None [of the private antiquities collectors] are on trial here. None have been legally charged with any wrongdoing. Nor do Italian prosecutors contend that the collectors had evidence that certain objects had been looted. Yet the prosecutors have clearly adopted a strategy of calling attention to collectors, especially well-heeled Americans, with the implicit message that every player in the global antiquities trade is within their sights.”

Apparently the prosecutors are attempting to send an international message to collectors: check your provenance or risk future prosecutions. That seems a noble goal at the macro level. However in this case, the defense attorney’s are angry at this tactic as Francesco Isolabella, one of True’s attorney’s said it was beyond Ms. Rizzo’s purview to “come up with inductive or deductive theories”, and she was making “evaluations that only a prosecutor can make…She should stick to identifying Etruscan vases.” The True/Hecht trial will drag on, but I think there has been a gear-shift in the way the antiquities market seems to operate, at least in some sectors.

Last week, a bronze sculpture of artemis was sold by the Albright-Knox museum for $28.6 million at an auction, a record for both sculpture and antiquities. One of the main factors in the high selling price may have been the sculptures clean provenance, which was purchased from a Manhattan dealer in 1953, long before the 1970 UNESCO Convention which is often used as a benchmark for provenance.

Both the Met and the MFA Boston agreed to return antiquities to Italy. Italy wants the Getty to return 52 objects in its collection, and the Getty has offered to return many of them, but Italy wants all of them back and won’t accept a so-called partial repatriation. Private collectors donated many of these works to these institutions, and in exchange they get considerable tax benefits. If the Hecht/True trial results in a conviction, I would anticipate more prosecutions and threats of prosecutions by other collectors and dealers.

Questions or Comments? Email me at derek.fincham@gmail.com

Getty Panel Convened over the "Cult Statue of a Goddess"

The Conference at the Getty Museum which was convened to study the “Cult Statue of a Goddess”, probably of Aphrodite, took place last week. I discussed this before here. The NY Times discussed it last week here. Lee Rosenbaum gives her take here.

As I’ve said, scientific study is welcome, however the dysfunctional antiquities market gave us a situation where we have a very beautiful Greek statue but are unsure about where it came from. The Getty has already agreed to return the statute, but has taken 1 year to study it.

Sharon Waxman wrote in the NY Times: The Getty has not reached a formal conclusion based on the conference, which was convened at the museum on Wednesday and was closed to the public. But museum officials and some of the experts who attended said their discussions buttressed what the museum says are its own suspicions that the statue, acquired by the Getty in 1988, might have been illegally excavated in southern Italy.

So the panel has suspicions that the statue came from Sicily, but no clear evidence. Clearly the Getty has dramatically shifted the way it acquires antiquities. Since last October it has used 1970 and the UNESCO Convention as a starting date for new acquisitions. The Getty does not appear to be contributing to the illicit trade at present, and that may be the most welcome development. It will be interesting to guage Italy’s response in the coming months.

Questions or Comments? Email me at derek.fincham@gmail.com

An Ancient City with Modern Problems

On Sunday the BBC had an interesting article with video of Rome’s struggle to maintain Roman monuments, excavate them, and preserve them; all while other more pressing contemporary budgetary matters take priority. Tourism does stem from historical sites as the piece points out. I wonder how much of Italy’s recent efforts to repatriate objects may stem from the fact that there have been budget cuts in other sectors? Not sure about that, I’m just speculating. If anyone may know of any data along those lines, I would be interested to hear it. Does Italy have a double standard? Is it arguing too vehemently against collectors abroad as a way to shift attention from the difficult problems of preservation and protection domestically? Even Francesco Rutelli was critical of the difficulties in development in Rome while he was mayor there.

Questions or Comments? Email me at derek.fincham@gmail.com

Italy Agrees to Repatriate a Roman Statue to Libya


In yesterday’s Washington Post, Ariel David has an interesting article on Italy’s decision to repatriate this Roman statue of the goddess Venus. The statue is a copy of a Greek statue which has never been found. It was discovered in 1913 by Italian troops near the ruins of the ancient city of Cyrene on the Libyan coast. It was probably created in the 2nd Century AD. It’s currently housed at the National Roman Museum in Rome.

Libya requested the return of the statue in 1989, however a legal dispute involving a group which considered the statue part of Italy’s heritage has prevented the return for the last 4 years. Last week an Italian Court rejected a plea from the Italia Nostra conservation group, as international agreements “obliged” Italy to return the Greek statue.

Edmondo Zappacosta, counsel for the Libyan government said “This is a granite-like sentence, with solid arguments… On the basis of historical and juridical considerations, it was virtually a foregone conclusion that the Italia Nostra appeal would be rejected.” The statue can now be returned to Tripoli. A date has yet to be set for the return.

The ruling is an interesting one. Many of the news reports indicate that it allows Italy to claim that other nations should return antiquities illicitly taken from Italy. I think a better reading of the decision is that it limits the ability of individuals to challenge the return of cultural heritage. This was a decision about whether the Italia Nostra could block the return. If angry citizens groups were allowed to challenge repatriation decisions, it would be very difficult to effectively repatriate objects, especially if the objects at issue are part of a popular collective heritage, like Greek or Roman civilization.

Questions or Comments? Email me at derek.fincham@gmail.com

Monteleone Di Spoleto Wants Its Chariot Back


This exquisite bronze chariot was discovered in 1902 by a farmer clearing some of his land. Today’s New York Times has an interesting article by Elisabetta Povoledo on the small Northern-Italian village which wants this chariot returned.

The 2,600 year-old bronze chariot was assembled in 1903, but has recently been reassembled to better show what Etruscan chariots probably looked like at the time. Carol Vogel had a nice article on the new reconstruction last week here. It’s also got an excellent slide show of the chariot. The image above shows the chariot before the reconstruction, the picture below is after.

As the Mayor of Monteleone Di Spoleto Nando Durastanti says, “I’m very sorry for the Met because they’ve done a great job in making the most of the chariot.” This is not a claim pursued by the Italian Culture Ministry, rather mayor Durastanti enlisted an Atlanta lawyer named Tito Mazzetta to pursue its claims.

Mazzetta argues that Italian law in 1902 dictated that the chariot was the property of the state, and he uses a decision by the Michael C. Carlos Museum at Emory University which returned an Egyptian Mummy in 2004 even though it had been exported to North America in 1864. Mazzetta wants another exception carved out in the already exception-ridden statute of limitations provisions. I’m not sure what kind of exception he hopes to carve out, but I think he’s going to have a difficult time with it. The Demand and Refusal rule which is the law in the State of New York triggers a limitations period when an object that has been missing is demanded from its current possessor. That is the most generous limitations rule that I am aware of in the US. In this case, the Italian State knew about the chariot in 1904. The New York Times has an article on Feb. 16, 1904 in which Italian authorities were critical of the chariot’s export. In any case, it seems that an equitable defense such as laches would certainly step in and prevent a repatriation.

This is a difficult battle for Mayor Durastanti, given that over a century has passed with the chariot on display at the Met, and the Italian Culture Ministry does not support the repatriation. His claim is an ethical one. However those claims need public pressure to be effective. Without the support of the Italian Culture Ministry, that is a nearly impossible battle to win in my view.

As Maurizio Firorilli, a lawyer with the Italian Culture Ministry said, “the preconditions that have guided other negotiations don’t exist in this case.” I think that is right, even though Mazzetta still attempts to stake the moral high ground in the dispute by saying “When lawyers challenged the slaver laws or fought for equal rights for women, people thought they were out of their minds … Laws should be changed. The crimes of the past should not be condoned.” That may be true, but this antiquity seems a very different situation from something like slavery.

The chariot was found by chance by an Italian farmer who didn’t know what he had found. He sold the bronze chariot as scrap metal so that he could re-tile his roof. Perhaps the chariot should be returned to Italy, but the World’s museums cannot be emptied of all antiquities and works of art which originated in another nation.

Questions or Comments? Email me at derek.fincham@gmail.com

The Getty Trust’s Francavilla Marittima Project

The J. Paul Getty Museum announced today that a second volume of research will be published from the Francavilla Marittima project. The project brings together researchers and scholars from Italy, Switzerland, and the Getty. As today’s press release states, “this partnership, designed to discover information about the origins of objects from antiquity, demonstrates the good that can come from collaborative international scientific research based solely on the pursuit of knowledge”.

This project was started in 1993 by Marion True, after a Dutch archaeologist named Marianne Kleibrink notified true that many of the vases in the Getty’s collection came from a Greek colony in southern Italy knowns as Francavilla Marittima. It seems most of these vases and terracottas were donated to the Getty in the 1970’s.

In response, True and the Getty undertook this research initiative, and also repatriated many of the objects to Italy. And so they should have, because we don’t know who donated the terracottas, but it seems possible that many of the vases and fragments were illicitly excavated or illegally exported.

This is a welcome research initiative, and is good in the sense that it is attempting to learn more about these vases. However, it’s a bit like closing the proverbial barn door after the horse has escaped. If these terracottas had been professionally excavated, a great deal more would have been known about them. Of course, because the objects were donated, the Getty didn’t really play a part in that illicit trade. Today’s move seems a clear move to improve the public image of its former curator Marion True, and highlight its research initiatives. I’m only a novice at archaeological study, and I do not know about the quality of this research. If any archaeologists have an opinion on the scholarly merit of what has been learned from the Francavilla Marittima project, please post your thoughts in the comments section.

As Michael Brand’s statement today made clear, “The goal of this project from the start was to repatriate the objects to Italy following a period of research and documentation and I’m pleased we played a part in this important international effort”. Research initiatives like this one are a welcome step, but are by no means a substitution for a professional excavation. I would like to see more of a collaborative effort between the antiquities market and archaeologists which uses the purchase price an antiquity fetches at an auction to fund excavations in source countries. There are a number of difficult barriers in erecting such a system, but it seems the best chance to forge a pragmatic compromise and reduce the illicit trade.

Questions or Comments? Email me at derek.fincham@gmail.com

Recent Repatriations and the Parthenon Marbles


The TimesOnline had an article last week by Ben Macintyre tying in the recent repatriations and criminal trials in Italy and Greece to the Parthenon Marbles (or the Elgin Marbles as they are often referred to). Here’s an excerpt:

The return to Greece of a spectacular Macedonian gold wreath from the 4th century BC may lead to the repatriation of several looted artefacts worth millions of pounds.

Court cases in Italy and Greece are increasing the pressure on museums around the world and could lead to widespread changes in the handling of ancient treasures.

The campaign to return stolen work to its country of origin has emboldened Costas Karamanlis, the Prime Minister of Greece, to predict that Britain will soon be forced to surrender the Elgin Marbles. Also at stake are hundreds of statues, bronzes, engravings and other artworks from museums in Europe, the US and Japan.

At the heart of this revolution is the landmark case of the funerary wreath, one of the most beautiful surviving examples of ancient craftsmanship, which was looted from Greece more than ten years ago. A delicate spray of gold leaves interwoven with coloured glass paste, the wreath was probably designed as a funeral gift and made soon after the death of Alexander the Great.

It was put on display in Greece for the first time this week after a long campaign to persuade the J. Paul Getty Museum, in California, to return it to its homeland.

Mr Karamanlis welcomed its return as evidence that Britain would soon be forced to relinquish the Elgin Marbles, which were acquired by the British diplomat Lord Elgin between 1801 and 1810 and are currently housed in the British Museum. Britain has argued that they are better preserved in London (continue reading).

These repatriations are an important step, and are an example of stronger action by both Greece and Italy. However, the Vatican is expected to announce that it will refuse to return some fragments of the Parthenon. Parts of the Parthenon are spread all over Europe, including London, Rome, Copenhagen, Berlin.

I was at the British Museum a few weeks ago, and I was reminded how impressive the sculptures still are, even though they are broken and decontextualized. It would be very exciting to see all of the sculptures collected in Athens for display. However, people all over Europe can view parts of them at present, and there is a value in that as well I suppose. In the end, I seriously doubt whether the British Museum will ever relinquish the marbles.

The case for their return seems much different from the gold wreath which the Getty just returned and from the trial of Marion True. The argument for their return is only ethical or moral, there is no legal claim to them which Greece could hope to assert.

Questions or Comments? Email me at derek.fincham@gmail.com

Protest over a Da Vinci Loan



This work by Leonardo Da Vinci, the Annunciation, is slated to be displayed in Tokyo until mid June. However, a number of Italians are upset about the loan. Italian Senator Paolo Amato pictured below has chained himself to the entrance to the Uffizi gallery in Florence to protest the loan. The BBC has a story here, and an AP story is here.

Cultural policy is a much more prominent part of Italian politics than in many other countries. Amato has accused Italian Culture Minister Francesco Rutelli of being “arrogant” for deciding to agree to the loan. The work has travelled before, to Paris and Milan in the 1930’s, and it was hidden during WWII. However, it has remained in the Uffizi since 1945.

I have very little knowledge of how risky transportation of important works is. The work “was being bundled into three protective crates filled with shock-absorbers and high-tech sensors to monitor humidity, temperatures and stress levels in preparation for departure Tuesday.” That seems pretty secure to me, but I suppose any risk of loss of this important work would be a tragedy.

Thanks to David Nishimura at Cronaca for pointing out the story.

Questions or Comments? Email me at derek.fincham@gmail.com