The Getty – Page 4 – Illicit Cultural Property

Italian Seizures, the Bronze Athelete, and the Getty

The Getty has decided to appeal the February decision in which an Italian court ordered the seizure of this statue, Bronze Statue of a Victorious Youth. An Italian appeals court judged ordered the work returned to Italy. This was a new legal approach as nations as far as I’m aware have not attempted to bring forfeiture proceedings domestically, with an expectation that a foreign government or court would uphold the order. Perhaps the Italian courts could seize other assets the Getty has in Italy in lieu of recovery, but my initial conclusions are shared by Patty Gerstenblith in Martha Lufkin’s excellent summary of the current disposition of the dispute. Gerstenblith notes two problems. First, illegal export does not give Italy a tenable claim in U.S. courts. It may in conjunction with a law like the Cultural Property Implementation Act and bilateral agreements, but those were all enacted after the bronze was brought to California. Second, an awful lot of time has elapsed, and it is likely that an American court will take a dim view of the length of time Italy has taken before this action. Indeed, charges were brought in Italy against the fisherman who brought the bronze up in their nets in the 1960’s, but the defendants were acquitted.

There is an extralegal dimension to the appeal as well, in that Italy continues to put pressure on the Getty, and its means of acquisition of the statue.

We may question the Getty’s acquisition of the bronze, question where it currently belongs, and even debate the merits of restitution of these objects. However, there is no evidence that this bronze was “looted” in the same way the Euphronios Krater was for example. All reports I’m aware of indicate the fishermen fortuitously brought this up in the Adriatic, in international waters, in 1964. They may have later passed it on to others who smuggled it out of the country, but this is not a looted object.

For noteworthy previous posts on the bronze, see here.

Martha Lufkin, Greek bronze will stay in the Getty Villa, The Art Newspaper, April 14, 2010.

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

Italian Appeals Court Orders the Return of the Getty Bronze

A surprising ruling today by Judge Mussoni in the case involving this statute, known as “The Bronze Statue of a Victorious Youth” currently on display at the Getty Villa in Malibu. I’ve looked at the merits of Italy’s repatriation case in some detail before, here and here. Essentially, this Bronze was found in the Adriatic in the 1960’s, and Italian fishermen and others smuggled the work abroad. It was eventually purchased by the Getty. Criminal proceedings were brought against some of the smugglers decades ago, but they were never convicted.

The present case was brought by the Italian government, seeking a forfeiture of the statue. The Getty has indicated it will appeal; but the confiscation order will take effect immediately according to Maurizio Fiorilli, an attorney representing the Italian government. There are a few hurdles to be crossed before the Getty has to pack up the Bronze and ship it to Italy however.

I haven’t had time to research the legal specifics yet, but I would like to offer some tentative observations. First, I do not see how the Italian court has jurisdiction over the statue; and getting it returned will require the cooperation of the State Department or Department of Justice. Second, this case presents a unique situation. I’m not aware of any case in which a nation of origin brings suit in a domestic court to seek the return of an object from abroad. If the Italians are successful in securing the return of the bronze, it would rewrite the law governing repatriation in many respects. But finally, none of the law may matter. As I’ve argued before, the court of public opinion is often the most important arbiter in many of these cases. Italy would seem to have a difficult time compelling the State Department or DOJ to compel the Getty to ship the Bronze to Italy; but they could impose a kind of cultural embargo on the Getty, or on other American archaeologists if they want to force the repatriation of the Bronze.

It should come as no surprise then that the Getty’s Press Release this afternoon was critical of the decision:

The Getty is disappointed in the ruling issued February 11 by Judge [Lorena] Mussoni in Pesaro, Italy, involving the Statue of a Victorious Youth, often referred to as the Getty Bronze. The court’s order is flawed both procedurally and substantively.

It should be noted that the same court in Pesaro dismissed an earlier case in 2007 in which the same prosecutor claimed the Statue of a Victorious Youth belonged to Italy. In that case, the judge held that the statute of limitations had long since expired, that there was no one to prosecute under Italian law, and that the Getty was to be considered a good faith owner.

In fact, no Italian court has ever found any person guilty of any criminal activity in connection with the export or sale of the statue. To the contrary, Italy’s highest court, the Court of Cassation, held more than four decades ago that the possession by the original owners ‘did not constitute a crime.

The Getty will appeal the Pesaro court’s order to the Court of Cassation in Rome and will vigorously defend its legal ownership of the statue.

Court orders seizure of Getty bronze, ANSA, Feb. 11, 2010.
Nicole Winfield, Italian court orders contested bronze statue confiscated from Getty Museum, CP, Feb. 11, 2010.

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

Suspicious Bronze not the Fano Athelete

Earlier this month in a Jan. 14th article the L.A. Times had apparently uncovered some evidence linking the Getty to criminal wrongdoing in the acquisition of this piece. This bronze statue has been known by many names, including the “Getty Bronze”, the “Fano athelete”, or the “Bronze statue of a victorious youth”. I’ve received a note from Julie Jaskol, Assistant Director of Media Relations at the Getty notifying me that the “Bronze” discussed in the letters was not this Bronze Athlete.

The Times has corrected the story:

Bronze statue: A Jan. 14th article in Section A about an Italian legal case involving the J. Paul Getty Museum’s statue of a bronze athlete mischaracterized a 1976 letter to museum director Stephen Garrett. The letter from the late antiquities expert and Getty adviser Bernard Ashmole, which referred to the museum’s “exploits over the bronze statue” as a “crime,” was describing a different bronze statue in the museum’s collection. Garrett, who initially told The Times the letter referred to the bronze athlete, now says he was mistaken.

I wrote a very long summery of the dispute back in 2007. The statue was found by fisherman in the Adriatic in 1964, smuggled out of Italy, and eventually purchased by the Getty in 1977. The bronze was discussed a great deal in the very public battle between Italy and the Getty over other looted objects in recent years. Yet there was a lack of direct evidence linking the Getty to any wrongdoing in the acquisition. Criminal proceedings were brought against some of the fishermen and handlers of the statue in Italy, yet there was not enough evidence to secure a conviction. At present a prosecutor has brought suit in Italy to attempt to secure possession of the statue. Had the letter discussed in Felch’s original piece referred to this bronze, this would have provided strong corroborating evidence in the court of public opinion for the return of the bronze.

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

More on the Getty Bronze

Jason Felch has an interesting story updating the long history of this bronze statue known either as the “Getty Bronze”, the “Fano athelete”, or the “Bronze statue of a victorious youth”. I wrote a very long summery of the dispute back in 2007. The statue was found by fisherman in the Adriatic in 1964, was smuggled out of Italy, and was eventually purchased by the Getty in 1977. As Felch rightly points out, this dispute does not fit neatly into the legal framework governing many antiquities dispute. This bronze really was found by accident, and early Italian attempt to prosecute the fisherman were unsuccessful.

The bronze was discussed a great deal in the very public battle between Italy and the Getty over other looted objects. There was a lack of direct evidence linking the Getty to any wrongdoing in the acquisition. However at “Times reporter” has uncovered a letter and other documents which reveal there were serious questions regarding the statue:

1976 letter from Ashmole to Garrett referring to “the crime”

These documents should not come as any real surprise I don’t think. And though they may not provide enough of a legal basis to secure the return of the bronze, but they will add to the growing public pressure which Italy may try to exert to secure the return of the statue.

Jason Felch, A twist in Getty Museum’s Italian court saga – latimes.com, L.A. Times, January 14, 2010.

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

The Chimaera of Arezzo at the Getty

In a tangible shift in the way the Getty will perhaps operate in the future, the Chimaera of Arezzo has arrived at the Getty Villa in Malibu. It is a loan of the work which combines history, archaeology, mythology and art appreciation. Based on the initial reviews, it is exactly the kind of exhibition an institution like the Getty should be doing—rather than persisting in acquiring potentially looted antiquities.

The Etruscan bronze was found in Tuscany in the 16th Century and installed at the Palazzo Vecchio by Cosimo I. It had been on display in Florence before being sent to Malibu.

The LA Times Arts blog reviews the bronze and the exhibition:

The roaring head, encircled by curving rows of tufted fur, strains upward and bends to the right. Behind it the goat’s head mirrors this pose but in the opposite direction. So the bodily motion goes down, back, up, left and right, yielding a marvelously animated dynamism. Skin is pulled taut over powerful musculature, while parallel curves, alternating shadow with light, articulate the beast’s gaunt rib cage. This is an animal with living, breathing innards, not just a ferocious outward demeanor.

Look closely and you’ll spot a couple of stylized floral rosettes on the goat’s neck and the lion’s hind end — in fact, engorged drops of blood, spurting from stabbed flesh. The beast has been wounded, no doubt from the fatal assault by the long-lost bronze figure of the Greek hero Bellerophon riding his winged steed, Pegasus — victors in the mythical ancient battle. The Chimaera of Arezzo is what remains of a surely amazing sculptural grouping, fabricated by a supremely gifted artist and his bronze casting crew, circa 400 B.C.

It is an antiquity with a well-storied history. At the time, Cosimo I, the Grand Duke of Tuscany was competing with Rome. When this bronze was unearthed, he had an antiquity to rival this bronze, “La Lupa”, which depicted the mythical founding of Rome.

But has anything really changed? It is interesting I think that the use of antiquities as symbols of power in the Renaissance continues in Italy today. Consider the recent controversy which erupted when Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi may have revealed to an escort girl that his Villa in Sardinia may have been built on top of 30 ancient Phoenecian tombs without the necessary notification of the Culture Ministry or the Carabinieri.

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

Francesco Rutelli on the Euphronios Krater

This Saturday I participated in the ARCA Conference on the study of art crime in Amelia Italy. I’ll have a lot more to say about my time in Italy, ARCA, and the masters course generally in the coming days, but I wanted to share one of the highlights.

One of the speakers, and the recipient of one of the ARCA awards was Francesco Rutelli, former Culture Minister of Italy. Following his short discussion there was time for a couple of questions, and I was able to ask about his thoughts on the current disposition and position of the Euphronios Krater, on display here at the Villa Giulia. Michael Kimmelman had an interesting piece last week in the New York Times, arguing “Italy’s biggest prize in the war against looting antiquities went on view recently at the Villa Giulia in Rome” but that “Italians didn’t seem to care much”. I found that to be pretty typical, as an American visiting Rome, ~~itis not really easy to see how or~~ it can be quite difficult to find where the Krater, or many of the other returned objects are currently on display, particularly in a city and country with so many beautiful objects and heritage sites, ~~wich~~ which truly is an enormous open-air museum.

I asked Rutelli about that, about how Italian’s don’t seem all that interested in the Krater and how not many people are visiting it. He responded with what I thought was a pretty thoughtful answer. He stated that the piece is in “the correct place” and that in “scientific terms it is correct”. It is an Etruscan object, and the Villa Giulia is the Etruscan museum—arguing that if the piece had been properly and legally excavated from Cerveteri, this is where the piece would have been displayed.

He did acknowledge though, that there may have been problems with “publicity and information”, a problem he traces to the current government, which he argued “should do more”, and these repatriated objects should all be displayed together as part of a meaningful message.

He had a lot of interesting things to say, and the presentation of the award, and the audience of ARCA Masters students, interested observers, and reporters gave him an opportunity to look back on the repatriations of the last few years; and of course he was the public face of much of the negotiations between Italy and many North American museums. Though he did point out that it was not just North American institutions. Repatriations were also reached with Japanese and other European institutions—a fact often overlooked. I’ll have much more to say about his other comments, which included Robin Symes, and a kind of a response to James Cuno, in the next few days.

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

More on the Conservation of the two Italian Bronzes

Reader Francesca Tronchin has much more to offer on the conservation work being done at the Getty to the two bronzes from Italy which I mentioned last Friday:

First off: I am an employee of the Getty and every time I enter or leave my building, I see these two statues, trussed up in a conservation lab.

Nevertheless, I am NOT an official mouthpiece of the Getty and these are my own thoughts on the matter.

Moreover, I am an archaeologist and an Italian citizen, which makes my position even more complicated! 🙂

Although it might be easy to be very cynical and suspicious of the Getty’s involvement in the conservation of these statues, given the Museum’s appalling past practices, I hope that people come to realize that this is in fact a great gift to Italy. (The ‘collaboration agreement’ notwithstanding.)

The two bronzes have been the subject of some pretty terrible conservation practices in the past. I am not a conservator myself, but one of the Getty conservators gave me a tour of the shocking methods of restoration, etc. on the two statues. Neither of these works have been on display for at least ten years, as they both were languishing in Italian conservation labs, partway through various phases of restoration work. (One, if not both of the bronzes were in Florence, far from their home in Pompeii.)

The Getty is treating these two statues with state-of-the-art methods and materials of conservation, practices that are unfortunately out of reach for most Italian (European, even) labs.

These two works of ancient Roman sculpture–while not of tremendously high quality as far as ancient art goes–will be conserved for generations because of Getty’s interventions. All at no cost to Italy at all. The statues will be displayed here after their conservation for a period of a couple of months, and then returned to Italy in a state better than when they left their homeland.

As far as I know, none of the other American museums previously under fire for their illegal/immoral acquisition practices (e.g. the Met, the MFA) have offered this kind of service to the Italians. Those agreements seem to be simply traditional loans rather than including the costly, time-consuming, but ultimately invaluable work of conservation.

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

The "Collaboration" Begins at the Getty Villa

These are the first two works from Italy to arrive at the Getty Villa as a part of the agreement reached in 2007. These bronzes, Ephebe as a lampbearer and Apollo as an archer will be loaned for two years. The Ephebe will go on display at the end of April, and the other will be displayed in a year after study and conservation. Karol Wight, the Getty’s curator of antiquities says in the LA Times’ art blog “We want the partnership to be mutually beneficial . . . But of course our concerns are highly aesthetic.”

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

The True/Hecht Trial Continues

The ongoing trial of Marion True and Robert Hecht continued last week in Rome. It is worth remembering perhaps that this prosecution began in 2005 and alleges True and Hecht conspired to traffic in illegal antiquities. One of the important pieces of evidence are the pictures seized in a 1995 raid of a Geneva warehouse.

A number of arguments and defenses still need to be presented, and as Elisabetta Povoledo reported on Friday in the NY Times, True and her lawyers intend to defend the acquisition and challenge the prosecution’s evidence on each object. At the trial True said “If ever there was an indication of proof of an object coming from a certain place, we would deaccession it and return the object, regardless of the statute of limitations”. The difficulty is the two very different views of what this “proof” may entail. True will argue that there was no direct evidence for many of these objects that would indicate they were looted; however the prosecution will surely counter that there must have been some indication that these objects could not have just appeared out of thin air, and these masterpieces were certainly looted. The trade itself capitalizes on these different views by hiding and shielding from view the history of an object.

There are no indications the trial will conclude any time soon, however when it does, one wonders if there is a possibility that the defendants may earn a not-guilty verdict. What consequences might that not-guilty verdict mean? I think to avoid the possibility of other kinds of acquisitions and prosecutions in the future, we should hold institutions to a higher standard of good faith, and the requirements for this should be made plain for museums, dealers and judges to evaluate future acquisitions.

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

Getty Shifts Gears

Interesting story by Mike Boehm in today’s LA Times (via) on the decision by the Getty Trust to cut its operating budget by 25% in the coming year. The cuts are in response to losses in investments which have totalled $1.5 billion since July:

Its portfolio dropped 25% during the last half of 2008, from $6 billion to $4.5 billion. That still dwarfs the $2.1-billion endowment of New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art, which announced plans Thursday to lay off 10% of its workforce, partly because of an endowment loss approaching 28%.

The reductions at the Getty should focus on operations that can easily expand again, Wood said Friday. Cuts may well be in store for temporary exhibitions, which have totaled more than 20 a year. The Getty may also defer buying new works for its collections of ancient art, European art from before the 20th century, illuminated manuscripts and photography.

Nearly any organization with an endowment of any kind is surely making some difficult decisions. But the Getty has always been the financial giant among North American museums; and in some cases that purchasing power got it into some difficult situations with nations of origin when it purchased or acquired antiquities.

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