Wednesday,
February 22,
The
ANNOTICO Report
The Former
Shameful Looting of Italy's Treasures is at last being Partially Remedied.
In 1939
Unfortunately,
the law was not enacted much sooner, since all the looting conducted prior can
not be prosecuted.
In
accordance with that law, New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art is being forced
to return TWENTY ONE (21) looted artifacts to Italy, that included the Euphronios Krater, a 6th century BC painted vase that is one of the Met's prized antiquities and widely regarded as one of the
finest examples of its kind, Sixteen (16 ) pieces of Hellenistic silver
known as the Morgantina collection, and Four (4)
Greek earthenware treasures dating from 320 BC to 520 BC .
Contemporaneously,
as part of the crackdown,the Italians have asked
the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles to return FORTY TWO
(42) items Italy believes were stolen, including a statue of Aphrodite that the
museum bought for $18 million in 1988. Getty officials met with Buttiglione in
A total of
SIXTY THREE Treasures, 21 from the NY Met and 42 from the
A good move,
but a mere drop in the bucket, with SO much more to be done!!!
By Nicole
Winfield
Associated Press
Met chief Philippe de Montebello said the agreement with officials from the
Italian Culture Ministry "corrects a number of improprieties and errors
committed in the past" and would encourage museums to put in place new
legal and ethical measures.
The deal calls for the Met to return the Euphronios Krater, a 6th century BC painted vase that is one of the Met's prized antiquities and widely regarded as one of the
finest examples of its kind.
The museum bought the vase from an American art dealer for $1 million in 1972.
The Met also will return 16 pieces of Hellenistic silver known as the Morgantina collection by
In exchange,
"
The agreement ends a decades-long dispute that was pushed into the spotlight by
a fresh Italian campaign to recover artifacts it says were illegally taken by
tomb raiders and sold to museums around the world.
A 1939 Italian law states that any ancient artifact found in a dig belongs to
the state.
As! part of the Italian crackdown, a former curator
from the J. Paul Getty Museum in
The Italians have asked the Getty to return 42 items
Buttiglione said he hoped Tuesday's agreement could
"be a model for further agreements" with other cultural institutions.
Antiquities experts and archaeologists praised the deal but said it will have
no broader significance unless the Met and other museums are forced to change
their policies to prevent the acquisition of looted treasures.
Archaeologists want museums to have clear-cut guidelines specifying that they
will not buy recently unearthed antiquities that have no clear history of le! gitimate ownership.
Tuesday's deal does not require the Met to alter its acquisition policies.
De Montebello said that, even without new policies, museums already are looking
more closely into the provenance of new acquisitions because they cannot afford
not to do so.
"There is no question that the very fact of this agreement, which calls
for the return of a number of objects bought expensively with public funds,
will compel boards of trustees of American museums to be especially vigilant
when they are prepared to spend considerable sums on antiquities," he
said.
In the agreement, the Met provided a list of 12 possible replacements for the Euphronios Krater that could be
loaned on a rotating basis for four years each. The krater
itself could be loaned under the deal.
The agreement calls for the Morgantina collection to
alternate four years in
Also,
The agreement is to last 40 years.
Malcolm Bell, a professor of art history at the
http://www.calendarlive.com/printedition/calendar/
cl-et-museum22feb22,0,4050883.story?coll=cl-calendar