Saturday, October 21, 2006

Getty "Stalling" Italy on Looted Antiquities

The ANNOTICO Report

While the Getty's former curator Marion True has been on trial in Rome since Autumn 2005 for "associating with criminals" with the intention of "receiving archeological artefacts", The  Getty is maintaining that it did not knowingly buy looted artefacts BUT knew that 82 pieces in its gallery were of questionable origin.

@#%&!*  The usual stall and delay tactics of someone unwilling to  do the Right Thing.

Both  the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston,  the Metropolitan Museum of Art (the Met) in New York have long ago settled with Italy.

 

ITALY WANTS GETTY ARTEFACTS BACK

Sunday Telegraph . UK

Article from: Agence France-Presse

From correspondents in Rome

October 21, 2006

ITALIAN Culture Minister Francesco Rutelli has said negotiations with the J Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles for the return of artefacts believed to have been looted from Italy are "unsatisfying" and warned that Rome would refuse to sign an "unacceptable accord".

"As long as there is a way (to negotiate) we'll follow it ... but the room to manoeuvre is narrowing," the minister said yesterday on the sidelines of a ceremony to sign an agreement with the Swiss on the the movement of cultural artefacts.

"As long as a possibility remains I will not go as far as breaking it off, but I will not accept an unacceptable accord," Mr Rutelli said.

Negotiations with the California museum were "largely unsatisfying", he said.

The minister did not specify how many works of art Italy was trying to reclaim from the Getty Museum.

Former curator Marion True has been standing trial in Rome since Autumn 2005 for "associating with criminals" with the intention of "receiving archeological artefacts".

"At the moment, what Getty is proposing falls far below our standards, in terms of the quality of the pieces and their quantity," an official in the Culture Ministry said.

The US museum, which has already sent three pieces back to Rome, said last June that it had reached an agreement with Italy that was still to be finalised.

The institution said it did not knowingly buy looted artefacts but knew that 82 pieces in its gallery were of questionable origin.

Several years ago, Italy initiated negotiations with museums around the world to reclaim objects of archeological importance taken out of the country after illegal excavations.

At the end of September, the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston sent 13 objects back to Italy, mainly vases and amphoras dating back to the fifth century BC.

In February 2006, the Metropolitan Museum of Art (the Met) in New York also returned pieces to Rome, including a 2500 year-old terracotta vase.

http://www.news.com.au/sundaytelegraph/

story/0,,20623486-5006506,00.html#

 

The ANNOTICO Reports

Can be Viewed, and are Archived at:

Italia USA: http://www.ItaliaUSA.com (Formerly Italy at St Louis)

Annotico Email: annotico@earthlink.net