Sunday,
November 12, 2006
The
ANNOTICO Report
Ron
Olson of the
I
served with Ron Olson on the Board of Governors of the California State Bar for
3 years .
He
is So Bright , in a Very Charming , and Such a
Disarming Manner. He can be a Bull dog but finds that not as
effective.
But
instead, For example, Olson has stressed repeatedly that if the Getty returned
all the disputed objects it might trigger an investigation by the
He
engenders sympathy for his position. But the fear he expresses while sounding
very valid is baseless.
The Atty General's Office says that any
potential investigation would focus on whether the Getty board was negligent in
purchasing the antiquities in the first place not on whether any or all of the art
should be given back.
Officials
in
By Jason Felch and Ralph
Frammolino
Times Staff Writers
November 11, 2006
ROME Frustrated by the J.
The impasse in talks came as new evidence was submitted Friday in the criminal
trial of the Getty's former antiquities curator that the museum chose not to
pursue information about the Aphrodite statue's origins when presented with an
opportunity a decade ago.
Marion True told prosecutors in a statement entered into evidence that in 1996
the statue's former owner provided the Getty with photos of the 7 1/2 -foot
depiction of the goddess and offered several fragments still in his possession.
But True said s! he was "highly skeptical"
of the man's motives and decided it was "inappropriate" to accept his
invitation to meet in
That decision looms large today for both True and the Getty, because the marble
and limestone figure has come to play the starring role in the dispute between
To Italian authorities, the statue symbolizes what they see as the museum's
brazen exploitation of the illicit trade in ancient art. Getty officials say
there is insufficient evidence to determine exactly where the statue comes
from, and they have so far refused to return it.
Four months ago both sides announced an agreement in principle for the museum
to return "a number of very significant" artworks in exchange for
loans from
Since then, the Getty has quietly offered 26 objects, including masterpieces
such as a marble statue of Apollo and a sculpture of mythical griffins devo u! ring a fallen deer.
But deciding the fate of the 21 remaining disputed objects, dominated by the
Aphrodite and a bronze statue of a young athlete, has proved difficult.
"Basta!" said Giuseppe Proietti, a senior cultural official, in a recent
interview, using the Italian word for "enough."
"The negotiations haven't made a single step forward," he said.
"We will not accept partial solutions. I will suggest the Italian
government take cultural sanctions against the Getty, suspending all cultural
cooperation."
Francesco Rutelli,
"I tried to explain it amicably to the people responsible for the Getty
for the last six months," Rut e! lli
said in a statement to The Times. "If they still haven't understood it,
I'm afraid the process of conciliation will end and a serious conflict will
begin."
According to another Italian official familiar with the Getty negotiations, the
embargo would mean "no excavations, no exhibitions, no
cultural studies. The Getty is out of order in
Several museum experts said such an embargo would have symbolic effect but
might otherwise be limited because
"It's a fight for world opinion," said Ruth Weisberg, dean of the USC
Roski School of Fine Arts. "It's certainly an
attempt to embarrass and isolate the Getty."
Getty officials acknowledged the impasse but said they were still hopeful an
agreement could be reached soon.
"My sense is that wisdom and reason will reign here, and the two sides,
Since talks started with the Getty in January, Italy has forged cultural
agreements with New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art and Boston's Museum of
Fine Art, which both agreed to return objects in exchange for loans of
antiquities from Italy.
The Getty's negotiations are complicated by the criminal case against True, who
is accused of conspiring to traffic in looted art. Although she was forced to
resign last year for unrelated reasons, the Getty continues to pay for her
defense, and museum officials have been worried that giving back objects might
further implicate the former curator.
In addition to the dispute over the Aphrodite statue, Italian authorities cite
several causes for the recent breakdown in talks.
Unlike the other museums, the Getty has sent attorneys to negotiate rather than
its museum director, Michael Brand, who has pa r! ticipated sporadically, Italian officials say.
"With the Boston MFA and the Met, our counterparts were the
directors," said Proietti. "With the Getty,
it is lawyers. This is an obstacle to realizing a cultural agreement."
Italian authorities also say the Getty's negotiator, Ron Olson of the
For example, they say, Olson has stressed repeatedly that if the Getty returned
all the disputed objects it might trigger an investigation by the
A spokesman for Atty. Gen.
Italian cultural officials were also offended by Olson's inclusion of the
Olson would not comment on the negotiations.
Records show that his firm has hired private investigators to investigate the
origin of the Aphrodite, something the museum chose not to do in 1996,
according to True's statement.
True said Harold Williams, then-chief executive of the trust, received a letter
from a Swiss man who claimed to be the previous owner of the statue. The letter
included several photos of the figure, including one of its marble head.
According to the statement, Williams passed the letter to then-museum Director
John Walsh, who forwarded it to True with a note, "What do you make of
this?"
"We bo t! h agreed it was strange and suspicious," True said in
the statement.
True wrote that she was able to confirm with the dealer who had sold the statue
to the Getty that Renzo Canavesi
was indeed the former owner, but declined the man's invitation to meet in
Switzerland because she was "highly suspicious about his motives" and
did not "deem it appropriate" to meet.
"If Canavesi provided additional information
about the statue's provenance, how was the Getty going to confirm or disprove
the information?" True wrote. "If Canavesi
did know where the piece came from, why had he not simply provided his
information?"
In other cases, True has said that antiquities dealers held back fragments of
objects sold to the Getty so they could later try to sell the missing pieces to
the museum for large sums of money.
Walsh, Williams and True's attorneys did not return calls seeking comment.
Hartwig, the Getty spokesman, would not disclose what
the trust's rece n! t
investigation had uncovered.
"We are continuing to look at certain pieces of evidence," he said.
"This is a very complex object. There is a lot of information about it
that needs to be carefully looked at and deciphered."
jason.felch@latimes.com
ralph.frammolino@latimes.com
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