[CPProt.net] Italian trial for Getty curator

[MSN CPPnet]

Italian trial for Getty curator
John Follain
June 30, 2005

THE curator of antiquities at California's respected J. Paul Getty Museum
will go on trial in Italy next month accused of conspiracy to receive stolen
goods in a landmark case closely watched by the art world.

Marion True, 56, who has worked since 1982 for the Getty, one of the world's
richest collections, is also accused by Rome prosecutors of illicit receipt
of archeological items. The trial involves 40 artefacts and follows a
nine-year inquiry by Italy's art squad. 

The most valuable is a 4th-century BC stone sculpture of Aphrodite, the
goddess of love. Police believe the 225cm statue, valued at $US20 million in
1987 when the Getty imported it, was smuggled from Sicily in the 1970s.
Another allegedly stolen work is a small marble statue of Tyche, goddess of
chance and prosperity, from the 2nd century BC. 

Italian investigators believe they were among works stolen from
archeological sites, then taken by a ring of a dozen art dealers to London
via a rudimentary restoration laboratory in Switzerland. The dealers
allegedly set up front companies, all registered in the same street in
Geneva. 

It is claimed cartel members laundered the works by getting one company to
put them up for auction in London and another to buy them back. 

The total value of works that passed through London auction houses is
estimated to be more than pound stg. 100 million ($238 million). There is no
suggestion that the auction houses knew the works were stolen. 

"Selling and buying through the auction house basically cleaned the
artwork," an Italian investigator says. "What's more, the work now had a
price on it." 

A legal source in Rome says True is not expected to attend the trial. The
source predicts that, even if she is convicted, the US would be unlikely to
extradite her. The charges carry a likely jail sentence of five to six
years. 

The Getty says it believes True will be exonerated. She has not commented.
In her time at the Getty, True has returned several looted or stolen ancient
objects acquired before she took over. 

A source at the Rome prosecutor's office says the case is not just about the
Getty. "Foreign museums must stop turning a blind eye," he says. "It's not
good enough just to send forms to art dealers asking about a work's origin."
The source says a guilty verdict would allow museums and auction houses to
be investigated on suspicion of violating rules on imports of works of art,
handling stolen goods and "damaging Italy's artistic heritage". 

But Cristina Ruiz, editor of The Art Newspaper, says persecuting auction
houses and institutions is the wrong way to go about protecting artefacts. 

"I've been to sites in Italy where there are huge thefts," she says. "The
Italians have no security, and then they go after the institutions which are
buying the stolen works." 

The Sunday Times