[CPProt.net] Museum in firing line. Italians want to stop the illegal trade in antiquities

[MSN CPPnet]

Museum in firing line
May 31, 2005
The Italians want to stop the illegal trade in antiquities. Peter Huck in
Los Angeles considers the consequences for the J. Paul Getty Museum.

Judicial proceedings can move at a glacial pace in Italy, but, after a
10-year investigation into stolen Italian antiquities, Roman prosecutors
have in view a very high-profile scalp: the antiquities curator at the J.
Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles.

Last month, a Roman court charged Marion True, 56, with knowingly receiving
stolen goods. She is also accused of using false documents to help launder
artefacts acquired by the Getty from a private collection.

The case, which goes to trial in Rome on July 18, could have far-reaching
consequences for the relationship between museums and international art
dealers.

If successful, prosecutors have promised to pursue plunder allegedly housed
in other museums.

"We want this case to be a big deterrent," said Captain Massimiliano
Quagliarella, head of the paramilitary Carabinieri police unit that
investigates archaeological theft.

"It is important to stop the phenomenon of illegal excavations and illegal
exportation by eliminating the demand, and thus eliminating the offer."

In a brief statement, the Getty said it was "disappointed" the Italians had
decided to try "our extremely well respected antiquities curator". The
museum believes the trial will result "in her exoneration and end further
damage to the personal and professional reputation of Dr True".

Certainly, the news comes as a blow to the Getty, which was rocked in
October by the sudden resignation of director Deborah Gribbon, following a
feud with the president of the Getty Trust, Barry Munitz.

True joined the Getty in 1982, serving as assistant to Jiri Frel, the
museum's first antiquities curator, hired in 1973. Two years after Frel quit
in 1984, disgraced by the news that he had over-inflated the value of
donated antiquities, True took over. An avid collector, she nonetheless
returned several looted or stolen Greek and Roman objects. While the full
details of the Italian case remain unknown until July, the case is believed
to involve some 40 objects acquired by the Getty. They include a 5th century
BC sculpture of Aphrodite, the goddess of love. The 2.3 metre statue -
valued at $US20 million ($A26 million) in 1987, when the Getty imported it -
attracted controversy following claims it may have been smuggled from Sicily
in the 1970s.

In all fairness, True inherited a collection amassed in part through
questionable purchases.In 1995, the Getty announced it would only acquire
antiquities with sound provenance.

"We would only consider buying from an established collection that is known
to the world," True told The Art Newspaper, "so that we do not have the
issue of undocumented provenance."

Yet 92 per cent of the Fleischman horde - the Getty's largest antiquities
gain - had no archaeological provenance. Scholars slated the deal as an
example of how the flow of illegal antiquities is tacitly condoned and
abetted by collectors and museums. Critics of the museum's "freewheeling
past" saw a slippery slope; a strategy via which unprovenanced items in
private hands gained spurious legitimacy in the public realm - a move that
may prove disastrous.

In all fairness, True inherited a collection amassed in part through
questionable purchases. She has made some effort to end this practice,
refusing in 1988 to buy a Byzantine mosaic that had been stolen.

She has also repatriated plundered artefacts, a well-publicised move that
might rebound on other treasures: one of three stolen objects returned to
Italy by True in 1999 was a Roman head from the Fleischman collection.

While it is hard to put an accurate figure on this illicit global traffic,
Britain's McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research estimates the
annual haul as between $US 50 million and $US2 billion. In recent years, the
trade has also attracted drugs and arms smugglers.

While the Getty case highlights the illicit antiquities trade, it also
illustrates the tension between Western museums that wish to hold onto
treasures - sometimes acquired in dubious circumstances - and nations that
seek to recover what they regard as their national patrimony.

Recently, the trend has been towards grudging repatriation. Italy recently
returned the Axum obelisk, looted in the 1930s, to Ethiopia.

But other items - such as the Elgin Marbles from Greece and the Rosetta
Stone from Egypt, both housed in the British Museum, or the Winged Victory
statue from Greece at the Louvre - remain contentious.

In this context, the Italian case against True sends a clear message.

"Foreign governments are frustrated by the continued looting of their
antiquities," says New York attorney Howard Spiegler, who specialises in
cultural heritage issues.

"These indictments reflect that frustration."

According to the Los Angeles Times, True was originally indicted as part of
a wider case featuring two of the Getty's major suppliers: Italian art
dealer Giacomo Medici and an expatiate American dealer, Emanuel Robert
Hecht, based in Paris. This case was split when Medici opted for a
"fast-track" trial with less exacting evidence rules, hoping for a reduced
sentence.

Medici's gamble failed. He is appealing a 10-year jail term, fines and
compensation.

Hecht allegedly sold looted Greek silver to New York's Metropolitan Museum
of Art.

The evidence against True is apparently similar to that used against Medici.
So far, True has kept quiet, other than providing Italian authorities with a
deposition in March.

Her Italian lawyer says the curator's transactions were conducted "in the
clear light of day".

The Italian bombshell is a major embarrassment for the Getty. As director of
the Getty Villa, a faux Roman villa due to reopen this year after
refurbishment, True might have expected to savour this triumph. Instead,
she'll be fighting to save her reputation.

http://www.theage.com.au/