[CPProt.net] Met Chief To Discuss 'Hot Pot' in Rome

[MSN CPPnet (Ton Cremers)]

November 11, 2005 Edition 

Met Chief To Discuss 'Hot Pot' in Rome
BY RUSSELL BERMAN - Special to the Sun
November 11, 2005
URL: http://www.nysun.com/article/22903

The director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art is headed to Rome for
discussions with Italian officials about eight pieces from the museum's
collection - including the prized Euphronios krater - that the Italian
government claims were looted.

Philippe de Montebello, the museum's curator of 28 years, is slated to
arrive in Rome within the next few days, an official in Italy's Ministry of
Cultural Heritage, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said yesterday. A
spokesman for the Met, Harold Holzer, confirmed that "a meeting is being
arranged," but would not comment on when it would occur or what specifically
would be discussed.

The planned meeting comes amid allegations by the Italian government - some,
it says, based on photographic evidence - that more than 100 antiquities
housed in museums across America, Europe, and Asia were stolen from the
country by an antiques dealer convicted of trafficking in looted art.
Authorities identified eight pieces in the Met with disputed provenance,
including the Euphronios krater, a fifth-century B.C.E. vase considered to
be the museum's most prized antiquity.

Italian prosecutors have collected the evidence for a case against a former
curator of the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles, Marion True, and Robert
Hecht Jr., an American art dealer, according to a report in the Los Angeles
Times. Ms. True and Mr. Hecht are charged with a conspiracy involving the
trafficking of millions of dollars in looted antiquities, stemming from the
Getty's purchase of dozens of pieces whose validity the Italian government
has disputed. Mr. Hecht is the dealer who sold the Euphronios krater to the
Met.

The Getty case is expected to have a wide-ranging impact on the future
trading of antiquities. The Italian Ministry of Culture said yesterday the
Getty had "spontaneously" decided to return three objects to the country,
one of which, another ancient Greek krater, was the subject of a formal
complaint by the Italian government.

The decision by the Getty to return the objects was designed as a gesture of
good will, the museum said. In a statement, the museum said it did so "in
the interest of settling the litigation and demonstrating the Getty's
interest in a productive relationship with Italy."

Mr. Holzer of the Met said the Italian government had contacted the museum
about the Euphronios krater and other objects, but he would not say whether
a formal complaint had been filed.

The origin of the Euphronios has long been questioned. The Met, led by its
director at the time, Thomas Hoving, purchased the krater from Mr. Hecht in
1972 for a then-record sum of $1 million. Mr. Hecht told museum officials
that he acquired the piece from a Lebanese dealer who had said it was in his
family's collection since World War I. The museum's purchase of the
Euphronios, and the account of its origin, were met with widespread
suspicion, and spurred probes in Italy and America. In 1977, the Manhattan
district attorney, Robert Morgenthau, launched his own inquiry and impaneled
a grand jury. According to Mr. Hoving, Mr. Morgenthau disbanded the grand
jury after a Chicago art collector gave last-minute testimony that appeared
to substantiate the museum's claim of provenance. Yet in the decades since
the Met acquired the Euphronios, a second story of its origin has emerged,
backed by a mounting pile of evidence. Court records divulged late last
month by the Los Angeles Times show Italian investigators seized a
handwritten memoir penned by Mr. Hecht from his Paris apartment in 2001. In
the manuscript, Mr. Hecht details two versions of how he obtained the
krater, including one account in which he writes that he purchased it in
1971 from Giacomo Medici, an Italian dealer convicted last year of selling
stolen art. The court records, the Times reported, also include photographs
of Messrs. Medici and Hecht posing with the vase.

Mr. Morgenthau's office said it was unlikely to reopen the case, since it
had received no new complaints.

For Mr. Hoving, the former Met director, the new evidence comes as
vindication. Although he once vouched for the authenticity of the Euphronios
krater, he has come to believe it was stolen, and labeled it a "hot pot."

Mr. Hoving called the krater "one of the 10 greatest works created in the
Western world" and said the new evidence tainting its acquisition would
dramatically alter the antiquities trade. "Nobody's going to buy anything
without 100% proof of provenance," he said.