[CPProt.net] Italy-USA: Art museum entangled in the case of the vase

[MSN CPPnet (Ton Cremers)]

Art museum entangled in the case of the vase
Mary Abbe, Star Tribune
November 14, 2005


For nearly 2,500 years, Dionysus, the Greek god of wine and revelry, has led
his dancing followers round and round a 2-foot-tall vase.

Now the vase is on display at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, which
bought the piece in 1983 to celebrate its centennial.

But Italian authorities are claiming it as looted property that rightfully
belongs to them. 

The institute, which has not been accused of wrongdoing, is one of eight
American museums that Italian authorities last week said possessed objects
allegedly dug illegally from ancient graves and ruins.

The Italians support their claim on the Minneapolis piece with a photo of a
pottery fragment that appears to match the vase.

"We've not received any notification from the Italians and have no proof
that the object was looted," said William Griswold, the museum's director.
"If we have reason to believe an object has been stolen, we would absolutely
want to respond in an ethical and legally responsible fashion." 

Looting of ancient archaeological sites has increased dramatically in the
past 40 years, experts say, spurred on by war, changing national boundaries,
cheap air fares, poverty and increased interest in prime artifacts. A
British government study in 2000 concluded that between $4 billion and $6
billion a year changes hands in illicit trade in antiquities and cultural
items.

An investigation in L.A. 

Questions about the Minneapolis vase surfaced as part of a decadelong
Italian investigation of art bought by the Getty Museum in Los Angeles in
the 1980s and early '90s. A former Getty curator, Marion True, goes on trial
Wednesday in Rome on charges of conspiring to traffic in illicit
antiquities. 

Italian authorities claim that the Getty has 42 illegal objects. Last week
that museum returned three pieces to Italy in hopes of settling the case and
developing "a productive relationship with Italy."

Griswold was acting director of the Getty for a year before moving to
Minneapolis last month. He said he had been briefed on the Getty's situation
while working there but was not questioned by legal authorities about the
antiquities, which were bought before he was hired.

The Minneapolis and Getty cases hinge in part on a cache of 10,000 Polaroids
of looted objects that Italian police seized in a 1995 raid on a Swiss
warehouse operated by Giacomo Medici, an antiquities dealer who last year
was sentenced in Rome to 10 years in prison for trafficking in illegal art.

Medici, who is free while appealing his conviction, apparently bought
antiquities from grave robbers, had them restored and then sold them to
museums and private collectors through a network of respected art dealers. A
Roman prosecutor claims to have a photo of Medici at the Getty beside an
illicit vase the dealer sold the museum.

The Minneapolis Institute of Arts bought its vase "in good faith" from Robin
Symes, a prominent British antiquities dealer in the 1980s, said museum
spokeswoman Anne-Marie Wagener. 

Symes was one of the Getty's main sources of antiquities. His reputation was
questioned by that museum's staff even while they were doing business with
him, according to internal memos. In 1987 Symes was referred to as "a fence"
by Harold Williams, then chief executive of the Getty Trust, which oversees
the museum, according to written notes secured by the Los Angeles Times. 

A 'grand object' with a past

Michael Conforti, director of the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute
in Williamstown, Mass., was head curator at the Minneapolis museum in 1983.
He recommended the purchase of the vase, which is technically a
"volute-krater" used to hold a mixture of water and wine. 

During a phone interview last week, Conforti could not recall from whom the
museum bought the piece, which he described as a "rather grand object," but
he said the museum wanted it "to support the teaching mission of the
institution."

One figure on the vase -- a young woman holding a child satyr on her
shoulders -- is apparently unique among surviving Greek vases, according to
the museum's label. It is essentially the same image that appears in a photo
seized by Italian police. 

Museums now tend do much more thorough research before acquiring an object
than they did in the past, Griswold said. "But even in the 1980s, if there
was suspicion that an object was excavated, it would not have been
acquired." 

On Friday, Italian authorities seeking seven objects they believe rightfully
belong to Italy requested meetings with officials at the Metropolitan Museum
of Art in New York. They also claim that the Boston Museum of Fine Arts has
more than 30 such items and that there are two each in New Jersey's
Princeton University Art Museum and Virginia's Richmond Museum of Fine Art.
In Ohio, art museums in Cleveland and Toledo are said to have one each. 


The Los Angeles Times contributed to this report. Mary Abbe . 612-673-4431