[CPProt.net] Greece to begin 'immediate' court claim for Getty Museum art treasures

[MSN CPPnet (Ton Cremers)]

Greece to begin 'immediate' court claim for Getty Museum art treasures
Published: 11/21/2005
 

ATHENS - Greece will "immediately" begin judicial proceedings for the return
of four ancient art objects from the Los Angeles-based J. Paul Getty Museum
which it believes were illegally smuggled out of the country, the culture
ministry said on Monday. 
"Instructions were given for the immediate start of a judicial procedure to
claim four items," a ministry statement said, without identifying the
artefacts in question. 

Greece confirmed in October that it was interested in the return "of certain
objects", after the Los Angeles Times reported that Greek authorities sought
a gold funerary wreath, an inscribed tombstone, a marble torso of a young
woman, and an archaic votive relief bought in 1955 by J. Paul Getty himself.


The paper said Greece first lodged its claim nine years ago and formally
renewed it in May through diplomatic channels. 

The LA Times quoted Los Angeles officials saying that Greek authorities
informed the Getty before it purchased the funerary wreath and the marble
torso that they had almost certainly been stolen and smuggled out of Greece.


The Getty's former chief antiquities curator, Marion True, acquired the
wreath from a Swiss art dealer, Christoph Leon, for 1.15 million dollars
(977,000 euros), after the dealer said it came from a private collection,
the paper said. 

The Greek claim comes ten days after the Getty returned three allegedly
stolen items to Italy, at a time when its former curator True is on trial in
Rome on charges of conspiring to traffic in looted antiquities along with
art dealer Robert Hecht.