[CPProt.net] Italy: Greek Vase, 2, 500 Years Old, Is Shattered in Smuggling Probe

[MSN CPPnet (Ton Cremers)]

Greek Vase, 2,500 Years Old, Is Shattered in Smuggling Probe 

Nov. 21 (Bloomberg) -- On June 19, 1990, Sotheby's Holdings Inc. held the
century's first known auction of works by the Leonardo da Vinci of Greek
pots, Euphronios. A 2,500-year-old kylix wine cup painted with a Trojan War
scene, sold in New York for $742,000 to a then-anonymous ``European buyer.''


Then it vanished. The kylix is the only Euphronios vase listed as having an
``unknown'' location by Oxford University's Beazley Archive, the standard
reference for Greek vessels. 

``We just don't know where it is,'' said Thomas Mannack, 46, who runs the
archive's pottery database. 

It's a mystery no more. The missing kylix is in a cardboard box in a
storeroom of Rome's Villa Giulia museum. 

The bad news: It's smashed into dozens of pieces. 

The kylix is evidence in an antiquities-smuggling trial in Rome. The shards
are also evidence of an unfortunate twist to Italy's quest to win back
another Euphronios work: a matching pot in New York's Metropolitan Museum of
Art that Italian prosecutors say was looted. That other pot is a subject of
talks in Rome tomorrow between the Italian Culture Ministry and the Met's
director, Philippe de Montebello. 

It turns out that as Italy gathered proof to argue for the return of one
Euphronios masterpiece, its companion was broken. 

``It is, of course, a tragedy,'' said Oxford's Mannack, when told the fate
of the kylix. ``Quite ironic.'' 

Euphronios's works are rare. He signed his name on 18 known vases -- six
times as painter and 12 times as potter -- according to a biography on the
J. Paul Getty Museum's Web site. 

Swiss Policeman 

The broken kylix was signed by Euphronios as its painter. It shattered in
May 1998 while a Swiss policeman handled it during an inventory of accused
art smuggler Giacomo Medici's Geneva warehouse, the officer's report of the
incident says. 

The kylix was among thousands of antiquities that Swiss and Italian police
found in a 1995 raid that led to Medici's conviction in December for
receiving and illegally exporting antiquities, including the Met's
Euphronios pot and the kylix. 

Medici, 67, who was sentenced to 10 years in prison, says he's innocent and
is free while appealing the verdict, which isn't considered final until he
exhausts two levels of appeals. 

He provided photos of the broken kylix and a copy of the Swiss police report
to Bloomberg News after it asked him about the cup, which is listed in court
documents from his case. Daniela Rizzo, a director in the Italian Culture
Ministry's archaeology department, also said the broken kylix was at the
Villa Giulia museum and she confirmed the contents of the police report. 

The report, by Swiss officer Alain Baudin, mentions the May 1998 incident as
an aside as it details the inventory process. 

``We should point out that while moving a plate (Kylix-photo No. 435/436),
it practically disintegrated,'' the report says. 

`Badly Glued' 

``This object had been restored and glued in various places,'' he wrote of
the kylix, which like many similar ancient dishes was excavated broken and
then repaired. ``We have noted that the cracks correspond to parts that were
badly glued.'' 

Baudin, reached by phone at his home in Switzerland, declined to elaborate
or say whether he'd dropped the cup. 

``I'm no longer a policeman,'' he said. ``I'm not involved in the case. It's
finished for me. Bye-bye.'' 

Photos of the cup both before and after it was broken show that one side of
the cup shattered, while the other half, including the cup's stem, was
largely undamaged. The shattered half, which includes the scene matching the
one on the Met's pot, had been previously restored, cracks in the older
photos indicate. 

``Poor guy,'' the Culture Ministry's Rizzo, who handles looting issues for
the region surrounding Rome, said of the policeman. ``He broke nothing else,
just this one.'' 

Works signed by Euphronios are prized by museums and held by only a few,
including the Metropolitan and Paris's Louvre. 

`Dime a Dozen' 

``Euphronios, whatever he did, he did with great care,'' said Dietrich von
Bothmer, 87, a curator at the Metropolitan who was involved in the $1
million purchase in 1972 of the disputed Euphronios krater, a pot for mixing
wine. ``Some other people turned out vases, as we used to call them, a dime
a dozen.'' 

Euphronios worked in Athens around 500 B.C., and painted the kylix as one of
his first known works. The vases were exported to what is now Italy.
Etruscans, a people who preceded the Romans, buried them in tombs with their
dead. 

In recent centuries, archaeologists, collectors and tomb robbers dug them
up. The kylix, whose origins are undocumented, came onto the market in the
1970s, as did the Met's krater. 

An American art dealer, Robert Hecht, 86, sold the larger Euphronios krater
to the Metropolitan in 1972. 

When the Met bought the pot, the museum said it came from a man in Lebanon
whose father had bought it earlier in the century. Italian police said it
was looted from a tomb in Cerveteri, near Rome, within a year before the Met
bought it. 

Hecht also acquired the kylix, in the late 1960s or early 1970s, he said. In
interviews he gave conflicting accounts of the cup's source. At first Hecht
said he bought it from Medici for $25,000. Then he said he was mistaken, and
believes he may have bought it from a Scandinavian collector. 

Offered to Met 

Medici said he had nothing to do with Hecht's purchase. 

In 1973, Hecht offered his kylix to the Metropolitan, said Thomas Hoving,
director of the museum at the time. 

It would have made a perfect match. The kylix portrays Sarpedon, a son of
Zeus, being carried off the battlefield bleeding. The krater at the Met
shows him soon afterward, dying. 

``Hecht showed it to me and von Bothmer in February 1973 and the price was
$70,000,'' Hoving said. ``I was tempted, for it was like having an early and
a mature Leonardo.'' 

Because the museum was already battling Italian claims that the krater was
looted, Hoving said he took a pass on the kylix. 

Hecht is on trial in Rome for conspiracy, receiving and illicit export of
antiquities, including the Met's Euphronios krater and the broken kylix,
according to his indictment. He denies the charges. 

Silver Market 

The cup later surfaced in the collection of Dallas billionaire Nelson Bunker
Hunt, who was bankrupted trying to corner the silver market and sold his
collection at Sotheby's in 1990 to pay creditors. Hunt didn't respond to a
request for comment. 

At Sotheby's in 1990, the ``European buyer'' was Medici, a Roman art dealer.
He flew the cup to Geneva and bought a fireproof safe for his warehouse,
using it to store the kylix and a selection of his most valuable objects,
Medici said in an interview in Rome. 

Medici said he was waiting for prices to rise and planned to eventually
auction the kylix, which he said will be worth at least $5 million after it
is glued back together. 

But in 1995, Swiss and Italian police raided his warehouse, seizing
artifacts and heaps of papers and photos. Based on the documents, Italian
prosecutors charged him with trafficking in looted art -- including the
kylix and the krater, which he allegedly handled in the 1970s as a middleman
for tomb robbers. 

Moved by Truck 

In 1998, the kylix broke during the inventory, and in 2000 the Swiss turned
over to Italy 1,973 artifacts seized from Medici, including the cup, which a
private moving company drove from Geneva to Rome in a truck, Medici said. 

About two years later, Medici won approval from the Rome Tribunal to see his
sequestered objects, which were stored at Villa Giulia, a museum of Etruscan
art. 

He knew the kylix had broken. But Medici said he was shocked to see the
pieces had been scooped into plastic bags where the jagged corners could rub
against the painted surface, which shows red figures on a black background. 

Medici said he repacked the pieces, wrapping them in newspaper before
putting them back in their cardboard box. 

``I tried to separate them, so the sharp edges didn't scratch it,'' he said.


In December, Medici was convicted of receiving and illicit export of
antiquities, including the matching Euphronios works. 

Judge Guglielmo Muntoni of the Rome Tribunal determined that Medici had
illegally exported both in the 1970s, based in part on entries that Hecht
made in a memoir seized in a raid of Hecht's Paris apartment, according to
Muntoni's sentence of Medici. 

Antiquities Curator 

Hecht's co-defendant in the Rome trial is Marion True, 57, the former
antiquities curator of the J. Paul Getty Museum, who is charged in
connection with objects she acquired for the Los Angeles museum. She denies
any wrongdoing. 

Italian officials meeting this week with the Met's de Montebello plan to
bolster their claim to the Euphronios krater by presenting evidence used to
convict Medici and charge Hecht. As for the shattered cup, the ministry's
Rizzo said there's hope. 

``I don't think it will be a big problem to fix this kylix,'' she said. 

And if Medici loses his appeals, Italy will be free to exhibit it and other
objects seized from him. ``Then we can show all these objects, because they
are splendid,'' she said. 
 


To contact the reporter on this story:
Vernon Silver in Rome at  vtsilver at bloomberg.net.
Last Updated: November 20, 2005 20:54 EST