Blog Subscription via Follow.it

December 9, 2018

A History of the Statue of the Victorious Youth - Comparing the Getty's Timeline with Italy's

Image Credit: S. King
On December 3, 2018 Lisa Lapin, Vice President of Communications, J. Paul Getty Trust, released a press statement on the decision by Italy’s Court of Cassation on the Legal Ownership of the Victorious Youth.  The museum also issued a timeline which I have elaborated upon below.

The JPGM's original timeline can be downloaded here from the museum's website.

But before tackling the complexities related to the Getty's "right" to the ancient bronze statue known as "the Getty Bronze", it seems appropriate to consider the imbroglio by examining essential phases of this antiquity's long story.  As in the case with so many art restitution requests, situations are more complex than any one side of a story can tell.  

To compare and contrast the points emphasized in the Getty's version of the bronze statue's history, we have re-published the museum's statements in blue with my added elaborative comments in green

History of the Statue of the Victorious Youth (The Getty Bronze) December 2018
History of the Statue referred to in Italy as L'Atleta di Fano, L'Atleta di Lisippo, L'Atleta Vittorioso, or for short, often as a point of pride, or affection, "il Lisippo."


 • The statue of a Victorious Youth was found in international waters by fishermen on an Italian vessel in 1964. The fisherman brought it ashore and sold to Italian buyers.

According to statements taken by Fano fishermen with knowledge of the event, who worked aboard the fishing vessel Ferruccio Ferri and were involved in the discovery, the bronze statue, which came to be known as l'Atleta Vittorioso, was found by coincidence, and was hauled up into fishing nets from the Adriatic sea in August 1964.  The captain of the vessel was Romeo Pirani, the owner of the vessel was Guido Ferri. Statements given by Pirani, Ferri and a deckhand aboard the vessel, referring to the approximate location where the statue was found, have at times been inconsistent.  Also the memory or capabilities of those making statements has also drawn questions as to abilities and motivations as we have pointed out in an earlier blog post. 

In testimonies and statements given, the varying and conflicting distances which have been stated are: 

  • a few miles from the Fano coast, within Italian territorial waters. --as relayed by the testimony given by Renato Merli, an Imola merchant, on November 26, 1977 to the Italian Carabinieri.  Merli reported to the Italian authorities that he had been told this distance directly by both Romeo Pirani and Guido Ferri, when approached about purchasing the statue in 1964. *Tribunale Ordinario di Pesaro, Criminal Section, Ufficio del Giudice per le indagini preliminary in funzione di Giudice dell’esecuzione, Ordinanza del 12 può 2009, n.2042/07 R.G.N.R. 3357/07 R.G.I.P. (It.)
  • a few miles from the coast, within Italian territorial waters, where the fishing nets were thrown, in known shallow waters. --as told in the testimonies given by Romeo Pirani and Guido Ferri in December 1977 to the Italian Carabinieri.  NOTE during his testimony, Pirani also admitted to his own role in the theft of this antiquity. By incriminating himself, his estimate could at least be considered reasonably honest. *Tribunale Ordinario di Pesaro, Criminal Section, Ufficio del Giudice per le indagini preliminary in funzione di Giudice dell’esecuzione, Ordinanza del 12 può 2009, n.2042/07 R.G.N.R. 3357/07 R.G.I.P. (It.)
  • 32 (nautical) miles out from the Italian coast --as reported by Athos Rosato, a 15 year old deckhand at the time the statue was lifted aboard ship, to US journalist, Jason Felch in an interview sometime in 2006.
  • 43 miles from (Mount) Conero, a promontory situated directly south of the port of Ancona on the Adriatic Sea and about 27 miles from the coast of the former Yugoslavia at a depth of about 75 meters --as written by Judge Lorena Mussoni, preliminary investigation judge at the Tribunal of Pesaro, in her July 2007 order for confiscation of the bronze statue, which she based upon a statement made by the head of the fishing vessel.  NOTE:  This may have been during testimony given in the courtroom. 
  • 40 (nautical) miles out from the Italian coast --as told by Romeo Pirani to an Italian reporter for the Italian news publication Il Tirreno on November 20, 2007
  • 37/38 miles from the port of Ancona, and 24/25 miles from Fano--as stated in a video statement made by Athos Rosato, a 15 year old deckhand at the time the statue was lifted aboard ship, published by the Italian news agency www.ilrestodelcarlino.it on December 4, 2018
Note:  Estimating distances at sea by visual indications alone is reasonably possible up to a maximum of 4 nautical miles. Using baring methods, based on the isosceles triangle principle, and using a hand compass and the boat’s  speedometer, (tools the fisherman may have had or used), one can estimate the distance of a fixed point with some reasonable approximation.   

It is important to note though, that determining the approximate distance from landfall as well as the direction, location and depth from which individuals have noted that this statue was pulled from the seabed, cannot be accurately ascertained simply by taking into consideration any of the testimonies or statements given to authorities or journalists.  None of the documentation I have been able to review has specified whether or not the aforementioned distances, given by the fishermen aboard the Ferruccio Ferri, and in one instance drawn from a  notebook submitted as evidence in which Romeo Pirani drew a map of the find spot, is it known if these distances were made utilizing instrumental or mathematical calculation. 

Without knowing if the vessel's estimated speed over elapsed time and course were factored in, also taking into consideration the effect of currents or wind on the vessel's trajectory on the day in 1964,  in is impossible to ascertain, beyond reasonable doubt, which, if any, of the find spot statements, might be truly accurate.  


• The statue of a Victorious Youth is Greek, not Roman or Italian. It was in Italian territory only for a fleeting period of time, and only in modern times.

Find spot of the sunken statue, in international waters or not, notwithstanding, Greek presence in what is now the modern country of Italy began with the migrations of the Greek Diaspora from the 8th to the 5th century BCE and included various ancient Greek city-states in Sicily and the southern part of the Italian peninsula, an area referred to by the Romans as Magna Graecia (Latin: Greater Greece).  But the Greek's expansion did not stop there. 


Map of Ancient Greece and the Ancient Greek Colonies
Image Credit: 
wikimedia.org
Farther north, on the Adriatic coast in Italy's Le Marche region was the northernmost ancient Greek settlement located on the Italian peninsula, the city of Ancona (Greek: Ἀγκών), which sits not far from the part of the sea where the statue was recovered by the Italian fishermen.  The Greek city was founded as the result of colonial expansion by Greek settlers from Syracuse, in about 387 BCE.  Ancona also maintained its Greek physiognomy, even after the Roman conquest of the area of the Piceno and at varying times entertained trading relationships with the islands of Greece, as well as the Greek colonies of Africa.

The political geography of the ancient world, in the region we know of today as Italy, did not follow the current boundaries applied to our modern country states. Nor were the Greek inhabitants of Le Marche isolated from the outside world.  To classify the entire list of ancient peoples who resided on what is today called Italy, as either Roman or Italic, or by proxy to classify their cultural output as either Roman or Italian fails to consider the interconnectedness of all the peoples in antiquity, Greek and otherwise, who inhabited what is now known as Italy.


Calyx by the Greek Potter Euphronios
Museo Nazionale Archeologico
Cerveteri, Italy
Image Credit: ARCA  
Using the Getty's logic, I am curious how the museum would classify the presence and ownership of Greek made vases found on Italian soil, like the Euphronios Krater, which was looted from an Etruscan necropolis west of Rome or Greek pottery produced in Laconia, the region of Sparta, primarily in the 6th century BC., which also has been discovered in some quantity in Etruscan graves. 

By the same token, how would they classify the Riace Warriors, two full-sized Greek bronzes of naked bearded warriors, cast around 460–450 BCE which were found at sea by a diver near Riace on the southern coast of Italy in 1974? 

For that matter, how would the J. Paul Getty Museum classify any foreign antiquity or cultural remains found and preserved within the boundaries of Italy? 

While we can hypothesize that the Romans likely carried l'Atleta Vittorioso off from one location in the attempt to bring it to another location, sometime during the first century BCE or CE, there is no absolute proof with which to consolidate the hypothesis.  Nor can anyone clearly state where under what circumstance or motivation the statue was in transit. 

As for the JPGM's state to the bronze's fleeting presence in Italy in modern times, it's worth mentioning that the introduction of the statue onto Italian territory was done so clandestinely, via two Italian vessels, the Ferruccio Ferri and the Gigliola Ferri, captained by Romeo Pirani and owned by Guido Ferri, in violation of the provisions set out in Articles 35, 36, 39, 42 , 48, 61 of Italian law n. 1089 of 1939.

Rather than declare the statue’s discovery to customs officials as required under Italy's law, the fishermen elected to hide the bronze from state authorities and to profit from its illegal sale.  To protect their found treasure, they buried the bronze in a cabbage field at the home of Dario Felici, near Carrara di Fano before eventually selling it for a reported 3.500.000 Italian lire to the antiquarian Giacomo Barbetti.  Barbetti in turn shifted the statue to his own property before moving it on to the church sacristy of Giovanni Nagni, a priest in Gubbio.

As the encrusted statue, covered in marine organisms and barnacles from its 2000 years in seawater began to smell, the ancient bronze drew unwanted attention.  This forced the conspirators to again relocate the bronze, from under the stairs in the church's room for vestments, to the priest’s own bathtub.  There it was submerged in a saltwater bath to try and minimize the odor and slow its decay.  Sometime thereafter it was shifted again, though to an unknown location.  

All of the above actions demonstrate willful intent on the part of the fishermen smugglers and their intermediaries to profit from the illicit sale of this unregistered antiquity.  It also illustrates the extent the actors went to, in order to willfully circumvent the Italian legislation's restriction on selling antiquities of this significance.   


• After years of criminal proceedings in the late 1960s, several Italians who had purchased the statue from the fishermen were acquitted of purchasing and concealing stolen property. In 1968, the Court of Cassation, Italy’s highest court, ruled that there was no evidence that the statue belonged to the Italian state.

The Italian authorities received an anonymous tip about the existence of the statue in April 1965, involving a trip made by Giacomo Barbetti to Germany to find a buyer for the bronze.  As a result of that lead, Italian law enforcement officers opened an investigation in May 1965 which focused on Giacomo Barbetti, his two relatives, Fabio and Pietro, and the priest from Gubbio, Giovanni Nagni.  That same month, Italian authorities raided the home of Giovanni Nagni looking for the statue only to discover that the bronze had already been moved.  

Some accounts state that Pietro Barbetti was the individual who removed the statue from the priest's home and who later sold it on to an unidentified individual in Milan. Other accounts state that Giacomo Barbetti sold the statue to an art dealer only a few days after its purchase from Mr. Ferri and Mr. Pirani (therefore in 1964) but here the dates and transactions are not very clear.

In 1966 these four accomplices were formally charged with purchasing and concealing stolen property in violation of Article 67 of Italian law n. 1089 of 1939.  

On May 18, 1966 the judge at the Court of First Instance ruled for the acquittal of Barbetti, his two relatives, and Father Giovanni Nagni on the grounds that there was insufficient evidence for the government to make its case.  Like a smoking gun without a corpse, without the whereabouts of the missing bronze statue, the court was left with insufficient evidence to determine if the underlying crime, that the bronze was of historical and artistic value, was in fact true, without that, they could neither prove which governing territory the antiquity had been found. 

The sentences of acquittal at the tribunal level were subsequently challenged before the Attorney General at the Court of Appeal of Perugia and on January 27, 1967 the Italy's Appellate Court reversed the lower court's decision.  In doing so, they convicted Barbetti and his relatives for receiving stolen goods.  Nagni was convicted of aiding and abetting. 

In turn, each of these convictions were then also appealed, this time by the defendants, to the court of final resort, Italy's Supreme Court, known as the Court of Cassation.  This court annulled the Appellate Court sentence in May 1968 and ordered that the case be reheard at a new trial.  

On November 8, 1970 the Court of Appeal in Rome absolved the four defendants of wrongdoing, as again, the whereabouts of the statue remained unknown, and without the benefit of being able to examine the unaccounted for antiquity, there was insufficient evidence to prove the underlying crime.


Interestingly, both Giacomo Barbetti and Giovanni Nagni both confirmed during court proceedings that they had purchased the bronze sculpture (in contravention of existing law) and sold the antiquity (in contravention of existing law) to an unnamed individual in Milan. 

In the end, despite their lengthy nature, none of this first series of legal court cases against the four incriminated individuals resulted in convictions or provided the Italians with sufficient information to ascertain who the purported Milan buyer was, or where the statue had gone after leaving Gubbio.

It was simple gone, only to conveniently resurface, after the acquittal, in London in 1971.


• The statue was acquired in 1971 by a consortium called Artemis S.A., a publicly traded fund specializing in art works. Munich-based German dealer Heinz Herzer offered to sell the statue to J. Paul Getty in 1972. Mr. Getty wrote Herzer that he would recommend the acquisition to the Getty Museum Board of Trustees at a price of $3.5 million.

While off the Italian radar, the statue of the "Victorious Youth" passed through a number of intermediary hands.  After being smuggled out of Italy, the bronze crisscrossing its way through several countries including England and Brazil only to reappear again in documentation in the form of a document signed on June 9, 1971 where Établissement-Artemis is reported to have purchased the ancient statue from vendors in Brazil for $700,000. 

Founded in 1970, and headed by German antiquities dealer Heinz Herzer, evidence presented by the Italian state at the Tribunal in Pesaro in February 2010 suggested that Artemis was created ad hoc, with the specific purpose of managing the exportation, restoration and subsequent purchase of this valuable statue. 


Image Credit:
NBC Documentary
In 1972 that bronze was moved again, this time to Herzer in Munich, who was tasked with removing the corrosion and incrustations covering the bronze statue.  That same year Herzer shopped the statue to Bernard Ashmole, then Keeper of Greek and Roman Antiquities at the British Museum. Ashmole is said to have spoken  directly with John Paul Getty about the statue during a visit to the billionaire's UK home, which is located three miles north-east of Guildford in Surrey.

In a letter sent by Getty himself to Herzer on August 31, 1972, the billionaire asks the German dealer for documents related to the earlier Italian trials on the 4 accomplices.  He also asked for all the documentation Herzer had surrounding the statue's acquisition.  

A note signed by Norris Bramblett, longtime personal aide to Mr. Getty and Treasurer of the J. Paul Getty Museum, reads: "Mr. Getty said that, subject to obtaining the undisputed title of property and supposing to be able to obtain it, to the satisfaction of Attorney Stuart Peeler, (the lawyer for the Museum), he would recommend to the trustees to purchase the statue ." **Tribunale Ordinario di Pesaro, Ufficio del Giudice per le indagini preliminary in funzione di Giudice dell’esecuzione, Ordinanza del 12 può 2009, n.2042/07 R.G.N.R. 3357/07 R.G.I.P. (It.)


• As part of a robust due diligence process, Stuart Peeler, a prominent Los Angeles lawyer and Getty Museum trustee, reviewed the Italian court decisions from the 1960’s and a legal opinion provided by a pre-eminent Italian counsel and concluded, as had the highest Italian court, that Italy had no legal claim to the statue because there was no evidence it was of Italian origin or that it was found in Italy (or Italian waters), and that the Getty Museum could obtain good title. Negotiations continued into 1973, with Mr. Getty repeatedly offering lower prices.

The time period it took for this "robust" review by Peeler is not stated in the Getty's timeline, but according to court documents a letter was sent to Stuart T. Peeler on 4 October 1972, by lawyers Vittorio Grimaldi and Gianni Manca of the Ercole Graziadei law firm, which represented Herzer and the art firm Artemis.  In the attorneys' opinion "on the question of the Greek bronze" the two Italians affirmed that the statue had been purchased by one of their clients (Établissement pour la Diffusion et la Connaissance des Oeuvres d'Art "DC") in Brazil by a group of Italian sellers on 9 June 1971. (This letter is part of Annex 10 of the defense evidentiary documents of December 21, 2009).

This event can also be corroborated via statements made by David Carritt who reported to the British police that the bronze had been purchased from a division of the Artemis firm referred to as the "Établissement DC", based in Vaduz in Liechtenstein. 

Grimaldi and Manca both reported that the bronze had been the subject of an investigation and trial in Italy, which began in 1965 and which concluded in 1970, with a definitive sentence of acquittal delivered by the Court of Appeal of Rome. It is interesting to note that the lawyers also clarified that the acquittal had been determined by the lack of ascertaining both, the place of the statue's discovery, and the uncertainty about the nature of the good's archaeological or historical interest to the state. **Tribunale Ordinario di Pesaro, Ufficio del Giudice per le indagini preliminary in funzione di Giudice dell’esecuzione, Ordinanza del 12 può 2009, n.2042/07 R.G.N.R. 3357/07 R.G.I.P. (It.)

Stuart T. Peeler and his father were J. Paul Getty private lawyers and according to his own obituary, was responsible for the judicial process whereby Getty's will was "proved" in a court of law and accepted as a valid public document as well as managing the Getty Trust's general activities abroad.  Peeler was also an executive of Santa Fe International Oil. Given that, I would suspect the time he spent on examining the ethical purchase of this statue was minimal in relation to the other affairs he was tasked with. 

Getty left an estate worth nearly $700 million to the J. Paul Getty Museum Trust. By law, the Trust was required to spend 4.25 % of the average market value of its endowment per year. Given that, I suspect the time Peeler spent examining this statue's ethics was minimal at best.

• In 1973, Mr. Getty discussed the possibility of joint acquisition of the statue with Thomas Hoving, director of the Metropolitan Museum. Mr. Getty appears to have rejected this proposal because it would have required the Getty Museum to pay more than 90% of the purchase price while receiving only a 50% ownership interest.

It was in Hertzer's studio in Munich on December 13, 1972 that the bronze was first examined, by Dr. Thomas Hoving, then director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.  According to statements Hoving made, in a news documentary produced by ABC News of Los Angeles on the Getty Museum's important acquisition, Hertzer had originally offered to sell the ancient statue to the Metropolitan Museum of Art for $4.4 million, a figure outside the superceded the museum's budget.

Initial talks began via a phone call between Hoving and Getty, regarding a possible joint ownership scheme between the J. Paul Getty Museum and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, funded primarily by John Paul Getty.   The pair later met in London on June 14 1973.  On that occasion Hoving received approval from Getty to negotiate a 3.5 million dollar asking price with Herzer and Artemis, with a tentative agreement being made between the two men that the bronze would be shared between the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the J. Paul Getty Museum in exchange for the Met providing a long term loan to the J. Paul Getty Museum of its 17 Boscotrecase frescoes.

Evidence presented by the Italian state at the Tribunal in Pesaro in February 2010 related that John Paul Getty was therefore fully aware of the criminal proceeding which had been brought by the Italian AG against the accomplices involved in the smuggling of the bronze.  Also, to finalize the potential deal, John Paul Getty demanded the original title owned by Herzer, as well as to ascertain or negate the existence of any right to ownership from the Italian State, including all details on the methods of exit of the property from Italy and the existence or otherwise of the jurisdiction of the Italian State.

When Hoving returned to New York, he immediately contacted the members of the Met's Acquisitions Commission in order to agree upon the modalities of a formal joint acquisition agreement for the antiquity and to work out the written details of said agreement. Dietrich von Bothmer (a member of the Met's Acquisition  Commission) completed the Lisippo acquisition form containing all the relevant details for the proposed deal. At point XII of this purchase form von Bothmer stated that he had learned of the existence of the ancient bronze via Elie Borowski, a prominent antiquities dealer who himself is is an individual of controversy.  Borowski had told von Bothmer that he had witnessed seeing the statue while it was still hidden inside the bathtub at the priest's residence in Gubbio. 

On June 25, 1973 Hoving hand-delivered a letter to David Carritt, the negotiator designated by Artemis for the potential sale informing the firm that he had been authorized by John Paul Getty to offer the sum of $ 3.8 million for the purchase of the bronze.  In this letter Hoving stated:


"As I made clear in our conversations, (that you had previously heard by telephone) the conclusion of this purchase by Mr. Getty is subject to examination and approval of the Council of the Metropolitan Museum and of Mr. Getty's Legal Advisor, in relation to certain legal issues that may require qualifications or certifications ... "


In the days that passed the negotiated figure for the purchase of the statue changed several times; raised on the part of Hertzer through Carritt or negotiated lower by Getty, but always without the substantiating documentation required by the two museums being produced. 

On November 3, 1973 Herzer wrote to Jiri Frel, curator of antiquities at the J.Paul Getty Museum from 1973 until 1984, to announce the failure of the negotiations to achieve an agreeable selling price among all parties for the joint acquisition of the statue between the J. Paul Getty Museum and the Metropolitan Museum.  


• In 1973, at the request of Italian officials, German police investigated Herzer about receipt of stolen goods in connection with the statue. The investigation was dropped for lack of evidence of wrongdoing, mainly because the Italian high court had concluded that there was no evidence that the statue had been found in Italy (or Italian waters) or that it was of Italian origin.

In 1973 the Carabinieri TPC acquired a lead that a bronze sculpture attributed to Lysippos and coming from Italy, was in the Heinz Herzer antiquities shop in Munich.  Following up on the lead, the Carabinieri visited Herzer's shop in July 1973 when they were in Munich for another investigation.  Herzer was not present when the officers arrived, only his secretary and his lawyer were. They confirmed that Herzer was in possession of the statue in question, and claiming that Herzer was in possession of documentation proving the lawfulness of the statue on the art market.  At the time of the visit, the lawyer refused to deliver any photographic imagery, detailing the bronze.


• In 1974, a prosecutor in Gubbio, Italy, sought an investigation of Herzer in connection with the statue. German authorities terminated the investigation in April 1974 for lack of evidence of wrongdoing.

On January 9, 1974 the Italian Magistrate in Gubbio opened a court proceeding against unknown persons for the crime of clandestine exportation and issued an international rogatory request asking for the seizure of the sculpture, as well as an interrogation of Herzer as a suspect potentially involved in the clandestine exportation of archaeological finds from Italy.  The request also asked for any photographic documentation Herzer might have of the statue.  

It should be noted that up until that date neither the German authorities nor the Italian authorities had acquired a photo of the trafficked artwork in its original state, having just been raised from the sea. This would be a critical piece of evidence, necessary for the authorities in both countries to compare and ascertain whether the plundered antiquity from the Adriatic was the same as the restored bronze now in Herzer's possession.


The request for judicial assistance was ultimately rejected by the the Public Prosecutor of the District Court of Bavaria, on the grounds that the crime hypothesized by the Italian GA (the crime of illicit exportation), and interpreted as receiving stolen goods in Germany (1973), was not an extraditable offense.  The German courts therefore deemed the entire rogatory requested by the Italian investigation authorities as unenforceable.


In October 1974, Mr. Getty saw the statue in person for the first time, in London, with Herzer and the English dealer, David Carritt. In his diary, Getty refers to “having heard so much about it and having been so interested in it at one time.”

Court documents and statements made by Jiri Frel show that in 1975 John Paul Getty, showed at least some continuing interest in the bronze statue, where, upon his request, the antiquity was shipped for a second time to the London warehouses of David Carritt Ltd., a branch of the Artemis SA, established in Luxembourg.

• J. Paul Getty died in 1976.

 John Paul Getty Sr. died of congestive heart failure on June 6, 1976. 


• The Getty Museum legally purchased the Bronze in 1977 in the United Kingdom, after extensive review of the relevant facts and law over the course of many years, including:

One year after his death, and without the relevant supporting documents originally requested by John Paul Getty in furtherance of this acquisition, the J. Paul Getty Museum went ahead with the statue's purchase.  The antiquity was acquired in the United Kingdom on August 2, 1977 via an invoice issued by David Carritt Ltd., in its capacity as Agent of Établissement D.C.  The purchase price was $3.95 million.


o the conclusion of German authorities in the mid-1970's that the statue could legally be offered for sale in Munich because the Italian high court had concluded that there was no evidence that the statue was of Italian origin or that it had been found in Italy (or in Italian waters).

This is not the factually correct basis for the German court's ruling as has been outlined earlier in this blog post. 

o the failure of the Italian Ministry of Culture to join any of the Italian legal proceedings related to the Bronze in the 1960’s

Italy's Ministero per i Beni Culturali e Ambientali (ENGLISH: The Ministry for Cultural and Environmental Heritage) has gone through several name changes through differing elected Italian governments. The reason for the ministry's failure to join any of the Italian legal proceedings related to the bronze in the 1960s stems simply from the fact that the ministry did not yet exist as it was not until 1974 that it was formally established.  

Set up by the Moro IV Cabinet through a December 14, 1974 decree, n. 657, the newly formed Italy's Ministero per i Beni Culturali e Ambientali (defined as "per i beni culturali" - that is for cultural assets) took over the heritage remit and functions previously found under the Ministry of Public Education (specifically its Antiquity and Fine Arts, and Academies division).



•  A statement by Luigi Salerno, the senior Italian official in charge of export licenses for cultural property, that Italy would not pursue a claim to the object

The date of this statement, and who it was made to, and in what, if any, official capacity has not been clarified in the Getty Museum's timeline. In 1967 Luigi Salerno was appointed to be the director of the Fondazione della Calcografia Nazionale.  At or near this same date he was also made a director at Rome's Ufficio esportazione.  It is important to note that there are  Uffici di Esportazione Oggetti d'Antichità e d'Arte in many Italian cities, each with their own directors.  In 1973 Salerno left his Rome positions to become Soprintendenza dell'Aquila, retiring early from his administrative responsibilities to devote more of his time to his writing and research.  As this is the same year in which John Paul Getty became interested in the bronze, it can be assumed that his recommendations were made in an unofficial capacity.

In Magistrate Gasperini's own June 2018 order of forfeiture, the judge mentions Salerno in the following passage:  


A logical similar argument, equally effective in lieu of consulting this non-existing registrar, could have been that to request a direct ruling to the Italian Ministry of Cultural Goods, which the lawyers of the seller, as well as Paul Getty and so, at last, also the members of the Board of Trustees always failed to file, while lying down on the unofficial discussions held (in the firm of the professional) by Mr. Grimaldi with an official of the Ministry, Mr. Salerno, who had contacted him to verify whether there had been any negligence by the Italian Ministerial authorities. In that occasion, lying, Mr. Grimaldi said to Mr. Salerno that the statue originated from Greece. (the information is contained in the letter sent by Mr. Grimaldi to Mr. Brownell dated  l.10.1973)

o an independent analysis of applicable international, federal and state law

Despite the lack of legal provenance documentation or export certificates substantiating the antiquity's legitimate export out of any originating source country where Greek remains might be found, and superseding the voiced concerns of the statue's legitimacy raised by John Paul Getty himself. 

o the 1968 decision by Italy's highest court, the Court of Cassation, ruling that there was no evidence that the object belonged to Italy.

As stated above, the Court of Cassation annulled the Appellate Court sentence in May 1968 and ordered the case reheard in a new trial.  On November 8, 1970 the Court of Appeal in Rome absolved all four defendants of wrongdoing, as again, the whereabouts of the statue was not known at that time and without the benefit of being able to examine the unaccounted for antiquity, there was insufficient evidence to prove the underlying crime that the bronze was of historical and artistic value or in which governing territory the missing bronze had been found. 


• The statue was legally exported from the United Kingdom, where the 1977 purchase took place, and legally imported into the United States, where it went on view at the Getty Museum in 1978.

On November 25, 1977, the Embassy of Italy in London contacted officials in Italy and relayed that the director of the London gallery Artemis had specified that the lawyers Graziadei and Manca (lawyers of Artemis) had obtained a regular bronze export license for the object's transfer.  A cross check was begun by the Carabinieri Command for the Protection of Artistic Heritage on January 2, 1978 who then sent a photograph of the statue of Lysippos to the Ministry for Cultural and Environmental Heritage, and from there on to the country's Export Offices in order to ascertain if an export license had ever been requested from any of them.   

While taking many months to conclude, on May 23, 1978, the Central Office for Environmental, Architectural, Archaeological, Artistic and Historical Heritage of the Ministry for Cultural and Environmental Heritage reported that no license of export, for the bronze statue, had ever been issued by the Italian authorities.


• In 2006, the Italian Culture Ministry submitted a dossier to the Getty asking for the Getty to surrender the Bronze to the Italian state. The dossier acknowledged that the Italian state had no valid claim to the Bronze, but instead requested that the Getty surrender the Bronze in the spirit of collaboration between the Ministry and the Getty. The Getty refused this request on the ground that there was no basis to support repatriation of an object that had no connection with the Italian patrimony.

In September 2007 Italy announced that it had agreed to drop its civil lawsuit against Marion True, the former curator of the J. Paul Getty Museum after the Los Angeles museum signed a formal joint agreement to return a total of 40 antiquities plundered from Italian territory.

Thirty nine of the antiquities covered by the deal were scheduled to be transferred to Italy by the closure of 2007. The 5th century BCE cult statue of a Goddess, sometimes referred to as the goddess Aphrodite, would remain at the California museum through 2010.  In turn, Italy agreed to loan other works to the J. Paul Getty Museum which were not looted in origin.  

The Objects to be Transferred to the Italian State, identified as tied to known traffickers, was as follows:

1. Cult Statue of a Goddess, perhaps Aphrodite - 88.AA.76
2. Askos in Shape of a Siren – 92.AC.5
3. Fresco Fragments – 71.AG.111
4. Lekanis – 85.AA.107
5. Two Griffins Attacking a Fallen Doe – 85.AA.106
6. Attic Red-Figured Neck Amphora – 84.AE.63
7. Fragment of a fresco: lunette with mask of Hercules – 96.AG.171
8. Apulian Red-Figured Pelike – 87.AE.23
9. Apulian Red-Figured Loutrophorus – 84.AE.996
10. Attic Black-Figured Zone Cup – 87.AE.22
11. Attic Red-Figured Kalpis – 85.AE.316
12. Attic Red-Figured Kylix – 84.AE.569
13. Apulian Pelike with Arms of Achilles – 86.AE.611
14. Attic Red-Figured Kylix – 83.AE.287
15. Attic Red-Figured Calyx Krater – 88.AE.66
16. Attic Janiform Kantharos – 83.AE.218
17. Attic Red-Figured Phiale Fragments by Douris – 81.AE.213
18. Marble Bust of a Man – 85.AA.265
19. Attic Red-Figured Amphora with Lid – 79.AE.139
20. Apulian Red-Figured Volute Krater – 85.AE.102
21. Attic Red-Figured Calyx Krater – 92.AE.6 and 96.AE.335
22. Attic Red-Figured Mask Kantharos – 85.AE.263
23. Etruscan Red-Figured Plastic Duck Askos – 83.AE.203
24. Statue of Apollo – 85.AA.108
25. Group of Attic Red-Figured Calyx Krater Fragments (Berlin Painter, Kleophrades Painter) – 77.AE.5
26. Apulian Red-Figured Bell Krater – 96.AE.29
27. Statuette of Tyche – 96.AA.49
28. Attic Black-Figured Amphora (Painter of Berlin 1686) – 96.AE.92
29. Attic Black-Figured Amphora – 96.AE.93
30. Attic Red-Figured Cup – 96.AE.97
31. Pontic Amphora – 96.AE.139
32. Antefix in the Form of a Maenad and Silenos Dancing – 96.AD.33
33. Bronze Mirror with Relief-Decorated Cover – 96.AC.132
34. Attic Red-Figured Bell Krater – 81.AE.149
35. Apulian Red-Figured Volute Krater – 77.AE.14
36. Statuette of Dionysos – 96.AA.211
37. Attic Red-Figured Calyx Krater (“Birds”) – 82.AE.83
38. Group of three Fragmentary Corinthian Olpai – 81.AE.197
39. Paestan Squat Lekythos – 96.AE.119
40. Apulian Red-Figured Volute Krater – 77.AE.13

At the time of the joint agreement, both parties agreed to defer further discussions on the Statue of a Victorious Youth until the outcome of its legal proceedings.

Prior to the aforementioned signed accord then Minister of Culture Francesco Rutelli stated the following. 


Italian:  ''Vorremmo fare il punto sul rapporto con il Paul Getty Museum perché ci sono state alcune incomprensioni, mentre vorremmo che fosse molto chiara la nostra posizione: infatti, esiste una serie di provvedimenti giudiziari che hanno i loro corsi e, mentre la magistratura svolge i propri accertamenti, vorremmo trovare una soluzione di buona volontà con il Getty''.

English" We would like to take stock of the relationship with the Paul Getty Museum because there have been some misunderstandings, while we would like it to be very clear on our position: in fact, there are a number of judicial measures that have to run their courses and, while the judiciary conducts its investigations, we would like to find a solution of good will with the Getty '' 
Rutelli's statement is in keeping with Italy's soft diplomacy approach of  voluntary forfeiture, a negotiative strategy which is designed, not to strip a museum bare of its contested objects when they have been determined to have been looted, but to undertake a collaborative approach with museum administration in furtherance of "goodwill" and where long term loans can be made of alternative objects of know licit origin as part of those accords. 


• Shortly thereafter, and following publicity about the statue, a local prosecutor in Pesaro, Italy filed a criminal case against the long-deceased fishermen who found the statue and seeking an order forfeiting the statue to Italy.

Putting its own public pressure on the J. Paul Getty Museum, on April 4, 2007, the cultural association 'Le Cento Citta' presented a complaint via the Public Prosecutor at the Tribunal of Pesaro for violation of customs regulations and for smuggling in relation to the theft of the bronze. This time, armed with the photographic evidence provided to the Carabinieri by Renato Merli on November 24, 1977, which showed the bronze statue as it appeared at the time of its discovery, still covered with marine life, Italian prosecutors finally had a body to go with their smoking gun as Merli's photo perfectly matched the statue sold by Artemis to the J. Paul Getty Museum. 



• In November 2007, a Pesaro judge dismissed the case, finding that no one was alive to be prosecuted, that any applicable statute of limitations had long-since expired, and that the Getty should be considered a good faith purchaser.

As was the case with the earlier court proceedings the new Pesaro case dragged on for years within the Italian court system, with numerous reversals of verdicts and also noting the deaths of many of the original illegal actors. 

Dismissed by the Lower Court in 2007, the decision was appealed by the Public Prosecutor with the support of Italy's Avvocatura dello Stato, and on 12 June 2009 the new magistrate Lorena Mussoni, preliminary investigation judge at the Tribunal of Pesaro ordered the forfeiture of the statue on the basis of the fact that the object had been exported out of the Italian territory in contravention of Italian laws.  

The case heavily focused on the Italian Navigation Code, and the fact that Italian flagged fishing vessels, even if in international waters were by extension owned by Italy and the fact that the fishermen intentionally failed to report the statue's presence once it arrived on shore in Italy. It also relied on the fact that the bronze had been smuggled illegally out of Italy without a license for export.

In her June 12, 2009 order for seizure Mussoni acknowledged that the statue's find spot was contested but she based her ruling, in part, on the fact that Italy nevertheless owned the statue ab initio under Italian patrimony laws as article 4, second paragraph of the criminal code, defined the fishing vessel as the territory of the State for fictio juris, as Italian ships and aircraft are considered as the territory of the State wherever they are, unless they are subject, according to international law, or to a foreign territorial law.

• Notwithstanding this decision, the prosecutor improperly sought a forfeiture order from a different judge in a different part of the same court (called the “court of execution” because it is a judicial body that under Italian law serves to execute decisions by the court). The court of execution improperly refused to honor the trial court’s decision and ordered a forfeiture in 2010 after a closed-door proceeding in which the normal rules of evidence did not apply. The court denied the Getty’s requests to make the proceedings open to the press and the public, and refused to allow the Getty to challenge certain procedural aspects of the case related to administrative forfeitures.



In February 2010, Judge Lorena Mussoni, preliminary investigation judge at the Tribunal of Pesaro, ruled that the Victorious Youth was exported illicitly.  As a result of this court decision, the tribunal issued an order for the statue's immediate seizure and restitution to Italy.  This order followed an earlier and separate order connected to the June 12, 2009 ruling on the question of the jurisdiction.

The order for the statue's seizure was made on the grounds of Articles 666, 667, and 676 of the Italian Criminal Code, and article 174 section three of Legislative Decree no. 42 of 2004 and article 301 of Presidential Decree n. 15 of 1972. In her order of forfeiture the judge specifically cited the Getty's 

"serious negligence and the consequent link between the current holder of the asset and the offense in charge of heading a) of the heading, which does not permit the qualification of the Museum "person unrelated to the offense" pursuant to article 174, paragraph 3 of Legislative Decree no. 42/2004."

• The Getty immediately appealed the decision to the Court of Cassation, which directed the Getty to ask the local court of execution (the “Pesaro court”) for reconsideration. The Pesaro court affirmed the 2010 forfeiture order in 2012. The Getty again appealed to the Court of Cassation.

The J. Paul Getty Museum subsequently challenged Judge Lorena Mussoni's order of forfeiture before the Italian Court of Cassation on February 18, 2011. At that hearing the case was remanded back to the Tribunal of Pesaro for further examination of the merits of the case.   

On May 3, 2012 Maurizio Di Palma, the Pre-Trial judge at the Tribunal of Pesaro, once again upheld the earlier 2010 order of forfeiture and confirmed that the statue was illegally exported from Italy.  His ruling placed the case's resolution back with Italy's Supreme Court for what was supposed to have been the Higher Court's final ruling.


• Several years after the initial appeal, the Court of Cassation held in February 2014 that the Pesaro court’s refusal to open the proceeding to the press and the public might have violated the Italian Constitution and transferred the appeal to the Constitutional Court.

In February 2014 Italy's highest court elected not to issue any ruling upholding or rejecting the lower court's judgment that the "Victorious Youth" was illicitly exported from Italy and as such, is subject to seizure.  Instead the Prima sezione penale della Cassazione (First Penal Section of the Supreme Court of Italy) elected to transfer the case to the Terzo sezione penale della Suprema Corte (Third Criminal Chamber of the Supreme Court) where a new hearing was scheduled to establish whether or not the order of confiscation issued by the Court of Pesaro on May 3, 2012 should be affirmed.

• In April 2015, Italy’s Constitutional Court concluded that the Getty had been deprived of its right to a public hearing, and the matter was remanded to the Court of Cassation, which, in turn, remanded the case to the Pesaro court for reconsideration.

Squashing the decision made by the Court of Pesaro on May 5, 2012, the Terzo sezione penale della Suprema Corte (Third Criminal Chamber of the Supreme Court) on June 4, 2014 remanded the case back to the Tribunal in Pesaro for a new opposition procedure, granting the Getty's request for the case to be heard in open court.  


• From 2016 until 2018, the Pesaro court held episodic hearings to determine whether certain procedural arguments were available to the Getty. At no point did the Pesaro court even consider any new or competent evidence as to whether the statue had Italian origins or had been found in Italian waters. Indeed, no evidence was ever presented related to any assertion of Italian ownership.


Judge Gasparini listens to Getty
council’s final argument in open court 
Pesaro court house, 05 Feb 2018
Image Credit: ARCA
Started under SIGE no. 35 of 2016 each party to the case, heard by Italian Magistrate Giacomo Gasperini was given the opportunity to speak, to challenge, to interrupt and to interject their thoughts during a series of open public hearings, where the documentary evidence was again reviewed, where oral depositions were taken, and where facts were again illustrated again or anew.

This series of hearings eventually concluded on February 5, 2018. 

• Despite the total lack of competent evidence of Italian ownership or origin, and despite the clear expiration of the statute of limitations, in June 2018, the Pesaro court upheld the original order of forfeiture. The Getty appealed to the Court of Cassation.

On June 08, 2018, in a long-awaited judicial decision, four full months after the Pesaro open court hearings had concluded, Italy's Court of First Instance, the Tribunale di Pesaro issued a lengthy 46-page ordinance, written and signed by Magistrate Giacomo Gasparini firmly rejecting the Getty museum's opposition to Italy's order of confiscation on the grounds of Articles 666, 667, and 676 of the Italian Criminal Code, article 174 section three of the Legislative Decree no. 42 of 2004 and article 301 of Presidential Decree. 15 of 1972.  In turn Gasperini affirmed the order of forfeiture for the statue known as the "Victorious Youth," attributable to the Greek sculptor Lysippos, as previously ordered on February 10, 2010.  


Appealed to the higher court again, on December 3, 2018 Italy’s Cassation Court rejected the J. Paul Getty Museum's appeal against the lower court ruling in Pesaro, issued by Magistrate Giacomo Gasparini.  The Supreme Court of Cassation has not yet published its explanatory statement of its decision. 


• The Getty’s position:

o The statue of a Victorious Youth, also known as the Getty Bronze, is not Italian and was not found in Italian waters. Unless Italy can demonstrate that the object was found in Italian territory, which it cannot do, Italian patrimony law establishing state ownership does not apply. Further, US law requires that a country claiming cultural property in the United States requires a showing that the objects were found in that country.

Saying anything more here will make this already very long post unnecessarily redundant. 

o Alleged illegal export is not grounds for return. Italian law imposes certain penalties on those who participate in illegal exportation. But the Getty had nothing to do with any illegal export, and first learned of the work’s existence years after its brief appearance in Italy. Like most countries, US law does not provide for return of illegally exported property.

In 1983 the Convention on Cultural Property Implementation Act (CPIA) became law in the United States, implementing the 1970 UNESCO Convention. This Act provides legal framework for bilateral agreements that combat looting.

Additionally the United States National Stolen Property Act of 1934 (NSPA) (18 U.S.C. §§ 2314 et seq.) prohibits the transportation in interstate or foreign commerce of any goods with a value of $5,000 or more with the knowledge that they were illegally obtained, and prohibits the "fencing" of such goods. The NSPA also allows foreign countries’ cultural patrimony legislation to be effectively enforced, within very specific circumstances, within U.S. territory by U.S. courts. These patrimony laws generally consider theft to include the unauthorized excavation or removal of artifacts from their archaeological context in the country of origin. 

Ultimately, the Federal Bureau of Investigation has investigative jurisdiction for stolen property offenses as set forth in the NSPA. The Office of Enforcement Operations of the Criminal Division has supervisory responsibility over offenses arising under 18 U.S.C. §§ 2314 and 2315. It should be noted that the Convention on Cultural Property Implementation Act (CPIA) of 1983 provides civil remedies while the NSPA provides criminal sanctions.

For the Italians to win in the US, the bronze must be considered stolen in the United States.  Additionally Italy's attorneys would need the US courts to agree that the statue was discovered within the Italian territories and that Italy's cultural patrimony law unequivocally vests ownership of such antiquities to the State.

o Half a century ago, the highest court in Italy found that there was no evidence that the statue belonged to the Italian state because there was no evidence that it had been found in Italy, or in Italian waters. The Getty relied explicitly on the Italian high court’s decision – as well as opinions by pre-eminent Italian lawyers, statements by the senior Italian official in charge of exports, decisions by German law enforcement officials, and other similar factors – in making its good faith decision to purchase the statue.

Partially correct, as mentioned early in this post, at the time of the original hearings the Italians were lacking in evidence tying the statue fished from the sea and taken on shore in Fano to the antiquity on sale, first in Germany and later in the UK via Artemis. The rest of the statements in the Getty's above paragraph have already been elaborated upon.

o International law imposes no obligation to return the object. The object left Italy before the 1970 UNESCO Convention existed, and long before Italy or the United States ratified the UNESCO Convention. Even the UNESCO Convention contains no requirement mandating return of objects, except those that have been stolen in the conventional sense, as from a museum collection. The 2001 bilateral agreement between the US and Italy, which provides for seizure and return under some circumstances, applies only to archaeological material originating in Italy, not to a Greek object that passed through Italy in recent times. Thus, even if any of these conventions applied to this case, none of them would compel the seizure of the statue.

That will ultimately be up to the US Courts to decide, assuming the J. Paul Getty Museum wants to continue this argument in the United States' jurisdiction and assuming the the Italians press for such via an ILOR. 

o Presence on an Italian-flagged boat does not make the object Italian. One of the Pesaro Court’s bases for ordering the forfeiture is the theory that ships under the Italian flag (like the fishing boat that found the statue in 1964) are the equivalent of Italian territory. In addition to conflicting with the Third United Nations Law of the Sea Convention, adopted in 1982, this theory would lead to the absurd result that if an Australian fishing boat had found the Bronze, it would become Australian cultural property.

Interesting in theory, but realistically solely conjecture as again, the purported location of where the statue was fished has never been fully clarified. For now the Italian Court at the Tribunal level in Pesaro, the Court of Appeals and the Court of Cassation have all ruled (in some cases repeatedly) in favor of seizure based upon Italian current laws.

o Passage of time defeats any claim by Italy. The Getty has owned the sculpture since 1977. Its location was well-known to Italy since at least 1973. Any claim against the Getty –- or anyone else—would be long since time-barred. Even ignoring statutory limitation periods, the Getty is entitled, after 40 years of exhibition and study, to rely on its settled property rights in the statue. Also, if Italy’s fundamental position is that an object becomes part of a country’s patrimony by its mere presence in the country, Victorious Youth’s 40-plus years in Los Angeles presumably give California a superior claim.

In common law jurisdictions, such as the UK or the United States, a thief cannot transfer good title to stolen property.  This means that each time the statue changed hands, it still remained tainted to all subsequent possessors.  California law specifically recognizes that “each time stolen property is transferred to a new possessor, a new tort or act of conversion has occurred,” and so the statute of limitations begins to run again with each subsequent good or bad faith buyer.  

This point may be mute however given the statue has been in the possession of the Getty Museum since 1977, a period of time greater than that allowed by California's statute of limitations, in part because of Italy's choice to pursue this case within the Italian judicial system vs. the US.  

o This is the latest decision in a process that has gone on by fits and starts for many years, including a 50-year-old determination by Italy’s highest court that there was no evidence to support Italian state ownership, and another decision more than a decade ago, dismissing the proceeding. We will continue to oppose any effort to remove Victorious Youth from its home in Los Angeles.

And so I suspect shall the Italians.  In court or out. 

Frankly speaking whether or not the museum is ultimately obliged judicially to return the bronze to Italy, its ethical quandary, of maintaining a plundered object in its collection in spite of its known illicit nature, has been clearly exposed. 

Clinging to this antiquity despite of its tainted pedigree, seems a little misguided.  Doing so creates ill will with an important source country and its judiciary as is there for not prudent for that relationship.  It also diminishes the stature of the museum in the eyes of scholars and the knowledgeable public as an ethical collecting institution.

To read all of ARCA's posts on the Getty case, follow our link here.

By:  Lynda Albertson

December 6, 2018

From the Rogues' Gallery: The interesting life of Andrew Shannon, convicted (again) in Dublin for possessing a stolen painting


Some art thieves are savvy characters, others are, lets just say, special.

As of this week, burglar, petty criminal, art, and book thief, Andrew Shannon has 52 convictions for burglary, theft and criminal damage.  

Some of his criminal offenses have been mundane, like the 2016 theft of 17 electric toothbrushes worth €200 from a Swords supermarket.  Others have been more peculiar, like the intentional damage he inflicted in December 2014 when he punched Monet's 1874 painting Argenteuil Basin with a Single Sail Boat at the National Gallery of Ireland.  That bizarre act resulted in three tears, the longest of which was 25 cm, and took conservators 18 months to repair. 


A serial thief as far back as 2009 Shannon has had a penchant for burgling stately homes, often with accomplices. Travelling from Ireland to target English properties he often posed as a tourist, stealing porcelain vases, ashtrays, books, ornamental lions, figurines, valuable antique books and even a walking stick. 

Carton House in Kildare
The historical family seat of the FitzGerald family.
In 2016 the kleptomaniac was convicted of stealing 57 stolen antique books from the library at Carton House in Kildare, including one of only six rare 1660 editions of the King James Bible. 

His most recent conviction comes from the theft of an 1892 oil painting by Frederick Goodall stolen from Bantry House, in Cork, in March of 2006.  Blaming his sticky fingers on both his heart disease and his addiction to Benzodiazepines and harder substances while recovering from a quadruple heart bypass, the prolific offender filched a surprising array of objects, some of which had very little monetary value. 

In 2016 when law enforcement searched his home, police officers recovered thousands of toothbrushes, oh and Star Wars toys.

I guess the man had a penchant for Sci Fi and clean teeth, as well as art and literature. 



December 4, 2018

A deck swab gives directions, but then there's the law, even for the King of Clams


In 2006 Italian "fisherman" Igli Rosato a.k.a Athos Rosato spoke with US journalist Jason Felch about the fateful day in 1964 when the Victorious Youth bronze was fished from the Adriatic.  In that interview Rosato told the journalist that the statue was hauled up 32 (nautical) miles out from the Italian coast. 

Not good with math or directions evidently, in 2007 Rosato changed his story and said the bronze was hauled in about 43 miles to the east of Mount Conero, promontory situated directly south of the port of Ancona on the Adriatic Sea and about 27 miles from the Croatian coast, from a depth of about 75 meters. 

NOTE: This is the same distance given by the ship's captain, Romeo Pirani in his statements.

Distance between Ancona and Zadar is 123 Nautical miles

Then, in this recent video posted to Italian news this morning, Rosato was filmed saying that the Ferruccio Ferri hauled in their nets somewhere around 37/38 miles from the port of Ancona, and 24/25 miles from Fano.

Even though there are inconsistencies in all of his statements, all the quoted find zones are theoretically outside trans-boundary waters.

But having said that, there are several things to consider when interpreting the reliability and credibility of Rosato's statements.

For example, in 1964, at the time Athos Rosato worked aboard the Ferruccio Ferri as a lowly deck swab, he was just 15 years old.  Not exactly a reliable age or seaworthy position to have developed much in the way of navigational skills or to have a true grasp of directions at sea, map reading, nautical miles or sea depths.  As a testament to the limits of his teenage capabilities, (or who wore the proverbial pants in his family), the smugglers chose to pay Rosato's mother for his portion of the sale price for the bronze the fishermen salvaged-- 120,000 lire, or the equivalent of €60.

Second, in addition to an early career as a wannabe fisherman-smuggler, Rosato is not exactly known for his impeccable character or adult age trustworthiness.  Hang out around the city of Fano and you will hear him called "the King of Clams." Flip through local newspapers and you will be reminded that in 2008, having become an affluent fish entrepreneur, the former deck-hand became caught in a net himself, brought up on charges stemming from an Italian financial crimes investigation, code named Fiscopoli.

Accused of having paid a €240,000 bribe to the tax commissioner of Pesaro to wipe away a €32 million asset assessment for his fishing company, Rosato Athos Vongole srl., the businessman was sentenced to two years in prison, for corruption.  As part of his sentence he had four properties confiscated: his company, an apartment, a villa and a warehouse.  He was also the subject of an assault and kidnapping attempt via a band of scrappy petty criminals, some of whom he had personal and work affiliations with. 

But assuming Rosato's propensity for criminal behavior, bribery and corruption have nothing to do with his memory of nautical miles and the findspot where the bronze statue was fished from the Adriatic when he was a teenager, what does all this international waters stuff mean in relation to Italy's final ruling on the Getty Bronze, I mean the Athlete of Fano?

With the help of a fisheries scientist I looked at the region of the Adriatic directly between Ancona and Zatar.  While the miles Rosato quoted are inconsistent across several of his statements, the depths he and the captain indicated do match the general overall territory of the sea directly between Ancona and Zadar.



That area was also widely trawled by Italian and, at the time, Yugoslavian fishermen. 


But before jumping on the it's-a-Greek-statue-found-in-international-waters bandwagon....as the Getty Museum has long claimed, it is worth remembering that the Italian judge in 2009 had already acknowledged that the statue was likely found in international waters.*

So how is it considered Italian? 

What the Getty's press releases and most of the big new sites fail to address is that Article 4 of the Italian Navigation Code states that an Italian flagged vessel or aircraft are considered Italian “territory” for the purposes of applying the country's Patrimony Law and that any “found” object of historical or artistic value hauled aboard said vessel belongs to the State.  Full stop.

From a practical point of view, the State attributes its nationality to its ships by way of registering them in appropriate registers. As each ship can sail under the flag of a single State, by doing so, the Ferruccio Ferri was subject, on the high seas in 1964, to Italy's exclusive jurisdiction.  

Furthermore the statue, once brought onto Italian shore, was hidden away and never registered with the appropriate authorities in violation of the law.  Then it was exported out of Italy in contravention of existing Italian law which requires an export license for any work over fifty years old made by an artist who has died.

The Getty knows all this, it's just electively choosing to focus on the one thread of the subject that cannot be proven definitively --where the feet of the Getty bronze actually still are and instead glosses over the illegality of transit related to this antiquity.  It also disregards the fact that the museum was happy to purchase a statue of Greek origin without any correspondingly legit paperwork from any country of purported origin. 

To read all of ARCA's posts on the Getty case, follow our link here.

By:  Lynda Albertson

* Tribunale Ordinario di Pesaro, Ufficio del Giudice per le indagini preliminary in funzione di Giudice dell’esecuzione, Ordinanza del 12 può 2009, n.2042/07 R.G.N.R. 3357/07 R.G.I.P. (It.)

Statement (plus commentary) on Press Release from Lisa Lapin, Vice President of Communications, J. Paul Getty Trust, Regarding Decision by Italy’s Court of Cassation on the Legal Ownership of the Victorious Youth


Reprinted in its entirety.  Original PDF can be found on the Getty's website here.

NOTE:  Sections highlighted in blue have commentary from ARCA at the conclusion of the Getty's statement.

❧❧❧❧❧❧❧❧❧❧❧❧❧❧❧❧❧❧❧❧❧❧❧❧❧❧❧❧❧❧❧❧❧❧❧❧❧❧❧❧❧❧

DATE: December 3, 2018
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Statement from Lisa Lapin, Vice President of Communications, J. Paul Getty Trust, Regarding Decision by Italy’s Court of Cassation
on the Legal Ownership of the Victorious Youth

We will continue to defend our legal right to the statue. The law and facts in this case do not warrant restitution to the Italian government of a statue that has been on public display in Los Angeles for nearly a half century. The statue is of ancient Greek origin, was found in international waters in 1964, and was purchased by the Getty Museum in 1977, years after Italy’s highest court, the Court of Cassation, concluded in 1968 there was no evidence that the statue belonged to Italy. The court has not offered any written explanation of the grounds for its decision, which is inconsistent with its holding 50 years ago that there was no evidence of Italian ownership.

Moreover, the statue is not and has never been part of Italy’s cultural heritage. Accidental discovery by Italian citizens does not make the statue an Italian object. Found outside the territory of any modern state, and immersed in the sea for two millennia, the Bronze has only a fleeting and incidental connection with Italy.

We believe any forfeiture order is contrary to American and international law. Our priority is to continue our productive and long-standing collaborations with our many Italian colleagues and the Cultural Ministry. It is unfortunate that this issue has been a distraction from that important work.

Over more than four decades, the Getty has worked closely with Italian colleagues in conserving, protecting, researching and celebrating Italy’s extraordinary cultural heritage. The Getty Foundation has supported 137 grant projects on Italian art totaling more than $20 million, awarded more than $500,000 in fellowships to Italian scholars, and hosted more than 130 Italian scholars, fellows, and interns supported by grants totaling over $1.3 million.

Since 1984, the Getty Museum has lent more than 130 paintings, sculptures, drawings, photographs, and other works of art to over 50 different institutions in Italy. Similarly, the Getty Research Institute (GRI) has, since 1991, lent 70 prints, drawings, manuscripts, and rare books to exhibitions in Italy.

The Getty has presented more than two dozen exhibitions in collaboration with institutions in Italy, a number of them arising from cultural agreements between the Getty and the Italian Ministry of Heritage, Culture and Tourism, the Sicilian Ministry of Culture and Sicilian Identity, the Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Napoli, the Musei Capitolini, Rome, and the Museum of Aidone. As part of these collaborations, the Getty undertook the conservation of five highly significant works of ancient art and a collection of 37 votive offerings, all belonging to Italian museums.

Other collaborative efforts have included decades-long research and conservation projects funded and coordinated by the Getty, including the Panel Paintings Initiative, Mosaikon, Herculaneum fresco restoration, Keeping it Modern, and many others.

We very much value our strong and fruitful relationship with the Italian Ministry of Culture and our museum colleagues in Italy. A more detailed account of the Getty’s funding and other support for Italian cultural heritage is available here: 

http://news.getty.edu/gettybronze2018.htm.

MEDIA CONTACT: Julie Jaskol
Getty Communications
310-440-7607
jjaskol@getty.edu


❧❧❧❧❧❧❧❧❧❧❧❧❧❧❧❧❧❧❧❧❧❧❧❧❧❧❧❧❧❧❧❧❧❧❧❧❧❧❧❧❧❧


The law and facts in this case do not warrant restitution to the Italian government.

Not true.  

Italy's Court of First Instance upheld, in its 46 page ruling, written by Italian Magistrate Giacomo Gasparini, on the grounds of Articles 666, 667, and 676 of the Italian Criminal Code, article 174 section three of the Legislative Decree no. 42 of 2004 and article 301 of Presidential Decree. 15 of 1972, that the order of forfeiture for the statue known as the "Victorious Youth," attributable to the Greek sculptor Lysippus, currently detained by the J.P, Getty Museum was confirmed as previously ordered on February 10, 2010.  

In yesterday's ruling, the Italian Court of Cassation, did not quash the lower court's ruling, therefore, by Italian law, the object does warrant immediate restitution. 


was found in international waters in 1964

This is what the Getty would have its reader's take away from its press statements over the years as the rationale for retaining the sculpture, more on that here.  But the voluminous documentation provided by the Italian government to the Tribunal of Pesero, hinges legally upon the situation in which the ancient bronze was hauled aboard an Italian fishing vessel and what happened after it was brought on shore in Fano.

According to the evidence presented in the Court, the statue became subject to Italian heritage law when the bronze was hauled aboard ship in the nets of Italian fishermen aboard an Italian registered fishing vessel, the Ferruccio Ferri in 1964.  Additionally the crewmen were required, under Italian law, to report their discovery to the appropriate legal authorities and failed to do so.

Furthermore the fishermen brought the statue on shore to the Italian city of Fano where they then intentionally hid it from Italian authorities, first, by burying it in a cabbage patch and later, by hiding it in a priest's bathtub rather than declaring their cultural find, as required, to the Italian customs dogana and then sold what would have been considered state property, illicitly for a small sum divided between the captain and his boatsmen.

Under Legge 1 Giugno 1939, N.1089 - Tutela delle cose d'interesse Artistico o Storico, passed to inhibit the criminal act of illegally removing antiques from Italian territory,  authorities must be notified and the artifacts leaving Italy are subject to export licensure.

The court has not offered any written explanation of the grounds for its decision.  

False. 

The Italian court's 46 page written explanation was submitted by the Giudice dell'esecuzione, Magistrate Giacomo Gasparini, and deposited with the Tribunal of Pesaro - Ufficio GIP-GUP on the 8th of June 2018. 

Like other supreme courts of the cassation model around the world, Italy's highest court is not tasked with re-examining the entire body of evidence in the Getty case as discussed in Pesaro, nor is it responsible for adjudicating the case further. Evaluation of the evidence and adjudication was done at the Court of First Instance in Pesero and the Supreme Court's power to quash a judicial decision for defective reasoning is limited (See Art 360, para 1, no 5 of the Italian Code of Civil Procedure).

The Court of Cassation's role is to exercise control over courts of general jurisdiction and to examine whether their judgments infringe upon provisions of national legislation.  In simpler terms Italy's highest court deals exclusively with issues of law, not with the facts and merits of an individual case. That is to say, they do not decide afresh the cases that come before them when parties do not agree with the lower court's decision. 

Additionally the Court of Cassation does not make rulings solely on cases that have passed through the Corte d'Assise d'Apello, Italy's Appellate Court. Cases which meet certain criteria, like this one regarding the Athlete of Fano, can be appealed by the parties directly to Italy's Supreme Court, whose role is then to specifically rule on erores in iudicando and errores in procedendo (errors in procedure or application of the law). 

As the Court of Cassation did not find either of the defects aforementioned errors, it rejected the Getty's appeal and did not quash the decision of the judge in the lower grade.

When a ruling to dismiss an appeal is delivered, the impugned decision becomes irrevocable and as with all Supreme Court decisions, the court's rapporteur will publish the Courts explanatory statement on its decision within the legally allowable time frame. 


The statue is not and has never been part of Italy’s cultural heritage. 

How can either the Getty or Italy ever prove or disprove this statement? 

We do not know anything about the paternity and origins of the bronze aside from the statue's modern "life" which began only after the bronze was fished from the seabed.

But where was it before?  
Did the Romans, after having conquered Greece, steal it to bring home, only to have the ship transporting it sink on its return voyage?
Was the statue at one point made or destined for the Greek colonies in Southern Italy or Sicily?

These are questions we likely will never know the answers to unless the wreck is found which surely still contains the broken feet of the statue.  But this speculation is totally irrelevant in the eyes of the judicial system.

What was relevant in this lengthy series of protracted court proceedings was that the statue became subject to Italian heritage law when it was brought ashore to Italy via an Italian flagged vessel.  It makes no difference (according to Italian law) whether or not the object had been plundered before a population had the benefit of experiencing enjoyment from it, and tfact that it didn't does not diminish the fact that the bronze is considered by the Italians to be part of Italy's cultural heritage under Italy's existing laws. 

To read all of ARCA's posts on the Getty case, follow our link here.

By:  Lynda Albertson

Italy's Court of Cassation rejects the J. Paul Getty Museum's appeal against the lower court ruling on the Getty Bronze


On Monday, Italy’s Cassation Court rejected the J. Paul Getty Museum's appeal against the lower court ruling in Pesaro, issued by Magistrate Giacomo Gasparini.  That earlier ruling, issued on June 08, 2018, was in favour of the prosecution’s request for seizure of the bronze statue, commonly known as the Statue of a Victorious Youth or colloquially as the Getty Bronze, il Lisippo or l'Atleta di Fano.  

Image Credit: ARCA - Palace of Justice, Rome
The Pesaro judge's decision was heavily based upon the failure of the fishermen who found the statue “to report the find to the exportation office to obtain possible authorization for its temporary importation,” and on the object's “illegal exportation and smuggling” after the bronze was brought clandestinely ashore to Italy in 1964 and then later secretly removed in violation of Italian law.

The California museum had sought a judicial review from the Court of Cassation of Gasparini's decision in an attempt to prevent the enforcement of the lower court's judgment for confiscation.  Their application however has been rejected and Italy's highest court has announced "la confisca dell’opera è definitiva" . [English: the confiscation of the work is final].

Now, unless the museum voluntarily relinquishes the statue, the case may need to be taken up with the judicial authorities in the US.  According to the United States National Stolen Property Act, which "allows foreign countries’ cultural patrimony legislation to be effectively enforced within U.S. territory by U.S. courts," to do so would imply another round of documents being shuffled between attorneys representing both sides, albeit in the United States.  

For the Italians to win in the US, the bronze must be considered stolen in the United States.  Additionally Italy's attorneys would need to prove that the statue was discovered within the Italian territories and that Italy's cultural patrimony law unequivocally vests ownership of such antiquities to the State.  They must also show that the country's foreign patrimony law is not so vague as to be in violation of due process.


For now though, we wait for Italy’s Supreme Court of Cassation to publish an explanatory statement on its own ruling and for the Italian government to submit a Letters Rogatory Request to the United States seeking their assistance in investigating the circumstances of the statue's exportation and asking the US government to confiscate the bronze so that it can, after more than 50 years, be returned to Italy.

To read all of ARCA's posts on the Getty case, follow our link here.

By:  Lynda Albertson

November 29, 2018

Thursday, November 29, 2018 - ,,, No comments

3 Men and a Painting: Savvy accomplices make off with "Golfe, Mer, Falaises Vertes" by Pierre-Auguste Renoir

Image Credit:  Screen Capture ARCA 28 November 2018
Entering Vienna's oldest auction house, the Dorotheum, just after sunset, three well-dressed men in jackets and coats, working in tandem are believed to have made off with a landscape painted by Pierre-Auguste Renoir titled Golfe, Mer, Falaises Vertes (English: Gulf, Sea, Green Cliffs) just ahead of its Wednesday sale.  

Lot 102 in the "Modern Art" auction, the oil on canvas painting was executed by the French impressionist artist in 1895 and was estimated to be worth between €120,000 and €160,000 at the time of its consignment.  It was also to be listed in the forthcoming Pierre-Auguste Renoir Digital Catalogue Raisonné being prepared under the sponsorship of the Wildenstein Plattner Institute, one of two rivaling authenticating bodies believed to have the last word when it comes to Renoir.

Image Credit:  Vienna Police
One of the world's oldest auction houses, established in 1707, the Dorotheum has not yet issued a statement on the theft, but law enforcement authorities in Vienna have released CCTV stills of the three people wanted for questioning. 


November 28, 2018

Wednesday, November 28, 2018 - ,,,, No comments

Recovered: "Portrait of Marta Ghezzi Baldinotti" stolen 32 years ago from Palazzo Chigi

Image Credit:  Carabinieri TPC
The team of the Carabinieri del Nucleo Tutela Patrimonio Culturale (TPC) in Palermo, under the command of Magg. Luigi Mancuso, has proven once again that patience makes perfect when it comes to the recovery of stolen art.  While the squad has not yet recovered the Nativity with St Francis and St Lawrence, the Caravaggio masterpiece stolen in 1969, they have recovered a painting from the 1600s stolen thirty-two years ago.  

The painting, an oil on canvas, is a portrait of Marta Ghezzi Baldinotti (1649-1718), wife of marchese Cesare Baldinotti, and was taken from Palazzo Chigi, a historic building in the historic center of Ariccia, in the province of Rome. The artwork was identified during a series of investigations as well as a crosscheck of records within the Carabinieri Leonardo Stolen Art database and was found to be part of the inventory of an antiques dealer in Palermo. 

Questioned by law enforcement, the antiquarian gave an implausible answer as to how and where he had acquired the works and when pressed for proof of ownership was unable to substantiate legitimate his ownership or how how he came to be in possession of the oil painting.  

During their investigations the Carabinieri squad in Sicily also identified a second individual, from Marsala, who along with the antiquarian has been referred to the Public Prosecutor's Office at the Court of Palermo for receiving stolen goods.


While the press release from the Carabinieri have not listed the name of the artist who painted the portrait the oil painting appears strikingly similar to another portrait of the Marchioness Marta Ghezzi Baldinotti attributed to Jacob Ferdinand Voet, a Flemish portrait painter from the Baroque period who is known for his portraits. He had an international career, which brought him to Italy and France where he made portraits for an elite.

Image Credit:
Screen Capture Sotheby's website
29 Nov 2018
After training in Paris, he spent much time in Rome, then Florence and Turin, before returning, first to Antwerp in 1684 and later in 1686, to Paris as a painter of the French court. The Marchioness was the daughter of Felice Angelo Ghezzi, the Duke of Carpignano and Baron Zullino. On April 17, 1667, she married the Marquis Cesare Baldinotti di Pistoia (1636-1728) who was the Duke of Pescorocchiano.

That version, which once belonged to architect, interior decorator and garden designer Giles Newby Vincent, was purchased by the architect in Paris in 2006 for €26,400, who then put the artwork up for auction in London at Bonham's in 2014 for between £20,000 and £30,000 but the painting went unsold. In 2016, it sold at auction in Paris at Sotheby's for €20,000.

Image Credit: Screen Capture Bonham's website 28 Nov 2018
As a painter Voet was highly sought after and had numerous followers and imitators, many who copied his style of portraiture of well bred ladies, those that made up the so-called galleria delle belle or cabinets des dames, which was  leitmotiv in the furnishing of noble residences during the seventeenth century when the artist was still alive.

November 20, 2018

How long does it take to achieve restitution of a looted antiquity? In some cases 25 years or more.


PURCHASED           ACQ NUMBER          DESCRIPTION
29 February 1992          292.AA.10                  Statue of Zeus Enthroned

On October 27, 2018 a first century BCE, marble statue of Zeus, seated on his throne, finally moved to its permanent home, the Archaeological Museum of the Phlegrean Fields in the Castello Aragonese di Baia.  

Like its own lost version of Atlantis, the Campi Flegrei, as the area is known to Italians, is a large, highly active volcanic region, nestled in the northern portion of the Gulf of Naples.  Declared a regional park in 2003, and lying mostly underwater, the archaeological site of Baia, named aptly for its thermal waters, guards treasures from Rome's ancient past, some of which have been transferred to the Archaeological Museum for land lovers to see and appreciate.

A site of profound and priceless beauty, the submerged archaeological park preserves an astounding collection of Roman statues, frozen in liquid time. along with ancient villas, public baths, private grottos and even entire city streets. All of which serve as testimony to the charm of the now submerged city where many of Rome's elite and influential patricians once spent their time relaxing. 

But back to the statue of Zeus and its purchase

Guided by its then antiquities curator, Dr. Marion True, the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles purchased the 75-cm-high "Zeus Enthroned" from Lawrence and Barbara Fleischman in 1992.  The Fleischman's in turn had purchased the statue of the Greek god five years earlier in 1987 from British antiquities dealer Robin Symes

Prominent philanthropists of the Metropolitan and other noteworthy American museums, True met the Fleischmans in the late eighties.  At the time, the couple were actively being courted by museums who hoped to purchase all or parts of their substantial personal collection of Greek, Roman and Etruscan antiquities.  As wealthy collectors, they couple had purchased antiquities from both Robin Symes and Giacomo Medici, art dealers readers of this blog should be familiar with.

But the Fleischman's relationship with True mixed business with pleasure and the Getty curator was known to have visited the couple in their East Side New York duplex, which was filled with classical art purchased through these now-disgraced antiquities dealers.  By 1996, True's relationship with the philanthropists was such that Lawrence Fleischman provided a loan towards True's vacation home on the Greek island of Paros.  Conveniently, the loan was arranged days after the Fleischmans finalized their acquisition agreement with the Getty Museum.  In total the museum purchased more than three hundred objects from the couple's collection.  Valued at sixty million dollars, the Getty paid the Fleischmans twenty million and the philanthropists made a tax-deductible donation worth another 40 million, to conclude the deal.

In 2005, Italian Public Prosecutor Paolo Giorgio Ferri brought formal criminal charges against True. The gist of the Italian claims were that the curator  “conspired with Hecht and Medici to supply the Getty with artifacts that had been illegally unearthed and exported from Italy, and that she used the Fleischmans’ collection to ‘launder’ antiquities, giving them a clean bill of provenience before bringing them to the museum”. As the Italian court case got into full swing, True resigned over the Paros home loan and shortly after, in 2006, Barbara Fleischman resigned as a trustee of the Getty Trust.

Over the years numerous Fleischman antiquities, tied to illlicit trafficking have been returned to Italy and coupled with the fact that the enthroned Zeus statue had no documentation of licit export, it became the work of the Italian authorities to prove where the object had come from and to tie the object's origins to Italian territory in order to make a viable claim for its restitution. 

According to a recently published book by Stefano Alessandrini, "Italian cultural diplomacy for the return of assets in exile," the statue's return to Italy in the summer of 2017 was thanks to a combined effort; the joint work of historic researchers, illicit trafficking investigators, judicial magistrates and cultural diplomacy advisors with Italy's cultural ministry.  

Alessandrini states that the request for restitution of a cultural property illicitly removed from the patrimony of a State doesn't constitute a hostile act towards the State to which the work is requested. In fact, Italy seeks to enforce not just the law concerning property, but the right of culture, regulated by numerous international conventions.


Zeus and his relationship with the Phlegrean Fields

Image Credit:
The J. Paul Getty Museum Journal
Volume 21, 1993
Italian researchers believed that the marble Zeus was once part of a collection of cult statues, likely displayed in a lararium, a sacred space designed to hold the images of guardian deities, believed in ancient times, to be the protectors of a villa and the family residing in it. 

From its overall condition, scholars were able to deduce that the object had likely spent a large portion of its lifetime, partially submerged on the seabed, laying on its side, as only half of the object seemed to have been marred by marine encrustations.

But to prove to the J. Paul Getty Museum that their Zeus came from Baia took a bit of random luck.

In December 2012 Italy's Guardia di Finanza stumbled upon a mable fragment from a clandestine excavation during an investigation in Bacoli (Naples).  In examining the piece, hoping to determine its original context, the Italians began to consider whether or not the piece of marble might have once been attached to the corner of the arm of the throne upon which Zeus was resting his laurels. Using open source photos, from the Getty Museum's own website, researchers were able to superimpose their looter fragment onto the edge of the photographed chair.

The result proved to be a compatible match. 

To solidify their visual hypothesis, scientific verification tests were performed in California on 6 March 2014 which determined that the marine encrustations present on the Italian fragment matched those also adhering to the Getty's statue in California. 

Image Credit:
ARCA Screenshot 
Getty Website
accessed 20 November 2018. 
From that point, it took another three years of cultural diplomacy before an agreement for restitution could be solidified between the Italian state and the US museum.  On June 13, 2017 Getty Museum Director Timothy Potts is quoted in the Los Angeles Times as saying:

"The fragment gave every indication that it was a part of the sculpture we had...It came from the general region of Naples, so it meant this object had come from there."

As a result of museum to State negotiations, the J. Paul Getty Museum formally turned over the Zeus statue to the Italian Consul General for Los Angeles, Antonio Verde, on 14 June 2017 in a restitution ceremony at the Getty Center in Los Angeles.

25 years and sometimes longer

Not long ago, the world's museum directors spent their days and careers primarily focused on the custodianship of their institution's art objects.  But to truly attone for the sins of the father, todays directors need to become more proactive global citizens and accept their global (and ethical) responsibilities for the errors of their predecessors.  

While museum and museum associations are becoming more aware of the importance of object provenance, to step up to the plate, their management must become more politically engaged, globally connected and skilled in the arts of arbitration and mediation as it applies to suspect objects like this one. Equally importantly, they must also stop the foot dragging when it comes to acknowledging and correcting the errors of past acquisition judgement, as an entrenched means of delaying the inevitable.

Image Credit: ANSA
Given the known problems with the numerous objects in the Getty collection which were accessioned through the Fleischman acquisition, the tug and pull for ownership of the Zeus statue, eventually settled through mutual (and lengthy) negotiation, should not have taken years to hammer out.

But if you want to see Zeus the next time you are in the Bay of Naples area, to celebrate this one success, he'll be waiting for you, on display at the castle, as part of the exhibition "The visible, the invisible and the sea".   His trip home was a long and complicated one, but at least he is not hurling lightening bolts for how long it took.


By:  Lynda Albertson

November 18, 2018

Recovered? Anonymous tip may have lead to Picasso's "Tete d'Arlequin" stolen from the Kunsthal in Rotterdam in 2012.


On October 16, 2012 Dutch police confirmed that seven paintings had been stolen, shortly after 3 a.m. local time, from the Kunsthal museum in Rotterdam.  The paintings which were taken, Pablo Picasso's Tete d'Arlequin, Henri Matisse's La Liseuse en Blanc et Jaune and Waterloo Bridge, London,  Claude Monet's Charing Cross, London, Paul Gauguin's Femme Devant une Fenêtre Ouverte, dite La Fiancée, Jacob Meyer de Haan's Autoportrait, and Lucian Freud's Woman with Eyes Closed were estimated to be worth millions.  

The stolen art works were part of the museum's Avant Guard Exhibition, which highlighted material on loan from the private Triton Foundation collection. Built over twenty years, by Rotterdam oil and shipping magnate Willem Cordia and his wife Marijke van der Laan, the exhibition, was set to run from 7 October 2012 until 20 January 2013, and was the first time any artwork from the Triton Collection had been exhibited publicly. 

The Triton body of artworks is made up of approximately 250 paintings, drawings and pieces of sculpture belonging to art movements from 1870 through 1970.  The collection includes works by many by the most influential 19th and 20th century artists in the tradition of Impressionism, Expressionism, and Analytical Cubism.  At the time of the theft, the collection was reputed to be one of the 200 most important private collections in the world.  

Shortly after the theft, and as the law enforcement investigation progressed, formal charges were brought against a group of suspects of Romanian origin.   Charges against Radu Dogaru, the ringleader who was found to have orchestrated the heist, his mother, Olga, Eugen Darie and Adrian Procop were all eventually brought.  Around the globe, their trials were closely watched in the hopes that the defendants might shed some light during their testimony on whether or not the seven paintings and drawings remained safe.  Early in the investigation Mr. Dogaru’s mother claimed to have torched the artworks, in order to dispose of the evidence which could be used against her son.

Despite recanting her statement later, experts from Romania's Muzeul Naţional de Istorie a României (National History Museum of Romania - MNIR) provided testimony that seemingly validated Olga Dogaru's grim confession.  Ash and remains analyzed from a stove in her home in the village of Carcaliu in eastern Romania included nails from frames used before the end of the 19th century.  Yet, as pointed out by Maria Vasii, one of the attorney's for the defendants, the only painting with canvas tacks was the one by Lucian Freud.  As that artwork was completed in the year 2000, the nails would not have been made of copper and could not possibly have come from a 19th or 20th century production. Vasii also pointed out that the other paintings which were stolen were canvas glued onto cardboard and had no nails whatsoever. 

Despite the questions remaining as to what had actually become of the stolen artworks, Radu Dogaru and Eugen Darie, pled guilty for their roles in the theft on October 22, 2013. As a result of their confessions, the Third District Court of Romania sentenced Dogaru to 6 years and Eugen Darie to 5 years and 4 months (following sentencing appeals) for their involvement in the crime and for membership in a criminal organisation. 

Alexandru Mihai Bitu also received a sentence - two years for handling stolen goods. Adrian Procop, arrested in Manchester, England and extradited to Bucharest, was sentenced to prison for four years and 10 months for the formation of an organized criminal group and to four years and eight months for theft. Some of his prison time was reduced as the punishments were slated to run concurrently.  

Petre Condrat, involved in trying to find a buyer for the Matisse and the Gauguin, was fined 45,000 Romanian lei, the equivalent of approximately €9642. Dogaru's mother, Olga, was sentenced to two years in prison, convicted of aiding criminal behavior.

Interestingly, during Radu Dogaru's trial he gave a deposition that contradicted his mother's earlier confession to burning the paintings and told the court that his mother made false statements about incinerating the art works under pressure by interrogators. It was believed at the time that Radu may have been motivated by the hope that, along with her recanted testimony, his testimony might help his mother avoid a prison sentence.  

Now, six years later, an anonymous letter has been received by a Dutch writer of Romanian origin, Mira Feticu, the contents of which reportedly stated where one of the seven stolen works of art might be found.

But has the stolen Picasso really been spared the fiery furnace? 

Painted the year before the artist's death, Picasso's Head of a Harlequin (1971) is an art work done in pen and brush in black ink, colored pencil and pastel on thick brown wove paper.  It measures 38 x 29 cm and is "signed and dated in the lower right corner "Picasso/12.1./71". It was purchased by the Triton Foundation in 2009.

Image Credit: Facebook user Mira Feticu
Mira Feticu has told reporters that the letter was sent to her at her Hague address because she wrote a book in 2015 about the Kunsthal theft which was also translated into Romanian.  Following the indications spelled out in a few short sentences of Romanian, Feticu and Frank Westerman have stated that they used the letter to guide them to Tulcea County, Romania.  There, they report they were able to identify the spot underneath a tree where the writer of the letter had indicated the missing Picasso could be found. 

Clearing away snow and leaves, the pair told law enforcement that they found the fragile artwork wrapped in plastic.   Photographing it in the car, they then turned the artwork over to the Dutch Embassy in Bucharest. Westerman has since posted video footage of law enforcement authorities examining the work of art on his Facebook page. 

Image Credit: Facebook user Mira Feticu
For now, a team of DIICOT prosecutors and police officers of the Criminal Investigation Directorate - IGPR will conduct a follow up investigation.  To determine if the drawing is authentic, or part of an elaborate hoax, it has been sent to the National Museum of Art of Romania located in the Royal Palace Bucharest.  There art historians will work to assist in determining or negating the artwork's authenticity.  

Insured against losses, in September 2013 the Triton Foundation received a $24 million payout for the theft of their seven artworks from their insurance underwriter, Lloyd's of London.  In doing so, the foundation has relinquished the titles to each of the seven stolen works of art, should any of them ever be recovered.  This means, if this "Picasso" is authenticated, (and that's a pretty big if), the insurance firm would be the rightful owner.

Me, I have my doubts.  


Straightening the image presented by Feticu taken in the car, and then comparing it side by side with the original stolen artwork I see numerous points of difference in addition to many color variations. A few of these I have redlined.  I am not an authenticator, nor am I an expert on Picasso's work, or the degradation of paper drawings over time, but to me, it doesn't seem to be the original, as much as it would make me happy if it were.

UPDATE:

Theater makers Yves Degryse and Bart Baele have admitted that the found "Picasso" in Romania is a hoax, part of a publicity stunt for their performance True Copy, which premiered last week. 

By:  Lynda Albertson