In 2013 the Metropolitan Museum of Art restituted two,10th-century, Koh Ker stone statues, known as the “Kneeling Attendants” to Cambodia.  These artefacts had been donated in separate stages to the Museum in the late 1980s and early 1990s and had been associated with antiquities collector-dealer-trafficker Douglas Latchford, a/k/a “Pakpong Kriangsak”, who for 50 years, was once considered one of the world’s leading authorities on Asian Art before his unmasking. 

As early as 2012, Bangkok-based Latchford had already been identified in a civil lawsuit, as a middleman in the trafficking of looted Khmer sculptures from “an organized looting network” and was said to have conspired with the London auction house Spink & Son Ltd., to launder looted temple antiquities. 

Douglas Latchford's Facebook photo on 28 October 2017, two years before he was indicted.

In 2019 charges were filed in the United States against the then 88 year old Latchford by Assistant U.S. Attorney Jessica Feinstein, in the Office’s Money Laundering and Transnational Criminal Enterprises Unit, for his purported role in "wire fraud, smuggling, conspiracy and related charges pertaining to his trafficking in stolen and looted Cambodian antiquities." Many of the suspect objects mentioned in his 25 page indictment passed through his hands en route to the Met and other important collections, during the course of his business operations.  Latchford died on 2 August 2020 before he could be extradited to the United States and his indictment was formally dismissed, due to his death, the following month. 

Last Friday, the United States authorities announced that the Met would be returning fourteen more pieces to Cambodia, dating from the ninth to the 14th centuries, plus an additional artefacts to Thailand.

The pieces going home to Cambodia are:

This 7th century CE pre-Angkor period sandstone Head of a Buddha, which was purportedly with implicated New York dealer Doris Wiener from 1984–2005 until she gifted it to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 2005, upon which it was given Accession Number: 2005.512.  

This 10th - 11th century CE copper Bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara Seated in Royal Ease. It was given Accession Number: 1992.336 when it was purchased directly from Douglas Latchford using funds from the Annenberg Foundation Gift. 

This 11th century sandstone Standing Female Deity, (probably Uma), Accession Number: 1983.14 was sold by Douglas Latchford to Spink & Son Ltd., London,  who in turn sold it onward to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. 

This 10th century sandstone Standing Female Deity, which was given Accession Number: 2003.605. This artefact was purportedly with Doris Wiener from 1998 through 2003.  Various saved accession record dates show it was either donated to the Metropolitan by Doris Wiener, in honour of Martin Lerner or was purchased through this New York dealer. 

This partially fragmented 930 - 960 CE  bronze Face from a Male Deity, came to the museum via a Latchford donation in honour of Martin Lerner.   It was given Accession Number: 1998.320a–f.

This ca. 920–50 CE stone Head of a Buddha, was also donated to the museum by Douglas Latchford in 1983 (with no provenance listed), where it was given Accession Number: 1983.551. 

This 10th century, Angkor period bronze Head of Avalokiteshvara, the Bodhisattva of Infinite Compassion was in circulation with Spink & Son Ltd., London until 1998, when it was then sold to an undisclosed private collector who donated the artefact to the Metropolitan the same year, and was given Accession Number: 1998.322.

This 11th century, Angkor period, bronze Four-Armed Avalokiteshvara (Bodhisattva of Infinite Compassion)  This bodhisattva is often depicted with multiple heads and arms symbolising his limitless capacity to help alleviate grievances and is venerated as the ideal of karuna, the willingness to bear the pain of others.  Given Accession Number: 1999.262, the statue was directly purchased by the museum from Douglas Latchford via funds from Friends of Asian Art Gifts, Cynthia Hazen Polsky Gift, and Josephine L. Berger-Nadler and Dr. M. Leon Canick Gift. 

This 11th century architectural Lintel with Shiva on Nandi, Accession Number: 1996.473. This doorway topping was previously purchased in 1993 by Steven M. Kossak, owner of the prominent "Kronos Collections", who then loaned the piece to the Met for three years before eventually donating it to the museum in 1996. 

This late 9th century, stone Angkor period, Khmer style of Bakong, Headless Female Figure, Accession Number: 2003.592.1, is said to have been in the possession of Latchford's friend, Alexander Götz.  Originally living in Bali, then for a time in Germany, Götz and his family moved to London in 1990 where he opened a gallery specialising in Southeast Asian art, with Indonesia as the main focus. He closed his London gallery in 2015 and has since moved back to Indonesia.

This late 12th century, stone Angkor period, Standing Eight-Armed Avalokiteshvara, the Bodhisattva of Infinite Compassion. Given Accession Number: 2002.477, this stature was sold by Douglas Latchford to Jeffrey B. Soref, heir to the Master Lock fortune, who sits on the Board of Directors at the Metropolitan.  Soref in turn loaned his purchase to the Met from 1999–2002 before gifting it to the museum in 2002.  Authorities in Cambodia had received information from a reformed looter named Toek Tik, who admitted to personally stealing this, as well as other artworks from Cambodia over a span of 20 years during his time as a smuggler.

This 7th–8th century, bronze pre-Angkor period, Ardhanarishvara (Composite of Shiva and Parvati), depicts the god as half male and half female representing the Shakta as worshipper and Shakti as devotee relationship which gives the Ardhanarishvara male and female characteristics.  Assigned Accession Number: 1993.387.4 the female side of this sculpture depicts Parvati’s elegant hairstyle and flowing skirt and exposed breast, while the male side gives us half of Shiva’s moustache, as well as his third eye.  Originally, the public accession record listed only the donation of this object as coming from Enid A. Haup (who had purchased and donated another problematic piece).  The more recent the Met's record was updated to state that the statue was sold by Spink & Son Ltd., London to Haupt who gifted it to the Met in 1993.

This 9th century, stone Angkor period depicting the Head of Bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara. Given Accession Number: 1997.434.1, it was previously owned by American pipeline billionaire George Lyle Lindemann, a collector who frequently bought Khmer artefacts from individuals, some of whom were later implicated in the trade and trafficking of Cambodia's cultural heritage.  Lindemann gifted the object to the Met in 1997, who listed the object with no prior provenance, aside from the name of the wealthy donor.

This 11th century, sandstone Angkor period, Male Deity, probably Shiva.  Depicted with four-arms and a high chignon of jatamukuta, wearing a pleated sampot, this statue was given Accession Number: 1987.414.  The Met's website listed that the statue as previously owned by Margery and Harry Kahn who gifted the object to the Met in 1987 and that the statue "likely formed the centerpiece of a triad in a chapel of an unidentified temple in the vicinity of Angkor Thom.  Its style relates to sculptures recorded from the Baphuon temple, a monumental step-pyramid dedicated to Shiva, built as the state temple by King Udayadityavarman II."

The Artefacts Returning to Thailand are:

This 11th century Gilt-copper alloy, with silver inlay, possibly miss-named statue of a Standing Shiva, is believed to be the most complete extant gilded-bronze image from Angkor.  Given Accession Number: 1988.355, it belongs to a small group of metal sculptures of Hindu deities associated with royal cult practices that were discovered in Khmer territories including Cambodia and northeastern Thailand.  The statue was purchased by Walter H. and Leonore Annenberg via Spink & Son Ltd., London in 1988 and donated that same year to the Met. 

This 11th century bronze inlayed with silver and traces of gold statue of a Kneeling Female Figure, perhaps a Khmer queen, who kneels in a posture of adoration with arms raised above her head and palms pressed together.  Given Accession Number: 1972.147, she was sold to the museum by Doris Wiener. 

"Every one of the 1.5 million objects in our collection has a unique history, and part of the Museum’s mission is to tell these stories. When, how, and where was it created? Who made it and why? What was going on at that time and place in history? The Met also examines the ownership history or provenance: where has the object been and in whose care?" 

Yesterday a ceremony was held with officials from the Consulate General of the Republic of Turkey in New York, where H.E. Gökhan Yazgı, Deputy Minister of Culture and Tourism for the country received back 41 smuggled historical artefacts, dating from the 7th century BCE  to the 7th century CE recovered based on investigations conducted in New York by the Antiquities Trafficking Unit attached to the New York District Attorney's Office in Manhattan and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security - Homeland Security Investigations division. 

The works returned and exhibited at the New York Turkish House include:

The heads of 22 delicate Anatolian marble idols of the Kiliya type from the Chalcolithic period.

Intact and fragmented bronze sculptures, including two Heads of the Roman emperor Caracalla and the Bust of a Lady, which had been looted from Boubon, the ancient region known as the Cibyratis some 20 km south of Gölhisar, near the village İbecik in the Turkish province of Burdu.  This site was extensively looted in the 1960s.

The two heads—one depicting a younger Caracalla previously held in the collection of the Fordham Museum of Art and the other featuring an older Caracalla from the Metropolitan Museum of Art had been confiscated in March 2023. 

According to investigations conducted at the New York District Attorney's Office in Manhattan, the 160-180 CE Bust of a Lady was initially removed from Boubon and later transported to Switzerland via the now-deceased American antiquities dealer, Robert Hecht, where it was later purchased by the Worcester Art Museum, where it was exhibited until its confiscation in June 2023.

Some of these pieces had been in circulation via Jerome Eisenberg of Royal Athena Gallery and Michael L. Ward of Michael Ward & Co.

Other objects returned include various terracotta vessels, marble statuettes, and ancient armour.

Turkey's Deputy Minister of Culture and Tourism Gökhan Yazgı thanked the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office and its team as well as HSI-ICE for cooperating with Turkish institutions in the recovery of these artefacts, emphasising these returns were the fruits of  a “hard-working and dedicated team” within the relevant institutions of the two countries, collaborating for 5 years, which has resulted in the return of these cultural assets. 

Image and Video Credits: Fatih Aktaş - Anadolu Agency

A total of seven artworks by Austrian Expressionist Egon Leo Adolf Ludwig Schiele once owned by Franz Friedrich 'Fritz' Grünbaum will be handed over in a public ceremony livestreamed today from  the office of the New York District Attorney's Office in Manhattan at 15:00 EST.

Each of the artworks were voluntarily relinquished by the Museum of Modern Art and the Morgan Library in New York, the Santa Barbara Museum of Art (California) and the legal representatives for the private collections of Ronald Lauder and the estate of the late Serge Sabarsky.

The artworks being returned to the collector's heirs are:

 Prostitute, 1912 by Egon Schiele
Watercolor and pencil on paper

Sold via Gutekunst & Klipstein, Bern to Galerie St. Etienne in New York
Lastly with the Museum of Modern Art 

 Portrait of a Boy (Herbert Reiner), 1910 by Egon Schiele

Guache, watercolor, and pencil on paper

Sold as per Kallir: Gutekunst & Klipstein

Galerie St. Etienne, New York

as per S.S.G. records: John Herring Inc., New York, until February 1993 

Serge Sabarsky Gallery, New York since February 1993

Lastly on display at the Neue Galerie, from the estate of the late Serge Sabarsky

I Love Antitheses, 1912 by Egon Schiele
Watercolor and pencil on paper

Lastly from the private collection of Ronald Lauder

All seven of the artworks were relinquished following investigations by the Manhattan prosecutor's office.  A process to recover Grünbaum's art collection  began as early as 1998 when former Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgenthau seized “Dead City III”, an oil on wood painting by Schiele which Timothy Reif's, family claimed.  At the time, the Reif claim was weaker than Lea Bondi's claim for the Portrait of Wally, and Dead City III went back to Austria to the Leopold Museum.

Fast forward to 2018, and working from the basis of the civil court ruling by Judge Charles V. Ramos in the case of Reif v. Nagy in New York County Supreme Court, we finally have some justice for the family.  In his ruling Ramos concurred that the power of attorney signed on/around 20 July 1938 by the artworks' owner, Austrian Jewish cabaret artist, song writer, and actor, Franz Friedrich 'Fritz' Grünbaum, while imprisoned at Dachau Concentration Camp, and signed under extreme duress gunpoint did not represent a valid conveyance.

In making his 2018 ruling Judge Ramos also cited the introduction of the Holocaust Expropriated Recovery Act of 2016 and ruled that Grünbaum’s descendants rightfully owned two other Schiele works named in the civil proceedings, “Woman in a Black Pinafore” and “Woman Hiding Her Face.”

Grünbaum was murdered on 14 January 1941 at Dachau Concentration Camp.

As mentioned in an earlier article this month, much of Grünbaum’s extraordinary 449-piece art collection was sold through Eberhard Kornfeld, a Swiss auctioneer, and art dealer based in Bern.

Given that all seven of these Schiele artworks had been in circulation via New York  dealers, the New York District Attorney's Office held jurisdiction and could build a case for their (and other) restitutions on the basis that pursuant to a criminal investigation into Nazi looted art, by being the property of Fritz Grünbaum’s heirs: David Fraenkel, Timothy Reif, and Milos Vavra, the artworks from his collection, which have been sold onward, each constitute stolen property from the claimants according to New York state law.  

Remembering the artwork's original owner, it is said that Fritz Grünbaum never stopped entertaining people. Even as death approached at Dachau, he mocked the Nazis and found levity in the grim absurdities of life in a death camp. One former inmate remembered Fritz comforting the other inmates by arguing that absolute deprivation and systematic starvation were the best defence against diabetes.

By:  Lynda Albertson

Fritz Grünbaum's prisoner registry card at Dachau Concentration Camp

On Wednesday, the New York District Attorney's Office in Manhattan executed  search warrants at three US museums, seizing three artworks by Austrian Expressionist Egon Leo Adolf Ludwig Schiele.

The Schiele works are: 

Russian War Prisoner, 1916, a watercolour and pencil on paper hand drawing seized at the Art Institute of Chicago; 

Portrait of a Man, 1917, a pencil on paper drawing seized at the Carnegie Museum of Art; 

Girl With Black Hair, 1911), a watercolor and graphite pencil on paper hand drawing seized at the Allen Memorial Art Museum at Oberlin College.

According to the warrants and Manhattan prosecutors,  “there is reasonable cause to believe” that the works constitute stolen property taken from Franz Friedrich 'Fritz' Grünbaum, an Austrian Jewish cabaret artist, operetta and popular song writer, actor, killed during World War II.  Grünbaum’s extraordinary 449-piece art collection was stolen by the Nazis only to have much of it sold through Eberhard Kornfeld, a Swiss auctioneer, and art dealer based in Bern, without the collector's heir's consent. 

A World War II tragedy, like so many others. 

After the Anschluss, (the annexation of the Federal State of Austria into the German Reich forming a "Greater Germany"), Fritz Grünbaum and his wife Elisabeth "Lilly" (nee Herzl) Grünbaum try unsuccessfully to escape to Czechoslovakia. 

Apprehended and arrested Fritz Grünbaum remained imprisoned in various concentration camps until his murder. On 16 July 1938 while Fritz Grünbaum was imprisoned at Dachau, the Nazis forced him to execute a power of attorney in favour of his wife Lilly. 

Shortly thereafter, and acting pursuant to her husband's under duress power of attorney Elisabeth Grünbaum is compelled to permit Austrian art historian and art dealer Franz Kieslinger, who was a member of the Nazi party, to inventory Grünbaum's property, including his art collection of over 400 pieces to be valued at 5,791 Reichsmarks (RM).  In this collection were 81 pieces by Schiele. 

Kieslinger inventory documented Grünbaum's Schiele artworks: 

Grünbaum's collection also included French watercolours and pieces by French Impressionist Edgar Degas, the German artist Albrecht Dürer, Dutch Golden Age artist Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn, known as Rembrandt, and French sculptor François Auguste René Rodin.  All of the latter were identified by name in the Kieslinger inventory. 

Sometime following Kieslinger's inventorying, the Grünbaum's entire art collection was deposited with Schenker & Co., A.G., a Nazi-controlled shipping company, with the firm the applying for an export license on behalf of collector "Lilly Grünbaum" in November 1938.  Gruesomely, Lilly's address is listed as "formerly Vienna . . . now Buchenwalde," the Nazi concentration camp established on Ettersberg hill near Weimar, Germany.

On January 14, 1941 Fritz Grünbaum was murdered at Dachau in southern Germany. His wife then signed a declaration before an Austrian notary in connection with obtaining her husband's death certificate, stating: 

"[T]here is nothing left," in other words, there is no estate. Therefore, "[b]ecause of a lack of goods or property, there [was no] estate proceeding for inheritance" before the Dachau Probate Court.

She in turn, is murdered four months later, on October 5 1942 at Maly Trostenets death camp near Minsk in Belarus. 

By the early 1950s some 25% of the Grünbaum's collection, including the three seized artworks, was in circulation on the art market through Bern, Switzerland dealer Eberhard Kornfeld.

Seized in place, prosecutors say 3 seized artworks belong to the three living heirs of Fritz Grünbaum and will be transported to New York at a later date.

By:  Lynda Albertson

Pursuant to a seizure order signed by New York Judge Ruth Pickholz on August 14, 2023, following investigations conducted by the New York District Attorney's Office in Manhattan, a bronze draped figure believed to represent Marcus Aurelius, is seized from at Cleveland Museum of Art.  According to New York law, the statue of the Roman emperor, known for his philhellenism and Stoic writings, constitutes evidence of, and tends to demonstrate the commission of the crimes of, Criminal  Possession of Stolen Property in the First Degree, Penal Law § 165.54, and a Conspiracy to commit the same crime under Penal Law § 105.10(1). 

But how and why was this statue seized?

By the mid-1960s, a number of bronze figures, including portrait heads, never before seen in documented collections, began circulating on the ancient art market in the United States and Europe.  By May 1967, law enforcement authorities from the Republic of Türkiye had uncovered their first lead as to these objects eventual origins, after a large, ancient bronze statue was found hidden in a house in the village of Ibecik, located in the mountainous region of the Gölhisar district of the southern province of Burdur, less than 100 kilometers from the southwest Turkish coast.

Their investigation, coupled with studies by Turkish archaeologist Jale İnan on behalf of the museum in Burdur, as well as notes gathered and seized from a local treasure hunter during investigations, have helped establish the find spot for these sculptures which is believed to be the eastern Roman Empire city of Boubon, on the summit and slopes of Dikmen Tepe.

According to the ancient Greek geographer Strabo, the city of Boubon formed a tetrapolis with its neighbouring cities of Cibyra, Oenoanda and Balboura.  Culturally diverse, at its pinnacle its inhabitants are said to have spoken as many as four languages: Greek, Pisidian, Solymian and Lycian. 

Travellers to Bubon as late as the mid-19th century described finding a walled acropolis, a small theatre of local stone, and the remains of tombs, temples, and other large structures in what remained of the ancient city. Few of these survive today.  Decimated by at least one large-scale looting operation, the unprotected ancient city's movable cultural heritage became the victims of poverty and art market greed during the mid-20th century, with much of what had survived throughout history, being carried off for profit.

The Sebasteion at Boubon

Inside this Sebasteion, archaeologists discovered two inscribed podiums along the north and the east walls of the room, and four free-standing bases along the west wall where statues of emperors and members of the Imperial household would have been displayed.  The majority of the dedications found here date from the half century beginning with the joint reign of Marcus Aurelius and Lucius Verus (161-168 CE) and ending with the sole reign of Caracalla (211-217 CE). Unsurprisingly, by the time archaeologists set about documenting the site, all but one single headless statue had been illicitly excavated and removed.  

As part of this documentation, Jale İnan assigned names to seven of the missing bronzes, based on seven of the 14 dedicatory inscriptions documented in situ inside the Sebasteion.  According to this researcher's reconstruction, patrons or visitors entering this room in the middle of the 3rd century CE, would have seen bronze statues of Nerva, Poppaea Sabina,  Lucius Verus, Commodus, Septimius Severus and lastly, Marcus Aurelius on the podium facing the entrance.

An inscription documented in İnan's 1990 excavation notes on stones forming the top course of the north podium reads:

[Μ.Αυρήλιο]ν Άντωνεϊνον

The Emperor as Philosopher Image Credit: Cleveland Museum of Art

After a whirlwind of touring from 1967 to 1981 at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, the Indianapolis Museum of Art, the Minneapolis Institute of Arts and Rutgers University, one of Lipson's bronzes, the draped figure, was purchased by the Cleveland museum in 1986.  It was quickly dubbed "The Emperor as Philosopher, probably Marcus Aurelius".   

At the time of sculpture's purchase, museum press releases and follow-up publications openly admitted that the bronze was part of a “group of Roman bronze figures and heads, believed to have come from Turkey” that represented various emperors and empresses, which had been created for a structure honouring the imperial cult in the mid-2nd century. All details which match the statues which likely once filled the Sebasteion.

In February and March of this year the New York District Attorney's Office in Manhattan seized and subsequently restituted another extremely important Boubon bronze statue from the same Sebasteion, this one representing the Roman emperor Septimius Severus.  In that instance, DANY's Antiquities Trafficking Unit, with the assistance of officials from the Republic of Türkiye, were able to locate and interview one of the individuals who actually looted and smuggled this statue and determined that the bronze had been smuggled into Switzerland by Robert Hecht.  Later this statue was circulated onward via Charles Lipson, first via an exhibition at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston and later loaned long term to the Metropolitan Museum of Art via a private collector.  

After proper packing, The Emperor as Philosopher, one of the finest Antonine imperial portraits in existence, will be transferred this month from the Cleveland Museum of Art to New York City.  There it will be held as evidence in an “ongoing criminal investigation into a smuggling network involving antiquities looted from Turkey and trafficked through Manhattan.”

To read more about this important and long plundered site, and its confirmatory details with respect to this antiquity, please see the publication Boubon. The Inscriptions and Archaeological Remains. A survey 2004 - 2006 by Christina Kokkinia

On Monday, January 23, 2023, at 1 pm in Rome, a formal ceremony will be held regarding the return to Italy, from the United States, of 58 antiquities valued at nearly $19 million.  This event will be held at the Ministry of Culture's Sala Spadolini inside the Consiglio Nazionale al Collegio Romano.

The objects returned are the direct result of investigations in the United States regarding international traffickers of antiquities conducted by the Antiquities Trafficking Unit at the District Attorney's Office in New York in Manhattan, in collaboration with the Comando Carabinieri Tutela Patrimonio Culturale (TPC).  

Present for the event will be the Italy's Minister of Culture, Gennaro Sangiuliano,  the Deputy Prosecutor of the Republic at the Court of Rome, Angelantonio Racanelli; the Commander of the Carabinieri TPC, General B. Vincenzo Molinese; and New York Assistant District Attorney Col. Matthew Bogdanos. 

This event will be direct streamed via the YouTube channel of Italy's Ministry of Culture for those who wish to attend the ceremony digitally. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x-RcYKNBHtk&ab_channel=MiC_Italia

Marble head of Athena, ca. 200 BCE

In discussing these returns in a press release issued by the New York County District Attorney's Office, the New York authorities stated that these artefacts had been trafficked by Giacomo Medici, Giovanni Franco Becchina, Pasquale Camera and Edoardo Almagiá.  Twenty one of the pieces had been seized from the Metropolitan Museum of Art while the other thirty-seven were recovered from a New York collector and an antiquities dealer.

When speaking of these objects homecoming to Italy, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin L. Bragg, Jr., was quoted as saying:

“These 58 pieces represent thousands of years of rich history, yet traffickers throughout Italy utilised looters to steal these items and to line their own pockets. For far too long, they have sat in museums, homes, and galleries that had no rightful claim to their ownership.”  

Discussing the recent Italian restitutions Bragg also addressed the difficulty and time needed to work these complicated cultural property crime cases stating:

“Exposing these schemes takes years of diligent and difficult investigative work, and I applaud our team of prosecutors and analysts, who in coordination with our law enforcement partners, are continuing to make unparalleled progress in returning stolen antiquities.”  

Assistant US District Attorney Col. Matthew Bogdanos, who heads up the Manhattan Office's Antiquities Trafficking Unit, and who will be present at Monday's ceremony, has often related his department's work to an axiom of jurisprudence “that justice should not only be done, but should manifestly and undoubtedly be seen to be done.” R v. Sussex Justices, ex parte McCarthy, 1 KB 256, 259 (1924).  Something this publicly streamable restitution will undoubtedly demonstrate.  

Each of these objects should be viewed as a reminder to collectors, dealers, and art institutions, that the US authorities treat stolen cultural property seriously and public prosecutors continue to pursue the rightful return of plundered goods.

In a tightly worded announcement made on 11 August 2022 the J. Paul Getty Museum revealed that it will finally relinquish its nearly-lifesize terracotta sculptural group "Seated Musician and Sirens" to the Italian authorities "after evidence persuaded the museum that the statues had been illegally excavated."  In elaborating on the three sculptures' return, directors Timothy Potts, Maria Hummer-Tuttle and Robert Tuttle of the J. Paul Getty stated "Thanks to information provided by Matthew Bogdanos and the Antiquities Trafficking Unit of the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office indicating the illegal excavation of Orpheus and the Sirens, we determined that these objects should be returned." 

While this announcement seemed like breaking news across the English speaking world, making several major news publications, it's not to those living and working on Italian cultural heritage losses. Many of those who have been following the tug of war between Italy and the Getty museum for more than a decade have felt that these objects, coming from the Magna Graecia colony of Taranto, should have already come home, and are curious as to what confirmatory evidence the New York authorities now have about these objects' illicit past and those who handled them which finally resulted in the museum's sudden release of their prized grouping. 

As backstory, the seated poet and his two standing sirens were confiscated in April 2022 as part of New York's investigation into an accused Italian antiquities smuggler. Originally brightly painted, this large-scale sculptural ensemble was purchased by John Paul Getty Sr.,  the founder of Getty Oil Company, in the spring of 1976 with no known provenance aside attesting to its collecting history, aside from the name of the Swiss bank seller.

Like with the sculpture of the poet, both of the sirens in this grouping also show signs of having been reconstructed from multiple fragments.  On the first siren, gaps can be seen in her short chiton and in her right claw.  For the second, most of the curls and the little finger of her right hand have been broken off the statue at some point in her transport out of Italy. 

But what did John Paul Getty Sr. have to say about their circulation on the art market and his collecting habits as he filled his new museum?

Prior to his death, and in ever declining health despite being deeply involved in the construction and opening of the Getty Villa,  Getty made multiple final acquisitions for his museum, with little attention towards the provenance and via several suspect brokers of ancient art who repeatedly have been accused of  trafficking in antiquities.  These purchases are outlined in his March 6, 1976 diary entry and include:  

• a 530 BCE Archaic marble head from Heinz Herzer worth 56,000 DM (Object Number: 76.AA.6);
• a Greek Attic Panatheniac Amphora Attributed to the Nichomachos Group from Nicolas Koutoulakis worth 70,000 USD (Object Number: 76.AE.5.a);
• a Statue of Togatus from Bank Leu, A.G. for 61,000 SF;
• a 180 BCE Hellenic Marble Head from Muhammed Yoganah for 50,000 USD;
• a 100–250 CE Toman silver statuette of Venus from Mathias Komor for $7500 (Object Number:76.AM.4);
• a 210 CE Front of a Sarcophagus with the Myth of Endymion from Robin Symes for 30,000 GBP (Object Number: 76.AA.8.b);  

• the group of 3 statues made in Tarentum at the end of the 4th century BCE for $550,000 from Bank Leu, A.G. (Object Numbers: 76.AD.11.1, 76.AD.11.2 and 76.AD.11.3).

Getty wrote in his dairy that all of the artefacts above, had been purchased on the recommendation of Jiří Frel, the Getty's Czech-American archaeologist.  Frel, was the J. Paul Getty Museum's first Curator of Antiquities would later be implicated in a number of controversies that tarnished the reputation of the museum.  Based on suspicions of malpractice, he was placed on paid leave from the Getty in 1984 and was allowed to quietly resign in 1986.  

After leaving the California museum, Frel, served as a consultant for wealthy European collectors, taught classes, and shuttled between residences in Budapest and Italy. At one point he even registered himself as being domiciled in Sicily, setting his residence in the palazzo of the problematic antiquities dealer Gianfranco Becchina in Castelvetrano.

Speaking with Italian journalists, New York prosecutor Matthew Bogdanos from the Manhattan District Attorney's Office's Antiquities Trafficking Unit stated that the J. Paul Getty Museum had cooperated with the DANY regarding these pieces after their seizure, but underscored that their seemingly impromptu restitution is still part of an ongoing criminal investigation being conducted by the Manhattan office in collaboration with the Comando Carabinieri per la Tutela del Patrimonio Culturale.  Bogdanos added that the museum's repatriation statement, released by the Getty, "left half of the truth out" and by that one can surmise he is referring to their seizure the previous April. 

Speaking further, Bogdanos added that this multi-year investigation started with the exploration of suspect market actors his team has spent years investigating.  The prosecutor underscored that this sculpture group's illegal removal from Italy, and export to the United States via Switzerland, involved a well known trafficking network which is known to have operated in Italy for decades.  

One member of this network who has now been publicly identified is Raffaele Monticelli, the retired elementary teacher, who gave up teaching for the more lucrative roll of middle man broker of illicit antiquities.  Monticelli has been arrested several times, and connected to multiple trafficking networks for decades.  Most recently, in late 2021, he was arrested by the Dutch authorities after having carried a looted helmet to Delft for restoration.

If we take a look at the Manhattan District Attorney's Office's Michael Steinhardt statement of facts, we can also determine, on page 36, that Raffaele Monticelli also had a relationship with Leo Mildenberg, the late Swiss numismatist for the Swiss private Bank Leu A.G., who is known to have brokered sales both for Raffaele Monticelli and for Gianfranco Becchina. 

How long has this restitution taken? 

The sculptural group first appeared as a grouping of high concern in the list of identified finds drawn up by Italy's Ministry of Culture at the beginning of 2006.  

The Taranto provenance, in addition to appearing in the digital record compiled by the J. Paul Museum, is supported by Italian scholars Pietro Giovanni Guzzo and Angelo Bottini who published the grouping purchased by the Getty in 1976. 

Furthermore, an article, published in the "Gazzetta del Mezzogiorno" dated 30 November 2006, and republished in the web magazine "patrimoniosos" stated "the comparisons with the monumental groups in terracotta found in central and southern Italy and the representations we have on the ceramic finds of Apulian production, which document the presence of decorative terracotta statues on the monumental tombs of Taranto, dispel any doubts about their origin from southern Italy "

Photographs of the pieces were also seen in 2018 in a series of black and white photos documenting portions of the restored sculptures on the 8 December 2018 RAI documentary "Petrolio - Ladri di Bellezza" produced by journalist Duilio Giammaria and Senator Margherita Corrado has repeatedly spoken in the XVIII Session of the Italian Senate about the need to bring these artefacts home.

Yet, despite all that, the 4th century BCE sculptures were (still) center stage on the ground floor of the Getty Villa in California's Pacific Palisades during the museum's  exhibition: Underworld - Imagining the Afterlife as late as October 31, 2018–March 18, 2019.   They were removed only after this investigation came to a head earlier this year.  

When Orpheus and his Sirens eventually fly home in September, they will initially go on display in the Museo dell'Arte Salvata (Museum of Rescued Art), housed in the Octagonal Hall at the Baths of Diocletian in Rome.  Perhaps by then we will be able to publicly share how the New York District Attorney's Office in Manhattan, HSI-ICE and the Italian Carabinieri moved this case successfully forward.