Debris covering stairs inside the Donetsk Academic Regional Drama Theatre following a March 16, 2022, bombing in Mariupol, Ukraine. Image Credit AP - Alexei Alexandrov

As the year comes to a close, it's time to highlight (some) of the losses, and a few of the successes from the year 2022 before we look ahead to what 2023 will bring.  

In 2022 we witnessed Russia’s invasion of the Ukraine, taking thousands of lives and creating a tragic humanitarian crisis.  One symbol of both heritage and human loss was the airstrike upon the historic Donetsk Academic Regional Drama Theatre in Mariupol, a cultural landmark where hundreds of people had been sheltering as a result of the city's siege.  The theatre strike serves as painful testimony to the cost of war and the painfully permanent scale of destruction to the Ukrainian port city and ints inhabitants, as Russia's primary target in Ukraine's southeastern region of Donbas.  

Evidence collected by the AP estimates that as many as 600 civilians may have died as a result of the theatre's March 16th double airstrike, which placed this cultural institution directly in the crosshairs of the conflict.  This despite the centre's obvious civilian character and the fact that the displaced individuals who sought refuge there had plainly marked the pavement, in front of each entrance to the structure, with the word дети (children), written in Cyrillic and could be seen cooking daily meals outside.  

Five days later and just a few blocks away, Russia's bombardment also heavily damaged the Kuindzhi Art Museum, dedicated to the life and work of local realist painter Arkhip Kuindzhi.  Kuindzhi’s works were not in the museum at that time,  however, the fate of other artworks in the museum remains difficult to ascertain. 

It total UNESCO has documented 64 damaged or destroyed sites of historical and/or artistic interest in the Donetsk Region alone. 

As of December 23rd, throughout Ukraine, again according to UNESCO, the agency has verified damage at 102 religious sites, 18 museums, 81 buildings of historical and/or artistic interest, 19 monuments, and 11 libraries.

Outside Ukraine, two themes for 2022 are museums, and those in charge of them, behaving badly, and crime doesn't pay. 

On the West Coast, the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles saw its hand forced by the same East Coast prosecutor, following an ongoing criminal investigation by DANY.  That investigation resulted in the California museum relinquishing, post-seizure, its looted group of life-size terracotta figures known as Orpheus and the Sirens back to Italy. 

Things were no quieter for museums over in Europe and the Middle East, where over the summer, France saw its former director of the Musée du Louvre, Jean-Luc Martinez and archaeologist-curator Jean-Francois Charnier formally charged for “complicity“ in having facilitated $50 million in acquisitions of illicit material by the Louvre Abu Dhabi, connected to investigations of suspect antiquities dealers Roben Dib (currently in French custody) and Germany-based dealer Serop Simonian.

As legal investigations usually take several years to unfold in France, Martinez and Charnier have been released under judicial supervision while a ruling of the examining chamber is expected in the new year, which some say, may see these preliminary charges dropped.

Dealers who behaved badly include Inigo Philbrick who received an 84 month prison sentence in May in connection with a multi-year scheme to defraud various collectors and business entities in order to finance his art business.

Eighty year old Raffaele Monticelli, a man considered by various Italian prosecutors to be one of the biggest middle-tier traffickers of archaeological finds in Europe, died in October.  Still active in smuggling illicit material out of Italy, he had only recently returned home to Taranto following the conclusion of a short prison sentence involving a looted helmet in circulation in the Netherlands. 

Also in the Netherlands, the Dutch appeals court confirmed the 8 year prison sentence in July for 59 year old Nils Menara, a professional burglar known on the street as 'Gauwtje' for his role in the thefts of two paintings, The Parsonage Garden at Nuenen in Spring (1884), by Vincent van Gogh, and Two Laughing Boys with a Mug of Beer by Frans Hals.  The two paintings, worth $20 million are still missing. 

In France, the 33rd criminal chamber of the Paris Judicial Tribunal held a decision in October in a case where Egypt requested the restitution of Egyptian antiquities within a criminal proceeding against Didier Wormser, who was accused of dealing stolen cultural property from the Saqqara necropolis. The director of the Star of Ishtar gallery, was given a three-year suspended prison sentence. 

In India, November saw disgraced antiques dealer Subhash Kapoor convicted of burglary and the illegal export of 19 antique idols during his first completed trial to date, held in the town of Kumbakonam in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu.   With more court cases to follow, Kapoor was handed a 10-Year jail sentence for this first conviction.  The judge also imposed sentences on Kapoor's accomplices: Sanjivi Asokan, Marichamy, Packiya Kumar, Sri Ram alias Ulagu and Parthiban. 

In happier news, the last month of the 2022, marked the month where German police successfully recovered 31 of the priceless 18th-century jewellery pieces stolen from  the Royal Palace that houses the historic Green Vault (Gruenes Gewoelbe) in Dresden in 2019.   

Let's hope 2023 is a year of recoveries, more successful prosecutions and an end to conflicts. 

Back in August, ARCA wrote about a 11 August 2022 announcement made by the J. Paul Getty Museum where the museum publically stated its intention to relinquish its nearly-lifesize Apulian 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." 

Their announcement strategically omitted that the New York Attorney's office had already seized the terracotta sculptures back in the Spring, in April 2022, as part of the Manhattan office's investigation into an accused Italian antiquities smuggler, Gianfranco Becchina. 

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 days after they were stolen from a plundered chamber tomb near Taranto, Italy.  Broken into hundreds of dirt-encrusted clay fragments and ultimately reconsolidated, American-born, British petroleum industrialist purchased the 3-statue group, sculpted in Tarentum at the end of the 4th century BCE for $550,000 from Bank Leu, A.G with no known provenance aside from the Swiss bank seller.

The investigation by the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office, working in collaboration with the Carabinieri Command for the Protection of Cultural Heritage, confirmed that the three terracotta artworks at the  Pacific Palisades' museum were sourced by local grave robbers working for Raffaele Monticelli, an intermediary trafficker who today is believed to be one of the biggest fences of archaeological finds coming from Italy, and perhaps one of the top three in Europe.

Raffaele Monticelli, sometimes referred to as the “professor from Taranto” is a former elementary school teacher now in his eighties.  He once controlled and financed clandestine excavations which systematically looted large swaths of southern Italy, particularly in Puglia, Calabria and Campania.  Listed on the now famous trafficking organigram, in which two cordata lead to Robert Hecht but by different routes, Monticelli was an active member of Gianfranco Becchina’s cordata.  Numerous transactions between the pair have been well-documented in the Becchina archive.

According to the findings of the DANY investigation and its international law enforcement partner, the broken sculptures were illegally exported out of the Italian territory in contravention of Italian laws and into Switzerland.  Once there, Becchina and Monticelli paid for the nearly-lifesize terracotta sculptural group of a Poet and Sirens to be restored.  Afterward, the sale of the sculptures was arranged through Leo Mildenberg, a Swiss numismatist, antiquities collector, and identified handler of illicit antiquities, via the Swiss private Bank Leu A.G. 

According to the Manhattan District Attorney's Office's Michael Steinhardt statement of facts, we can concretise, on page 36, that Raffaele Monticelli had known  relationships with Leo Mildenberg as well as the Sicilian dealer Gianfranco Becchina. 

In making his announcement of this This successful multi-jurisdictional investigation on Friday, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin L. Bragg, Jr., named those attorneys, officers and agencies who made this seizure and utimately this restitution possible. Those were, in order:  Assistant District Attorney Matthew Bogdanos, Chief of the Antiquities Trafficking Unit; Assistant District Attorney Yuval Simchi-Levi; Supervising Investigative Analyst Apsara Iyer and Investigative Analysts Giuditta Giardini and Daniel Healey; and Special Agent Robert Mancene of Homeland Security Investigations. Investigative support was provided by TPC Warrant Officer Angelo Ragusa.

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. 

DIA Seizing Gianfranco Becchina assets in 2017

While the DIA's announcement didn't name the, now, 83 year old dealer living in Castelvetrano, the regional newspapers in Sicily, and the national newspaper in Rome, did. 

For decades the Trapani branch of the Cosa Nostra is believed to have accumulated at least some portions of its wealth through the proceeds of illicit archaeological finds.  Some of which, according to Italy's DIA may have been procured through grave robbers working at the isolated Archaeological Park of Selinunte, one of Sicily's great ancient Greek cities, located near Castelvetrano probably in the service of the Cosa Nostra.  This archaeological site covers some 40 hectares and includes Greek temples, ancient town walls, and the ruins of residential and commercial buildings from Italy's past.  Given its remote location, much of the site has not been formally excavated, and it has been prey to opportunistic looters for decades.

To further dismantle the mafia's operational funding in and around Trapani, in November 2017 Italy's Anti-Mafia Investigative Directorate, through the Court of Trapani's penal and preventive measures section, filed an initial seizure order for all movable assets, including real estate and corporate enterprises attributable to Gianfranco Becchina on the basis of an order issued from the District Attorney of Palermo based upon investigations conducted by the DIA, under the coordination of the Palermo Public Prosecutor's Office on the basis that much of Becchina's accumulated wealth was generated through the proceeds of trafficked antiquities. 

Palazzo dei Principi Tagliavia-Aragona-Pignatelli

Giovanni Franco Becchina (b. 1939) was born in Sicily. In the 1970s, he established a business, Palladion Antike Kunst, in Basel, Switzerland, with his wife Ursula.  For almost forty years Becchina headed one of Italy's most notorious “cordata” (a trafficking cell) in a lucrative criminal enterprise that used gangs of tombaroli to loot carefully chosen and insufficiently guarded archaeological sites throughout southern Italy.

It is well-documented that Becchina and other traffickers like him, laundered their looted antiquities through exhibitions at museums and in private collections with manufactured provenance, providing a thin veneer of respectability to material removed from Italy and laundered through the ancient art market. 

In 2001, Becchina was arrested in Italy and charged with receiving stolen goods, illegally exporting goods, and conspiring to traffic goods. In May 2002, the Swiss and Italian authorities raided Palladion Antike Kunst and three of Becchina’s located storage facilities.  A fourth was raided in 2005. 

In 2011, Judge Rosalba Liso dismissed the charges of receiving stolen goods, illegally exporting goods, and conspiring to traffic goods, due to the expiration of the statute of limitations.  However, the Judge in the case confirmed the seizure order for the 5,919 antiquities Becchina had in stock at the time the 2002 and 2005 search warrants were executed.  Material evidence obtained during these seizures confirmed that Becchina bought antiquities directly from tombaroli. Over 90% came from a single source: convicted tombarolo (and later a capo squadra in his own right) Raffaele Monticelli.