Left and Middle: Restituted from the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek Right: Restitute from the J. Paul Getty Museum

Paolo and Maurizio both shared with me the chillingly coded language used by American dealer Bob Hech when discussing the delivery of "children" by his associate Fritz Bürki in a letter written to Mogens Gjødesen, the Copenhagen museum's director from 1970 to 1978. 

Left:  Antefix recovered from London Right: Antefix found at excavations conducted in 1938-39 at the Campetti di Veio, collection of Villa Giulia

Elsa Bloch-Diener (1922-2012), Bern, 1975 (Antike Kunst, no. 113).

Private Collection, Switzerland, acquired from the above, 1975; 

thence by descent to the current owner.

Christie's 2019 Auction

In November 2019, ARCA published a blog post raising questions about a 5th-century BCE polychrome antefix depicting a dancing maenad, which had been consigned to a Christie’s auction and that I believed the piece warranted closer scrutiny. For those unfamiliar, an antefix is a decorative architectural element once placed along the eaves of ancient roofs to conceal the joints between tiles.

What drew my attention was the striking resemblance between the object at right and three other Etruscan antefixes, also portraying maenads, that had previously been repatriated to Italy after being identified as having been illegal excavated and removed from Italy.

The provenance of the previous, 2019-consigned, antefix up for auction at Christie's read:

Provenance:

"with Ingrid McAlpine (1939-2018), London and Epsom, 1994". 

In terms of its circulation history, that sparse entry left roughly 2,500 years unaccounted for as nothing prior to 1994 was specified.  Knowing a bit about the consignor's background, I knew, that before her death, Ingrid McAlpine had been married to the ancient art dealer Bruce McAlpine, and that prior to their divorce, both were listed as proprietors of McAlpine Ancient Art Limited in the United Kingdom.

The McAlpines’ names have surfaced in connection with other trafficked antiquities that passed through the legitimate art market. Among these is an Attic black-figured hydria which reached the McAlpines through Palladion Antike Kunst, a gallery operated by disgraced dealer Gianfranco Becchina. Their names also appear alongside the red flag names of Robin Symes and Barbara and Lawrence Fleischman, in relation to the donation of a looted Apulian bell-krater, both objects of which were later restituted to Italy. 

Villa Giulia, 1937 Excavation

If you look carefully, by her feet you can make out the hoof of the Silenos this lady would have been dancing with.  

This detail is remarkably similar to the antefix in the form of a Maenad and Silenos Dancing which once graced the cover of the exhibition catalog A Passion for Antiquities: Ancient Art from the Collection of Barbara and Lawrence Fleishman.  

After careful restoration that antefix was first seen on the market with Robert Hecht who sold it to the Hunt collection.  Next it was circulated via Sotheby's with that collection was liquidated and bought by Robin Symes, who immediately resold it to the Fleischmanns.  In1994 the couple exhibited the piece , along with their entire collection, at the J. Paul Getty Museum, before it was formally acquired by   the museum in 1996 (96.AD.33).  The piece was restituted to Italy after it was matched by Daniela Rizzo and Maurizio Pellegrino to a polaroid in the Giacomo Medici archive.  Like the one up for sale at Christie's now, both artefacts were broken along the lower half and when whole, depicted a Silenos dancing behind the Maenad.

Now let's look at the provenance the auction house has cited.

Elsa Bloch-Diener (1922–2012) was a Swiss art dealer who operated a gallery at Kramgasse 60 in the old town of Bern.  She is known to have collaborated with Ines Jucker (née Scherrer, 1922-2013), the scholar and sometimes ancient art dealer responsible for the exhibition catalogue Italy of the Etruscans, cited in the Christie’s lot description as an exhibition where this piece was on view to the public. 

Jucker not only authenticated works for Bloch-Diener but also curated the 1991 Etruscan exhibition at the Israel Museum in Jerusalem referenced in the Christie's sale.  Also contributing to that exhibition's catalogue were entries by Giovannangelo Camporeale, Fiorella Cottier-Angeli, George Ortiz, and Christoph Reusser, names that have, at times, prompted debate and concern within the field.

In May 2002, when Swiss and Italian authorities raided Gianfranco Becchina's Antike Kunst Palladion, as well as three of Becchina’s storage facilities in Basel, authorities seized documents which identified transactions between the Sicilian and Ines Jucker which documented that she purchased artefacts from this dealer and sold them onwards.

Along the same theme Jucker studied an Attic Red-Figured calyx krater signed by Syriskos (painter); donated by Lawrence Fleischman and his wife to the J. Paul Getty Museum which had been acquired from Robin Symes in 1988.  Pictured on Medici Polaroid it was restituted to Italy.   Likewise a Black-Figure Cup Fragment with the Capture of Silenus in the Tondo which Jucker sold to Dietrich von Bothmer was also returned to Italy.

In the Israel exhibition Jucker curated, which featured the antefix up for auction and identified it as coming from the ancient site of Veio, some four hundred Etruscan objects were presented, none of large format, some with an inscriptions.  Among them were small bronzes, ceramics, jewellery, terracottas (architectural, votive, and cinerary urns), and sculptural fragments in nenfro.  In total they represented all periods and regions of Etruscan art. 

The main nucleus of the Israel displayed ensemble came from the collection of the late Ivor and Flora Svarc, many of whose holdings would be donated to the Israel Museum.  Svarc's objects were complemented by pieces already in Israeli collections, along with loans from the collector-dealer Jonathan Rosen and other private collectors, mainly in Switzerland.  

As cited by Drs David Gill and Christopher Chippindale in Material Consequences of Contemporary Classical Collecting the vast majority of the artefacts exhibited during this exhibition were previously unpublished.  This made this public display of the items their first concretising stop towards having an art marketable pedigree. 

The fact that we know this object comes from the context of Veio, can also be found in the same catalogue as the restituted Getty atefix, A Passion for Antiquities: Ancient Art from the Collection of Barbara and Lawrence Fleishman.

Page 197 refers specifically to the artefact currently up for auction:

A number of fragmentary examples of antefixes of this type, as well as of molds for producing them, have come to light at Civita Castellana (Falerii) (see Andrén; Sprenger/Bartoloni), finds which clearly prove their local manufacture. But the votive deposit of Campetti at Veii has yielded the head of a silenos of identical type and made of Veian clay (see Vagnetti 1971), which led P. J. Riis to suggest that this type of antefix was invented at Veii. The lower half of an antefix of this type with a provenance from Veii is in a private collection in Switzerland (see Jucker), and similar fragments have recently been excavated in Rome (see Cristo fani). 

With that in mind, it is necessary to return to the same question previously directed at Christie’s: 

On what evidentiary basis, supported by what verifiable documentation, did the auction house authorise the consignment of this artefact?  In the absence of any demonstrable chain of custody or export records, the decision to green-light its sale raises serious concerns regarding the robustness of the auction house’s internal due diligence procedures.

In this case, the question is not rhetorical but fundamental. Is Christie’s in possession of any concrete paperwork supporting the legitimacy of this Dancing Maenad’s appearance on the market, or was the absence of evidence simply overlooked given its publication in an exhibition, in the hope that the object’s passage through the auction process would escape closer scrutiny.

The museum, which has featured the bronze in its collection since 1986, had challenged the order in court, arguing that there was insufficient evidence to prove the statue had been illegally exported.  In their lawsuit, the museum claimed that the headless sculpture, controversially named The Emperor as Philosopher, probably Marcus Aurelius, then renamed Draped Male Figure, had been lawfully acquired by the museum and that New York District Attorney Alvin L. Bragg’s office in Manhattan has no legal authority to seize it.  

In its prior federal filing, Cleveland Museum of Art v. District Attorney of New York County, New York (1:23-cv-02048),  Cleveland had opposed the return of this statue contending that its former curator Arielle P. Kozloff (Herrmann) believed that the Philosopher did not come from Bubon, and that any previously stated connection between Bubon and the Philosopher was mere conjecture, statements which completely contradict the museum's earlier findings. 

Vol. 74, No. 3, Mar., 1987 The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art

After its purchase, the Museum was so proud of its acquisition of unknown origin that it dedicated its entire its March 1987 edition of The Bulletin of The Cleveland Museum of Art to the statue and highlighted the bronze in a Year in Review exhibition.  Curator Kozloff wrote in the Introduction to that 62-page Bulletin that “[t]his entire issue of the Bulletin is devoted to the study of Cleveland’s newly acquired bronze.”  At page 133, she quoted English archaeologist and writer George Bean’s observations when he visited Bubon and described the difference at the site between his first visit in 1952 and his second visit in 1966:

“[T]he scene completely changed. The entire slope of the hill had recently been dug from top to bottom by the villagers in search of loot; their pits left hardly a yard of space between them. Of the ruins, such as they were, nothing now remains; but in the course of digging in the theater a large stone covered with writing was said to be found.” 

Kozloff also published photographs of her trip to Bubon, including one which she captioned “Figure 3. The photograph depicts the extent of the looting: giant holes scar the landscape and fragments of stone walls can be seen jutting out of the pits.”  Kozloff also included another photograph to illustrate the find spot of the looted statues:

On a longitudinal axis leading to the northeast (nearly parallel to the axis of the “agora”) from the theater are two structures, now pits, about 2 meters deep and mostly filled in with debris (Figure 3). The smaller of the two was pointed out by an Ibecik native as “the museum” where eight large statues were found. Our guide’s arm gestures indicated that the sculptures were found tumbled together, face down in the earth. Our guide remembered only human figures being unearthed and reported a quantity significantly less than what is claimed for the site.

Effectively, Kozloff admitted, in CMA’s own official publication, that the Sebasteion had been heavily ravaged “by the villagers in search of loot” between 1952 and 1966—all while trumpeting CMA’s newly acquired statue had originated from this very site.

At the time of its celebratory exhibit, the Cleveland Museum of Art issued a statement that it would be exhibited their new bronze with "one other sculpture supposedly found with it, a bronze bust of a lady, now in the Worcester (Massachusetts) Art Museum."  That identified object as already been returned by the New York District Attorney's Office, making it all the more outrageous, that on one hand the museum admitted to the statue's origins from Bubon, while in 2023 foot-dragging against the the realities they themselves had fully acknowledged years earlier. 

Today, the CMA formally filed a Notice of Dismissal Under FRCP 41(a)(1), electing to drop its opposition of the statue's seizure.  This now paves the way for the artefact's eventual return to its country of origin.  In opting to dismiss, the museum issued a statement published in the New York Times that the decision was predicated on the basis of scientific study, which only now allowed the museum to be “able to determine with confidence that the statue was once present at the site.”

Over the last several years, the Manhattan District Attorney's Office Antiquities Trafficking Unit, headed by Assistant District Attorney Matthew Bogdanos has been actively involved in the repatriation of stolen artefacts, including many bronzes identified as having been looted from the ancient city of Bubon in Türkiye.  In recent years, prosecutors and analysts with the ATU have worked closely with academics studying the bronzes and the Turkish authorities in order to seize, where possible and in accordance with the law, antiquities looted from this ancient site that were laundered through the black market.

By May 1967, law enforcement authorities from the Republic of Türkiye had uncovered their first lead which would help identify where the looted statues came from. A large, ancient bronze statue was found hidden in a looters house in the village of Ibecik, located in the mountainous region of the Gölhisar district, in the southern province of Burdur, less than 100 kilometers from the southwest Turkish coast.

This initial 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, helped to establish the find spot for the CMA bronze and other statues which once stood on the summit and slopes of Dikmen Tepe within the eastern Roman Empire city of Bubon.

According to the ancient Greek geographer Strabo, the city of Bubon 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 a large-scale looting operation conducted during the mid-20th century, the unprotected ancient city's movable cultural heritage fell victim to poverty and art market greed, with much of what had survived throughout history, being dug up and hauled away for profit.

The Sebasteion at Boubon

In 1967, the archaeological museum of Burdur undertook the first legal excavation at what remained of Bubon.  During these emergency excavations, where some of the explored sites were reburied after exploration to afford more protection, site archaeologists documented a Sebasteion near the centre of the terrace close to the Agora.  This complex is believed to have been devoted to the worship of the imperial cult, honouring members of the Imperial family.  It is thought to have been in use for a period of over two centuries from the 1st to the middle of the 3rd century CE. 

Inside this Sebasteion, archaeologists discovered two inscribed podiums along the north and the east walls of the room, as well as four free-standing bases along the west wall.  Here, statues of emperors and members of the Imperial household were once on display.

The majority of the dedications found at the Sebasteion date the cult sanctuary from the half century beginning with the joint reign of Marcus Aurelius and Lucius Verus (161-168 CE) to the ending of the sole reign of Caracalla (211-217 CE).  Unsurprisingly, by the time archaeologists set about documenting the site, only one single headless statue remained.  

All the others had been clandestinely excavated and illicitly exported out of the country.

As part of this documentation, Jale İnan assigned names to seven of the missing bronze statues, based on seven of the 14 dedicatory inscriptions found in situ at the Sebasteion.  According to the 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 who would have stood on a podium or plinth facing the entrance.

One of three inscriptions discovered during J. İnan's excavation, on stones forming the top course of the north pedestal (blocks E 10 and 11), documented in his 1990 excavation notes, reads:

[Μ.Αυρήλιο]ν Άντωνεϊνον

The Emperor as Philosopher Image Credit: Cleveland Museum of Art

At the time of sculpture's purchase, the CMA's 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 perfectly aligned with the details of the statues which once filled the Sebasteion in Bubon.

Before mandating the statue's seizure, 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 then circulated onward via Charles Lipson, first via the exhibition at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, and later loaned long term to the Metropolitan Museum of Art via a private collector before ultimately being purchased by the Cleveland museum.

Yet, despite the evidence presented at the time of its seizure and its earlier stance that the object had been lawfully acquired, the museum somewhat lamely cited only the forensic evidence in its late-in-coming decision to relinquish the Marcus Aurelius statue.  It indicated that analysis of soil samples taken from within the body of the statue, as well as lead from a plug in its foot used to attach the statue to a plinth, which matched evidence obtained from the Sebasteion in Bubon proving the bronze had once stood there.  

While these laboratory findings provide the scientific nail in the coffin, proof linking this beautiful statue to its original site, this testing merely strengthens the preponderance of evidence accumulated in Manhattan's preexisting case for restitution.  The evidence of the object's trafficking from Türkiye, didn't rest on scientific analysis, which in this case, was miraculously made possible because the find spot remained relatively undisturbed.  

The case was weighted on multiple elements, including the first-hand testimony of farmers who told investigators that men from a nearby village found the bronzes buried on a hillside, beginning in the late 1950s and year by year, working in teams, removed the artefacts from the Sebasteion, many of which were sold to “American Bob,” absence of legal export permits and then unlawfully smuggled out of Türkiye.

Lest we forget, in 1962, the infamous American ancient art dealer Robert "Bob" Hecht was detained in Türkiye after he was seen inspecting ancient coins returning to Istanbul on a flight from heavily plundered Izmir, the same city where the intermediary dealer in this case operated.  As a result of that incident, Hecht was declared persona non grata in the country.  A friend of notorious Turkish antiquities smugglers, such as Fuat Üzülmez and Edip Telliağaoğlu, Hecht mediated the purchase of a large number of ancient artefacts which were smuggled from Turkey, before he turned his sights on Italy.

To date the ATU has restituted 14 antiquities, valued at almost $80 million, looted from the ancient site of Bubon. This Marcus Aurelius, headless though he be, is the 15th, and one I am sure the citizens of Türkiye will warmly welcome home.  

In closing, it will be interesting to see the CMA's own published statement as to why it ultimately elected to close its Federal folly to keep an obviously looted statue in its collection, rather than come to terms with what was already widely known for more than a decade.  I suspect they will mention their scholar's “subsequent research,” and her change of heart as to the statue's origins. 

But before they do so, I would remind ARCA's readers that the CMA's now-retired curator, Arielle Kozloff Herrmann, of Shaker Heights, who led the purchase of this Marcus Aurelius bronze in 1986, had longstanding interactions with problematic dealers in the ancient art market.  Those include the following, who have repeatedly tied to the illicit antiquities trade: 

Robert Hecht, who ravaged Turkey and Italy and who Kozloff thanked for information in the bulletin's acknowledgments on this purchase.

Sicilian Gianfranco Becchina, who she and her husband, John Herrmann, corresponded and met with.  

Edoardo Almagià, who currently has an outstanding arrest warrant in New York and who she was introduced to by the problematic Princeton curator, Michael Padgett. 

Edward Merrin the dealer who sold this statue to the CMA and whom she later worked with,

Lawrence Fleischman, George Zakos, Brian Tammas Aitken, and Robert Haber.   

Look into any of these fellows, most of whom have been featured on ARCA's blog, and then tell me if you think Arielle's latter indecision was unbiased, without motivation, and should have been a deciding factor in the museum's filings against this forfeiture. 

By:  Lynda Albertson

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

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

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.