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Showing posts sorted by date for query Heinz Herzer. Sort by relevance Show all posts

September 7, 2022

5+1+9+1= 16 plundered Egyptian artefacts restituted to their rightful owners in New York


Six of these pieces were seized while on display at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.  And like the restitutions returned to Italy yesterday, these pieces have likewise been linked to extensive criminal investigations into international antiquities-trafficking networks which have impacted multiple museum collections. Though in this case, the Egyptian artefats were handled by contemporary traffickers and looters, those whose networks have resulted in high level arrests in both France and Germany.  

Five of these antiquities, worth more than $3 million in total, were confiscated from the Metropolitan under a May 19 court order as having been looted from archaeological sites in Egypt, then eventually smuggled through Germany or the Netherlands before moving on to France.  These were sold by traffickers through the Paris-based Pierre Bergé & Associés to the Metropolitan Museum in New York.  

It should be noted that information gathered in this investigation has also resulted in the arrest of nine individuals in France including most strikingly, Jean-Luc Martinez, the former Chairman and CEO of the Musée du Louvre in Paris. 

The six artefacts from the Met's collection that were seized and are now going home are:

1 of 6 - A Monumental Stela of Kemes, ca. 1750–1720 BCE


Before the Met took down its accession page for this artefact, the provenance listed for this stela as listed in 2019 stated the following:

Purchased February 1969 by Uwe Schnell, Germany, from Heinz Herzer Gallery in Munich. Purchased in the 1970s by a private collector (probably Serop Simonian, Hamburg, Germany). Published fully in 1994, exhibited in Bonn University Art Museum 2006 through at least 2008 and published in the catalog. Acquired by the Museum at auction Pierre Bergé, 2014.

A check of open source records using the names Ewe Schnell, Heinz Herzer and Pierre Bergé & Associés combined only turns up one other antiquity, a Fayum panel painting of a woman in a blue mantle, which was also acquired by the Metropolitan Museum and one we will speak about later in this article.

Heinz Herzer, as many followers of ARCA's blog know, has his own interesting history in dealing with ancient objects with fabricated provenance.

Serop Simonian is an art dealer of Armenian origin at the fulcrum of the Met's gold-sheathed mummiform coffin of Nedjemankh restitution case as well as other pieces already seized and returned by the DANY or identified in other jurisdictions. His name comes up repeatedly in relation to suspect artefacts identified during police, and public prosecutor investigations, as well as academic forensic research.  Simonian has also been tied to numerous suspect acquisitions approved for purchase at the Louvre Abu Dhabi and is quite famous for having stirred up quite a bit of controversy in Italy regarding the sale of the disputed Artemidorus papyrus in 2004 for €2.75 million to the Compagnia San Paolo Art Foundation.  

But back to the Stela of Kemes.  On April 25, 2016, the Metropolitan's accession page for this Egyptian artefact stated the provenance quite differently.  Listing its collecting history as:

Believed to have been in the Todrous Collection, Luxor. Purchased February 1969 by Uwe Schnell, Germany, from Heinz Herzer Gallery in Munich. Purchased in the 1970s by the owner of the Tamerit Collection, Germany. Acquired by the Museum at auction Pierre Bergé, 2014.

This earlier collection history mentions a "Todrous Collection" of which there is nothing documented in open source records anywhere on the web for any other ancient objects.  A late antique textile fragment of a tunic with the inventory number T 34, from "the Tamerit collection" is on record at the at the Papyrussammlung der Österreichischen Nationalbibliothek at the Austrian National Library, though not much else.

Note that this Met record spells the collection's name Todrous, while the recently restituted golden coffin spelled the name Tawadrus, and trade journals have spelled the name Tawadros.  Later in this article you will also see the name spelled Tadross. All refer to the deceased Luxor dealer Habib Tawadros.

Christophe Kunicki's own website listed the provenance for this stela as:

Ancient european private collection, 1969.
With Tadross, Luxor, 1960’s

But stepping back even farther, outside of the Met Museum's and the seller's respective websites, the Monumental Stela of Kemes was published in the 2014 Volume 25 Number 5 issue of the journal Minerva: The International Review of Ancient Art & Archaeology.

This trade magazine listed the provenance for the stela as:

A rare Egyptian limestone chapel-stele of Kemes, superior of musicians (3), from the 13th Dynasty, circa 1770 BC (H. 73cm), in the form of a quadrangular naos resting upon a base carved with façades, was purchased from the Luxor dealer Tawadros during the 1960s. The cover-piece of the sale, it was estimated at €300,000-€400,000, but brought in a hammer price of just €200,00 from the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The expert for both sales was Christophe Kunicki.

Screen Shot: Volume 25 Number 5, Page 53
Minerva: The International Review of Ancient Art & Archaeology

It is important to recognise that the involvement of the French dealer Christophe Kunicki via Pierre Bergé & Associés does not appear in any of the Metropolitan Museum's provenance records for the 13th Dynasty Egyptian limestone chapel-stele of Kemes, despite what this trade journal says and despite the Met's curators in the Egypt department having direct and frequent contact with him as he brokered pieces to the museum directly.

Purchased on 21 May 2014, the Met's record also left out the "Luxor dealer Tawadros" connection on this object.  That name, if you will recall, is also the name associated on the  now restituted 1st century B.C.E mummiform coffin, inscribed in the name of Nedjemankh.
_________


Painted Fayum panel portraits of Egypt are among the few preserved examples of ancient Greek-style paintings on panel and canvas.  Prior to its seizure, this one was on view at The Met's Gallery 137.  The woman in the blue mantle was purchased in 2013 via Pierre Bergé auction house in Paris, with Christophe Kunicki, working as expert. 

When the Metropolitan's accession page was still live, the museum first listed its provenance as:

Purchased 1968 by Uwe Schnell from Heinz Herzer Gallery, Munich. Purchased 1972 by the owner of the Tamerit Collection. Purchased by the Museum from Pierre Bergé & Associés, Paris, 2013.

This was later changed to:

Purchased 1968 by Uwe Schnell from Heinz Herzer Gallery, Munich. Purchased 1972 by Serop Simonian, Hamburg Germany, who owned it until 2013. Published 1997 and 2003, exhibited in Frankfurt in 1999 and Vienna in 2003 and published in exhibition catalogs. Consigned to Pierre Bergé & Associés by a private collector; purchased by the Museum from Pierre Bergé at auction, Paris, 2013.

In trade catalogues for this artefact Kunicki listed only “a European collection“ as the Fayum portrait's sole provenance. 

3 of 6 - Stela Dedicated to the Goddess Hathor by the Temple Singer in the Interior of Amun



Prior to its seizure, this Third Intermediate Period (Kushite) to Late Period stela was on view at The Met's Gallery 137.  This Egyptian artefact was purchased in December 
2015 (accessioned in 2016) via Pierre Bergé auction house in Paris, with Christophe Kunicki, working as expert. 

Just before the Met took down this object's accession page, the museum listed the stela's provenance as:

In the Khashaba Collection, Assyut, by 1910. Permission granted to heirs to export through the Egyptian Museum Cairo for sale abroad by 1969. Exported abroad with license in 1972. Purchased by Adolf Smith (Schmidt), Germany, 1975, and descended in the family. Collection of Serop Simonian, Hamburg, Germany, 2015. Consigned to Pierre Berge & Associates by a private collector; auctioned at Pierre Bergé, Paris, December 2015, where it was purchased by the Museum. 

The 2015 Pierre Berge catalogue listed the provenance as:

Ancienne collection Sayed Pasha Khashaba, années 1910. Ancienne collection Smith, Allemagne, 1975.
Collection européenne.

Between 1910 and 1914, Sayed Bey Khashaba, AKA Sayed Pasha Khashaba, AKA Saiyid Khashaba Pasha, with other various subtle misspellings obtained from the Antiquities Service concessions to excavate at Assiut, Meir, Deir el-Gabrawi, Tihna and at Soknopaiou Nesos, in the Fayum.  I will leave whether or not this steal came from any of these places to the Egyptologists. 

4 of 6 - A face from a painted wooden Egyptian coffin


Before being sundered in two, this Egyptian face once belonged to an anthropoid wood coffin decorated with plaster and then delicately painted in polychromy.  

This artefact was purchased by the Metropolitan during the same December 2015 sale as the previous stela, (accessioned in 2016) via Pierre Bergé auction house in Paris, with Christophe Kunicki, working as expert. 

Just before the Met took down this object's accession page, the museum listed the stela's provenance as:

Collection of Robert Boyd, originally from Scotland and living in Indonesia, from about 1890, possibly acquired through Eugene Dubois. Brought to the Netherlands by Boyd's descendants about 1950. Sold in 1968 by Galerie - 2000 annex Curiosa, Rotterdam, to Mr. Jan Veneman, Oegstgeest, the Netherlands. Subsequently sold again on the art market in The Netherlands. Placed by a Dutch dealer at auction, Pierre Bergé & Associés, Paris, December 16, 2015, where it was purchased by the Museum.

5 of 6 - Exodus Painting, five elements from a painted hanging depicting the Crossing of the Red Sea


The first appearance of the Exodus Painting in five fragments, depicting the Crossing of the Red Sea, occured in a 1998 publication, Alexandria: Die erste Königsstadt der hellenistischen Welt : Bilder aus der Nilmetropole von Alexander dem Grossen bis Kleopatra VII, written by Günter Grimm.   Grimm, who died 17 September 2010, is the same egyptologist who had a working relationship with Serop Simonian regarding the authentication of the suspect “Artemidorus” and other papyri while at the Archaeologisches Institut at the  Universität Trier.

Head of the University Institute in the mid-1980s, Grimm opened a small Late Period gallery in the Institute with objects from Serop Simonian’s stock.

On 26 November 2013 these five fragments came up for auction at Hôtel Drouot via Pierre Bergé & Associés with Christophe Kunicki listed as expert. At that Paris sale, Simonian's footprint was omitted and the only provenance given was: 

6 of 6 - An 8th century BCE Egyptian bronze statuette of a Kneeling Ruler or Priest


This sixth Egyptian artefact was seized at the Metropolitan Museum of Art earlier this year when linked to 81-year-old fugitive Georges Lotfi who split his time between New York,  Paris and Tripli, Lebanon. Lotfi was charged by the New York authorities in August 2022 with criminal possession of stolen property and remains at large.   

Before its seizure in February 2022, 2006, Lotfi sold the small bronze statue to the Metropolitan with a provenance history which read:

Ex Collection Joseph Shitrit, Israel, from the 1960s. Purchased from him by Biblical Antiquities, Jerusalem, Israel, 2005. Purchased by the Museum from Georges Lotfi, Tripoli and Paris, 2006.

In actuality the Egyptian antiquity had passed first through the hands of a source country looter in 2005, then on to a part-time looter/part-time dealer in Israel named Gil Chaya, a formerly licensed antiquities dealer from Jerusalem and the purported nephew of Shlomo Moussaieff. 


In 2011, as if to brag that pieces he handled had made it into a prestigious gallery at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Chaya published a series of photos showing the bronze in his home, both before and after its restoration, posting a comment with the photo which read, "2 days after i clean it it was already in the amarna room at the MET."  This solidifies without a doubt that the provenance for this piece,as having come from the collection of Joseph Shitrit in the 1960s, is pure fabrication. 

Nine of the other Egyptian artefacts restituted in New York today are detailed in the Michael Steinhardt (Statement of Facts) document and are as follows:

1 of 9 - Vase from the Pan-Athenian Games


2 of 9 - Tel El-Yahudiyeh Beer Strainer

 

3 of 9 - Statue of a Winged Human;


4 of 9 - A carved piece of ivory depicting 12 highly-engaged figures on musical instruments


5,6,7,8,& 9 of 9 - A set of five gold and silver ornaments and plaques;


In 2017 the New York District Attorney initiated a criminal investigation into Michael Steinhardt’s acquisition, possession, and sale of antiquities.  That office's "Statement of Facts" document is the evidentiary basis for the conclusion that 180 antiquities possessed by Steinhardt constituted stolen property under New York law. 

The final object in today's restitution is a Ptolemaic gold coin.


This ancient coin was recovered as part of an ongoing investigation, which for now remains under the discretion of the prosecutor's office. 

In closing I would like to say that due diligence of looted antiquities, especially those that could be from conflict-based, or post-conflict source countries, must be meaningful and not simply and superficially plausible, in the furtherance of a purchase.  This holds true for lofty universal museums, as well as private buyers.  

Partially-documented histories in an object's collection background, do not necessarily always point to fresh loot or illegal export, but when an antiquity's background looks murky, as was obviously the case with several of these artefacts, museums and wealthy collectors need to step up their game, so they no longer perpetuate and incentivise plunder.  

Likewise, museums like the Metropolitan should not remove their accession pages, no matter how embarrassing they find them.  They should leave them up with notations that these pieces have gone home and who handled them. In doing so, they allow researchers and collectors to be more aware of the problem actors circulating material from past sales.  This also saves folks like me from having to store things away that only a few people can access. 

To conclude, ARCA would like to thank DA Bragg, Assistant District Attorney Matthew Bogdanos, Chief of the Antiquities Trafficking Unit; Assistant District Attorneys James Edwards-Lebair and Taylor Holland, Supervising Investigative Analyst Apsara Iyer, Investigative Analysts Giuditta Giardini, Alyssa Thiel, Daniel Healey, and Hilary Chassé; who alongside Special Agents John Paul Labbat and Robert Mancene of Homeland Security Investigations for the work put into these investigations.  

We would also like to thank Stephane Blumel, Major de Gendarmerie, of France’s Office central de lutte contre le trafic des biens culturels (OCBC) and Silvelie Karfeld and Nicole Pogantke of the Arts and Antiquities Crimes Unit of Germany’s Bundeskriminalamt (BKA) Kunst und Kulturgutkriminalität for their forensic investigative support in other jurisdictions.  Working collaboratively, we now know more about when, and where, and with whom, some of these recovered artefacts have circulated. 

By Lynda Albertson

August 12, 2022

Raffaele Monticelli's connection to Bank Leu A.G. and to the Getty Villa's "Seated Musician and Sirens" AKA Orpheus and the Sirens

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.

Orpheus, seated on his chair, with footstool, and slab, is missing part of his musical instrument (probably a plektron) and the middle finger of the left hand.  Reassembled from a number of fragments prior to its acquisition by the Getty, his legs, head and other sections appear to have been reconsolidated, leaving him mostly intact.  Missing sections were also filled in, and smoothed over, with obscuring encrustations added on the body and the head, perhaps to conceal break lines which can sometimes be indicative of illegal excavation. 

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);  
and finally, 
  • 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. 


July 20, 2021

An updated timeline on the history of the statue of the Victorious Youth: Comparing the Getty's last statements regarding the statue with the facts and with Italy's current political manoeuvring.

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 [still] 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 remember the details of 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, the 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 findspot, is it known if these stated distances were made utilizing instrumental or mathematical calculation or simply guestimates.

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 that day in 1964, it is impossible to ascertain, beyond a reasonable doubt, which, if any, of the findspot 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.

Findspot 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? or the fact that 

For that matter, how would the J. Paul Getty Museum classify the presence in Italy of the other works created by Lisippo di Sicione, the alleged sculptor of the Victorious Youth, whose seven other identified works are attributed to production in Magna Graecia (the coastal areas of Southern Italy in the present-day regions of Campania, Apulia, Basilicata, Calabria and Sicily).

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 or under what circumstance or motivation the statue was in transit to or from.

As for the JPGM's statement 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 very own bathtub.  There it was submerged in a saltwater bath to try and minimize the odour 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 that the statue existed or in 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 where 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 simply 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 crisscrossed 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 an ancient statue from vendors in Brazil for $700,000. 

Founded in 1970, and headed by German antiquities dealer Heinz Herzer, the 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 northeast of Guildford in Surrey.

In a letter sent by Getty himself to Herzer on August 31, 1972, the billionaire asked 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 defence 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, Getty left an estate worth nearly $700 million to the J. Paul Getty Museum Trust and that the Trust was required to spend 4.25 % of the average market value of its endowment per year, I suspect the time Peeler spent examining this statue's ethics was minimal at best, in relation to the other affairs he was tasked with. 

• 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 which superseded the New York 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 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 requested 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 any photographs 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 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 offence.  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 required 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.

• 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 already been outlined earlier in this blog post. 

•  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 the ministry 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 solely 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)
•  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. 

•  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 onshore 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 findspot 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 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 Getty’s position:

• 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. 

• 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 the 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 artefacts from their archaeological context in the country of origin. 

Ultimately, the Federal Bureau of Investigation has investigative jurisdiction for stolen property offences as set forth in the NSPA. The Office of Enforcement Operations of the Criminal Division has supervisory responsibility over offences 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.

• 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 any photographic evidence tying the statue fished from the sea and taken onshore in Fano to the antiquity later 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.

• 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 Italians press for such via an ILOR. 

• 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 favour of seizure based upon Italian current laws.

• 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 Italy and the Getty both agreed to allow the course to run its course in Italy before picking up discussions, on the statue's potential restitution.  

• 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.   

In 2020 Italy's government moved to embargoe the American museum over its foot dragging in the Getty Bronze saga.  Last week, with continued pressure by Italy's Senator Margherita Corrado, Italy's Senate’s culture commission passed a resolution last week which some feel will strengthen the government’s hand when battling complex restitution cases. 

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 at this point is just plain old contrariness. 

Clinging to this antiquity despite its tainted pedigree seems a little misguided.  Doing so creates further ill will with an important source country and its judiciary is 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