Blog Subscription via Follow.it

February 17, 2011

The Journal of Art Crime: Stefano Alessandrini reviews "Ancient Art Works Recovered by the Guardia di Finanza Exhibition"

Photo of Stefano Allessandri by Urska Charney

In the fourth issue of The Journal of Art Crime, Stefano Allessandri reviews "Ancient Art Works Recovered by the Guardia di Finanza Exhibition" in Vittoriano, Rome (14 June - 12 September 2010).

The Guardia di Finanza's Archaeological Heritage Protection Group collaborated with the Ministero dei Bene Culturali (Heritage Ministry) to curate "From the Tomb to the Museum: Stories of Looting and Recoveries" last summer at the Complesso del vittoriano at Piazza Venezia in Rome. Stefano Alessandrini is head of Italy's Archaeological Group and adviser to the Ministry of Culture and the Advocate General of Italy on the recovery of looted antiquities.

To seek out this piece, and many others, consider a subscription to The Journal of Art Crime—the first peer-reviewed academic journal covering art and heritage crime. ARCA publishes two volumes annually in the Spring and Fall. Individual, Institutional, electronic and printed versions are all available, with subscriptions as low as 30 Euros. All proceeds go to ARCA's nonprofit research and education initiatives. Please see the publications page for more information.

February 16, 2011

Ton Cremers Weighs in on the lawsuit by the St. Louis Art Museum on Keeping the Ka-Nefer-Nefer Mask


by Catherine Schofield Sezgin

Questions have arisen about the legal status of an 3,200 year-old Egyptian mummy mask from a noblewoman at the court of Ramses II that has belonged to the St. Louis Art Museum for more than two decades.

The Ka-Nefer-Nefer mask, with its inlaid glass eyes and shimmering plaster face, has been on display since the museum purchased it in 1998 from a New York art dealer for $499,000, according to Jennifer Mann, reporting for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch on “stltoday.com” in the article “Art museum sues to keep Egyptian mummy mask.”

Ton Cremers, security consultant, and operator of the website news service, Museum Security Network in The Netherlands, is mentioned in the lawsuit that cites numerous emails Mr. Cremers sent to government officials in 2005 and 2006 call for an investigation, according to Mann.

I reached Mr. Cremers in Rome and he, traveling on with an iPad and without his usual computer, referred us to his response today that he posted on the MSN Google Group:
Ton Cremers: There is NO doubt whatsoever that this mask was stolen from a storage in Saqqara. One does not need to be surprised that the infamous Aboutaam brothers were the ones selling this mask. They are 'renowned' for trading in dubious antiquities without any provenance. In this case they just made up a fake provenance: supposedly the mask had been part of a Swiss private collection. Yes, Switzerland again....

Anybody who has read Peter Watson's books, Sotheby's The Inside Story and The Medici Conspiracy, knows that the Swiss route should be distrusted. The Aboutaam fake provenance was very easy to unmask because the Swiss collector mentioned by them in the provenance had never heard about this mask.

According to the ICOM deontological code, no museum should keep stolen objects, no matter any legal context. There is a knack in this case: the Saint Louis Art Museum is not a member of ICOM and apparently does not mind the ICOM ethical code. If they had been an ICOM Member, they should have been thrown out of this organization immediately. It is an outright lie that they performed due diligence when achieving this mask, for they did not.

In my view, Brent Benjamin, the director of the SLAM, is nothing else than an outright buyer of stolen property (yes, I am aware that his predecessor actually bought the mask). His standpoint is that Egypt must prove that the Ka-Nefer-Nefer mask was stolen. That is putting the world upside down. One thing is sure beyond any doubt: The mask was not excavated in Missouri.

The Ka-Nefer-Nefer mask must return to Egypt as quickly as possible.
ARCA blog: Is it appropriate to mention your emails in the lawsuit and how will this impact the Museum Security Network?
Ton Cremers: I really do not know who quoted my 2005 - 2008 messages about the Ka Nefer Nefer mask in the present law suit. As far as I am concerned there is no objection against using my messages since all of these have been sent publicly. Using these messages will not have any impact on the Museum Security Network. At least not any negative impact. It really shows that the MSN is regarded as a very serious factor in the struggle against illicit trade in cultural goods.

St. Louis Art Museum Sues the United States to Preclude a Forfeiture

The Ka-Nefer-Nefer Mask, acquired in 1998
 by the St. Louis Art Museum
The St. Louis Art Museum (SLAM) has sued the federal government to preclude it from initiating a forfeiture claim against the Ka-Nefer-Nefer mask. The museum was approached in January by several U.S. attorneys in January, who indicated an intention to bring a forfeiture action against the mask. Civil forfeiture was the legal mechanism under which the Portrait of Wally litigation and subsequent settlement emerged. It is a powerful tool for claimants, which uses the resources of the federal government, and a favorable burden of proof, to pursue claims for objects which may have been looted or stolen.

But in this case, rather than waiting for the forfeiture action, the museum has decided to try to preclude a suit by the U.S. attorneys, arguing that from December-January of 2005-06, the U.S. was a party to several communications regarding questions with respect to the history of the mask. They use as examples, posts and emails sent by Ton Cremers, of the Museum Security Network. He sent at least two emails to Bonnie Magness-Gardiner of the FBI, INTERPOL, as well as James McAndrew at Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE). The Museum's complaint quotes emails from Cremers, which were published on the Museum Security Network:
  1. “So I should think that if the Egyptian Government lodged a complaint or request with the USA Government and the FBI Crime Team (to which I am copying this), then the Museum would be obliged to answer the questions.”
  2. “The FBI is just waiting for Egypt to file a complaint. A [sic] soon as Egypt files a complaint [sic] the FBI is expected to act.”
  3. “Maarten Raven, a Dutch archaeologist, saw the mask in the Saqqara and is VERY positive that the mask in the SLAM [Museum] is the same as . . .the one stolen in Saqqara . . . .
The SLAM argues in the complaint that the relevant U.S. government officials had knowledge of the potential claim over five years ago, and the five-year statute of limitations period has expired under 19 U.S.C. § 1621. A court will decide whether these emails, and queries the Museum sent to INTERPOL in the 1990's about the mask are sufficient to have given the U.S. government actual or constructive knowledge of the potential claim. The Museum seeks a declaratory judgment under the Tariff Act that the action is barred by the statute of limitations.

The Journal of Art Crime: Essayist Patrick Hunt on Missing Miniatures from Priceless Illuminated Manuscripts

by Catherine Schofield Sezgin

In the fourth issue of The Journal of Art Crime, essayist Patrick Hunt writes about theft to medieval vellum pages in “Missing Miniatures from Priceless Illuminated Manuscripts” even at monasteries situated in the Swiss Alps and in cave sanctuaries in Nepal.

Patrick Hunt has followed “several of his life-long dreams” – archaeologist, art historian and author – “for the last 20 years at Stanford University”, starting as a Visiting Scholar in 1992 and teaching regularly since 1994. He has directed Stanford’s Alpine Archaeology Project since 1994 and publishes on a wide variety of subjects, from archaeology to art history and related humanities topics.
ARCA blog: Dr. Hunt, you write in your essay that in Bangkok a publisher of a book recording Nepalese religious art thefts was robbed in 1986 of 80 original photographic slides that evidenced the destruction of art. Can you guess as to the motivation of the thieves? Do you often think that they have no shame? Or can you imagine that the sale of stolen art is so great that no wonder these items are stolen?

Dr. Hunt: I wish an appreciation for beauty motivated such wanton destruction in the case of Nepalese religious art, but as usual in art theft, greed for highest profit margin seems unmitigated by respect for cultural treasures in their rightful contexts, however remote. In Bangkok, it was likely the associates of the thieves who wanted to remove any evidence of a crime having been committed so authorities would have a tougher time proving provenance as well as to facilitate sale to unsuspecting buyers for a “clean bill of health”. Organized crime – hidden behind “professional” moles - may often be involved, but the trite adage still applies: if no demand existed, supply would shrink accordingly. In some cases, the desire to collect something exotic that may even remind one of a wonderful trip may generate a legitimate desire to purchase a sentimental keepsake of distant travel, but these are not applicable motivations when thieves shamelessly rip religious art out of shrines solely for resale several continents away. For me, the clue that organized crime was involved in Svayambhunath was the murder of the priest trying to protect the site. Collecting is full of such shoals, so caveat emptor. If most collectors, usually decent people, only knew the trail of blood, they would generally shy away, and criminals know this. Plus, unfortunately provenance is simple to fake unless would-be collectors spend a lot of money to verify their sources.

ARCA blog: You cite one of the most “egregious gangster-like robberies” as the 2004 assault with a stun gun on a rare books librarian at Transylvania University Library that ended with the theft of rare books valued between $500,000 and $750,000 and the arrest of four college students who were apprehended when they tried to sell the material to Christie’s auction house in New York. This case, you say, was “ludicrously amateur” – what motivated these college students to do something like this? Were they prosecuted and jailed? What are the consequences for book theft?

Dr. Hunt: These four college kids – all of 20 years old - were just plain stupid. I don’t want to systematically categorize such acts as frathouse follies although it’s tempting in this caper. This kind of brazenness can at times be pinpointed to alcohol-emboldened macho dares, and such perpetrators are commonly puerile males who were either never caught or substantively punished for lesser pranks. But it’s still an amoral response to cultural relativism to think a rare library collection is fair game. In this case, they were unlikely to be intellectuals who knew the books well; they were not young academics who normally fully respect public opportunity to use resources within a library, where special collections are also conserved and cared for rightly. But they did get caught, thanks to their inability to foresee that reference librarians are well-educated people who know how to do their research. Plus, having assaulted the librarian with a stun gun added incentives to catch them when they rashly impersonated known book dealers in communications with Christie’s. After pleading guilty, they were ultimately each sentenced to 87 months in December, 2005.

ARCA blog: You write that in 1995 an honored medieval professor researching at the Vatican Library cut out several illuminated 14th century leaves with fine miniature paintings from a Vatican codex that had been commissioned and annotated by Petrarch. Is it only about the money?

Dr. Hunt: Unlike the college students, this 1995 theft is probably more complicated. Here, a true bibliophile, a respected medieval studies professor who knew the material better than nearly anyone in the world, lapsed into a form of early dementia at age 68. It reminds me of a fascinating book by an author acquaintance, Allison Hoover Bartlett's The Man Who Loved Books Too Much: The True Story of a Thief, a Detective, and a World of Literary Obsession (Riverhead Books, New York, 2009). Obsession and even emotional hardship can drive otherwise moral people to do horrible things that would normally be unthinkable to them. Here in the case of Professor Anthony Melnikas, motivation is still largely a mystery, but it doesn’t seem to be entirely about money even though the priceless Petrarch leaves ended up with a book dealer before being spotted and returned to the Vatican. His likely dementia does not in any way excuse the crime, and we should hold such scholars who have almost unlimited access to an even higher responsibility.

ARCA blog: You tell of $750,000 book theft from Harvard, $1 million stolen from books at University of California at Los Angeles, and that many more books have probably been mutilated but are still unaccounted. Recovery is dependent upon perusing likely dealers and even antiquarian book fairs where such missing medieval art may turn up. If one of our readers sees something suspicious, what steps should be taken?

Dr. Hunt: The first step I recommend is to contact the parent body of this blog, ARCA (Association for Research into Crimes Against Art), as well as the ALA (American Library Association) because they regularly report library thefts once recognized. The second step might be to contact the FBI if it involves any possible element of organized crime, which sadly is already deeply involved, especially in art theft for money laundering. But I urge anyone in the latter instance to be very careful because crime cartels show little value for human life and snoopy people can disappear. Alert the right authorities and then get out of the way. The major auction houses are doing more due diligence these days, so less visible places might be venues where stolen rare books turn up more readily. The old canard about suspiciously low prices for rare books or possibly purloined medieval illuminations cut out from their pages, like anything else, is apropos: if it seems too good to be true, it probably is. In my Stanford courses like “Plundered Art” and in my books and articles, I find the forensic side fascinating but as always, truth about human behavior is ever more strange than fiction. Even if it’s less than 0.1% of the population who perpetrate brazen art crimes, one of my great mystery crime author friends, Ridley Pearson, reminds that you just can’t as easily make this stuff up. Justice may be slow, but unlike melted-down gold and silver, if the work is not destroyed – which would be totally counter-productive - the book trail can usually be followed.
To seek out this piece, and many others, consider a subscription to the Journal of Art Crime—the first peer-reviewed academic journal covering art and heritage crime. ARCA publishes two volumes annually in the Spring and Fall. Individual, Institutional, electronic and printed versions are all available, with subscriptions as low as 30 Euros. All proceeds go to ARCA's nonprofit research and education initiatives. Please see the publications page for more information.

February 15, 2011

The Journal of Art Crime: Essayist Catherine Schofield Sezgin Speculates on Paris Theft, May 2010

In an essay entitled “The Paris Art Theft, May 2010,” Catherine Schofield Sezgin relates the events of the theft of the Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris in the 16th arrondissement in Paris and speculates about how the thief may have stolen five paintings.

Christophe Girard, deputy culture secretary in Paris, estimated the value of the stolen paintings at 100 Euros ($123 million). The five missing paintings are reported as: “Le pigeon aux petits-pois” (The Pidgeon with the Peas), an ochre and brown Cubist oil painting by Pablo Picasso worth an estimated 23 million euros; “La Pastorale” (Pastoral), an oil painting of nudes on a hillside by Henri Matisse about 15 million euros; “L’olivier prés de l’Estaque” (Olive Tree Near Estaque)by Georges Braque; “La femme a l’eventail” (Woman with a Fan) by Amedeo Modigliani; and “Nature-more aux chandeliers” (Still Life with Candlesticks) by Fernand Leger.

According to Paris’ mayor, Betrand Delanoe, the museum’s security system, including some of the surveillance cameras, has not worked since March 30 and has not been fixed since the security company is waiting for parts from a supplier.
"In 2009, early January, I was ending a two-week holiday in Paris. We had been staying next door to the Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris but had not been inside it. On Saturday evening, the night before leaving, I left my children in the apartment and walked next door to check out the permanent collection which was free. The museum would be closing in a few minutes. I headed downstairs and started looking at paintings, somewhat sure that after days and days in Paris at the Musee d'Orsay and the Louvre and the Musée National d'Art Moderne at the Centre Pompidou that there wasn't much more for me to see in such short time. And then I saw this painting of trees that amazed me, and discovered that it was by Braque, titled, in English, Olive Tree Near Estaque. I just loved it and am happy to share these photos now." -- Catherine Schofield Sezgin.
To seek out this piece, and many others, consider a subscription to the Journal of Art Crime—the first peer-reviewed academic journal covering art and heritage crime. ARCA publishes two volumes annually in the Spring and Fall. Individual, Institutional, electronic and printed versions are all available, with subscriptions as low as 30 Euros. All proceeds go to ARCA's nonprofit research and education initiatives. Please see the publications page for more information.

BBC reports Scientists Used Analytical Tools to Study Color Changes Over Time

BBC reports the findings of a study of the deterioration of the color yellow to brown in some of Vincent van Gogh's paintings:
"The researchers found that a change in the oxidation state of the element chromium (from chromium 6 to chromium 3) was linked to the darkening of chrome yellow paint."
For more information, read the complete article ("Van Gogh paintings 'degraded by UV-driven reaction'") on the BBC here.

Photo from the BBC website: Van Gogh's "Banks of the Seine", Oil on canvas, Paris, 1887, Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

February 14, 2011

DIA's "Fakes, Forgeries and Mysteries" Podcasts about Painting Attributed to Claude Monet

by Catherine Schofield Sezgin

The Detroit Institute of Arts released its fifth podcast on YouTube, "Hello to Tewkesbury Road" to augment the exhibit, "Fakes, Forgeries, and Mysteries."

Dr. Salvador Salort-Pons, Associate Curator of European Paintings, narrates the story of the painting, "Three Figures Resting Under a Tree," once attributed to Claude Monet. The painting came into the collection at the DIA in 2004 and for this exhibit, the museum decided to look further into the authenticity and provenance of the work. First, Dr. Salort-Pons explains, they conducted a technical analysis of the materials used such as the pigments, the canvas, and the stretcher and found the materials to be consistent with those Monet would have used in 1871, the date attached to the signature on the front of the painting.

The style of the painting did not look like an Impressionist painting by Monet but his signature was on the front and the back of the painting but it is dated from a period when Monet not an Impressionist painter. "He was still young and profiling his artistic personality," Dr. Salort-Pons explains.

They looked at the back of the painting to try to find more information about it, Dr. Salort-Pons continues, and discovered a stamp that said it had been exhibited at the Carnegie Museum of Arts in Pittsburgh. He asked them if they had displayed Monet's "Three Figures Sitting Under a Tree" in the past but they did not find any evidence in their records.

On the back of the painting, they found the number "83707" which they recognized from an art dealer in New York where they traveled and found a card file with the history of ownership of this painting which had been sold by the Parisian dealer Goupil & Cie in the beginning of the 20th century then sold as a painting by Monet in 1947. The card file identified the title of the painting as "Tewkesbury Road."

With this new information, he went through the exhibition files at The Carnegie Museum of Art and found a photo of the painting from an exhibition in 1910 but the artist's signature on the painting was of Sir Alfred East. Apparently, between 1910 and 1947, someone had removed East's signature, forged Monet's signature, and fabricated the provenance. The forger knew in 1871 Monet was in England, the location of Tewkesbury Road. This painting is not by Monet but Sir Alfred East and Dr. Salvort-Pons tells the story of how an art researcher's hopes are challenging while investigating a piece of art.

The Journal of Art Crime: Essayist Kim Alderman on "The Ethics of Context"

In an essay titled “The Ethics of Context: Exploring Assumptions in Discussions about the Looting of Archaeological Sites,” Kim Alderman explores “underlying assumptions in arguments that increased regulation of the antiquities trade will combat the looting crisis, thereby preserving archaeological context:”

“The essay first distinguishes between ethical and legal arguments regarding illicit excavation of archaeological materials. The essay next considers whether archaeological context is “ethically worthy” because it helps people discover their past, or whether it is simple information to be commodified. Finally, the essay compares the ethical worth of context versus the immediate, palpable needs of subsistence looters.”

Kimberly Alderman is a Clinical Assistant Professor at the University of Wisconsin Law School. She recently completed the ARCA Postgraduate Program, and writes a blog: http://culturalpropertylaw.wordpress.com/.

To seek out this piece, and many others, consider a subscription to the Journal of Art Crime—the first peer-reviewed academic journal covering art and heritage crime. ARCA publishes two volumes annually in the Spring and Fall. Individual, Institutional, electronic and printed versions are all available, with subscriptions as low as 30 Euros. All proceeds go to ARCA's nonprofit research and education initiatives. Please see the publications page for more information.

February 13, 2011

Amelia, Umbria: An Introduction to Its History

by Catherine Schofield Sezgin

Amelia, the oldest town in Umbria, is about 60 miles north of Rome. You can get there by car in about an hour. You could get there by train to the station at Orte, in either one or two hours from either Termini Station in Rome or from the airports, depending on whether or not your train stops at every town. Orte, a another small medieval town, is about nine miles from Amelia through beautiful green hills with cypress trees. If you don't have a car, you can take a bus, unless you arrive on a Sunday in July or August, or later than 10 o'clock at night, then you will have to call for a driver. Outside the doors of the train station, a sign indicates a phone number for a taxi company. But the taxi company, or just a sole driver, I've never figured out which, does not always answer the phone or send a car. So it's helpful to have the name and number of a private service that will agree to meet you upon your arrival for the cost of 25 or 30 euros.

As I've discussed before, most visitors stop at Bar Leonardi for refreshments or to make arrangements to reach their lodgings. From the patio of Bar Leonardi, you can sit at a table and view the walls of the medieval town and the main gate which is known as the Porta Romana. This entrance deserves a photo and a blog of it's own so we'll just say for now that if you're not waiting on the patio of Bar Leonardi, you're waiting on a low wall that extends outside of the Porta Romana. And I have a photo which I will also show in another blog of some local men that agreed to have their photo taken. They, or someone like them, sat on that wall most morning and evenings. However, the sitting wall is typically available during the afternoon siesta so I recommend that when you want to feel like a local and check out all the cars and pedestrians going in and out of the historic center, that you first sit on the wall during a hot afternoon when no one else is around. Because you'll want to make sure you have the right detached pose ready as you inspect everyone and everything going in and out of that town.

People may have lived on this hilltop for three thousand years, allegedly beginning with the Umbrian King Ameroe more than 300 years earlier than the settlement of Rome. The Umbrians traded with Greeks and Etruscans and produced pottery. Pliny the Elder, historian and military commander, wrote that the Umbrians were the oldest people in Italy -- that the Greeks called them 'Ombrici' because they were believed to have survived the great flood Zeus unleashed to cleanse the countryside at the end of the Bronze Age to express his anger with the corruption of the Pelasgians. This history is relevant when you're in Amelia because you can feel the sense of pride and tradition in the town's clean streets and well-preserved buildings.

Between the 6th and 4th centuries B. C., the Etruscans protected Amelia by stacking limestone blocks, one on top of the other, fitting them together without mortar. These walls, 8 meters high and 3.5 meters wide, extend around the town for more than 700 meters. One legend claims that these walls thwarted an attack by Emperor Federico Barbarossa. A 30-meter segment of this wall collapsed in 2006 and is still under repair as the town awaits for government funding and tries to figure out how to duplicate the original construction. In May 2008, another gate opening from the third of fourth century B.C. was rediscovered.

February 12, 2011

Amelia, Umbria: Bronze Germanicus Home in Museo Archeologico di Amelia

By Catherine Schofield Sezgin

Of the most important and complete bronze statues of the first century A.D. ever found in Italy resides in Amelia.

In 1963, outside the walls of Amelia’s historic center, a group of workers digging a mill found the broken remains of a first century bronze statue. Over the town’s objections, the fragments were transferred to Perugia, restored, and then decades later returned to Amelia to an archaeological museum built to display the bronze of Germanicus Julius Caesar.

Francesca Rossi, an Amelian and daughter of Luciano Rossi of Punto Di Vino, a local wine bistro, recalled seeing the restored head of Germanicus on display in the old town hall when she was a little girl. “I fell in love with him,” she said. “I told my mother I wanted to marry him.”

The charisma of the bronze head likely belonged to a statue created to commemorate the early death of one of the Roman Empire’s most beloved commanders. Germanicus, adopted younger son of Julius Augustus, would have followed his brother Tiberius as Roman emperor if he had not been poisoned in Antioch.

Austrialian-born writer Stephen Dando-Collins claims in his book “Blood of the Caesars: How the Murder of Germanicus Led to the Fall of Rome” (John Wiley and Sons, 2008), that the death of Germanicus in A. D. 19 predated the fall of the Roman Empire. But Germanicus’ fame catapulted his son Caligula and his grandson Nero to the throne. It was his wife Agrippina the Elder, the granddaughter of Augustus, who used her husband’s good name and affection of the people of the Roman Empire to further her family’s political ambitions. Yet, it was Germanicus’ lack of political ambition, his unwillingness to use his popularity to unseat Tiberius, that may have motivated his wife and her reputed lover and one of Rome’s greatest philosophers, Seneca, to poison her husband, according to Dando-Collins’ book.

Ruthless women characterized Germanicus’ family. His paternal grandmother had been six months pregnant when she divorced her husband and married his political rival, the future Roman Emperor, bestowing upon her great wealth and ultimately the title of Roman deity. Women used marriage and motherhood as the only available political tools. Although his grandmother’s mother had been the daughter of a magistrate, her father was from two patrician families, Gens Julia and Gens Claudia, of Ancient Rome.

At the age of 14, Livia Drusilla married her cousin Tiberius Claudius Nero, an ally of Mark Antony and Julius Caesar. For years she lived in exile before a peace agreement between Antony and Octavian in 40 BC allowed her family to return to Rome. Apparently, Octavian, her husband’s rival, fell in love with the pregnant 20-year-old Livia, divorced his wife Scribonia the day after she gave birth to her daughter Julia, and then married Germanicus’ paternal grandmother. Three months later, Livia gave birth to Germanicus’ father, Drusus. She allowed her first husband to raise her sons until his death and then they went to live with their mother and her husband who was elevated to Augustus, first Roman Emperor.

Germanicus’ maternal grandmother was Augustus’ sister, Octavia, and his maternal grandfather was Augustus' rival Mark Antony. When Antony took up with Cleopatra, then committed suicide, one of the nine children he left behind was Germanicus’ mother, Antonia the Younger. Thus, Germanicus’ grandparents were the second wife of the first Roman Emperor, the sister of the first Roman Emperor, and two political rivals of the first Roman Emperor.

Germanicus’ wife, Agrippina the Elder, was the granddaughter of the First Roman Emperor through his daughter Julia who had been abandoned by her father Octavian when he married Germanicus’ maternal grandmother Livia. Agrippina’s father, of course, was Agrippa, a political ally of Julia’s father. After her father died, her mother married Tiberius Caesar, Germanicus’ uncle and the ruler to succeed Augustus.

Germanicus, adopted by Tiberius at the will of Augustus, was patiently waiting his turn when his wife, the direct descendant of Augustus, grew impatient and plotted to poison her husband at the age of 34 so as to undermine Tiberius and raise her son to the imperial throne.

When the pieces of a bronze statue were dug up outside the city walls along the “Via Ortana”, probably the ancient road that follows the route of the Via Amerina, likely on the grounds for the old campus for ancient games and gymnastic competitions. (Archaeological Museum of Amelia, website). The statue was erected in honor of Amelia and in memory of Germanicus, also known as Nero Claudius Drusus, born in 15 BC. Germanicus, the son of a famed and beloved commander who succeeded in the Germany territories and also died young, on his horse, also earned adulation of the Roman people.

The bronze fragments were reconstructed with the use of steel frame that was anchored to a wooden structure to support the basis for the bronze fragments.

The statue, more than two meters tall, is of a “Young Germanicus” triumphant as a victorious general, with armor and the arm resting on a spear, the head turned to the right, in the direction of the raised arm.

The artistic decoration of his armor shows the scene of the attack of Achilles in Troy, perhaps linking this memory with Germanicus’ military operations in the East.

The archaeological museum is located in the Boccarini Palazzo built between the thirteenth and sixteenth centuries. In 1410, it was the seat of the papal government whose jurisdiction included Amelia, Orvieto, and Terni.

http://www.umbriaearte.it/museo_archeologico_amelia.htm
Museo Archeologico di Amelia
Piazza Augusto Vera, 10 - Amelia (Tr)
Tel./fax+39.0744.978120