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Italy and the Met

Heritage Lost

On February 2, 2006, the Metropolitan Museum of Art made an announcement that it would be turning a number of objects in its collection over to Italian ownership. On February 21, Philippe de Montebello, the director of the Met, and Rocco Buttiglione, Italy's Minister of Culture, finally signed an official accord that cemented the deal. Now the process has begun to send archaeological artifacts from Italian collections to the Met as loans in exchange for the return to Italy of pieces that Italy claims were looted from within its borders.

The "Hot" pot

Among the objects that will be returned to Italy is the spectacular Euphronios Krater, a masterwork of ancient Greek vase making and decoration. Since 1972, the Euphronios Krater has been a showpiece of the Greek and Roman collections at the Met. The krater is named for its painter, the Greek artist Euphronios who lived in the 6th century B.C. Very few examples of his work have survived to the modern day, and the quality of his workmanship is impeccable - it is perfect. And so, in 1972 when it was announced that a never-before-seen and utterly intact vase painted by Euphronios had been purchased by the Metropolitan Museum, it was immediately at the center of a raging debate about its origin. One of the many questionable aspects of the vase's appearance at the Met was its extreme purchase price (roughly $1 million—nearly eight times the highest price ever paid for an ancient vase). But above all, it was the Met's initial refusal to discuss where the vase had come from that elicited the most controversy. 

Dr. Dietrich von Bothmer, then curator of the Greek and Roman collection, and Thomas Hoving, the director of the museum, refused to disclose the name of the vase's prior owner or the identity of the dealer who mediated the deal. Investigations were launched by The New York Times ("How the Metropolitan acquired 'the finest Greek vase there is'." Nicholas Gage for the New York Times, February 19, 1973. and "Farmhand tells of finding Met's vase in Italian tomb", Nicholas Gage for the New York Times, Febraury 25, 1973), the Italian Carabinieri (national paramilitary police), and the NYPD and FBI. As early as February 1973—only a few months after the Met announced the vase's purchase—the Italian authorities were convinced that the vase had been discovered near Rome in 1971 and smuggled out of Italy before it was sold to the Metropolitan.  

It soon became known that Robert E. Hecht was the agent who sold the vase to the museum. By 1972, he had already been declared "persona non grata" - utterly unwelcome - by the Republic of Turkey for dealing in looted antiquities, and had also been arrested in Italy on similar charges. (Mr. Hecht is currently on trial, a co-defendant with Dr. Marion True, formerly of the Getty Museum, in Rome for conspiracy to traffic in looted antiquities.)

Protracted investigations yielded seemingly contradictory facts. At one point the Metropolitan refused to honor a request by the FBI, which was acting on behalf of the Italian authorities, for photographs of the vase in a prerestored state.

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"A Watergate in Art"

The FBI made its request for photos in order to corroborate the story of a man named Armando Cenere. Cenere was an unemployed Italian who claimed to have been one of the looters who discovered the Euphronios Krater in a tomb near Cerveteri, an Etruscan burial city to the Northwest of Rome. Criminal investigations were undertaken and charges were filed, but the case never went very far and all the charges were eventually dismissed.

Eventually, a witness came forward claiming she had seen a vase, in fragments and showing the same figure who appears on the Euphronios Krater, at the alleged owner's home in 1964. This witness's story promised to be the definitive end of the matter, except there were still too many loopholes in the chronology. The theories and explanations regarding the vase's modern history and provenance were so convoluted, so shrouded in intrigue, that one author termed the saga "A Watergate in Art". (Los Angeles Times, May 1, 1974, "A N.Y. Museum Mirrors Watergate", by Robert Kirsh).  

And yet, despite the testimony of a man claiming to have participated in the krater's discovery and all the rampant contradictions in the (many) versions of the vase's modern history, no progress in Italy's restitution efforts was achievable until the mid-1990s. [It was only in 2001, in an article published on Artnet, that Thomas Hoving seemed to have solved the mystery. He claimed that this fragmentary vase, seen firsthand by the witness in 1964, was in fact another object painted by Euphronios, and not the masterpiece that made its way to the Met. It was, in fact, an elaborate "switcheroo" perpetrated by Robert Hecht. Hoving also admitted in his memoir, published in 1993, that he had always suspected that the vase had been looted but had gone ahead with the deal anyway.]

"Totally unknown to Dikran Sarrafian and to me, Hecht had two calyx kraters by Euphronios." Thomas Hoving, "Super Art Gems of New York City: Part VI—The Old Switcheroo". 2001>

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The Morgantina Silver and the search for "Incontrovertible Proof"

In 1995, Italian police raided a Swiss warehouse registered by a dealer named Giacomo Medici. In it were found thousands of photographs and many hundred ancient artifacts in varying states of repair, some were still encrusted with dirt.

Mr. Medici was convicted in 2004 in Italy for trafficking in looted antiquities. The evidence gathered by Swiss and Italian police during the 1995 raid, in addition to evidence that came to light during his trial, have been used in the prosecution of Hecht and True. Concurrently, beginning in late October, 2005, the Metropolitan resumed talks with Italy about certain pieces in its collections, including the Euphronios Krater, whose provenances were once again being questioned.  

Among the pieces being returned to Italian ownership are 15 silver objects that date to the Hellenistic Period. These were acquired by the Metropolitan Museum in 1981 and 1982, and, much like the Euphronios Krater, were immediately at the center of inquiry.  

The so-called "Morgantina Hoard" was identified by Dr. Malcolm Bell III, professor at the University of Virginia and director of excavations at Morgantina in Sicily, as coming from his site. In addition, again much like the situation with the Euphronios vase, there was sworn testimony by men who claimed to have participated in or witnessed the objects' discovery.  

A special archaeological investigation conducted by Bell and the Italian authorities in 1997 confirmed that an ancient house at Morgantina had been systematically looted in modern times. They discovered two pits dug below the level of the ancient floors had once held objects that had certainly been buried there in antiquity. Every room in the house and both pits contained loose fill soil that is a characteristic sign of recent digging activity.  

Bell and his team also found two coins in the pits in the floor. One was an ancient coin that dates to about 211 B.C., a year just before the sack and destruction of Morgantina by the Romans. This coin is concrete evidence that the pit had been dug in antiquity because it was discovered a layer of earth that the archaeologists recognized as ancient - they knew that the coin must have been dropped or placed there when the pit was dug in the late 3rd century B.C. The other coin was a 100-lira coin minted by the Republic of Italy and stamped with the year 1978. This second coin is concrete evidence that the pit had been emptied in modern times.

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Loss of Context = Loss of History

And what to say to those who would have the Euphronios Krater, the Morgantina Hoard and any other ancient artifact in an American museum stay in the US as part of "America's cultural heritage"? In the end, it doesn't matter where the object is, so long as its origin is duly recognized and responsibility is taken for the manner in which it was acquired.

The deal signed by Buttiglione and de Montebello states that the objects will remain in the US until 2008 (the Euphronios Krater) and 2010 (the Morgantina Silver), and which point they will return to Italy in exchange for "cultural assets of equal beauty and historical and artistic significance" from Italian collections.

Both the US and the Met stand to gain from this deal. Works of art that would never have gone on travelling exhibition will come to the US and will be seen by a very large and eager American audience. This arrangement seems mutually beneficial to all parties: it allows each side to maintain crucial, cordial relations and opens up opportunities for loan exhibitions that would bring spectacular pieces of ancient art to America that otherwise might never have been seen outside of Italy.

Reaffirming professional ethics?

A final resolution to the issue of looting and American museums' continual willingness to acquire ancient objects of uncertain origins may not be very near.   Nevertheless, the agreement reached between the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Republic of Italy regarding the Euphronios Krater, the Morgantina Hoard and a few other vases is one that will have lasting and revolutionary impact on the museum world.  

The ethical concerns raised by the trade and circulation of looted antiquities are not new, nor does it seem that they have been neatly resolved. Organizations such as the Archaeological Institute of America have long enforced very clear codes of ethics and professional standards. For example, the AIA requires members to "refuse to participate in the trade of undocumented antiquities and refrain from activities that enhance the commercial value of such objects." The AIA Code of Ethics is available for download under "Forms and Documents" here.

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And yet, despite professional codes of ethics and a multitude of international laws and treaties that forbid the unlicenced excavation, export and purchase of antiquities, the Morgantina Hoard and the Euphronios Krater are only two of the more well-known cases of objects that come into American collections through dubious means.   ("Met's Fears on Looted Antiquities Are Not New", New York Times, February 20, 2006.)

The practice of archaeology, of piecing together the story of the humanity, is threatened by the looting and destruction of ancient remains. When objects lose their contexts, they lose their ability to tell a full story. They become lonely objects: beautiful, yes, but lacking complexity and information that they can provide when understood in their full context. The survival of archaeology as a field is dependant on the preservation of archaeological assemblages - groups of objects that were found together and are associated with each other - that are so crucial to the study of human history. Its survival is dependant on scholars' and curators' willingness to modify their behavior and truly practice the ethical standards they have long preached.

And it is not only archaeology that suffers the loss of information that an object's original context can provide. We will never know what other objects were buried in that tomb with the Euphronios Krater. We may never be able to reconstruct the motives of the owner of the Morgantina Silver, who buried it so long ago under the floor of that house. And that, in the end, must be more important than in what country one Greek vase will be displayed.

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What's Next?

Perhaps emboldened by their legal action against Marion True and Robert Hecht, the Italian government has renewed intense discussions with a number of American museums about objects in their collections that may have been illegally removed from Italian soil.

But what does this all mean to the museum-going public? Will American museums be stripped of all their prized antiquities if and when Greece and Turkey follow Italy's lead? Despite some of the more vocal protestations, it is very likely this will NOT be the case. The fact of the matter is that, based on current international legislation, the burden of proof rests squarely with the source country to prove that the objects in question came from within its borders. This is quite difficult to achieve in the case of never-before-seen artifacts that were looted directly from their original burial context.

It has become clear that the current legislation is inadequate. It also seems clear that more legal responsibility should be placed with the buyer to prove that their purchase is legitimate. This, combined with strict laws against the export/ import of suspect materials, will do much to stem the flow of illegally excavated and exported object into such destination countries as the US and Japan.

We must embrace repatriation agreements such as the one entered into by Italy and the Metropolitan Museum as opportunities, and not as setbacks. We should embrace them as marks of a promising development in archaeology and museology, one which will foster generous and scholarly exchanges of materials and ideas, and which will allow works of unparalleled beauty to be shared and admired by an eager, international public.

Cultural heritage is a global, non-renewable resource. It belongs to all of us, and none of us. The looting of artifacts from their contexts must cease. The cooperative sharing of information, ideas, technology and resources must commence. Any profit gained from selling an artifact can never replace the information lost through the act of looting.  

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