California's J. Paul Getty Museum never had the best reputation in Italy and it's not because the Getty is fabulously wealthy -- its endowment is worth $5.6-billion (U.S.) -- and can buy masterpieces when the struggling Italian museums can barely afford washroom cleaners. It's because the Italians think the Getty was built on looted art. Looted Italian art to be exact.
The Getty has acknowledged as much and has been trying to repair its strained relationship with the Italian government. The big gesture comes today, in Rome, when Getty director Michael Brand is to sign an agreement to return 40 art objects of the 52 sought by the Italians. They include the goddess Aphrodite, the marble and limestone sculpture bought by the museum in 1988 for US$18-million. It does not include the so-called Getty Bronze, which is probably the Getty's best known piece. The life-size Greek sculpture of a nude athlete, made sometime between 300 B.C. and 100 B.C., was bought for almost $4-million in 1977. The possible return to Italy of the Getty Bronze is the subject of a legal hearing in Fano, Italy.
The return of the artworks will not see the Getty turn into an echo chamber. As part of the agreement, Italy has agreed to lend Renaissance works, including some from the sculptor Bernini, to the museum later this year.
Italy has been at war with the United States for years over allegedly looted art. A 2006 book called the "Medici Conspiracy," subtitled "The Illicit Journey of Looted Antiquities from Italy’s Tomb Raiders to the World’s Greatest Museums,” claims the Getty was particularly lax in establishing the provenance -- the documentation that records the discovery and ownership of artworks -- in parts of its collection.
One of the key characters in the book, written by Peter Watson and Cecilia Todeschini, is Marion True, the Getty's former curator of antiquities. She and famous American art dealer Robert Hecht were indicted in Italy in 2005 for conspiracy to traffick in illicit antiquities. True, who denies the charges, resigned from the Getty in 2005 over an unrelatead ethics scandal. The True and Hecht trials are underway in Rome.
Giacomo Medici, the Medici in the "Medici Conspiracy," is appealing a conviction on related charges. Police found that his warehouse in Geneva contained thousands of apparently looted antiquities. It provided clues to a sophisticated network of tomb raiders, thieves and art dealers who operated throughout Europe.
The return of artwork to countries that claim them is happening more often. But how long before Italy is forced to return some of its art? Rome, to take but one instance, has more ancient Egyptian obelisks that all of Egypt. One obelisk seized by Benito Mussolini's army in 1937 in Ethiopia has already gone back home.
