Antiquities Recovered By Italy

On Exhibit At Rome Palace

ANTIQUITIES RECOVERED BY ITALY ON EXHIBIT AT ROME PALACE

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By Ariel David

Associated Press Writer

ROME (AP) — Dozens of treasures from the Greek, Etruscan and Roman are on display in an exhibition featuring many of the ancient masterpieces recovered in Italy’s campaign against illegal trafficking in antiquities.

The exhibit at the Quirinal presidential palace hosts 68 masterpieces of pottery, sculpture and painting handed over by international museums and collections as Rome increased pressure to return artifacts that authorities here maintain were dug up illegally or stolen and smuggled out of Italy.

“Now their odyssey is over, they are going home,’’ Culture Minister Francesco Rutelli said at a recent presentation to the media.

More than half of the pieces to be displayed come from a deal signed in September with California’s J. Paul Getty Museum after more than a year of negotiations.

Most of the other treasures were also returned by US museums, including Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts, the Metropolitan Museum in New York and the Princeton University Art Museum.

Featuring huge vases — or “kraters” — used to mix wine and water, and statues of gods and mythological figures, the treasure from Italy’s crackdown is worthy of the spoils of an ancient warrior.

Among the artifacts returned by the Getty is a Fourth Century BC marble statue of a helpless deer being attacked by winged griffins. The statue still bears traces of blue and red paint.

There’s also a bronze mirror cast 2,200 years ago by the Etruscan civilization in central Italy, featuring Penelope and Ulysses sharing their long-awaited reunion.

Much of the pottery displayed bears the red figures typical of the vases produced in the Greek colonies of southern Italy, as in the Fourth Century BC krater looted near Naples showing Europa carried away by Zeus masquerading as a bull.

Other artifacts include an Etruscan perfume vase in the form of a duck, frescoes from Pompeii, and a Third Century statue, returned by Boston, of Vibia Sabina, the wife of the Emperor Hadrian.

Also displayed is a Sixth Century BC marble statue of a young woman, returned by the Getty to Greece and on loan for the Rome event.

Still missing from the exhibit is the prized Euphronius Krater, a 2,500-year-old vase by the Greek artist that will be added to the show when the Met hands it over in January, organizers said.

Rutelli noted that under the deals with the museums, Italy will give long-term loans of equally significant treasures.

Authorities have generally recognized that museum officials bought looted artifacts in good faith from dealers who sold them after they were spirited out of the country.

But in a case that put pressure on the art market, Italy has put on trial former Getty curator Marion True and art dealer Robert Hecht, accusing them of knowingly acquiring dozens of allegedly looted ancient artifacts. The two deny wrongdoing.

Italian officials have said they are negotiating for other pieces at museums and collections in the United States, Europe and Asia.

The Quirinal exhibit runs through March 2 and admission is free except on Sunday, when it costs $7.20. Rutelli said officials were still studying where all the pieces will ultimately be displayed.