The erstwhile Getty/True case continues to become a more global phenomenon ... the LA Times has another extensive article, but all I'll include here is a little sidebar thing which might give some idea of the scope of this thing (why hasn't the television media been all over this?):
... and that's just the U.S.! Another extensive piece from Bloomberg opens thusly:
I don't understand why this isn't getting a LOT more attention by television media and really, only the LA Times and Bloomberg seem to be devoting serious resources to investigating the story. I also wonder if our Royal Ontario Museum is eventually going to be implicated ... you KNOW that if dealers are selling to the biggies like the Met, they have sufficient reputation to sell to all the others pretty much on name alone.
Several prominent U.S. art museums, as well as galleries, private collections and museums in Europe and Asia, are suspected of possessing antiquities that were removed illegally from Italy, according to Italian court records.
J. Paul Getty Museum (Los Angeles)...42 objects
Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York)...Seven objects, including the Euphronios Krater
Minneapolis Institute of Arts...One Greek vase
Museum of Fine Arts (Boston)...More than 30 objects
Princeton University Art Museum (New Jersey)...Two vases
Toledo Museum of Art...A Greek water jar (kalpis)
... and that's just the U.S.! Another extensive piece from Bloomberg opens thusly:
A Rome prosecutor asked a convicted antiquities smuggler to testify against the Metropolitan Museum of Art and other museums in exchange for reduced prison time, a sign those institutions are the ultimate targets of an Italian looting investigation, the convicted smuggler said.
``If you accuse the Metropolitan and Getty and the Berlin Museum, Boston, Cleveland, Copenhagen and Munich -- one piece each - - I can make this go away,'' prosecutor Paolo Ferri said two weeks ago, according to the smuggler, Giacomo Medici.
Medici, 67, a Roman antiquities dealer, was convicted and sentenced in December to 10 years in prison for receiving and exporting stolen antiquities, including some at the Metropolitan in New York and the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles.
I don't understand why this isn't getting a LOT more attention by television media and really, only the LA Times and Bloomberg seem to be devoting serious resources to investigating the story. I also wonder if our Royal Ontario Museum is eventually going to be implicated ... you KNOW that if dealers are selling to the biggies like the Met, they have sufficient reputation to sell to all the others pretty much on name alone.