Aphrodite to Leave California

But the Victorious Youth stays in Malibu, as the Getty Museum gives Italy some—but not all—of the antiquities the government has demanded be returned.

Aug. 1, 2007 - The Getty Museum in Malibu, Calif., home to one of the finest collections of Greek and Roman art in the U.S., agreed Wednesday to return 40 of its prized ancient artworks to Italy. The dispute between the Italian government and the Getty has been roiling for more than two years and has led to the ongoing trial in Rome of a former Getty curator, Marion True, on charges of buying art for the museum that was looted and illegally exported from Italy. True has denied the charges.

Negotiations between the Getty and the Italians over the return of certain artworks stalled last November but were jump-started last month, when Italy issued a threat to sever all cultural ties with the Getty unless they came to terms by Aug. 1. (As the Los Angeles Times pointed out, this could have hurt the Italians more than the Malibu museum, as the Getty foundation gives hefty grants to Italian cultural causes and cooperates in scholarship and conservation.) Now the museum has agreed to send back 40 pieces from its collections, in exchange for loans of ancient art from Italy. Italian officials struck similar deals last year with the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.

The centerpiece of the returning treasure trove is a seven-foot-high marble-and-limestone statue of Aphrodite. The mammoth fifth-century B.C. goddess is thought to have been looted from the site of an ancient Greek settlement in Sicily. The Getty bought it for $18 million in 1988 from a London dealer, who claimed it had belonged to a Swiss family since 1939—a handy date, since that’s the year Italy passed a law barring the export of antiquities. The return of Aphrodite and the other prizes ends an embarrassing episode for the Getty—which has stringently tightened its acquisition standards—and is a triumph for the current Italian minister of culture, Francesco Rutelli.

Italy has one of the strictest laws governing its cultural property, and Rutelli has made political hay in his quest to get American museums to hand back suspect pieces. In early July, Rutelli issued his threat of a cultural embargo against the Getty in a speech at the city of Fano on the Adriatic coast. That’s the port where fishermen in 1964 came home with an amazing fourth-century B.C. bronze statue of a youth, caught in their nets. Locals have clamored for its return—but it’s in the Getty, which bought it in 1976, legitimately, the museum says. And here’s where the whole issue of cultural property gets so tricky. The fishermen found the statue in international waters—and it’s not Roman; it’s Greek. The Italians who first sold the statue were twice cleared of wrongdoing by Italian courts. Italy, which once made the return of the bronze statue the dealbreaker with the Getty, says it is continuing to investigate the statue’s provenance. The Victorious Youth, as it’s also known, is not part of the Getty’s agreement with Italy. It’s staying put in Malibu, a victory for the Getty—and for everyone who believes the patrimony of ancient cultures belongs, in a sense, to all of us.