US promises more returns of looted antiquities as Italy celebrates latest acquisition of 600 artifacts

ROME – Italy on Tuesday celebrated the return of around 600 antiquities from the US, including ancient bronze statues, gold coins, mosaics and manuscripts valued at 60 million euros ($65 million), that were looted years ago, sold to US museums, galleries and collectors and recovered as a result of criminal investigations.

U.S. Ambassador Jack Markell, Matthew Bogdanos, chief of the antiquities trafficking unit of the New York District Attorney’s office, and members of the U.S. Homeland Security Investigations were on hand for the presentation, along with Ministry leadership. of Culture of Italy and the Carabinieri art squad.

It was the latest presentation of the fruits of Italy’s decades-long effort to recover antiquities that were looted or stolen from its territory by “tombaroli” tomb raiders, sold to antiquities dealers who often falsified or falsified provenance records to resell the loot. to high-ranking people. final buyers, auction houses and museums.

Markell said Washington is committed to returning the stolen loot “where it belongs” as a sign of respect for Italy and its cultural and artistic heritage.

“We know that safeguarding this history requires care and vigilance, and that’s why we do what we do,” he said, adding that the US is keeping an eye on art traffickers’ latest target: Ukraine.

Not included in the latest U.S. acquisition was the ancient Greek bronze statue of the “Victorious Youth,” the subject of a decades-long legal battle between Italy and the Getty Museum, based in Malibu, California. The award-winning statue was recently back in the headlines when the European Court of Human Rights strongly supported Italy’s right to seize the statue, reaffirming that it had been illegally exported from Italy.

Bogdanos and Homeland Security officials declined to comment on whether or when the “Victorious Youth” could be returned, saying it is part of an ongoing investigation.

Among the most valuable artefacts on display on Tuesday was a fourth-century Naxos silver coin depicting the wine god Dionysus, which was looted from an illicit excavation site in Sicily before 2013 and smuggled into the UK. Bogdanos said the coin, which was on sale for $500,000, was found in New York last year as part of an investigation into a famous British coin dealer.

He said other items were returned by New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art and some of New York’s best-known philanthropists who donated artifacts to their collections that ended up being stolen.

The returned artifacts, ranging from the 9th century BC to the 2nd century, also included a life-size bronze figure, as well as bronze heads and several Etruscan vases. Other items, including oil paintings from the 16th and 19th centuries, were stolen from Italian museums, religious institutions and private homes in well-documented robberies, the carabinieri said.

Bogdanos, who forged an alliance with the Italian carabinieri art squad as they tried to recover antiquities stolen from Iraq after the US invasion, said Washington makes no distinction between items taken during illicit excavations or those stolen in robberies: it all amounts to loot.

“The looting is local,” Bogdanos said. Local residents “know when the security guards come in, they know when they leave. They know when security guards are protecting certain locations and not others. They know when there are scientific, appropriate and approved archaeological excavations, and then they know when those archaeological excavations close, for example during the winter or due to lack of funding.”

Given that, he said, there will always be looting.

“Our job is to minimize it, increase the risk for those who would engage in this trafficking, convict them and, when appropriate, sentence them,” Bogdanos said.