Stealing History
Cultural treasures are being looted--and museums and collectors are turning a blind eye
Back in 1972, $1 million was still an eye-popping amount of cash. But to Robert Hecht, an enterprising American antiquities dealer living in Paris, it was not too much to charge the Metropolitan Museum of Art for an exquisite Greek vase created 500 years before the birth of Christ and painted by one of the acknowledged masters of the craft. The Euphronios krater, as the vessel is known, was clearly rare and beautiful. But it was not, according to most experts, worth $1 million. In fact, most curators and dealers at the time judged the krater's value to be no more than $250,000. "Bullshit," retorts the Met's former director, Thomas Hoving. "If it's a great piece, the price will be huge." And so Hoving paid the price and, in the process, created an art-world monster.
Since the acquisition of the "hot pot of Hoving," as the krater has come to be known, the prices of antiquities have shot skyward. "When the tombaroli [tomb raiders] in Italy heard about the price, they just went crazy," says Peter Watson, a British journalist who has written extensively on the subject. "Everyone realized that, properly presented, quality objects could fetch a fortune." Indeed, by 1985, the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles was paying $10.2 million for three objects, including a marble statue of Apollo; three years later, it paid $18 million for a marble and limestone statue of Aphrodite, and in 1993, it paid $1.15 million for a Greek gold funerary wreath.
The problem with the burgeoning traffic in antiquities, however, is not so much the price but something far more significant: the provenance. Where are these precious artifacts coming from? And who are their rightful owners? In the case of too many antiquities, the krater included, the answers are very far from clear. And evidence is increasing that more and more artifacts are being illegally excavated from their countries of origin. A recent British study of five large collections totaling 546 objects, for instance, determined that fully 82 percent of the objects were suspect. "However dodgy things look," says Cambridge University archaeologist Christopher Chippindale, "when you discover the truth, it's always worse."
From Italy to Greece to Turkey, countries have long complained about the trade in smuggled artifacts and have been largely unable to stop it. But now, a high-profile investigation in Italy has exposed how a network of prestigious museums, wealthy collectors, and tony auction houses have for years turned a blind eye to the illicit practices of the dealers who supply them with archaeological treasures and ancient art. Standing trial in a Roman courtroom, the 87-year-old Hecht, along with Marion True, the former antiquities curator for Los Angeles's J. Paul Getty Museum, are charged with conspiring to trade in and receive stolen antiquities, specifically 42 items acquired by the Getty. Both have proclaimed their innocence.
The case, which has chilled the antiquities market, raises anew the question of who owns history. Over the centuries, the detritus of Egyptian, Greek, and Roman civilizations has steadily found its way into the great museums of the West. Frustrated after decades of losses, countries finally got a weapon in 1970 with a UNESCO treaty banning the illicit trade of cultural property. But the market, fueled by the high prices willingly paid by wealthy collectors and richly endowed museums, continued to grow. Countries of origin regularly protested but often lacked evidence to prove their claims. The Italian investigation has emboldened them, as have new probes in Greece and Egypt and the ongoing efforts to return art stolen by the Nazis.
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