Italy demands the return of seven archaeological objects from the Louvre

2023-07-14 06:00:37

For lovers of Greek, Etruscan and Roman art, the Louvre’s Campana gallery, named after the marquis whose collection was acquired by Napoleon III, is a must. Its rooms, which reopened to the public at the beginning of July after renovation, are full of splendid vestiges of the ancient world. In the window, in particular, an amphora on a black background, dated from the 5th century BC. J.-C., attributed to the “painter of Berlin”, one of the great masters of Greek pottery, whose style is identified, but the identity still unknown. On one side, a musician in profile plays the zither. On the other, a character crowned with laurels stretches out his arm in a gesture of invitation. The cartel omits one detail: according to information from the Mondeconfirmed by the Louvre, the Italian State claims this object as well as six other archaeological pieces at the origin problematic.

Amphora of the “Painter of Berlin” (around 500 BC), Louvre Museum, Paris. LOUVRE MUSEUM/DEPARTMENT OF GREEK, ETRUSCAN AND ROMAN ANTIQUITIES/RMN

The museum bought them between 1982 and 1998, at a time when curators around the world focused their attention on the authenticity of the works, forgetting to worry about their provenance. An investigation still in progress could lead to a historic agreement between France and Italy in the fall. However, the recognition of problematic purchases made by the Parisian museum was not spontaneous. It has thus been ten years since the first suspicions and the beginning of a dialogue between the two countries.

The story dates back to 1995. In the secrecy of the free port of Geneva, Swiss and Italian police raid the warehouse of a crooked Italian merchant, Giacomo Medici, and come across incredible loot. In addition to thousands of objects excavated clandestinely, the investigators discovered five thousand Polaroids, like so many inventory cards listing works at different stages, from their exhumation to the pre-sale restoration.

This mass of documents, which will serve as exhibits during a resounding trial in 2003, made it possible to trace the entire chain, from the tombaroli (“tomb robbers”), those little hands who dig up objects clandestinely, to auction houses and merchants who, having set up shop, are responsible for laundering the freshly looted remains by giving them to museums and to prestigious collectors.

“Rebate for the Louvre”

Gianfranco Becchina, a Sicilian antique dealer who runs the Palladion gallery in Basel, is one of them. He himself notably supplies the American billionaire Shelby White, donor to the Metropolitan Museum, and her husband, Leon Levy, as well as the Villa Getty in Malibu. But also the Louvre, which bought several important objects from him: a krater of the suitors, a magnificent specimen of an antique vase by the painter of Ixion, another crater in the manner of the painter of Antimenes decorated with a mythological scene, as well than a pair of nereids (sea nymphs) from Puglia.

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