Irene Vilar

Lost Chalice Found—and Fixed

2010-12-31T09:29:05Z

Once shattered, on display for first time in 20 years

The oldest known vase by the Leonardo da Vinci of ancient Greece has emerged from hiding after two decades. Last seen in public at a June 1990 auction at Sotheby’s in New York, Euphronios’ Sarpedon kylix has gone on display at Rome’s Villa Giulia museum with no fanfare or public announcement. Making the appearance more significant, the cup has been repaired—fixing the damage done when a Swiss police officer dropped it during an inventory of antiquities seized from dealer Giacomo Medici at the Geneva Freeport in 1995. The “lost chalice” now shares a glass case with a handful of other vases in a room dedicated to artifacts returned to Italy by American museums and collectors. Its label, which has no accession number, describes it as coming from the Geneva raid (and doesn’t mention that, technically, it’s still Medici’s property, pending the resolution of his legal cases).

The cup is in good company: the case next to it holds another rare, signed Euphronios, a fragmentary krater depicting Athena that was sold at the same auction and later given to Italy by collector Shelby White. The repaired kylix has been on display since at least May (when I first spotted it there) and I’ve been waiting to see if there’d be any announcement before posting on it. As this is the biggest development in Greek pots for 2010, New Year’s Eve seemed like a good time. What remains to be seen is if it will ever get displayed alongside its bigger twin, the Met’s former “Euphronios Krater.” That vase, which depicts the same scene, is also at Villa Giulia, in a separate wing.

True: “greatest contempt” for Getty

2010-10-16T11:35:31Z

Former Getty curator Marion True finally gets her well-deserved say now that her Rome trial is over. In a stunning interview by Hugh Eakin (published on The New Yorker’s Web site) True tells off both the Italians (who had charged her in dealing with loot) and the Getty (which had been paying her legal bills). “My greatest sadness is that the Italians were able to intimidate the entire American art world, and especially museums, without having to produce any evidence at all,” she says. Of the Getty, which she essentially says hung her out to dry: “I have nothing but the greatest contempt for them in the world.”
New Yorker: True Speaks Out

True Trial Ends

2010-10-16T11:06:45Z

The Rome trial of former Getty antiquities chief Marion True fizzled out after five years when the statute of limitations ran out on the charges. True, who denied the allegations that she’d played a role in stocking the California museum with artifacts looted from Italy, never got to present her defense. It’s just a matter of months before the clock also runs out on charges against her co-defendant, Bob Hecht, who is accused of dealing in loot including the Euphronios krater, and also says he’s innocent.
NYT: True’s Rome Trial Ends

An Etruscan Lord Elgin

2010-05-08T13:12:51Z

In a compelling twist, Michael Kimmelman shows how Italy winning back the Krater makes a good argument for the British Museum keeping the Parthenon Marbles:
Stolen property is stolen property. But how curious that an ancient Greek vase, which centuries after it was made came into the possession of an Etruscan collector (a kind of ancient Elgin) living on what is now the outskirts of Rome, and then ended up buried for thousands of years below what became modern Italy, is today Italian cultural patrimony. By that definition, Elgin’s loot is arguably British patrimony.
NYT: Culture’s Borders

Troy’s Gold and Bob Hecht

2010-01-31T14:22:23Z

Hecht in Rome

A feature in the Philadelphia Inquirer revives the mystery of the Penn Museum’s gold—whether it came from Troy, and how it got to America—and in the process reveals that the dealer behind the sale was the very same man who brought the Euphronios krater to the Metropolitan Museum of Art: Bob Hecht.
“Hecht confirmed that he was indeed the source of Penn’s Trojan-style gold, with Allen acting as his agent. Hecht easily recalled the pieces and proclaimed them “beautiful.” He said he had purchased them from another dealer, George Zakos, who is dead… He said Zakos, who lived in Switzerland, had not shared the objects’ history. ‘He didn’t say, and I didn’t ask,’ Hecht said. ‘I thought it was beautiful, and I thought it was genuine.’”
Tracing the Gold

Thomas Hoving, Met Chief and Journalist, Dies

2009-12-10T18:54:33Z

Thomas Hoving (NYT)

Thomas Hoving, the former Met director who brought us King Tut and the Euphronios krater, has died. He was 78. Hoving loved an adventure. And he made the mummies dance.
NYT: Hoving, Who Shook Up the Met, Dies at 78

Met’s von Bothmer Dies at 90

2009-10-17T11:42:59Z

Dietrich von Bothmer

An era in the study and collecting of Greek vases has come to an end with the death of Dietrich von Bothmer, whose modern career became intertwined with the ancient work of the artist Euphronios. From the first Euphronios he saw (in Berlin), which inspired his vocation, to the famous krater he helped the Metropolitan Museum of Art buy in 1972, to the one that got away—the krater’s smaller twin chalice, which he twice tried to acquire (in 1973 and 1990)—Dietrich von Bothmer’s biography became inseparable from that of the Athenian master and his pottery. While a chapter has come to a close, neither man’s story is over. The documents, photos and vase fragments he’s left behind in his files (NYT photo, above) and other archives may allow the curator and professor to keep illuminating the world of ancient art, even after his passing.
NYT: Dietrich von Bothmer, Curator and Art Historian

Met Curator Fills Gaps on Museum “Rogues”

2009-10-01T19:13:22Z

Oscar White Muscarella

Curator Oscar White Muscarella, the longtime in-house critic of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, reviews a new book on the Met as a starting point to dredge up a few decades of alleged misdeeds and “clandestine acts.”
Muscarella: The Met/Rogues’ Gallery

Medici Off The Hook For Krater?

2009-07-18T09:38:58Z

While the Rome appeals court affirmed Giacomo Medici’s conviction for antiquities trafficking, it absolved him on charges of handling objects that ended up at the Met—on what appears to be a procedural technicality. Only the full, written sentence, expected within three months, will explain what this means for the Euphronios krater.
Bloomberg: Rome Court Upholds Medici Conviction

The New York Times on “The Lost Chalice”

2009-07-07T21:53:50Z

Vernon at the tomb

The New York Times’ Michael Kimmelman has published a terrific feature on “The Lost Chalice” and the road trip we took the other day to the overgrown Etruscan countryside. First we tromped around the long-sought site of the clandestine dig that four decades ago uncovered some of the world’s finest ancient art. Then I introduced him to a key character from “The Lost Chalice,” the last known surviving member of the tomb-robbing team that unearthed the haul. And on the way back into Rome we stopped to see the biggest prize from the illicit excavation—the Euphronios krater— itself in a new context at the Villa Giulia museum, far from its former home in New York’s Met.
Stolen Beauty: A Greek Urn’s Underworld

“The Lost Chalice” on MarketWatch

2009-07-07T00:58:31Z

Exhibitionists: “Rogues’ Gallery” Reviewed

2009-06-27T11:37:17Z

Michael Gross’ new book on the Met, “Rogues’ Gallery,” touches on the Euphronios episode and some of the characters behind it. It’s reviewed in The New York Times this Sunday.
Exhibitionists

How eBay Fakes May Be Saving Tombs

2009-06-24T14:07:06Z

The New York Times takes a look at the role fakes (and their sale online) may have in reducing illicit excavation of genuine antiquities.
Idea of the Day

Hoving Takes On The Getty

2009-06-17T05:25:12Z

Thomas Hoving, the former Met director, has been publishing his memoirs online. A recent chapter takes on fakes, fraud and repatriation from some big museums.

Artful Tom: The Getty Wars

The Euphronios Krater’s New Home

2009-06-09T19:41:44Z

Sarpedon in Rome

The Sarpedon krater by Euphronios went on display a few weeks ago at its new permanent (until further notice) home at Rome’s Villa Giulia museum. The Metropolitan Museum of Art returned the krater to Italy in January 2008.

Behind the krater is the huge kylix potted by Euphronios and painted by Onesimos—the one the J. Paul Getty Museum surrendered to Italy in 1999, prompting Roman art dealer Giacomo Medici to hand over three fragments from the cup. The fragments, which haven’t been glued into the previously restored kylix, are also in the display case.