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.’”