In 1964, a bronze statue of an athlete was pulled up from the Adriatic Sea in the drag nets of fishermen from Fano, Italy. This statue was created by a 4th century BC Greek master named Lysippos. The fishermen sold the statue to a dealer and it was smuggled out of Italy without a license of export in violation of Italian law.
In 1977, the Getty purchased the bronze. Italians have been in a five-decades-long judicial battle to repatriate the Lysippos. In 2018, the Italian Court of Cassation ruled that the Getty must return the statue, but the Getty appealed to the European court of human rights. In 2024, this European court ruled in Italy’s favor and stated that the Republic of Italy “acted with the purpose of recovering an unlawfully exported piece of cultural heritage.” Despite the unambiguous legal resolution, to date, the Getty is still resisting. Many believe at this point that the Getty Museum does not want to return the Lysippo to protect its reputation, but the Getty has proven to be the institution with the most disreputable reputation that cannot be forgotten even with the passage of time.
The Getty Villa was established by the oil magnate J.P. Getty. Its collection comprises over 44,000 Greek, Etruscan and Roman antiquities and it has an endowment of $7.7 billion. It is the wealthiest art institution in the world. It also is believed by many to have had in the past the most devious habits regarding the acquisitions of antiquities.
Early on, the Getty decided to put their huge endowment to work and adopted aggressive acquisition policies with the goal of competing with the world’s top museums. This unscrupulous shopping spree resulted in the forging of close working relationships between Getty curators and the most notorious dealers of illegally trafficked antiquities in the world.
A brief look at even a few examples of the many disreputable buying practices and controversial blemishes on their reputation reveals that the institutional culture of the Getty indeed earned it the moniker “the museum of tombaroli (graverobbers)” as one of their dealers nicknamed them:
-In 1986, a Getty curator named Jiri Frel was appraising donated antiquities at highly inflated values in a tax fraud scheme. He was also suspected of falsifying provenances on antiquities that he knew were fakes. He was responsible for buying a fake Greek Kouros that cost the museum $9.5 million. Frel was forced to retire.
-Italian prosecutors working closely with the Carabinieri’s TPC (Carabinieri Command for the Protection of Cultural Heritage) pursued an investigation for a major international conspiracy to launder illicitly excavated antiquities smuggled out of Italy involving the curators of the Getty. The works were passed through private collections to create some resemblance of legitimate provenance, then bought by the Getty. A Getty curator named Marion True was indicted by the Italians in 2005 for conspiracy to traffic in illicit antiquities.
-One of these procedures was the accumulation of fragments over long periods of time. Over a ten-year period, the Getty acquired 1061 fragments. True testified in one of her depositions that the institution bought the fragments with the purpose of reassembling them into whole vases. The dealers would break the vases deliberately to facilitate the smuggling out of the source country then restore the works overtime.
In the end True wasn’t convicted. The Italians preferred, in an act of cultural diplomacy, to negotiate the return of over forty antiquities they proved were looted from Italy. These included extremely exquisite pieces such as the Morgantina Aphrodite, a marble statue that was looted from Sicily. The Aphrodite was a centerpiece of the collection, but the bronze Lysippo was rare and much more important. In good faith, the Italians agreed to table the Lysippos repatriation for future discussions, but the Getty continued to resist.
With the passage of time, the Getty has attempted to clean up its reputation. The Getty has declared that it is their policy to return any antiquities that are proven to be illegally excavated. As recent as August 2022, the Antiquities Trafficking Unit of the Manhattan DA’s Office forced the Getty to return to Italy three life-size terracotta sculptures Orpheus and the Sirens and in April 2024 they returned a 1st century BC Roman bronze head to Turkey that was looted from that country, so the cleanup effort is not yet complete.
The rightful return of the Lysippo of Fano to Italy can start a real era of redemption.
