This one doesn’t seem to have received as much coverage as I thought it would … from the CBC:
Italian authorities and antiquities experts are upset the British government is allowing the sale of about 1,000 artifacts allegedly stolen from Italy in order to pay the debts of a bankrupt collector.
The items are from the collection of Robin Symes, a U.K. dealer who has been linked to a smuggling ring. Symes built up a massive business selling antiquities to major institutions around the world including the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles.
The Italian authorities charged Marion True, former curator at the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles, with dealing in stolen antiquities. She is still facing those charges. The Getty has returned more than three dozen items to Italy.
The far-reaching investigation into the sale of looted items is ongoing and Symes is still under scrutiny by Italian officials.
Symes went bankrupt in 2005 after a legal dispute with the family of his late business partner.
The British government has given the green light for the sale of Symes’s collection which includes Roman bronzes, Etruscan gold, amber necklaces, ancient statues and other valuable pieces. The sale will be handled by liquidators acting for the U.K. government, which is trying to recoup unpaid taxes from Symes.
According to The Guardian newspaper, Paolo Giorgio Ferri, the main prosecutor in Rome, has repeatedly asked Britain to return the antiquities to their “rightful owner.”
Meanwhile, the Home Office — the department handling foreign affairs — has responded by asking the Italian government for details on how those antiquities arrived in Britain.
Colin Renfrew, a professor of archeology at Cambridge University, calls the situation a “scandal.”
“Many of the antiquities are Etruscan and could only have been found in Italy, ” Renfrew told The Guardian. “They left Italy illegally because they would require an export licence. I can’t see how the Home Office can dispute that.”
Sale of the collection is expected to raise more than £100,000 ($155,000). There’s no word yet on when the sale is to take place.
via Italy angered by U.K. antiquities sale | CBC.
See also:
rogueclassicism 