[CPProt.net] Italian smuggling case provides evidence Boston Museum of Fine Arts has stolen art

[MSN CPPnet (Ton Cremers)]

Italian smuggling case provides evidence MFA has stolen art
November 4, 2005

Associated Press


BOSTON - Prosecutors preparing for a high-profile antiquities smuggling
trial in Italy have produced the strongest evidence yet that the Boston's
Museum of Fine Arts acquired stolen art, but museum officials aren't
convinced.

Italian prosecutors seized Polaroid photographs of three stolen objects - a
vase, a jar and a statue - as part of their case against art dealer Robert
E. Hecht Jr., who is accused of handling and receiving stolen objects and
taking part in a smuggling ring. The three items are now part of the MFA's
collection.

Hecht and Marion True, former curator of the J. Paul Getty Museum in
California, are scheduled to go to trial in Rome on Nov. 16. Both have
maintained their innocence.

According to prosecutors, the photos show the items dirty from being pulled
out of the ground, The Boston Globe reported.

"It is the smoking gun," said Ricardo J. Elia, a Boston University
archaeology professor who has researched the trade in antiquities from
southern Italy. "It means they came out of the ground; they were looted and
cleaned up and sold. That's about as strong a case as you're going to find."

Reached by phone in New York, Hecht said he was innocent and denied selling
any stolen art to the MFA. He said he was angry about the charges and felt
he wasn't treated fairly.

"You know the Bible, don't you?" he said. "When they were going to take
Jesus to be crucified, he said, 'Forgive them for they know not what they
do.'"

The photos, gathered during Italy's decade-long effort to force American
museums to return looted art, led investigators to compile an additional
list of 29 objects in the MFA's collection they suspect were taken from
ancient sites.

MFA officials said Thursday they hadn't been contacted by Italian officials
and have no evidence anything in their collection is stolen.

"There's absolutely nothing we've seen or heard that proves anything to us,"
said Katherine Getchell, the MFA deputy director. "We would be more than
happy to hear directly from the Italian government and if, through that
process, we find that any object in our collection has been stolen, we will
absolutely return it to its prior owner."

The vase and jar in the museum's collection are from the Apulia region of
southern Italy. The third item is a marble statue from Greece. The Polaroids
were seized in raids of Hecht's Paris home in 2000 and convicted art
smuggler Giacomo Medici's warehouse in Switzerland in 1995.

The MFA came under scrutiny through its dealings with Hecht, who has sold or
given about 116 objects to the museum. Hecht made deals with Medici and took
part in many controversial sales on his own. The Italian government ordered
Hecht out of the country in the 1970s and Turkey banned him in the 1980s.

Italian prosecutor Paolo Ferri said he intends to turn his attention to
other American museums, including the MFA, after the Hecht and True trial is
over.

He said the photographs show clear signs that items now in the MFA were
pulled out of ancient tombs. Virtually all Apulian vases were buried in
tombs in southern Italy.

"Boston has many questions to answer," said Ferri. "They have to convince me
that they were working completely in good faith. Now they have the knowledge
that they have acquired stolen artifacts. Are they worried? I don't know. Do
they want an agreement? I don't know. But, they do have a moral obligation
to give back the items to the victim, which in this case is Italy."