[CPProt.net] Hot Art: Getty trial to focus on gallery buys

[MSN CPPnet (Ton Cremers)]

Hot Art: Getty trial to focus on gallery buys
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Sunday, October 16, 2005


LOS ANGELES

A plot fit for a Hollywood thriller has been unfolding at the venerable J.
Paul Getty Museum, a gleaming hilltop refuge that Italian authorities say
houses pilfered art.

Ten years after leading efforts against the illegal trade of artifacts, the
museum's recently departed antiquities curator faces trial next month in
Rome over allegations that she knowingly received many stolen items.

The internationally renowned Getty finds itself deflecting a barrage of
questions about how it amassed its collection of Roman, Greek and Etruscan
works. And the art world is left to wonder whether the museum's current
trouble will refocus attention on how art is acquired.

"We don't want to become associated with Enron-type institutions," said
Selma Holo, the director of the International Museum Institute at the
University of Southern California. "We're all looking to our own gardens and
making sure we've cultivated them properly."

Getty officials have denied any wrongdoing. The museum recently described
the return of three objects, including an Etruscan bronze candelabrum that
Italian authorities allege was stolen from a private collection, as
"demonstrating the Getty's interest in a productive relationship."

That hasn't slowed Italian prosecutors, who hope that their trial of former
antiquities curator Marion True will deter art trafficking.

"The Getty case is so important that it will represent a milestone and
completely change relations within the art world," said Anna Maria Reggiani,
the director of archaeology at the Italian Culture Ministry.

That attitude is a break with the past. With foreign authorities less
aggressive than now, museums competing to build their collections might have
been more willing to look the other way regarding the origins of high-dollar
antiquities.

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