[MSN] Getty risks 'embargo, ' Italy warns. Officials in Rome threaten to suspend 'all cultural cooperation' with the museum as talks on the return of antiquities stall.

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Getty risks 'embargo,' Italy warns
Officials in Rome threaten to suspend 'all cultural cooperation' with the
museum as talks on the return of antiquities stall.
By Jason Felch and Ralph Frammolino
Times Staff Writers

November 11, 2006

ROME - Frustrated by the J. Paul Getty Trust's refusal to return a prized
statue of Aphrodite and a score of other antiquities, Italian officials are
threatening to impose an unprecedented "cultural embargo" on the Los Angeles
museum that would prevent its borrowing any artwork from or conducting
research in their country.

The impasse in talks came as new evidence was submitted Friday in the
criminal trial of the Getty's former antiquities curator that the museum
chose not to pursue information about the Aphrodite statue's origins when
presented with an opportunity a decade ago.

Marion True told prosecutors in a statement entered into evidence that in
1996 the statue's former owner provided the Getty with photos of the 7 1/2
-foot depiction of the goddess and offered several fragments still in his
possession.

But True said she was "highly skeptical" of the man's motives and decided it
was "inappropriate" to accept his invitation to meet in Switzerland,
according to a copy of the statement obtained by The Times.

That decision looms large today for both True and the Getty, because the
marble and limestone figure has come to play the starring role in the
dispute between Italy and the trust.

To Italian authorities, the statue symbolizes what they see as the museum's
brazen exploitation of the illicit trade in ancient art. Getty officials say
there is insufficient evidence to determine exactly where the statue comes
from, and they have so far refused to return it.

Four months ago both sides announced an agreement in principle for the
museum to return "a number of very significant" artworks in exchange for
loans from Italy.

Since then, the Getty has quietly offered 26 objects, including masterpieces
such as a marble statue of Apollo and a sculpture of mythical griffins
devouring a fallen deer. Italy, in turn, agreed to withdraw its claim for
six objects that it conceded may have been found outside its borders.

But deciding the fate of the 21 remaining disputed objects, dominated by the
Aphrodite and a bronze statue of a young athlete, has proved difficult.

"Basta!" said Giuseppe Proietti, a senior cultural official, in a recent
interview, using the Italian word for "enough."

"The negotiations haven't made a single step forward," he said. "We will not
accept partial solutions. I will suggest the Italian government take
cultural sanctions against the Getty, suspending all cultural cooperation."

Francesco Rutelli, Italy's minister of culture and vice president, was
awaiting the latest response from the Getty before deciding whether to go
ahead with an embargo, but he warned Friday that time was running out.

"I tried to explain it amicably to the people responsible for the Getty for
the last six months," Rutelli said in a statement to The Times. "If they
still haven't understood it, I'm afraid the process of conciliation will end
and a serious conflict will begin."

According to another Italian official familiar with the Getty negotiations,
the embargo would mean "no excavations, no exhibitions, no cultural
studies.. The Getty is out of order in Italy."

Several museum experts said such an embargo would have symbolic effect but
might otherwise be limited because Italy has not been generous with loans in
the past.

"It's a fight for world opinion," said Ruth Weisberg, dean of the USC Roski
School of Fine Arts. "It's certainly an attempt to embarrass and isolate the
Getty."

Getty officials acknowledged the impasse but said they were still hopeful an
agreement could be reached soon.

"My sense is that wisdom and reason will reign here, and the two sides,
Italy and the Getty, will find a way to get past whatever problems exist in
the short term," said Getty spokesman Ron Hartwig, adding that the museum
continues to evaluate information about the Aphrodite statue.

Since talks started with the Getty in January, Italy has forged cultural
agreements with New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art and Boston's Museum of
Fine Art, which both agreed to return objects in exchange for loans of
antiquities from Italy.

The Getty's negotiations are complicated by the criminal case against True,
who is accused of conspiring to traffic in looted art. Although she was
forced to resign last year for unrelated reasons, the Getty continues to pay
for her defense, and museum officials have been worried that giving back
objects might further implicate the former curator.

In addition to the dispute over the Aphrodite statue, Italian authorities
cite several causes for the recent breakdown in talks.

Unlike the other museums, the Getty has sent attorneys to negotiate rather
than its museum director, Michael Brand, who has participated sporadically,
Italian officials say.

"With the Boston MFA and the Met, our counterparts were the directors," said
Proietti. "With the Getty, it is lawyers. This is an obstacle to realizing a
cultural agreement."

Italian authorities also say the Getty's negotiator, Ron Olson of the Los
Angeles firm Munger Tolles & Olson, has approached the negotiations as a
"commercial" deal, concerned more about how giving back valuable artwork
would affect the inventory of the $5.5-billion trust than about cultural
issues.

For example, they say, Olson has stressed repeatedly that if the Getty
returned all the disputed objects it might trigger an investigation by the
California attorney general into whether the trust's board was adequately
safeguarding the nonprofit's assets.

A spokesman for Atty. Gen. Bill Lockyer, whose office regulates nonprofits
in California, said, however, that any potential investigation would focus
on whether the Getty board was negligent in purchasing the antiquities in
the first place - not on whether any or all of the art should be given back.

Italian cultural officials were also offended by Olson's inclusion of the
U.S. ambassador in a recent round of talks, something they interpreted as a
clear attempt to politicize the cultural negotiations.

Olson would not comment on the negotiations.

Records show that his firm has hired private investigators to investigate
the origin of the Aphrodite, something the museum chose not to do in 1996,
according to True's statement.

True said Harold Williams, then-chief executive of the trust, received a
letter from a Swiss man who claimed to be the previous owner of the statue.
The letter included several photos of the figure, including one of its
marble head.

According to the statement, Williams passed the letter to then-museum
Director John Walsh, who forwarded it to True with a note, "What do you make
of this?"

"We both agreed it was strange and suspicious," True said in the statement.

True wrote that she was able to confirm with the dealer who had sold the
statue to the Getty that Renzo Canavesi was indeed the former owner, but
declined the man's invitation to meet in Switzerland because she was "highly
suspicious about his motives" and did not "deem it appropriate" to meet.

"If Canavesi provided additional information about the statue's provenance,
how was the Getty going to confirm or disprove the information?" True wrote.
"If Canavesi did know where the piece came from, why had he not simply
provided his information?"

In other cases, True has said that antiquities dealers held back fragments
of objects sold to the Getty so they could later try to sell the missing
pieces to the museum for large sums of money.

Walsh, Williams and True's attorneys did not return calls seeking comment.

Hartwig, the Getty spokesman, would not disclose what the trust's recent
investigation had uncovered.

"We are continuing to look at certain pieces of evidence," he said. "This is
a very complex object. There is a lot of information about it that needs to
be carefully looked at and deciphered."


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jason.felch at latimes.com

ralph.frammolino at latimes.com