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Getty agrees to return disputed works to Italy
By Ralph Frammolino and Jason Felch
Special to The Times

9:16 AM PDT, August 1, 2007

In a sweeping deal to end years of controversy, the J. Paul Getty Museum
agreed today to return to Italy 40 antiquities from its collection,
including several masterpieces and its prized 5th century BC statue of
Aphrodite, a touchstone of its collection.

The draft agreement, reached over a furious exchange of faxes late Tuesday
night, includes broader cultural cooperation and loans. It is expected to be
finalized in the coming days. With the deal, the Getty will avoid a
threatened cultural embargo due to be imposed today and will settle its
long-standing dispute with Italy over the purchase of antiquities illegally
excavated and smuggled out of the country.

The agreement marks the most significant victory yet for Italy's decade-long
campaign to repatriate artifacts stolen from the country and bought by
American museums. Earlier agreements with the New York Metropolitan Museum
of Art and the Boston Museum of Fine Arts included fewer important objects
than the deal with the Getty, which has from the beginning been the most
deeply implicated in Italian's investigation.

Neither party would release a list of the 40 objects being returned, but in
previous months the Getty had already offered the return of 26 items,
including 10 objects it considers masterpieces of the collection. Among them
are a statue of Apollo, a sculpture of griffins attacking a fallen doe and
several important Greek vases.

The return of the objects will strike a serious blow to the Getty's
antiquities collection, one of the country's best and the focus of the newly
renovated Getty Villa. Several of the objects being returned are now
centerpieces of the museum's galleries near Malibu.

"I think there's sadness, obviously, over the fact that many of the
beautiful objects are going to be leaving the Getty Villa," said Getty
spokesman Ron Hartwig. "But there's satisfaction that the issue has been
resolved in a way that leads to a renewed collaboration with Italy. It does
signal a finish of a period of trouble."

Not covered by the agreement is the Getty bronze, a 4th century statue of an
athlete, whose fate had been a sticking point in the negotiations. Both
parties agreed to postpone discussion about the statue until a new criminal
investigation of it is complete.

Also unaddressed is the fate of the Getty's former antiquities curator
Marion True, now on trial in Rome facing charges of trafficking in looted
art. For years, the Getty resisted returning the contested objects to Italy
for fear it would hurt True's defense. She recommended the purchase of 10 of
the 26 objects previously offered by the Getty, and her pursuit of the
Aphrodite has been a major focus of her trial.

All antiquities she recommended were approved by both the Getty's director
and its board of trustees before being acquired, but only True was charged
with a crime. In a recent letter to Getty officials obtained by The Times,
True complained bitterly that the Getty's return of objects involved in her
criminal case had hurt her defense.

"Marion's situation is tragic," Hartwig said. "We have, however, tried
throughout this process to keep the two issues separate, and focus on
resolving the claims for the objects with Italy with the great hope that it
would have a positive impact on Marion's situation."

A ceremony to finalize the agreement with Italy is expected in the coming
days. Among those details yet to be determined is the precise date when the
objects will be leaving Los Angeles for Italy. Some may leave as early as
this fall, although the statue of Aphrodite, the most prominent of all and a
cornerstone of the Getty's collection, will stay until December 2010.

jason.felch at latimes.com