Learning and Knowledge Loss: Returning Antiquities from Fordham University to Italy

Abstract

In May 2021 a group of 96 classical antiquities was seized from Fordham University where they had formed part of their museum collection. The seizure was directly linked to the investigation by US authorities of objects that had been handled by the dealer Edoardo Almagià. The Fordham material was dominated by objects derived from Italy: Apulian, Campanian, and Paestan figure-decorated pottery; red-on-white ware associated with Crustumerium in Lazio; and Etruscan pottery, architectural terracottas, and terracotta votives. The objects were all donated to Fordham by William D. Walsh and had largely been acquired at auctions or through a narrow group of Manhattan galleries.

Introduction

The batch of 96 objects seized from Fordham University provides an opportunity to understand how material largely derived from a single dealer entered the market. The pieces were acquired by Fordham from a private collection at a time when there was a heightened awareness of the problems relating to antiquities that had surfaced on the antiquities market post the 1970 UNESCO Convention on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property. This raises questions about how museum curators should conduct a thorough due diligence process when they are considering making such acquisitions. The Fordham case highlights concerns about the ways that several university collections in North America acquired recently-surfaced antiquities: there is clearly a need for such museums to set the highest ethical standards. The seizure provides yet another reminder of the serious loss of knowledge when archaeological contexts such as funerary assemblages are destroyed to provide objects for the market.

Investigations into Objects Handled by Edoardo Almagià

In December 2021, two major seizures of antiquities were announced by the office of the Manhattan DA: 96 objects worth $1.8 million from Fordham University and 180 items valued at $70 million from the collection of Michael Steinhardt. ¹ In addition, there were seven antiquities from the J. Paul Getty Museum, three from the Cleveland Museum of Art, and two Athenian pots and 192 fragments of Athenian red-figured, black-figured, and black-glossed cups from the San Antonio Museum of Art. ² In the same month, a group of impasto pottery from Latium, Italy – perhaps even from the site of Crustumerium – was deaccessioned by the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. ³ It was made clear that these seizures were part of a wider investigation into antiquities that had been handled by Edoardo Almagià. ⁴ The Steinhardt seizure included a number of pieces associated with Almagià, including four Etruscan terracotta panels, an Etruscan terracotta antefix showing a maenad, an Etrusco-Corinthian aryballos in the shape of a helmet, two archaic faience aryballoi, a faience baboon, and an Athenian black-figured amphora. ⁵ Apart from the detail relating to the price paid, there is no further publicly available information about the named sources for the Steinhardt objects.

Research into the movement of illicit antiquities from Italy has so far been concentrated on the key dealers: Robin Symes, Giacomo Medici, and Gianfranco Becchina. ⁶ The Fordham returns provide an opportunity to explore how a further dealer, Almagià, arranged for material to enter the market. The press release from the Manhattan DA made it clear that “All but two of the pieces seized from Fordham were trafficked by ALMAGIÀ.” ⁷ Although the two items were not specified, it seems likely that one of them was the Apulian patera attributed to the Baltimore painter (A11) that had surfaced through Sotheby’s in London in December 1983 at a time when the auction house was closely linked to material that had been removed illegally from Italy. ⁸ Almagià had been associated with earlier returns to Italy, notably the 157 fragments of Etruscan architectural terracottas and an Etruscan white on red pithos from Princeton University Art Museum, a pair of Etruscan silver bracelets from the Cleveland Museum of Art, and a pair of Etruscan bronze shields and an Apulian volute-krater attributed to the Underworld painter from the Dallas Museum of Art. ⁹ In 2010, against the background of the investigation into Princeton, Almagià – a Princeton alumnus – gave an interview in which he called the seizures “ridiculous,” and added:

Every American museum should fight for its right to acquire objects in the market. The museum has a right to collect; the dealers have a right to deal. ¹⁰

Such a position highlights the gulf between those who seek to protect the archaeological record and those who offer for sale or acquire material extracted from such archaeological sites and contexts by illicit means. The present identifications from Fordham appear to have been made after the seizure of Almagià’s “Green Book,” which listed some 1,700 objects that had been reported to have been derived from tombaroli in Italy. ¹¹

Learning from Past Seizures

Should those responsible for the acquisitions have been sensitive to the ethical issues relating to antiquities? The Fordham material was donated to the university in 2006 by William D. and Jane Walsh. ¹² The collection had been formed from at least 1978, though the earliest returned item (A8) was acquired in 1984, the year after the passing of the 1983 Convention on the Cultural Property Implementation Act (CPIA). ¹³ Moreover, it should be emphasized that the collection was formed in the wake of the 1970 UNESCO Convention on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property and the 1973 Resolution on the Acquisition of Antiquities by Museums by the Archaeological Institute of America. ¹⁴ This was a period when North American collectors knew that there were concerns about the acquisition of archaeological material that had surfaced on the market in recent years. The decades after 1970 had seen prominent public debate over the ownership of classical cultural property: items include the Sarpedon krater (the Attic red-figured Euphronios krater), the Sevso Late Roman silver Treasure, the Mycenaean Aidonia Treasure, and the silver Dekadrachm Hoard. ¹⁵ For university museums operating in an academic setting, curators should have been aware of the focused studies on topics such as the material and intellectual consequences of collecting Cycladic figures, the emergence of Apulian figure-decorated pottery on the market, and an analysis of the scale of looting that was needed to supply the demand for antiquities. ¹⁶

Yet in 2006, it is unclear why the university authorities at Fordham did not take proper and appropriate account of material that had largely surfaced on the market since the passing of CPIA. ¹⁷ By this point, there had been a major quantification study of private collections, including two located in Manhattan, that had raised serious concerns about how they had been formed. ¹⁸ This research on cultural property had then been presented through the media ensuring that those outside academia were aware of the ethical and legal issues. ¹⁹ Subsequent events have shown these concerns relating to recently surfaced material to be well-founded with returns made from collections formed by private individuals, including Christos Bastis, William and Lynda Beierwaltes, Dietrich von Bothmer, Gilbert M. Denman Jr., Barbara and Lawrence Fleischman, the Hunt brothers, John Kluge, Michael Steinhardt, Maurice Tempelsman, and Shelby White and Leon Levy. ²⁰ Yet some of these same collectors were quite outspoken in their defense of forming their private collections. ²¹ There was also a series of landmark cultural property cases in the US including the one involving the gold phiale in the Steinhardt collection and the Egyptian antiquities, including the head of Amenhotep III, associated with the Frederick Schultz case. ²² Moreover, there had been the scandal raised by the antiquities department of Sotheby’s in London as well as the issues defined by the so-called Medici Conspiracy. ²³ Concerns had also started to be raised about specific dealers, galleries, and auction houses that were associated with this controversial type of cultural property. ²⁴ 2006, the year of the Walsh donation, saw the return of antiquities from Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts to Italy, the first in a sequence of returns from major North American museums. ²⁵ These issues relating to the collecting of antiquities that had been derived from the contemporary market may have prompted Fordham to make a statement in the printed catalog a short time after the acquisition:

Accepting the objects and creating a museum of Greek, Etruscan, and Roman art has not been without controversy for the University. It is an unfortunate reality about the state of the antiquities trade that many ancient works in public and private hands today lack a secure provenance, and such is the case with some of the objects at Fordham. ²⁶

The “lack [of] a secure provenance” is important because it can be a strong indicator, at least for archaeologists, that the objects had been removed from their archaeological context by illegal and destructive means. The Fordham catalog even revealed that during the research into items in the Walsh collection, an impasto Villanovan hut “was illegally excavated, exported and sold at auction”; its ownership was transferred to Italy and the object was placed on loan. ²⁷ It is unclear why this identification did not prompt further due diligence research for other items in the collection. Among the other controversial pieces that resided in the Walsh collection was the bronze head of Caracalla, which seems to have been removed illegally from the Sebasteion at Bubon and was subsequently repatriated to Türkiye in 2023. ²⁸ As such, the portrait joins a group of monumental bronzes in public and private collections that were derived from the same location.

The Role of University Museums

The acquisition of such a controversial collection of recently surfaced antiquities by a university museum raises several issues. ²⁹ Universities and their public galleries should be expected to maintain the highest professional and ethical standards, not least because they hold the responsibility for training the next generation of academics and heritage professionals who will have to deal with cultural property as part of their responsibilities. Yet the recent returns of antiquities to Italy and other countries have seen university collections among the actors. For example, did the acquisition of 157 Etruscan architectural terracottas, apparently from a single building, not raise ethical questions with the curatorial team at Princeton? The handing-over of some 10,000 cuneiform tablets from Cornell University to Iraq is a reminder that there has been a serious problem over recognizing questionable acquisitions by some parts of the sector. ³⁰ There were longstanding claims by the Greek Government against the Michael C. Carlos Museum at Emory University, in which Christos Tsirogiannis had identified material from images that formed part of the Becchina archive. ³¹ It is ironic that the same museum, during the late 1980s, had made a strong ethical statement by encouraging the loan of antiquities instead of making acquisitions from what was recognized as a corrupted market. ³² The acquisition by Harvard of a potsherd collection that had been owned by J. Robert Guy, a former Princeton University museum curator, is questionable in the light that fragments owned by the same collector (and curator) had already been returned to Italy as part of a separate but related investigation. ³³ While it has been suggested that such collections of fragments merely serve to teach students in a university setting, compelling evidence is now suggesting that Athenian pots were deliberately broken up and the pieces distributed to various dealers and collectors so that they could be reunited at some future point in a museum collection. ³⁴ If this is the case, then members of the wider museum curatorial profession have deliberately participated in a destructive scheme.

In the United Kingdom, university museums, along with other registered museums, follow the ethical guidance of the Museums Association. ³⁵ This has meant that UK museums have largely avoided the controversies of their North American counterparts. Yet this did not stop one major university collection, the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, from acquiring architectural terracottas from Cisterna di Latina. ³⁶ Even a deliberate and systematic disclosure of the former owners in a report on acquisitions by the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge managed to overlook material that had been handled by the dealer Robin Symes. ³⁷ A further UK university museum, the Great North Museum in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, acquired a fragmentary terracotta antefix that clearly had been obtained from a sanctuary in southern Italy. ³⁸ Other university museums in the United Kingdom have been formed from objects derived as a share of finds from sponsored excavations or from objects purchased on the market prior to the Second World War. ³⁹

What should happen to the objects when private collections are dispersed? Marlowe has made the case that university museums should be the appropriate place for antiquities that lack a secure history to reside, but only when the source countries do not wish to have them returned. ⁴⁰ She also expects a university commitment that will allow such material to be used for teaching, research, and the display of the “provenance history.” Such items would certainly provide students with the opportunity to explore the ownership and histories of individual objects and to understand the material and intellectual issues relating to looting. But imagine that this putative material contained groups of, say, Apulian pottery or Etruscan terracottas: would it not be better to return the items to Italy and thereby acknowledge the likely wrong-doing that had been committed by removing the pieces from their country of origin?

Identifying the Sources of the Walsh Collection

Given the scale of the return from Fordham, it is legitimate to ask where Walsh obtained his objects. When the museum opened in 2007, the acquisition process was disclosed in broad terms. ⁴¹

For some four decades, William D. Walsh browsed auction catalogs in search of the ancient artifacts that would gratify his passion for classical antiquity.

This information, suggesting that the collecting had continued from the 1970s, received clarification:

Mr. Walsh said he acquired every piece at public auctions – not through a private dealer – and therefore hopes that the provenance of his artifacts is clean and accounted for. “I’ve always focused on keeping the auction house between myself and the seller,” he said.

It is important to remember that dealers can consign lots to public auction exactly to put distance between themselves and the buyer. The use of anonymous terms in sales – such as “Property of a Belgian collector” or “Property of a lady” – can disguise the identity and role of the vendor. For example, the Attic red-figured krater returned to Italy from the Minneapolis Institute of Arts was reported to have been “in private collections in Switzerland and Great Britain for ca. 15 years before 1983.” ⁴² The identification of the krater in both the Medici dossier seized in the Geneva Freeport and the Schinousa archive suggests that these “private collections” can be identified as the antiquities handlers Giacomo Medici and Robin Symes.

The assertion made by Walsh was that the purchasing of antiquities through public auctions provided accountability and demonstrated that the objects were “clean”: the implication was that they had not been derived from any illicit activity. The fallacy of this claim by Walsh had been unmasked by the scandal surrounding the department of antiquities at Sotheby’s in London. ⁴³ The information about the sources for the Walsh objects was provided by Fordham’s online object register rather than in the formal printed collection catalog ( Table 1 ). The stated sources suggest that the returning objects were acquired from 1984 (A8) to 1999 (A3, A5, A13, A23, A41, C1, C3–27), though it is possible that some of the objects were acquired outside this range but the information has not been either retained or disclosed.

Table 1. Recorded Sources of the Material Returned to Italy from the Walsh Collection.

Although all but two of the returning Fordham objects are linked to Almagià, there is a very limited range of stated direct sources for the items in the collection. Apart from the Apulian patera attributed to the Baltimore painter that surfaced through Sotheby’s in London, one of the returning objects was an Athenian black-figured neck-amphora attributed to the circle of the Antimenes painter showing Herakles and the abduction of Deianeira by the centaur Nessos (A3). It surfaced through Charles Ede in London (around 1992) before passing into the collection of William and Linda Houston in London: it was sold at Christie’s New York on June 4, 1999. ⁴⁴ An Apulian hydria, probably to be attributed to the Baltimore painter, was reported to have been acquired from Christie’s New York at the same June 1999 sale (A13). ⁴⁵

Thirty-seven of the seized Fordham pieces are reported to have been obtained from Harmer Rooke Numismatics and two from Harmer Rooke Galleries in New York between 1984 and 1996. ⁴⁶ The earliest recorded piece (from all of the returning pieces) to have been acquired in this way was an Apulian patera attributed to the workshop of the Darius painter and the Perrone-Phrixos group (A8). It is perhaps significant that Trendall and Cambitoglou record it as being “once New York market, Almagià” (rather than as stated in the notes as “Arte Primitivo—Harmer Rooke Numismatics”). This patera is said to have been “one of a group of three bought in the 1990s”; the other two pieces are an Apulian patera (A10), and another attributed to the Maplewood painter (A12). The patera attributed to the Maplewood painter was linked to Almagià, as is a further Apulian patera attributed to the circle of the Darius painter and the Perrone-Phrixos group (A9).

Other material acquired from Harmer Rooke appears in clusters. For example, in 1991 four Faliscan pieces were purchased from the gallery: a cup attributed to the Sokra group with a winged hippocamp (A50), two stamnoi (A48–49), and an askos in the form of a duck (A51). Again in 1992, three Etrusco-Corinthian olpai were acquired (A42, 44–45). A fourth olpe, attributed like one of the others to the Vitelleschi painter, was acquired in 1994 (A43). In the catalog it was noted that such olpai attributed to this pot decorator are rare, perhaps implying that they came from the same unrecorded archaeological source.

Three pieces were acquired from the Howard Rose Gallery. ⁴⁷ They include a pair of Volsinian stamnoi with handles in the form of sea monsters (A52–53), and both are said to have been in the collection of Emilio Ambron; both were acquired on September 24, 1996. The third item was a Paestan lekythos attributed to the Aphrodite painter (A24) and is reported to have been in a private collection in Torino.

A third source for the seized Fordham material was named Arte Primitivo in New York. ⁴⁸ Some pieces are reported to have been acquired in 1994, such as the Apulian volute-krater attributed to the Baltimore painter (A14) and another attributed to the Virginia Exhibition painter (A15) (Figure 1). ⁴⁹ Both are reported to have been “once New York market, Almagià.” Other vessels acquired at the same time include a Canosan vessel in the shape of a sphinx (A21), a Faliscan column-krater (A46), a bell-krater decorated with Dionysos and satyrs (A47), and an Etruscan terracotta votive head of a youth with tousled hair (C2). An Athenian amphora attributed to the Swing painter (A2) (Figure 2) was acquired from Arte Primitivo on the same day as the two Volsinian stamnoi (A52–53) from the Howard Rose Gallery; like them, it was said to have resided in the Emilio Ambron collection. This also coincided with the acquisition of four Etruscan antefixes (B2–5), also from the “Emilio Ambrun” [sic.] collection. A large group of Etruscan (or Latium) terracotta votive female and male heads and feet were acquired (for the most part) in September 1999, though a few had been purchased in June 1999 (C1–27). The apparent confusion in the Fordham records between the Howard Rose Gallery and Arte Primitivo may be explained by the fact that Howard Rose, who had been director of Harmer Rooke Galleries from 1971 to 1993, then a director at Greg Manning Auctions from 1993 to 1996, acquired Arte Primitivo in early September 1996. ⁵⁰

Figure 1. Apulian Volute-krater Attributed to the Virginia Exhibition Painter. Formerly Fordham University Collection inv. 8.001. Image Courtesy of Fordham University.

Figure 2. Athenian Black-figured Amphora Attributed to the Swing Painter. Formerly Fordham University Collection inv. 4.022. Image Courtesy of Fordham University.

The scandal over antiquities handled by Sotheby’s that broke in the mid-1990s may have meant that dealers will have started to avoid mainstream auction houses when trying to disperse their stock. The choice of smaller, lesser-known, and less prominent auction houses and galleries may have been a way to distract buyers from the issue of ethical acquisition and to provide reassurance to the collector and the final recipient of their collection.

The Italian Origins of the Walsh Collection

One of the striking things about the majority of the material that was seized from Fordham is that it is unambiguously placed in Italy due to fabric or style: Apulian, Paestan, and Campanian pottery from Southern Italy; Caeretan, Volsinian, and Faliscan pottery as well as architectural terracottas from Etruria. For example, the returns include some Etruscan white-on-red ware associated with Cerveteri (Figure 3), a lidded biconical pithos (A26), and a house-shaped cinerary urn (A27). ⁵¹ Similar pottery has been included in the returns from Princeton and the Getty. ⁵² It is also telling that it has been well-observed that such types of pottery are “quite rare in American collections”: ⁵³ why have so many items featured among the returns from US collections to Italy? Four pieces of white-on-red ware dating to the late seventh century at Fordham had been specifically linked to Crustumerium in Latium: two lidded pyxides (A56–57) and two ollas with four attached bowls (A58–59) (Figure 4). ⁵⁴ It is reported that they were “found at the border of Etruscan, Faliscan, and Latin territories,” suggesting but without stating a Crustumerium findspot. ⁵⁵ De Puma specially noted that their “place of manufacture may have been Crustumerium, from which several good examples of similar vessels in the White-on-Red style have been excavated.” ⁵⁶ De Puma also identified a similar olla in the Linz haul from Austria and another that had been returned from the December 1996 seizure from Antiquarium, Ltd. in New York. ⁵⁷ The four Crustumerium pieces from Fordham were all acquired from Harmer Rooke Numismatics. The two impasto amphorae that have been returned to Italy from the Cleveland Museum of Art appear to have characteristics that are strongly similar to items that have been excavated at Crustumerium.

Figure 3. Etruscan White-on-Red Kernos. Formerly Fordham University Collection inv. 5.010. Image Courtesy of Fordham University.

Figure 4. Olla With Four Trays from Lazio. Formerly Fordham University Collection inv. inv. 2007.1.3. Image Courtesy of Fordham University.

The return of two Paestan pieces from Fordham – a bell-krater attributed to Python (Figure 5) and a lekythos attributed to the Aphrodite painter – join the growing number of Paestan pieces that have been returned to Italy from North American collections. These include the Asteas krater and the Asteas squat lekythos from the Getty, bell-kraters attributed to Python from New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, a lekythos seized from an unspecified Manhattan gallery, and a krater from the Speed Art Museum in Kentucky. ⁵⁸ In addition to these pieces, a Paestan tomb fragment apparently consigned to Michael Steinhardt was intercepted at Newark Liberty Airport in April 2011, ⁵⁹ and three other fragments from an unspecified collection were handed over to Italy by the Manhattan DA in July 2022. ⁶⁰

Figure 5. Paestan Red-figured Bell-krater Attributed to Python. Formerly Fordham University Collection inv. 4.005. Image Courtesy of Fordham University

The looting of cemeteries in Apulia is well-recognized and documented. ⁶¹ The Fordham return includes 12 Apulian pieces including two volute-kraters (A14–15), a lebes gamikos (A16), a hydria (A13), an epichysis (oinochoe) (A19), a pair of amphorae (A17–18), and five pateras (A8–12); there are also two Canosan pieces (A20–21). These Fordham objects join three pieces returned from Boston, a volute-krater and other items from the Cleveland Museum of Art, two volute-kraters from the Dallas Museum of Art, three volute-kraters, one bell-krater, two pelikai and a loutrophoros from the Getty, a dinos from New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art, a volute-krater, a loutrophoros and a guttus from Princeton, a pair of lekythoi from the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, a bell-krater and situla seized from Christie’s, and a kantharos from an unspecified Manhattan gallery. ⁶² The scale of these returns from a specific region is a reminder of the concerns about the continuing damage to the unexcavated and unrecorded archaeological record in Southern Italy.

These areas of Central and Southern Italy, from which the Fordham returns were derived, indicate the places that were being targeted by looters who were supplying antiquities to dealers and specifically to Almagià.

Hints at Archaeological Groups of Material?

The scientific excavation of tomb groups in Etruria and Apulia suggests that pairs or groups of material could be placed together in the same grave or burial chamber. ⁶³ It is possible that the pairs among the Fordham material, especially pieces that surfaced at the same point in time, may reflect items that had been derived from the same looted archaeological context. Such pairs include two Apulian pateras attributed to the Perrone-Phrixos group (A8–9); two Apulian amphorae attributed to the Patera painter (A17–18), two Etrusco-Corinthian olpai attributed to the Vitelleschi painter (A42–43), two Etrusco-Corinthian olpai attributed to the Bearded Sphinx painter (A44–45), a pair of Volsinian stamnoi (A52–53), and a pair of Caeretan cups attributed to the Castellani Caeretan painter (A36–37). However, little more can be said about the contexts from which they were removed as that information has been lost or destroyed.

The presence of architectural terracottas among the Fordham returns (B1–5) is reminiscent of the fragments that were returned from Princeton, those seized from Michael Steinhardt, one from the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, as well as the antefix showing a satyr and maenad from the Getty. It is proposed that the Fordham fragments came from the sanctuary of Vigna Marini Vitalini at Cerveteri. ⁶⁴ Architectural terracottas also featured prominently in the significant return of material from the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek in Copenhagen to Italy. ⁶⁵ Although the precise details were not released, there appear to have been around 500 accessioned objects, including architectural fragments derived from locations at Cerveteri and Veii. There is a possibility that some of the Fordham and Copenhagen fragments came from the same structure, though this will need to be confirmed through future research and publication. Such groups of materials are a reminder of the scale of looting that has been sustained by archaeological sites in Etruria to supply the market and to meet the acquisitive tastes of museum curators and private collectors not only in North America but also in Europe.

Athenian Pottery from Italian Contexts

The Fordham returns also include three Athenian black-figured and three red-figured pots. Attic pottery has been found in large numbers in the cemeteries of Etruria, as well as in those associated with the Greek colonies in Southern Italy and Sicily. ⁶⁶ This category of material has featured prominently in the returns to Italy and has included material that can be placed at specific sites in Etruria. ⁶⁷ But where is the Fordham pottery likely to have been found? Complete pots, even when they have been reconstructed from fragments, were probably placed in large monumental tombs of the type found in Etruria. The amphora attributed to the Swing painter (A2) has nine parallels on the Beazley Archive Pottery Database (BAPD); four are reported to have been found at Vulci and five have no recorded findspot. ⁶⁸ Does this suggest that Etruria is a likely findspot? Perhaps, but there is no certainty. Such an approach is not necessarily fruitful because the object may just as easily have been found elsewhere. The column-krater attributed to the Agrigento painter (A6) (Figure 6) has parallels with three others listed on BAPD; of these, one is from Megara Hyblaea in Sicily, one from Numana in Italy, and a fragment was found during the excavation of the Athenian agora. It is a reminder that looting has intellectual consequences for the interpretation of pottery as key information about context has been lost for good. ⁶⁹ Speculation is a very poor substitute for academic certainty. ⁷⁰

Figure 6. Athenian Red-figured Column-krater Attributed to the Agrigento Painter. Formerly Fordham University Collection inv. 11.008. Image Courtesy of Fordham University.

This discussion of recently surfaced Athenian pottery raises serious intellectual questions. This has been implicitly illustrated by the exhibition of Athenian pottery attributed to the so-called Berlin painter at the Princeton University Art Museum. ⁷¹ The loss of contextual information means that scholars tend to focus on stylistic or iconographic questions relating to the pottery rather than raising issues about how such objects were viewed and displayed in antiquity. ⁷² Indeed, the discussion of the distribution of pots attributed to the Berlin painter depends more on reported (and insecure) findspots than on secure archaeological contexts. ⁷³ It also needs to be remembered that the stylistic framework that has been developed for such pot painters does not rest on sound archaeological foundations.

Implementing Due Diligence

University museums – indeed, all museums – need to apply the highest ethical standards for their acquisitions and should conduct appropriately rigorous searches as part of the due diligence process. ⁷⁴ The Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford, included this statement in its review of recent acquisitions:

It is unlikely that there will be another Museum Report quite like this one from the Ashmolean. In 1992, the Museum registered with the Museums and Galleries Commission, and as a consequence of this, our acquisition policy is now in line with that laid down by the Museums Association Code of Practice for Museum Authorities. This is perhaps no bad thing, especially in the light of the sleaziness and corruption which has recently come to characterize some aspects of commercial dealing in antiquities, activities for which serious scholars can only be the fall guys. ⁷⁵

Some responded to the crisis in the supply of uncontested objects by encouraging the use of loans from archaeological collections. ⁷⁶ What actions should be put in place by university museums to enhance their due diligence process? ⁷⁷

A key place to start is with the 1970 UNESCO Convention on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property. If the history of the object under consideration cannot be traced back to the period before 1970 then it should require further investigation. ⁷⁸ The research will require the sight of authenticated documentation that demonstrates that the object was placed in a particular collection or sale. Authenticated documentation requires the acquiring museum to check that the information has not been falsified. ⁷⁹ A vague description from a sale catalog may not relate to the actual object that is under consideration. Oral histories need to be investigated and interrogated. The cases of the Ka-Nefer-Nefer mummy case and the Cleveland (“Leutwitz”) Apollo show how the reported histories appear to contain a number of inconsistencies that are contradicted by other documentation. ⁸⁰ Those recommending acquisitions should be suspicious of unauthenticated placement of objects in the 1960s that may be seeking to provide reassurance to the purchaser by stating a date prior to the 1970 benchmark.

While 1970 is the recognized international benchmark due to the 1970 UNESCO Convention, individual national legislation relating to cultural property needs to be taken into account. Curators recommending the acquisition of an object that is likely to have been found in a particular country would need to demonstrate, again using authenticated documentation, that the item had left the country either before the appropriate legislation was put in place or implemented, or that appropriate export certificates had been issued. Such a position would cover material such as fragmentary Early Cycladic marble figures derived from the Keros haul, architectural terracottas from the temples at Düver in Türkiye, and the Roman imperial bronze statues from Bubon in Türkiye. ⁸¹

The names of previous collectors, dealers, and galleries need to be explored. ⁸² Are any of the names associated with previous seizures and returns? How were the collections documented? Was there a catalog? Did the gallery feature the object in any publication or advertisements in other magazines? Additional care needs to be taken if the object is said to have passed through an auction at Sotheby’s in London during the 1980s and 1990s. ⁸³ Equally, there have also been concerns raised about antiquities surfacing at Christie’s in the 1990s and 2000s. ⁸⁴ Athenian figure-decorated pottery can be checked against the Beazley Archive Pottery Database (BAPD) and South Italian pottery in the various lists produced by A. Dale Trendall and others. ⁸⁵ For some of the pots in the Walsh collection, such a check indicated that the location was with Almagià rather than the gallery that was cited in the acquisition paperwork.

Images of the object should first be checked with the Art Loss Register (ALR). While this is an appropriate place to search for objects that have been stolen from, say, a museum or private collection, it is unlikely that it covers material that has been looted in recent years. It should not need saying: objects were not photographed when they were placed in an Etruscan grave 2,500 years ago. Thus, something that has been looted in recent years will not necessarily have been recorded on the database. It has been observed that some galleries sold antiquities with ALR certificates but these do not provide a guarantee that the object was not removed from the ground by illicit means. Other databases to be consulted include those managed by Interpol (Stolen Works of Art Database), as well as by individual countries. ⁸⁶ Seized photographic and documentary archives, including the Medici Dossier, the Schinoussa Archive, the Becchina Archive, as well as Almagià’s “Green Book” deserve a search. ⁸⁷ Objects that are likely to have been acquired from Italy should be checked against the records held by the Italian authorities.

Careful curators would be wise to obtain second opinions from colleagues. While colleagues at other museums might be considered rivals for the purchase or acquisition, academic colleagues should be consulted. For example, in the case of the Minneapolis Doryphoros (“Spear Carrier,” a later copy of the fifth century BCE work by the Greek sculptor Polykleitos), a German specialist in Roman sculpture recommended to the curators that the museum should not make the acquisition because of the declared link with Stabiae when the statue was put on display in Munich. ⁸⁸ The statue is now subject to a claim from Italy that could have been avoided if its background had been explored in a thorough manner in the first place.

Due diligence also means making the acquisitions known and open to scrutiny. In North America, museums are encouraged to place images and details on the AAMD Object Register. ⁸⁹ Indeed, the display of a limited selection of fragments from the Bothmer broken pot collection on the AAMD Object Register allowed a link to be made with an Attic red-figured cup in Rome and the pieces have since been reunited. ⁹⁰ The simple listing of objects with limited details and no images needs to be replaced with a fuller publication that maps the journey of the object through various collections. ⁹¹ Such information should also be placed on the museum’s website though not all collections have chosen to reveal knowledge by this means. ⁹² These print and digital presentations of the history or biography of an object should try and establish the journey from the ground to its present location by providing relevant details and evidence.

Past acquisitions may pose a potential reputational threat to the museum. This makes a retrospective due diligence process essential. ⁹³ The Dallas Museum of Art responded to the concerns about material acquired from Almagià by checking its records and offering to return to Italy several objects that included a pair of Etruscan bronze shields and an Apulian volute-krater attributed to the Underworld painter. ⁹⁴ Some museums may contain material obtained from, say, Robin Symes, Gianfranco Becchina, or Galerie Nefer. For example, a “spiky-handled impasto amphora” of a type known from Crustumerium was bequeathed to Princeton University Art Museum by John B. Elliott in 1998. ⁹⁵ Elliott’s acquisitions were influenced by Robert Guy:

For several years Elliott took advice from the then curator of ancient art at the museum, Robert Guy, a respected authority on Greek vase painting whose tastes were nearly as eclectic as his own. Guy watched Elliott collect and occasionally put things in his way. The older man was grateful, and he helped his helper in many ways, underwriting significant purchases of ancient art for the museum. ⁹⁶

Guy had served as associate curator of ancient art at Princeton from 1984 to 1991, suggesting the likely window of acquisition of the amphora by Elliott. When was the Elliott amphora acquired? Did Guy “put it in Elliott’s way”? The museum has now clarified that the amphora was acquired by Elliot from Almagià: as has been noted above, Guy worked alongside Almagià on material that had recently left Italy. ⁹⁷ Should the amphora now be returned? Such object histories should encourage museums to consider returning objects to the countries where they were originally found.

The discussion relates to formal acquisitions, whether by gift, purchase, or bequest. But such an approach also needs to be applied to long-term loans as well as to temporary exhibitions. It is clear from the Steinhardt return that at least six pieces had been placed on loan first to the Musée de l’art et d’histoire, Geneva, and then the J. Paul Getty Museum before being sold by Robin Symes to William and Linda Beierwaltes. ⁹⁸ Among the 2022 seizures from New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art was a pair of Roman statues of Castor and Pollux that had been placed on long-term loan. ⁹⁹ Although it was claimed by the museum that “The provenance of the two Roman works on loan to the Museum is well known and published” and that they were “probably [found] from the Mithraeum in Sidon, excavated in the 19^th century,” there were suspicions as the figures were reported in the Schinoussa archive as coming from Syria. This contradicted the reported history of the statues:

ex-private collection, Lebanon; Asfar & Sarkis, Lebanon, 1950s; George Ortiz Collection, Geneva, Switzerland; collection of an American private foundation, Memphis, acquired in the early 1980s. ¹⁰⁰

The figures also seem to have been associated with the Merrin Gallery in 1995; the known association with Robin Symes is not mentioned. In terms of short-term loans to exhibitions, the loan of one of the Icklingham Bronzes, apparently looted from a Roman settlement in Suffolk in the east of England, by Shelby White to Harvard University Art Museums raises concerns. ¹⁰¹ It should be recalled that two of the Fordham pieces loaned to the exhibition, “The Horse in Ancient Greek Art” at The National Sporting Library and Museum at Middleburg, Virginia, and the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts were returned to Italy (A11, A15). ¹⁰² The histories of other items in the exhibition are equally disturbing.

Conclusion

These returns from Fordham are a reminder of the difficulties of trying to form a collection of classical antiquities from purchases that have been made on the market in recent decades. This is not an issue confined to North America, as evidenced by the exhibitions of Etruscan and Italian antiquities held by European private collectors. ¹⁰³

The handing over of the figure-decorated cup fragments said to have been found at Barbarano Romano in Italy from the San Antonio Museum of Art puts renewed pressure on Harvard University Art Museum that acquired the fragments, reportedly without a findspot from the collection of J. Robert Guy, a former curator at Princeton University Art Museum. Guy himself had worked with Almagià on the Barbarano Romano fragments before they were sent to Texas. ¹⁰⁴ The identification of Almagià as a source for part of Dietrich von Bothmer’s extensive collection of pot fragments may also prove to be significant.

Many of the earlier returns from North American collections to Italy passed through the hands of three main dealers: Gianfranco Becchina, Giacomo Medici, and Robin Symes. ¹⁰⁵ The most recent returns from Fordham, as well as the Steinhardt collection, have shed light on the actions of a further dealer, Edoardo Almagià, who was handling material from looted archaeological sites in defined regions of Italy. In particular, the relationship between Medici and Almagià is one that may need to be explored in more detail. But there are also questions about the association between Almagià and the galleries selling and dispersing the antiquities that had been derived from him. Are there objects in other US collections that followed the same routes? Antiquities handled by Almagià are now recognized as potentially toxic; it would be appropriate for museums and collectors who hold such material to contact the Italian authorities to check that their objects do not feature in the photographic and documentary archive known as the “Green Book.” It is clear from Almagià’s “Green Book” that there are well over 1,000 items still to be identified, and this suggests that there are likely to be further uncomfortable revelations in coming years. The Fordham case also serves as a cautionary reminder for museums, antiquities dealers, and all buyers to conduct rigorous due diligence checks prior to the acquisition of potentially illegal material. ¹⁰⁶

Perhaps the main lesson that needs to be learned from the Fordham return is that each of the items lost its original context and, therefore, the ability to inform our understanding of the object in its contemporary setting. Findspots, associated material, and chronological markers have been lost for good. Even the publication of a scholarly catalog of the collection has limited value when interpretation is derived necessarily from parallels and comparative material. Such secure and reliable information and knowledge cannot be retrieved, thus the Walsh collection and its display at Fordham is yet another stark reminder of the scale of looting that is undertaken to provide material for the market, collectors, and museums.