Thursday, November 16, 2006

Italy at the centre of Getty's 'decadence'

Recently the Getty Foundation had several problems. An interesting piece on the NYRB
presents some of the recent controversies.

But the most important issue to solve for the Getty is its legal war with Italy that is claiming back most of the pieces coming from the peninsula. Here's a nice report of the recent legal developments.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

The Italy/Getty negotiations should be fascinating to watch in the coming months. The Getty is the wealthiest art institution in the world, while Italy has been pursuing a very aggressive strategy of late in policing the illicit trade in Italian antiquities, including both the signing a new agreement with Switzerland, and the trial of the respected former Getty curator, Marion True. We'll have to see if Italy can shame the Getty into returning the illicitly excavated objects, but given the Getty's wealth, and the fact that Italy does not loan many of its antiquities abroad anyway, I think a favorable outcome for Italy seems unlikely. They may be in the same boat as the Greeks, who have been arguing for the return of the Elgin marbles/Parthenon sculptures quite vehemently in recent years.