The Medici Conspiracy

by Peter Watson

  The list of objects was drawn up by Mr. Fleischman himself, but he carefully selected objects that he knew would be of major importance for our collection.

  The terms of purchase were straightforward: The group would cost $5,500,000 to be paid by February 15, 1992 and the price and the choice of objects were not negotiable.

  The total figure was principally the sum of the pieces paid for the individual objects by the Fleischmans. The group includes—

  The list was redacted at this point, save for one object, a red-figured calyx krater signed by Syriskos. Then the memorandum continues: “As several of these pieces were offered to me at times when we were unable to buy and one was sold at auction, I can confirm that their prices are basically original cost.”

  She goes on:We were offered the calyx krater, the Corinthian aryballos, the bronze helmet and ankle guards; the snake-legged giant was sold at auction; Mr. Fleischman provided the purchase price of the silver amphora-rhyton. The other objects’ original prices are not known but their present prices reflect fair market value. As you know from having seen the collection, there is no question that each of these objects is of exceptional quality and importance, and as the attached acquisition proposals explain, any one of these pieces would be a welcome addition to the collection. The possibility to purchase all together is an extraordinary opportunity. Following our discussion in mid-November, we arranged to bring the pieces to Malibu for study and photography in preparation for their presentation at the January meeting. Our inquiries to IFAR [the International Foundation for Art Research, based in New York, an organization that kept records of stolen art] and the governments of Greece, Italy and Turkey are not likely to be answered before the payment on the collection is due, because of both the shortness of time and the intervening holidays. As the pieces have been for some time in an American collection, however, and as scholars from all over the world have studied them, I think it is unlikely that the inquiries should raise any problems.

  As other Getty documents make clear, Deborah Gribbon, associate director and chief curator, wrote to Fleischman on February 4, 1992, confirming that the purchase of the nine pieces for $5.5 million had been approved and that payment would be made on February 15, the deadline Fleischman had stipulated.

  On the basis of this exchange, therefore, there would appear to be little difference between the Fleischmans’ collection and that of a museum. Each of the objects was “of exceptional quality and importance.” We may seem to be splitting hairs here, but the point will become clearer—and sharper—later on.

  In the Dossier section we give full details of the eleven objects for which Pellegrini established a paper trail from Medici to the Fleischmans. Here, we concentrate on four, which between them underline the sheer quality of objects Medici and the cordata handled, and which pose awkward questions about the Fleischmans, and for Getty staff, most especially Marion True: Just where did they think this material was coming from?

  We begin with a marble statue of Tyche that was acquired in this instance, according to the documentation, from Robin Symes. The heavily draped female figure is identified as Tyche by her turreted crown, which probably also identified the city she was meant to protect. Once again, this statue is depicted in the photographs seized in Geneva, where it is shown before it had been cleaned of the dirt that was encrusted on it. It was an important object, being purchased by the museum from the Fleischmans for $2 million. In antiquity the Greek word tyche, meaning chance or fortune, with its inherent mutability, applied to both men and cities. The great centers of Antioch and Alexandria both established cults to the goddess Tyche, but smaller towns would have worshipped her, too.

  Had a statue this important been excavated legally, articles would have been written about it and published in scholarly journals. The fact that so little was known about the statue should, in itself, have been a tell-tale sign that the object’s provenance was suspicious.

  More damning still was a Roman fresco, a lunette showing a mask of Hercules and valued at $95,000, which was acquired by the Fleischmans from Bürki. On this occasion, however, the fresco was associated with Medici not because of any photographs but because, in dimensions, subject matter, and condition, in Ferri’s words, it “would appear to be a twin to another fresco” seized in Geneva from Medici. In the photographs taken in Corridor 17 by the Swiss police, in the raid on September 13, 1995, the “twin” is shown just lying on the floor.f

  No less revealing was a black-figure amphora attributed by Dietrich von Bothmer to the Three Lines Group (a group where the distinguishing characteristic was a motif of three short lines). This amphora can be seen in numerous regular photographs and Polaroids seized from Medici in Geneva. It was offered to the Getty by the Fleischmans, having been sold to them by Fritz Bürki in June 1989. From other documentation, we find that “RG” (Robert Guy, an archaeologist from Princeton and Oxford who advised several members of the cordata) said that this object had been “found together with” another object with gigantomachia (the revolt of the Giants against the gods, and their consequent slaughter, a favorite theme in the Classical and Hellenistic periods) that was still in the possession of “REH” (Robert Emmanuel Hecht), and a third vase, a hydria of the Würzburg Painter, “still in the possession of” Robin Symes. How did Guy know that these objects had been found together? This is a clear sighting of the cordata.

  Now we turn to one final object, in relation to the Fleischmans. Among the documents seized in Geneva, Pellegrini found photographs of a red-figure chalice (calyx) krater, which was part of the 1992 sale from Fleischman to the Getty. This was a vase by Syriskos. The Geneva photographs showed the krater “during different stages of restoration.” The Getty’s acquisition notes, compiled by Richard Neer, emphasize that the vase was “one of the most exciting and important to come on the market in recent years.” It was valued at $800,000 and had been acquired from Robin Symes in London in 1988. One reason for the high value was that the iconography on this vase was exceedingly unusual. It showed Ge, the goddess of the earth, sitting on a chair, wearing a petal crown. She is flanked by her son, the beardless Titan named Okeanos (the Titans were the mythical race of giants, predecessors of humankind), and the bearded Dionysus, god of wine. On the back of the vessel, a goddess is again flanked by two males, but this time it is Themis, Ge’s daughter. Themis is flanked by Balos and Epaphos. Epaphos was the son of Zeus and Io, born on the banks of the Nile. Marrying Memphis, he had a daughter named Libya. As a result of a union with Poseidon, Libya gave birth to Balos, who was in turn the father of Aegyptos and Damno, and also father of Danaos, the ancestor of Homer’s Danaans. This highly unusual arrangement therefore seems to be about the birth—or at least the early days—of the gods and the nations they gave rise to.

  But the vase was more important than even this might indicate, for the graffito under the foot showed that the vessel in antiquity cost one stater, the equivalent of two days’ pay for an Athenian soldier. As the Getty report notes, “Prices are very rare on Greek vases.... The cost of quality vases in the ancient market is a critical issue, especially for studies concerning the relationship of this medium to society as a whole. Furthermore, this graffito is the first to use the stater, a large denomination, for pricing.” (Usually it was the smaller-denomination obol.) The signature on the vase, Syriskos, means the “Little Syrian,” and he was certainly, at one point, a slave. Other vases in the same hand are signed “Pistoxenos Syriskos” and still others, dated later, just “Pistoxenos.” The Getty report continues, “It has been concluded that the slave Syriskos changed his name at some point to Pistoxenos, probably on gaining his freedom; the vases with the double signature are transitional pieces, marking the change.” Nor is that all. “The style of the drawing is unquestionably that of the artist previously identified as the Copenhagen Painter.... This krater identifies the Copenhagen Painter as Syriskos himself.... It therefore provides a valuable clue to the interrelationships of this important group of artists.�
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  The acquisition of this vase, and the analysis of its features, convey something of the excitement of classical scholarship—the sense of discovery and of interrelationships. This is also what justified the high price of $800,000 and confirms once more the sheer importance of the objects that Medici and the cordata traded in. But where was this important vase found? We know nothing about that.

  The full list of objects acquired by Fleischman—depicted in the Polaroids seized in Geneva, given in the Dossier—shows that he almost invariably acquired his antiquities from either the Bürkis or from Robin Symes. Did he never ask himself where Fritz Bürki or Symes got these objects from? Were none of them troubled by the silence surrounding these rare and important antiquities?

  There were two final pieces of paper that Pellegrini unearthed at Geneva in relation to Fleischman, but they weren’t Polaroids. They were checks. One was dated July 20, 1995, number 116, made out for $100,000 and drawn on the Republic National Bank of New York, 452 Fifth Avenue. The other was dated March 20, 1996, was numbered 4747, made out for $5 50,000, and was drawn on the Chase Manhattan Bank, 11 West 57th Street. But the curious thing about both checks is that although they were found in Corridor 17, on Medici’s premises, they weren’t made out to him but to “Phoenix Ancient Art SA.” Why would Medici have in his possession at the Freeport in Geneva checks made out to someone else? And why would one of the checks be postdated March 20, 1996, when it was seized during the raid that took place on September 13, 1995? Was it to be honored after the sale of the Fleischman Collection to the Getty? This was all partly explained, and amplified, by other documentation Pellegrini discovered. One was a note, on Phoenix Ancient Art–headed paper, dated Geneva, May 5, 1995, which read:This letter confirms that Phoenix Ancient Art S.A. will be responsible for paying to the bearer of the following two checks, made to us, the same amount at the same date that appear on them if any problem in clearing them occurs:

  1) check nbre 116, Republic National Bank of New York, dated July 20, 1995, in the amount of US$100,000.—

  2) check 4747, Chase Manhattan Bank, N.A., dated March 20, 1996, in the amount of US$550,000.—

  Total ..... US$650,000

  It was signed “Hischam Aboutaam.”

  This seems a clear example of triangulation. This was still further underlined by another document in the same file. It was a “Contrat de Partenariat,” a contract of partnership, between Editions Services and Phoenix Ancient Art. Dated “Genève le 8 Juin 1994,” it outlined an arrangement confirming that at the sale of the Hirschman Collection of Greek vases, held at Sotheby’s on December 9, 1993, the two parties spent £1,953,539.39, in the proportions two-thirds by Editions Services and one-third by Phoenix Ancient Art. The two parties agreed that this sum was the equivalent of US$3 million and that in the future resale of the objects, the two partners would be reimbursed in those proportions—two-thirds to Editions Service and one-third to Phoenix.

  Still more documents testified to the close association between Medici and Phoenix—transport notes for Editions Services goods, written on Phoenix notepaper, monthly invoices (signed) from Medici to Phoenix for “services” (“expertise, consultation,” and so on), in sums ranging from 9,500 Swiss francs to US$30,000.

  Some idea of the overall importance of the objects in the Fleischman Collection may be had from Pellegrini’s calculation that the average price of their objects was in excess of $100,000. Nonetheless, the most troubling aspect is that so many of these unprovenanced objects came from Medici, and therefore out of the ground of Italy illegally. The Getty’s own documents make it clear that the museum knew that most of the objects had surfaced via such figures as Robin Symes and Fritz Bürki. The checks show that Fleischman dealt directly with the Aboutaams. Everyone knew what was going on. Yet in the Getty’s acquisition documentation, the “Provenance and Exportability” section never queries where these objects come from.

  That makes it regrettable—more than regrettable—that the Getty, and Marion True in particular, saw fit to begin acquiring the Fleischman Collection and then had the gall to declare a new acquisitions policy at the museum, affirming that it would only acquire objects that had been in published collections. Marion True was well aware by then that many if not all the modern collections of antiquities have been acquired in exactly the same way as the Fleischman Collection.

  The checks were a bonus, a vivid reminder of how close the glitzy world of the collector is to the underworld. But it is Medici’s bread-and-butter records that are truly shocking: remember that every object discussed in this chapter is represented in the incriminating Polaroid collection in Corridor 17.

  Maurice Tempelsman, the Belgian-born diamond merchant and chairman of the largest diamond cutters in the world, was a visitor to the Classics Department of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, and was perhaps best known for being the companion of Mrs. Jacqueline Kennedy-Onassis. During the 1970s and 1980s, Mr. Tempelsman acquired a major collection of Egyptian, Near Eastern, Greek, and Roman antiquities, mainly sculpture. According to the documentation, most of the objects were acquired through Robin Symes.

  Fairly early on, however, Mr. Tempelsman was seeking to sell his collection, and, in fact, his antiquities were offered to the Getty on no fewer than four occasions beginning in October 1982, when Jiri Frel was curator, and when Tempelsman approached the museum through Robin Symes, who offered en bloc twenty-one of his most important objects, including a number of Egyptian and ancient Near Eastern antiquities. The asking price was $45 million, and it was refused. In the summer of 1985, after two other unsuccessful approaches, Symes made a fourth proposal, this time offering eleven of the most important Greek and Roman objects, for $18 million. On this occasion, the relevant curators recommended acceptance, and the eleven items were officially acquired in 1985.

  The documents concerning this matter, which the Getty made available to Dr. Ferri, were redacted to an extent, and they identified only three of the eleven pieces, one a marble sculpture of two griffins attacking a deer, the second a marble bowl, a footbath with painted Nereids on Hippocamps (sea horses), and the third a marble Apollo. As it happened, however, all three of these important marble objects were found depicted in the seized Polaroids in Geneva. There were three Polaroids of each object, “clearly photographed with the same camera and at the same time, so much so that the lot numbers on the back of the photographs are the same (00057703532).” Each object was shown in fragments, encrusted with earth, and photographed on an Italian newspaper lying on a table with a multicolored tablecloth. Because they all shared the same batch number in the photographs, Pellegrini concluded that they were all found on the same site at the same time. And in time they became the subject of an article in the Getty Journal, number fourteen, for 1986, where it was hypothesized that in antiquity the objects came originally from the same geographical area “if not from the same site.” The author speculated that the original location was perhaps Macedonia and that they had been shipped to Taranto and then to Etruria. How much did the author know?

  To cap it all, Pellegrini found among the documents negatives of a visit Medici had made to Los Angeles. Among these negatives was a photograph of the man himself standing next to the three marble objects from the Tempelsman collection, “almost as if he was claiming their paternity.”

  The sheer quality of the Tempelsman material is attested to by Dr. Cornelius Vermeule, curator of the Department of Classical Art at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston: “. . . its condition, quality and aesthetic importance are supreme.” David G. Mitten, Loeb Professor of Classical Art and Archaeology at Harvard, said that “the objects in the group are of consistently outstanding quality” and that several “rank among the masterpieces of the art of their period anywhere.” They were, he said, “hallmarks in the history of art.” Jerome J. Pollitt, professor of classics and classical archaeology at Yale, said that if acquired, “the Tempelsman objects would substantially rais
e the level of quality of the Museum’s antiquities collection and provide it with material which in some areas has no known parallel.” Finally, John G. Pedley, professor of classical archaeology at the University of Michigan and director of the university’s Kelsey Museum of Archaeology, also agreed that some of the objects were without parallel and were of great scholarly importance.

  The notes compiled about individual objects amplify this. The marble group of griffins attacking a deer (valued individually at $5.5 million) was “a stunning tour de force, unparalleled anywhere in Greek art.... This group is unique; there is simply nothing else known like it . . . this piece also provides one of the finest examples of colored marble sculpture to survive.” Of the marble bowl, with paintings on the inside (valued individually at $2.2 million), “No other such object is known to me. . . . The painted scene and its rich polychromy make the basin unique, a precious example of the almost completely vanished classical Greek monumental painting, the art which was most praised by ancient Greek and Roman writers on art . . . This piece is of the highest possible importance.... As an exquisite example of Greek painting at its finest, as well as its fundamental importance for our understanding of late classical Greek polychromy, pigments, and the techniques used to apply them to marble surfaces, the basin is of unique importance.” And for the statue of Apollo (valued at $2.5 million), “This statue may well be the finest and most accomplished piece of its kind in North America.”

  So far as classical art is concerned, these pieces are as important as can be. There can be no more talk in the trade that unprovenanced antiquities are humdrum, ordinary objects. Yet in the acquisition notes, written by Arthur Houghton, under “Provenance and Exportability,” here is the entire entry: “The collection represents a selection of objects from a larger collection formed by Maurice Tempelsman, a diamond merchant resident in New York, over the past twenty-five years. The individual pieces come from a variety of sources, although the largest number were provided directly by, or were bought through, Robin Symes of London. All have been legally imported into the U.S. The collection is currently in the Museum.”