by Peter Watson
“Then a miracle took place.” An Etruscan tomb near San Antonio di Cerveteri was found by tomb robbers and the complete krater was discovered in December 1971. According to Hoving, Hecht simply switched the two kraters, in the sense that he attached the Sarrafian provenance to the Cerveteri krater. This, Hoving says, would explain the various mix-ups: in the dates, the mix-up over whether Sarrafian’s krater was complete or not, the mix-up over when the Sarrafian’s krater left Lebanon, the mix-up in regard to the chronology of the invoices, the mix-up over when the krater reached Bürki for restoration. It would explain what Mrs. Silberstein saw in Beirut in 1964 and why Sarrafian did not receive all the monies he should have.2
So much for Hoving’s updated account. We return to Hecht’s memoir. The judge at Medici’s trial, in announcing his verdict, compared this “true story” with Hecht’s later “sweetened” version (see below, this chapter). Both accounts give key insights into the operating methods of these antiquities dealers.
GM was loyal and one morning in December 1971 he appeared at our apartment in Villa Pepoli shortly after breakfast with Polaroids of a krater signed by Euphronios. I could not believe my eyes. B. L. [Hecht’s wife] exclaimed “Can this be true?” Within an hour we flew to Milan, had a vinous lunch at the Colline Pistoiesi [Cuisine from Pistoia] and took the train to Lugano where GM had the krater in a safe deposit box. The negotiations did not take long and we agreed on 1,500,000 Swiss Francs on the instalment plan. That same evening I went on to Zurich, left the krater with Fritz Bürki, paid GM all the liquid cash I had at the time ($40,000) and went back to Rome to take the family to Courmayeur for a ski vacation. And a happy vacation it was.
I owned in partnership with GZ a lifesize bronze eagle with which I had had no success, either with Fort Worth, L. A. County Museum, or the Metropolitan. To pay for [the] Euphronios I got GZ’s permission to sell it to Robin Symes for $75,000 (we had paid $40,000). So, here was some more $ for GM. I had thought of giving the krater to Sotheby’s but Felicity Nicholson’s $200,000 estimate was a bit low. M Gyp [?] tried to get a Danish shipowner to buy it for the Glyptotek in Copenhagen but without success.
I had written a letter to DvB mentioning a r/f krater like the one in ARV page—[Attic Red-Figure Vase Painters, by J. D. Beazley] but virtually complete and with an appealing mythological scene. Shortly thereafter DvB replied that both his and his director’s appetites were whetted and asked the price.
Hecht told them—cheekily—that the price would be at the same level as an impressionist painting, because the draftsmanship on the vase was the equal of the Monet that the Met had itself just bought, for $1.4 million. Hecht waited for Fritz Bürki to complete the restoration of the vase, which he did but still left the jumble of joins showing in red glue, so that the people at the Met could see what was old and what was new. Then Hecht flew to New York with some good-quality photographs. Von Bothmer, who lived on Center Island, had invited him to stay for part of the weekend. On the Sunday morning, Hecht was picked up by von Bothmer’s car, but on the way to Center Island the driver hit a dog and Hecht was forced to cradle the animal—bleeding and whimpering—as they sought out a vet. The vet told Hecht the dog would live but the delay meant that Hecht, covered in blood, didn’t arrive at von Bothmer’s until well after he had planned.
DvB opened the door in the company of his son Bernard, then about seven years old. DvB: ‘Bernard, ask Mr. Hecht if he knows the name of Herakles’ brother.’ I replied: ‘Bernard, you tell me.’ Bernard: ‘Iplikles.’ I replied: ‘Bernard, you are half right—they were half brothers.’
Von Bothmer was very impressed by the photographs and so everyone relaxed. Hecht played some tennis with the curator’s “beautiful stepdaughter,” they all swam in the family pool and ate dinner. The next morning, the two men were driven into Manhattan together and showed the photographs to Tom Hoving and Ted Rousseau, curator of paintings and Hoving’s deputy. They were no less impressed than von Bothmer and the four men agreed to reconvene in late June, at Fritz Bürki’s in Zurich, to view the vase itself.
Dietrich von Bothmer, Thomas Hoving and Theodore Rousseau all came and looked at the krater in the garden under the sun. Tom Hoving pulled me aside & said that this was the finest work of art offered to the museum since he had become director.... Lunchtime was approaching, so we drove into Zurich to the Rotisserie de la Muette for grilled steaks and a discussion of the krater.
Hoving opened the negotiations suggesting some kind of annuity to be paid over several years. I replied that the price could be negotiated but that I wanted a lump sum and reasonably soon since the dollar was very weak. (At the time the $ had fallen from 4.30 Swiss Francs to 4.05 Swiss Francs.) Then I mentioned the ancient coin collection to be auctioned by Sotheby’s.
Some time before, Hecht had been told by von Bothmer that the museum was intending to sell its collections of ancient coins and that the curators had been conferring with a bank and a particular coin dealer to hold a joint auction.
Hecht suggested at the meeting that the Met might get a better deal on the coins with Sotheby’s, and Hoving quickly made some calls to Peter Wilson, chief executive of the auction house, and flew off immediately to London. Sotheby’s did offer a higher estimate, cheaper terms, and advanced the museum some money.
Rousseau paid a second visit to Bürki’s for another look at the vase, at which time he suggested that the restorer cover over the red joins with black paint. The Met was obviously moving toward a deal and, sure enough, in mid-August, Hoving called Hecht in Rome and offered exactly $1 million for the vase. Hecht accepted.
The following day he traveled to Zurich, where he found that Fritz Bürki had almost completed his restoration, covering over the red joins.
I reserved two first-class seats on the TWA flight, Zurich-to-New York [one first-class ticket then cost $450]. On arrival at JFK [airport] I was met by Mr. Keating, the MMA’s shipping agent and an armed museum guard.... When we arrived at the loading platform at the south end of the museum, my wife Elisabeth and our two daughters were there to meet me. . . . When I showed Hoving the invoice stating that the krater came from Dikran, he laughed and said “I bet he doesn’t exist.”
This narrative, of course, totally contradicts the account originally given by the Metropolitan Museum of Art at the time of the krater’s acquisition.
On the following day, Hecht flew to Malaga in Spain for a holiday at Lew Hoad’s tennis camp, and a couple of weeks later von Bothmer got in touch to say that the museum’s trustees had approved the purchase of the vase.
. . . the check for $1000000 was sent September 11 to Zurich. I immediately changed the check into Swiss Francs at the rate of 3.91 Swiss Francs to a dollar. By May 1974 the $ had fallen to 2.40 Swiss Francs and now is worth about 1.30 Swiss Francs.
Note his recollection of the exact date the money was paid and the specific exchange rates, down to two decimal places, that seem to be engraved on his memory.
At this point, Hecht’s memoir mentions the New York Times Magazine article on the krater and the subsequent investigation by Nicholas Gage, referred to in the Prologue of this book. Finally, Hecht discusses the fact that Sir John Pope-Hennessy, then director of the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, and later director of the British Museum, expressed reservations that the krater was a fake. Hecht reports that this was also the view of Robin Symes and his partner Christo Michaelides. The criticism evidently got to him, for a whole page of the memoir is taken up with the plaudits the krater received from other experts.
Until this point, the account has been seamless. The Euphronios story is the culmination of a section of the memoir, fourteen pages long, beginning in 1967, and devoted almost exclusively to Hecht’s dealings with Medici. The New York Times involvement in the story doesn’t occur until page ten of this section and then occupies only a few paragraphs. After this, Hecht then returned to a fuller account of the New York Times and London Observer investigation of the provenance of the krater. This
starts on a fresh page, in slightly different pen. (Hecht used several pens, and several inks, for the memoir, including a fountain pen.)
In a fourteen-and-a-half-page section, he recalled Nicholas Gage’s investigation, and the way the Carabinieri pursued him, the prosecution in Italy, his eventual acquittal, and an attempt in 1977 by the Italian authorities to have the New York police put him before a grand jury. He was eventually acquitted there, too, but during his cross-examination before the grand jury, he was characterized as being little more than a “street peddler.” This got to him, and, to the jury’s great amusement, he tells us, he read off an impressive list of institutions to which he had sold material. These institutions included the British Museum, the Louvre, the Glyptothek in Munich, the Glyptotek in Copenhagen, the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, and museums in Toledo, Cleveland, at Harvard University, the University of Pennsylvania, and the Campbell Soup Museum in New Jersey. With the grand jury’s dismissal of the charges against him, Hecht noted that the “harassment ended.”
His memoir then switches to more historical material. Thirty or so pages later, however, he returns once again to the Euphronios affair. This time there are crucial differences in his account. This section is dedicated solely to the affair and is physically separate, not part of a seamless narrative exploring other deals and other times. Moreover, the paper is not lined but is either plain or graph paper, and the manner of writing is somewhat different. Notably, there are far more abbreviations. It begins in this way, for instance, describing the situation when Tom Hoving first saw the krater in Zurich:Hvngs spont. react. revealed the sensitive art lover. “Ths s t gtst wrk f art offrd t th mus sns I’v bn there!” I replied, “how abt t Bury St. Ed. X?” “As a work of art this is mch fnr.” For 1½ hrs. they inspected th pt. glued together from abt 100 pieces.
As before they went to the Rotisserie de la Muette for lunch and discussed price, where, on this occasion, he says that Hoving told him about the coin auction (in the earlier account, and in Hoving’s own account, it was the other way around and Hecht had mentioned the coins to Hoving). “Hoving wanted to pay some in the fall and some in the coming year.” Then this: t reduce the price in order t mk early payment poss.” This was changed to read: “I said that I would ask t owner t reduce the price in order t mak early payment poss.”
He goes on: “July & Aug wer spent finding a solution agreeable both t mus and the owner.” Later, after flying the krater in its box on the TWA flight, “I was mt at Kennedy by an armed museum guard, Mr.—and Mr. X, the museum’s customs brkr.” As before, when he reached the museum his wife and two daughters were there, B. L., as he called his wife, dressed in a dirndl skirt and his daughters in colorful jeans. “My wife now saw the crat, for t 1st tim & exclaimed, ‘I could almost cry, it’s lk a Rembrandt!’” Afterwards Hecht and his family crossed Fifth Avenue, to the Stanhope Hotel, and had a drink at the pavement café there.
We felt relaxed. Why not? A great museum had just received one of the few finest archaic Greek ptngs surviving and we had steered it there. Mainly we were happy because Dikran was now assured of securing his old age.
He then proceeds to repeat the details of the Sarrafian story, which explained the origins of the krater as having been acquired in London in the 1920s and Sarrafian’s decision to sell before moving abroad. In this account, Sarrafian finally contacted Hecht in early 1971 to say that his agent would be in touch in Zurich in August that year.
“The teleph rang at about 7 A. M. & a voice w/ a typ. ME Fr. accent sd: ‘Iz thees Mr. Edge-te.’” The man came, Hecht showed his passport to prove who he was, then they both went to Fritz Bürki’s to give him the vase to restore. Hecht took the agent to the station and himself caught the evening flight to Rome “and stayed up late c B. L. telling her the Sarpedon story.” He stayed in Rome for a wedding, then again went off to Lew Hoad’s tennis camp in Spain, while his wife and daughters went to America. While his wife was in America, he asked her “t cal DvB & mention that he should prepar for a bombshl.”
The rest of the account is almost word for word what Hecht maintained in 1972, though at the time none of the above was made public.
One of the most arresting features in this part of the memoir is the severe abbreviation of the words. Are they incriminating? Does the truncated nature of so many words suggest perhaps that Hecht had written them before, that he was slightly bored with them so he couldn’t be bothered to write them out in full and was now coming up with an amended version? And do the crossings-out signify slips of the pen that in fact reveal the real truth, as when he uses “I” or “me,” then changes it to “the owner”? Why, in this latest account, can he not remember the name of Mr. Keating, the museum’s broker at Kennedy Airport, yet he can remember what his wife said, on seeing the krater, that it made her want to weep and reminded her of a Rembrandt? Is it likely that if she really did make such a stagey remark, he would have overlooked it in the other account? Isn’t his account of Sarrafian’s agent’s arrival in Zurich—referring to him as “ Edge-te” equally stagey? In this version, Hecht told his wife to alert von Bothmer to a bombshell. How does this square with the other account, that he sent von Bothmer a letter, and with Hoving’s account, that Hecht’s wife called him? Isn’t the level of incidental detail in this second account much less than in the “Medici version”? There is no mention of a wounded dog, no talk of tennis with von Bothmer’s beautiful stepdaughter, no exchange with von Bothmer’s son about Herakles’ half brother? Most important of all, if Sarrafian’s agent didn’t bring the vase to Zurich from Lebanon until August 1971, as Hecht says here, how can Dietrich von Bothmer have seen it at Bürki’s, as he said he did, in July 1971?
The very fact that there are two accounts is of course curious. The eighty-eight pages of the memoir contain no other example where Hecht describes events twice and gives different versions. Then there is the fact that there are several parallels in the first “Medici version” that fit with Hoving’s account and not with the other one. These include Hecht invoking the sale of the museum’s coins to pay for the vase, Rousseau’s second trip to Zurich, the fact that the first photographs of the vase showed it with a “spider’s web” of cracks, the comparison in price to the painting by Monet, and Hecht’s worry about “the dollar situation.” Ferri later found out, in his interrogation of Robin Symes, that the London dealer confirmed he had bought a bronze eagle from Hecht, for $75,000, in the early 1970s.
The judge in Medici’s trial was in no doubt about this second version. He said it was “sweetened” and “contains blatant corrections aimed at avoiding possible demands for reimbursement from Museums which had, at very dear prices, purchased objects such as the Euphronios krater.” Just how prescient the judge was, we shall see.
Hecht’s memoir is remarkable, too, for the candid light it throws on other aspects of the antiquities trade. In one section he describes how art and antiquities can be used to obtain highly questionable tax breaks from the Internal Revenue Service.
In the mid-1970s, Hecht crossed paths with Bruce McNall.p They met in May 1974, at a coin auction in Zurich, when McNall, using funds from one of his backers—whom Hecht names—paid the then-record price for a coin, 850,000 Swiss Francs for an Athenian decadrachm.
On that same trip, McNall showed the backer “four fresco panels of the fourth century B.C. which decorated a tomb at Paestum, an ancient Greek city about 50 miles south of Naples.” The backer bought them from McNall for $75,000 and later gave these same frescoes to the Getty where they were valued at $2,500,000. Hecht observes dryly at this point that the backer was in the 50 percent tax bracket, and so, by deducting this from his taxable income he saved $1,250,000 in taxes, in effect a profit of $1,175,000. Later, Hecht says, this backer told him that he “collected” antiquities only in order to make donations to museums and it wasn’t worth his while unless he could get them valued at five times what he had paid. Hecht gives two other detailed accounts of “collectors” who acquired antiquit
ies simply to take tax breaks.3
In the spring of 1975, McNall proposed that he and a certain Sy Weintraub become full partners in Hecht’s holdings and they set up two businesses in Los Angeles, the Summa Gallery and Numismatic Fine Arts. These enjoyed mixed fortunes—which Hecht explores in his memoir.
A late episode in Hecht’s memoir reveals perhaps more than he intended. Here he is describing the process by which the Princeton Collection acquired a psykter from him. Proud of his connoisseurship, his guard slips just a little.
Calls from Mauro [Moroni, a well-known faker of antiquities] were rare because of my relationship with Giac. [Medici] and because of his relationship with Fried [Frida] Tchacos who daringly went to Cerveteri and paid cash on the spot. [But] in June 1984 came a call from Mauro telling me to come to Rome for a sensational r/f vase [with black decoration].
Mauro met me at the airport and we drove directly to his home in Cerveteri to show me the vase. It was a psykter, a vase used for wine cooling, decorated with reclining banqueters drinking from various vessels. . . . Within a few days Mauro delivered the psykter to Zurich and we concluded the deal at $225,000.