by Peter Watson
After lunch, proceeding to other matters, Ferri next tackled an example of the trade in fragments, or orphans. The kantharos with masks was first offered—to Jiri Frel—by Symes. To begin with, it was turned down, then sold to the museum in fragments, first by Fritz and Harry Bürki, “who said they had got it from Symes, partially put together.” Other fragments came in 1988, from Symes, then another eleven fragments in 1996, from Brian Aitken, a North American benefactor of the arts.
And in regard to the Douris Phiale, described by True as an “exceptional object,” she said that it was acquired in fragments “from various provenances”—Tchacos, Symes, Bürki, Werner Nussberger (the husband of Tchacos). She tried hard to get all the fragments, negotiating “with everyone—Hecht, Tchacos, [Herbert] Cahn.”
More generally, True agreed that in acquiring fragments, most of the edges were sharp, meaning that they had been broken recently. “I would say in most cases they were sharp joins that were close. They allowed for a tight join.” She said there was at times “weathering” on the surface. “But they were not worn.”
She also confirmed that a certain vase that was in the Getty was shown in Medici’s Polaroids. This was important because the Polaroid showed the vase with a hole punctured in it. Daniela Rizzo explained that the hole had been made by a spillo, a long metal spike used by tombaroli to thrust in the ground, searching for buried tombs. From time to time, the spike punctures the vases of a very full tomb—so this type of hole betrays that the vase has been illegally excavated. True responded, “I know. I understand.”
Finally, Dr. True was able to render Dr. Ferri a service. He showed her a sequence of photographs, including Polaroids, and she was able to confirm not only which objects were in the Getty’s collection but, in some cases, in which other museums certain objects could be found. True confirmed nineteen objects that were in the Getty, though two others—fragments of vases by the Kleophrades Painter and the Berlin Painter—could have formed part of incomplete objects they already had. She pointed out one or two fakes, as she saw them, but she located a Laconian kylix and two more objects at the Metropolitan Museum in New York; another object in Toledo, Ohio; a lekythos “in Cleveland or Richmond Museum”; a situla (a bronze vase with handles, like a bucket), “perhaps in Richmond”; a vase at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston; and a Sabene statue, also in Boston, acquired through Hecht. Other objects she identified as being in Minneapolis, at least one object that she knew was in the Levy-White Collection, and a third at the Japanese museum in Koreshiki Ninigawa.
From the cumbersome bilingual interviews, nothing had been unearthed during the two days with True that seemed to contradict Ferri’s case. On the contrary, much had been confirmed and amplified. Medici’s role, together with Becchina, as being the major source of illicit objects out of Italy, had been reinforced. The triangulations—involving Hecht, Symes, Bürki, and Tchacos—had also been underlined. And of course, most notable were the close links between True herself and von Bothmer on the one hand, with the underworld on the other. As curator of antiquities at a major museum, True—like von Bothmer—had shown herself perfectly prepared to be part of this clandestine network, and well aware of where the objects her museum acquired had originated. She confessed herself “scandalized” at the damage that must have been done in excavating the Pompeian frescoes, but apart from that she seems to have had little compunction or regret about her part in driving other acquisitions. Certainly, during the course of her interview, she expressed no remorse. All this only confirmed for Ferri that he would, eventually, bring charges against the Getty’s curator.
Ferri’s primary “target” was, of course, Medici. At the same time, he couldn’t ignore the fact that he now had two important pieces of evidence that changed utterly the status of the Euphronios krater at the Metropolitan Museum. He had Hecht’s memoir, which said that it had been Medici—and not Dikran Sarrafian—from whom von Bothmer had acquired this object. And he now had Marion True’s testimony that von Bothmer, no less, had identified the very tomb in Cerveteri from which the krater had come. (Third, of course, though this wasn’t conclusive, he had another Euphronios vase, taken from Medici’s safe in Corridor 17 in Geneva, now safely under lock and key at the Villa Giulia in Rome. Moreover, with linked iconography—this is the kylix in the photograph that Hoving saw.)v
And so Ferri now set out to see von Bothmer. In fact, in this part of the investigation he teamed up with a colleague, Dr. Frank di Maio, a Sicilian public prosecutor investigating the Morgantina silver.w Obviously, the Italians thought they would strike a more reasonable and responsible bearing if they made these two inquiries at the same time. Also, the two inquiries fed on each other, together putting pressure on the Americans to cooperate. Therefore, in the first week of August 2002, the Italians sent off an “Urgent Request for Judicial Assistance,” addressed to “The Competent Judicial Authority of New York, USA.” This followed up rogatory letters of June 2000 (immediately after the documents and antiquities had been transferred from Switzerland)—the Italians could not be accused of dithering.
The objects of their inquiry were accused of contravening, in the case brought by Ferri, four articles of the Italian penal code—neglecting to report archaeological discoveries, illegal export, receiving contraband, and conspiracy. In the case brought by Dr. di Maio’s investigation of the Morgantina silver, there were three indictments—neglecting to report archaeological discoveries, illegal export, and the receiving of contraband.
The documents the public prosecutors sent to the Americans outlined succinctly why the Italians were so anxious to interview two U.S. citizens—both former employees of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, former curator von Bothmer and Ashton Hawkins, formerly vice president of the museum and in-house counsel.
The document began by setting out clearly what had been discovered at Medici’s warehouse in Geneva and identified the seven objects at the Met that, the Italians said, had come from him, including the Euphronios krater. The Italians pointed out that Hecht’s memoir, seized in Paris, gave an account of how the krater had left Italy, that Marion True had testified that von Bothmer had pointed out on an aerial photograph the tomb in Cerveteri where the krater came from, and that when Hecht was asked during his interrogation which of the versions of the Euphronios krater was correct, he requested a break in the questioning so that he could consult his lawyer, “thus giving us to understand, with good reason, that the official reconstruction of the affair of this important archaeological find, was nothing else but a story told to hinder penal and civil actions in Italy.” The document also referred to the kylix by Euphronios that ended up with the Hunts.
The Italians believed that von Bothmer could help them sort out the exact acquisitions trail not only of the seven objects in the Met but also of many objects in the Getty and in the Levy-White Collection, for which he had, after all, compiled the catalog.
They were also concerned with two other matters. Ferri and Pellegrini had, over the months, examined the Getty Museum Journal and noted that von Bothmer had been very active in donating fragments to the museum, in particular as follows:• in 1984, one fragment of an Euaion kylix;
• in 1986, forty-seven (unspecified) fragments out of 810, by different artists, purchased by the J. P. Getty Museum;
• in 1987, four fragments of a Douris kylix and, on a separate occasion, one fragment of a Douris kylix;
• in 1987, eleven (unspecified) fragments out of 189, by different artists, purchased by the J. P. Getty Museum;
• in 1988, thirteen fragments of an Astragal by the Syriskos Painter;
• in 1989, one fragment of a goblet krater by the Berlin Painter;
• in 1993, eight fragments of a Skyphos by the Kleophrades Painter;
• in 1993, one fragment of a kylix by the Brygos Painter;
• in the years 1981–1982–1987–1988—a total of thirty-two fragments of a Douris kylix.
That made 119 fragments in all. How h
ad von Bothmer come by these orphans, as fragments are known in the trade? What was going on?
Ferri was also interested in von Bothmer’s attitude. When, in 1985, he had been sent Sotheby’s catalog for its July antiquities sale, he had spotted that Lot 540, an Attic black-figured amphora, had been identified in an Italian magazine as having been illegally excavated by a tombarolo from Tarquinia. His reaction had been to alert Felicity Nicholson at Sotheby’s, and not the Italian authorities.
This pattern of behavior was not dissimilar to that encountered by General Conforti of the Carabinieri, whose letter to the Met (and to Munich) about illicit objects had found its way to Robert Hecht’s apartment in Paris. In Ferri’s view the episode needed following up.
At the same time, Frank di Maio was on the trail of the fifteen pieces of Morgantina silver. In the mid-1980s, when doubts had first arisen about the provenance of the silver, which was announced in the museum’s summer bulletin of 1984, the Metropolitan had given contradictory accounts of how the treasure had reached Fifth Avenue. It had first said that the silver was acquired on two separate occasions, in 1981 and 1982, purchased from a certain Nabil el Asfar, a dealer in antiquities from Beirut. According to this account, Asfar had acquired the silver pieces from his father sometime after World War II and in 1961 they had been sent to Switzerland, where they had remained until the Metropolitan Museum decided to buy them. However, the museum had not actually bought them until the silver pieces were in the United States.x
The invoices actually produced by the Met itself didn’t match the museum’s own account or the import documentation provided by U.S. Customs. We have been here before, of course, more than once. This scenario is more than a little reminiscent of the Euphronios krater affair and the fuss over the Sevso silver, when the export licenses, purportedly from Lebanon, turned out to be forgeries. Once again, Lebanon is the putative country of origin; once again, a father has left his son some valuable antiquities; once again, though very beautiful and rare, they have been stored for years without anyone knowing about them; once again, they have been brought to the United States, from Switzerland, by Robert Hecht.
In December 2000, di Maio questioned Vincenzo Cammarata, a well-known Sicilian “collector” of archaeological artifacts, and a coin collector, too, well known in the international traffic of these artifacts.y During questioning, Cammarata said: “. . . regarding the silvers, I heard they had been discovered, or rather found, as a result of a fortuitous archaeological finding at Scillato [a small town of 750 inhabitants, in the remoter part of Palermo province, known for its oranges]. In particular, I know all this because of some persons who asked me how much the pieces were worth. I understood the pieces to have come from Morgantina.” Cammarata also showed di Maio some newspaper cuttings he had that referred to the silver pieces, and he said another man, Vincenzo Arcuri, had also seen them. Arcuri was interviewed the following month, on January 4, 2001, when he said: “. . . in the first years of the eighties, two persons that I did not know came to look for me in this centre, in Piazza Garibaldi, where they made me look at some silver archaeological items and they asked me how much they could make. . . .”
Arcuri recalled that the people said they were from the Palermo area and they showed him four objects, “among which I remember a round pyxis 7—8 centimeters [2—3 inches] high, with a partially gilded lid, representing ‘Scilla,’ placed frontally, two silver glasses twelve centimeters [4—5 inches] high, however higher than the pyxis, and a small silver bowl. On that occasion, these objects were particularly dirty and partially covered with mud. . . . Upon my request for knowing the provenance of this material, I was told they all came from the area between Caltavuturo and Scillato.” Shown sixteen good-quality unmarked photographs of Hellenistic silver, four pieces of which were from the Met and twelve of which were not, Arcuri immediately identified the Met silver pieces as the ones he had been asked about.
The American authorities had not been especially helpful to Ferri, or to di Maio. Yes, True had been interviewed, but permission to raid Hecht’s New York apartment had been denied, permission to interview von Bothmer had been declined, for the moment anyway, and no reply was ever forthcoming about Ashton Hawkins. Investigations are difficult under such circumstances, to say the least.
But the Italians plugged away and eventually Judge Muntoni managed to obtain further interviews, though not until almost another three years had elapsed. In September 2004, he was able to interview Barbara Fleischman, John Walsh, and Karol Wight.
The questioning of Barbara Fleischman took place on September 20, 2004, at One St. Andrew’s Plaza, in New York City. Thirteen people were present. Besides Judge Guglielmo Muntoni, Ferri, Rizzo, and this time just one of Conforti’s men, there were: Richard Martin for the Getty; Lodovico Isolabella for Marion True; a representative of the U.S. Department of Justice; and two attorneys on behalf of Barbara Fleischman. Hecht had been invited to send a legal representative, but he declined.
The main thing that came out of the encounter was that Barbara Fleischman confirmed that she and her husband bought most of their objects either through Hecht-Bürki or Symes or Tchacos. She understood Hecht and Bürki to be partners and, though she and her husband bought a few things from the Aboutaams, she understood them to be mainly an outfit that sold on other people’s behalf.
She said that the Fleischman collection was exhibited at—and then offered to—the Getty because their early good relationship with the Metropolitan Museum in New York had been damaged when the Met told them that they would have to pay for an exhibition at the Fifth Avenue museum that had been planned for several months and they would have to donate twelve objects to the Met. This had made Lawrence Fleischman very angry, so he had withdrawn his offer and all cooperation. Barbara Fleischman denied absolutely that she and her husband ever acquired anything as a way for the Getty to acquire it later. No one ever influenced them, she said, or was able to influence them.
She then told a story about Robert Hecht that, she said, showed his character. At one point her husband (who died in January 1997) was ill in the hospital and was visited by Hecht. She thought that was a civilized gesture—until Hecht took from his pocket a small bronze to see whether Fleischman wanted to buy it.
She said she never met Medici but always suspected he was a big figure in the background. She was at a loss to explain how two checks had found their way to Medici’s warehouse but speculated that the Aboutaams were “factoring” them—again, that they were acting as agents. She conceded that when the Fleischman Collection was transferred to the Getty all the financial information was left behind, but that was just an accident, she said. All the paperwork about provenance was included with the objects. She and her late husband only bought works of art in the United States or in London, never Switzerland or anywhere else.
John Walsh, director of the Getty between 1983 and 2000, was interviewed in the same place on the following day. He came out strongly in support of Marion True, arguing that when she and he had arrived at the museum, the Getty’s policy on the acquisition of unprovenanced material was “rather loose” and that she began to tighten things up. He said that they began to sound out governments from what he called the “archaeological countries” about which objects might have come from there; they speeded up publication, so that scholars could form a view about their acquisitions sooner rather than later; and they expressed a greater willingness to return objects that had been looted, “regardless of the statutes of limitations.”
Marion True, he said, was the main force in all this, but although they notified governments of potential problems, the response was disappointing—in fact, they got very little response from the archaeological countries. There were no lawsuits and no formal claims, he said. Later still, in the mid-1990s, they tightened up even more, trying to collaborate still more closely with the archaeological countries. Walsh said that this made True, and the Getty, very unpopular with other American museums. He said that True’s new pol
ices were considered “too generous” in the eyes of the Metropolitan Museum, the Cleveland Museum of Art, the Fort Worth Museum—he said that the richer museums didn’t like True’s policy at all. In his eagerness to support True, and his own Getty, of course, he perhaps didn’t realize what he was saying about American museums in general.
Walsh said he knew Symes, Hecht, Becchina, and a few of the other antiquities dealers, but in most cases he had met them just once and the relationship was confined to a handshake. He had heard of Bürki but had never met him, and the same went for Medici—he had heard the name but never met him, not even on the trip with Marion True to Rome when she had sent Medici a letter arranging a meeting. He said he had no idea how important Medici was.
Walsh said he had introduced the Fleischmans to True, in 1991. He had known them for years, since he was himself at the Met. This was well after the late 1980s, when Tchacos had said True was acquiring for the museum through Fleischman.
The following day—again at the same place—it was the turn of Karol Wight, Marion True’s assistant curator at the Getty. Wight had actually been at the Getty since 1985, at first in a part-time capacity, and had been an associate curator since 1997. She was a confused witness, who seemed not to understand many questions, and the U.S. attorney overrode Judge Muntoni and allowed her to confer with her attorneys during the questioning, which was unusual.
On one matter, however, Wight’s behavior was just bizarre. She was being questioned about the Fleischmans’ decision to sell their collection to the museum and Marion True’s role in that. She had said that True had no part in persuading the Fleischmans to choose the Getty, so Judge Muntoni asked her what it was that convinced them to dispose of their collection and sell it to the Los Angeles Museum, to which Karol Wight replied: “Is this the time for the story?”