by Peter Watson
• One olla, also painted in “white-on-red” concentric circles, belongs—according to the experts—to the “Bolsena Group” from the Vulci hinterland. A “group” is more diffuse than a bottega: The vases are in the same style, but no specific master is known to name the group after, so the group is named for an area, in this case Lake Bolsena, near Vulci.
• Figured Etruscan-Corinthian ceramics (i.e., vases in the Corinthian style, but made in Etruria). The circulation of this class of vase, produced between 630 and 550 BC in southern Etruria, and to some extent in Etruscanized Campania, was limited to Etruria, ancient Lazio, and Campania, with rare sea export into Greek Gallia (southern France), Sardinia, and Carthage (North Africa). In the Medici Geneva seizure, Etruscan-Corinthian ceramics are present in some numbers, produced by a variety of painters and “botteghe.” The most antique is a rare oinochoe with a frieze depicting ibexes and is attributable to the Swallows Painter, who was an eastern Greek ceramicist active in Vulci at the beginning of the period of Etruscan-Corinthian ware. “Thus the vase, of modest quality, certainly comes from the Vulci area.” Another vase, an olpe (a slender wine pitcher with high handles), is attributable to a pupil of the Bearded Sphinx Painter and “would seem to be by the same hand as the olpe in the Faina Museum of Orvieto.” A third vase, an oinochoe with a narrow body, and painted in various colors (“polychrome”), is “probably attributable to the Feoli Painter, a ‘second generation’ maestro of Vulci ceramic masters, of whom only one other work with the same technique is known.”
• One-hundred fifty-three Etrusco-Corinthian aryballoi and alabastra: “. . . the collection comes from the plundering of about 20–30 room-tombs of southern Etruria (one object still has the remains of an iron nail with which it was attached to a wall of the room).”
• Buccheri: Bucchero ceramics are a form of ceramic invented by the Etruscans and are black inside and out. They are made by firing in an oven with no oxygen. “As is known,” say the experts, “they were the ‘national’ ceramic of the Etruscans,” being produced throughout Etruria and Campania from the mid-seventh, through the sixth, to the beginning of the fifth century BC, with an early start in Caere around 675 BC. Their circulation was wider than that of Etrusco-Corinthian ceramics and even slightly touched southern Italy, Sicily, and the Po Valley in the north. In Geneva, Medici had 118 intact vases, all of which “appear to have been produced in southern Etruria.... With the knowledge we have today, the vast majority of the vases can be judged as coming from the ‘botteghe,’ active between 675 and 575 BC, of Caere or its cultural area.” All were distinguished by graffiti in the form of “small fans” made up of dotted lines. Buccheri have been widely studied and the minute differences in the mineral composition of the clay have been associated with different specific sites. This latest science explains why the experts could be so sure which botteghe these Buccheri came from.
• One large amphora, dated to the end of the seventh century BC, with graffiti decorations on the body of two animal friezes, separated by horizontal cordons (rib decoration). This amphora is attributable to the same master painter who decorated a similar amphora found (legally) in Cerveteri.
• Etruscan imitation Ionic-and-Attic ceramics. Dating to the sixth and fifth centuries BC, the experts considered that all these came from the Vulci “botteghe.”
• A number of Etruscan stone sculptures and stelae were made of the local volcanic stone, known as nefro. In this case, not just the style but the geology proves the sculptures’ origin.
• An eastern Greek goblet was “very similar” to one found in the Panatenaica Tomb at Vulci and almost identical to a fragment found in the Sanctuary of Gravisca at Porto di Tarquinia.
• Bronze and iron statues, ornaments, necklaces, and rings—all found in Medici’s warehouse—were in a style “particularly associated” with Ascoli Piceno in the central Adriatic region (on the border between the central regions of Marche and Abruzzo).
• Ceramics of Greek production: As the three experts make clear, the Greek colonies of southern Italy and Sicily, together with Etruscan cities, were primary commercial destinations for vases made in Greece—in Athens, Sparta, Euboea, and Corinth. Amphorae and perfume flacons in particular were traded. However, Etruria was obviously a special area for some reason, because only in Etruria “have objects of exceptional quality been found.” Scholars believe that these exceptional objects were sent as examples, as “commercial propaganda,” to show what various “botteghe” were capable of, to encourage international trade. This general picture is deduced from two types of evidence.First, that the vast majority of museum-quality pieces of these Greek vases have been found in Italy. One example is a famous olpe, found at Veio and today in the Villa Giulia Museum in Rome. A second example is the so-called Levy oinochoe (of Miletus production, from the ancient Greek colony of Miletus on the Ionian coast in modern-day Turkey), bought in Rome in the nineteenth century and today in the Louvre. Third, the so-called François krater. This was made in Athens but found in a tomb at Chiusi in Tuscany and is now in the Museum of Florence. It is a splendid monumental object, with several layers of scenes—wedding processions, battles, and so on.
The second type of evidence lies in the fact that it is also known that certain shapes of vase were produced in Greece but solely for export to Italy or Sicily. For example, the so-called Nolane vases have an Attic shape, but their most important excavation spots have been at Nola, northeast of Naples; Gela, a city founded in the eighth century BC on the southern coast of Sicily by ancient Greek colonists; Capua, situated north of Naples; and Vulci. In fact, statistical studies have shown that out of more than 800 objects known, only one has ever been found in Greece itself.
As the experts conclude, “One can without doubt say that the material of the Medici seizure includes an almost complete exemplification of the above-mentioned workshops.” In addition, there was in the Medici warehouse a third kind of evidence. In the Freeport, even on vases of a type that could have come from Greece, some had “hallmarks.” These were inscriptions scratched on the vases after their arrival at their destination, for some as yet unknown commercial reason. A seminal study by Alan W. Johnston, Trademarks on Greek Vases (1979), which looked at 3,500 vases of this type, concluded, “[U]p till now no vase found in continental Greece . . . bears hallmarks of this kind,” which are “basically limited to vases travelling toward the west . . . Etruria, Campania or Sicily.” Moreover, the hallmarks are scratched exclusively in the Etruscan alphabet. When you add in the fact that some of these vases were those found wrapped in Italian newspapers, the situation needs little further clarification. Yet more support for an Italian provenance comes from the fact that many of these vases were intact. This all-important detail is almost certainly due to the circumstance that in the Etruscan necropolises, there were entities known as room tombs, which didn’t exist in ancient Greece. Almost all vases that have been found intact on legitimate digs have been found in room tombs. Finally, in regard to this matter of ceramics of Greek production, an exhibition held at Florence in 1985 of the dowry (contents) of Tomb 170 of Bufolareccia in Cerveteri, there were four objects on display almost identical to objects found in the Geneva Freeport. For the record, these were a Laconian krater, a Laconian amphora (“Laconian” refers to material from Laconia, the region of Greece where Sparta was located), an Ionic drinking goblet, and an Attic amphora by the Gorgon Painter.
• Not unnaturally, in view of the events described in the Prologue concerning the vase by Euphronios and because the Getty Museum acquired a kylix by the same painter, the experts devoted no little attention to objects by famous artists that were found on Medici’s premises in Geneva. In particular, they concentrated on Exekias and Euphronios.As the experts point out, J. D. Beazley, in his 1956 publication, Attic Black-Figure Vase Painters—still today a reference book for black-figure ceramics—identified sixteen vases by Exekias, for which the provenance was known, and another six for which the provenance was
not known. According to Beazley, thirteen of the vases whose provenance was known came from Etruria—five from Vulci, five from Orvieto, one each from other places in Italy—whereas only three came from other countries (two from Athens, one from France). In the case of Euphronios, in a similar publication drawn up in 1963 by Beazley, Attic Red-Figure Vase Painters, there were thirteen vases for which the provenance was known and nine for which it was not known. For those vases of known provenance, nine came from Etruria (two from Cerveteri, two from Vulci, one each from other places), three from Greece, and one from Olbia on the Black Sea.
The experts then add that in the case of Euphronios, there was an exhibition held in 1990–1991, in Arezzo, Paris, and Berlin, in which eighteen vases, or fragments of vases not known to Beazley had come to light (this is not counting the Euphronios vase at the Metropolitan Museum in New York). Not one of these new vases, or fragments, had any provenance at all. Of these eighteen, eleven were in U.S. collections or museums, five in Switzerland, and two in Germany. As the experts dryly remark, “Paradoxically, objects which are part of old collections yield far more scientific data than objects of recent purchase.”
The role of J. D. Beazley was important in another way, too. His prestige and eye were such that after he produced his books, even people with unprovenanced vases sought him out, because an attribution by Beazley was commercially valuable. At the back of subsequent editions of his book, therefore, Beazley illustrated these unprovenanced vases and gave them attributions. As the experts point out, the fact that Medici had in his possession vases that fall under the aegis of Beazley’s publications, but are not in it, invites the conclusion that they have been excavated subsequent to the appearance of Beazley’s books.
• One of the vases in Medici’s warehouse was an example of Calcidian vases, which were produced in the Calcidian colony of Rhegion (Reggio Calabria). Its exportation beyond the region, or beyond Sicily, is unknown.
• One of the Laconian vases in Medici’s warehouse was a single-handled pitcher, decorated with a red sash between two narrow white lines. This, the experts say, is “particularly comparable” to a vase that was “just like the one we are considering,” which was part of the load of an ancient ship that was wrecked off the island of Giglio, off the coast of Tuscany.
This by no means completes the evidence amassed by the three experts. Their report was fifty-eight pages long, tightly spaced, in small print. There were many other cases where they could, for example, recognize the hand of a particular painter, or the style of a particular bottega, whose work is known only from sites in Italy, and there were plenty of other cases in which graffiti in the Etruscan alphabet had been scratched on to the vases.
Antiquities in the J. Paul Getty Museum That Are Pictured in the Polaroids Seized in Corridor 17 in Geneva
• A red-figure Attic kylix signed by Douris and a red-figure Attic kalpis, attributed to the Kleophrades Painter. Douris (fl c. 500–c. 460 BC) had a long career and produced at least 280 vases, according to Beazley. He had his own school and because his works appear in the works of other painters, it is clear that he was well known and well regarded among his collegues. The Kleophrades Painter flourished between roughly 505 and 475 BC but never signed his works, so he is named after the potter Kleophrades, son of Amasis, a well-known black-figure painter. Kleophrades’ signature appears on an exceptionally large red-figure cup in the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris. A kalpis was, like a hydria, a water jug but, unlike a hydria, tended not to have a neck and shoulders. Among the documentation seized in Geneva were negatives showing these objects on display in the Getty, though they were also shown in Medici’s Polaroids, still in fragments. According to Getty records, these objects were bought through Robin Symes.
• Next, there was what was described in the public prosecutor’s report as a “mutilated” marble statue of a kouros (a statue of a youth). This was acquired by the Getty in June 1993 but was never exhibited “in spite of its being an extremely important object.” This statue was found in the photographs seized from Medici, still dirty with earth.
• A male marble head was acquired by the Getty in the late 1980s. This too appears in the negatives seized in Geneva, where the head is shown on display in the Getty Museum. But Pellegrini also discovered an image of the head among the Polaroids, where it was covered in dirt and earth. This object was offered to the Getty by Robin Symes, and from the documentation furnished by the museum, we learn that it arrived in the Getty with light encrustations of a mixture of iron clay and carbonate. These are the disfigurements a statue would acquire over the years while it was in the ground and are, usually, the first things a restorer or museum curator would remove.
• A red-figure Attic amphora, decorated with a scene in which the protagonists are fighting over a tripod. This, acquired by the Getty in 1979, was found among the Polaroids at Medici’s warehouse in Geneva, pictured as covered with encrustations. According to Getty documentation provided to Ferri, this object was purchased by the museum from Antike Kunst Palladion in Basel, owned by Gianfranco Becchina.According to the same documentation, it was originally in the Rycroft Collection in England in 1890. If this object reached the Rycroft Collection in 1890, in a pristine state, it is difficult to see how it could have been photographed, with encrustations, with a Polaroid camera. Can the Getty’s information on this be trusted? The acquisition of this vase dates from before the animosity between Medici and Becchina.
• A red-figure Attic kylix attributed to Epiktetos was acquired by the Getty in the early 1980s. Epiktetos flourished between 520 and 480 BC, and he was one of the major artists of the first generation of red-figure vase painters. Over 112 vases by him survive, most of which are kylix types, though he also painted plates. Valued at $60,000, this kylix appears to have been donated to the museum by Michael R. Milken in August 1983 and to have come from the Rycroft Collection in London. (Milken was “the junk bond king,” the banker at Drexel Burnham Lambert, a firm that was one of the leaders of the mergers and acquisition mania of the 1980s. He was indicted in 1989, pleaded guilty to one charge of securities fraud, and was jailed for ten years.) Yet here, too, the kylix was found among the Polaroids in Medici’s warehouse in Geneva, where it is shown as not only dirty but fragmented.
• A Corinthian olpe, shown in a photograph in Geneva, on which is written, “Photo sent to the P.G.M. on the 30/12/91.”
• A red-figure Attic phiale (a shallow dish) signed by Douris, with an inscription by the ceramicist Smikros. This, bearing a graffito in Etruscan letters, was acquired in fragments (see Chapter 9 for more detail).
• A red-figure chalice-krater, signed by Syriskos. This was acquired for the Getty as part of the Fleischman Collection (see Chapter 9).
• A red-figure Attic chalice attributed to the Berlin Painter. This too was acquired in fragments over a period of six years (see Chapter 9).
• A Corinthian olpe and a three-lobed Corinthian oinochoe attributed to the Vatican Painter, purchased from Robin Symes in 1985.
• A mirror with cover, decorated in bas-relief, purchased from Robin Symes and acquired for the Getty as part of the Fleischman Collection (see Chapter 9).
• A polychrome marble lekanis (a votive bath), a marble sculpture depicting polychrome griffins, and a marble statue of Apollo with a griffin. Purchased by the Getty as part of the Maurice Tempelsman Collection (see Chapter 9). The Polaroids of these objects, all found in Geneva, all bear the same batch number. These objects are shown in fragments, resting on an Italian newspaper.
• A ceremonial table, with griffins.
• A marble head, a Roman era copy of Polycleitus’s Diadoumenos. Polycleitus, along with Myron, Phidias, Lysippus, and Praxiteles, was one of the great classical Greek sculptors. The Diadoumenous, together with the Doryphorus (the ideal human form), was one of his two most famous compositions. This was actually stolen from Venosa, a town not far from Melfi from whose museum the eight vases were stolen, which had triggered off Op
eration Geryon. The Diadoumenos was returned to Italy. It was acquired by the Getty through the Fleischman Collection (see Chapter 9).
• An Etruscan antefix in the shape of a dancing Menades and Silenus. This was partially burned at some point in the past, and the burning is shown both on the object in the Getty and in the Polaroid photographs seized in Geneva. The antefix was acquired by the museum as part of the Fleischman Collection (see Chapter 9).
• A Roman fresco, a lunette with a mask of Hercules. There was a twin to this among the objects in Medici’s warehouse in Geneva. It was acquired by the museum as part of the Fleischman Collection (see Chapter 9).
• A red-figure Apulian bell-krater attributed to the Choregos Painter. This, shown in the Medici Polaroids, was sold by Fritz Bürki to the Fleischmans, from whom the Getty acquired it (see Chapter 9).
• A marble statue of Tyche. Acquired by the Fleischmans from Robin Symes, it was then purchased by the Getty as part of their collection (see Chapter 9).
• A small statue of Dionysos with an animal. In the Fleischman Collection.
• A black-figure Attic amphora attributed by Dietrich von Bothmer to the Berlin Painter. On one of the seized photographs the following words are visible: “OK con Bo 14/2/91. TUTTA MIA” (“OK with Bo 14/2/91. ALL MINE”). “Bo” here stands for Bob Hecht, as is shown by the fact that the amphora had been published in Atlantis Antiquities’ catalog, Greek and Etruscan Art of the Archaic Period (New York, 1988). The amphora was purchased by the Getty Museum with the Fleischman Collection.
• A black-figure Attic amphora attributed by von Bothmer to the Three Lines Group (a group whose distinguishing characteristic was a motif of three short lines). It was sold by Bürki to the Fleischmans in 1989 and was acquired by the Getty from them. A note in the Getty files, which they were forced to make available to the Italian public prosecutor, reported that “RG” (Robert Guy, of Princeton) had said that this object had been “found together with” another object, still in the possession of “REH” (Robert Emmanuel Hecht) and a vase—a hydria by the Würzburg Painter—still in the possession of Robin Symes (italics added). This is a clear sighting of the cordata at work.