Chasing Aphrodite

by Jason Felch

  Guarnieri eventually managed to track down di Simone in Switzerland. In an interview, the alleged smuggler described himself as an expert in ancient coins and denied having ever sold an object of significance, including the marble heads or the statue. He claimed not to know anyone at the Getty, although he admitted visiting the museum in 1979.

  Desperate, Guarnieri shut off the tape recorder and asked di Simone for his help. "You only made a little money on this deal, but they made millions," the investigator pleaded. "Help us. It would be a shame if the statue didn't come back to Sicily."

  Di Simone appeared sympathetic and offered to "look into it."

  "Tell me one thing," Guarnieri said. "Did the statue come from Sicily?"

  Di Simone nodded his head yes, while mouthing a different message: "I can't tell you ... I don't know."

  Guarnieri took the mixed message to be a signal. It was as close as anyone in Sicily ever came to making a confession. Di Simone couldn't admit it out loud, but he was telling Guarnieri that he was on the right track.

  After four years of investigation, Raffiotta and Guarnieri had exhausted their leads. The results were disappointing. They believed they knew where the statue of Aphrodite and the marble heads had been found, how they had left the country, and who was responsible for the crime. But no one involved would agree to come forward.

  In June 1992, a Sicilian judge dismissed the case against di Simone and the others, ruling that there was insufficient evidence. Soon after, Guarnieri retired. His file on the Aphrodite was tagged for the archives, where it sat with hundreds of other unsolved art cases.

  PART II

  THE TEMPTATION OF MARION TRUE

  8. THE APTLY NAMED DR. TRUE

  SLOWLY, THE WORLD was changing. Even as the Getty was acquiring the Aphrodite, a group of European museum and cultural officials took the first steps toward repudiating such purchases.

  At the 1988 International Congress of Classical Archaeology in West Berlin, a conclave of archaeologists, museum officials, and cultural attachés from the primary collecting countries—Germany, France, and Britain—and the major source countries—Cyprus, Greece, Turkey, and Italy—deliberated over the pressing dilemma created by the illicit antiquities trade, which now dominated the market. How could conscientious museums stop buying from the market but continue to build their collections and educate their patrons?

  Leading the discussion was Wolf-Dieter Heilmeyer, chief of antiquities for West Berlin's Museum of Classical Antiquities. A contemporary of Marion True's, Heilmeyer was among the leaders of a new generation of curators filling key positions in Europe's cultural institutions. They had come to authority with a broader vision than their mentors, one that favored international cooperation over colonialstyle domination. They were also closer to the damage being wrought by looting. And unlike their American counterparts, which were by and large running private collecting institutions competing against one another, European curators were managing state-run institutions often closely affiliated with archaeologists and researchers. Heilmeyer, for one, had begun to question the basic premise that had sustained museums from the beginning: did museums really need to own art?

  Heilmeyer's radical thoughts grew out of legal necessity. He had joined the West Berlin museum in 1978 and was well acquainted with the shady corners of the antiquities trade. In the 1980s, a well-known antiquities dealer had sold him sections of an ancient sarcophagus that was supposedly part of a nineteenth-century Swiss collection. The sarcophagus turned out to have been recently looted. An Italian museum in Ostia, just outside Rome, notified the West Berlin museum that it had located some adjoining pieces of the object. Heilmeyer saved face by convincing his board to make a long-term loan of the object to the Ostia museum, where it was reunited with its other portion. In return, Ostia loaned Heilmeyer's museum two invaluable second-century A.D. frescoes featuring large griffins.

  Heilmeyer saw the exchange as the path to resolving similar disputes between collecting countries and source countries, which had grown increasingly hostile. But when he asked to put a discussion of his ideas on the agenda for the archaeological conference, the organizers refused, fearing the topic was too "political" and would invite nationalist sentiments to taint the scientific proceedings. As a compromise, they offered him the use of an empty room on the afternoon after the conference had concluded.

  A standing-room crowd of more than one hundred people packed in as Heilmeyer led a panel of twelve prominent museum and archaeological officials in a sometimes charged discussion, perhaps the first of its kind to tackle the thorny political issues of national identity and the illicit antiquities trade. When he presented a statement of principles, there were heated exchanges over the wording. Vassos Karageorgis, the director of antiquities from Cyprus, refused to sign the statement because it did not explicitly condemn the rampant looting in the Turkish-occupied part of Cyprus. "We will never give a loan to Turkey!" he declared. But he eventually backed down, signing only the portions of the document he agreed with.

  Europe's most influential antiquities curators—including Brian Cook of the British Museum and Alain Pasquier of the Louvre—affixed their signatures to the entire document, which became known as the Berlin Declaration.

  The statement urged museums to investigate the ownership of objects to make sure they weren't illegal and called on antiquities-rich countries to loosen their grip on artifacts in their vast inventories and make them available for long-term study. Italy was particularly supportive of the measure and vowed to double the length of its loans, which at the time were limited to six months, barely enough time for a traveling exhibition. But many American museums took the declaration as a direct attack on the values they held most dear: a deep belief in the free trade of cultural goods, the right of museums to collect, and the conviction that an object's aesthetic value is as important, if not more so, than its historical significance.

  As word of the statement reached America, most museum leaders there shrugged it off. Met director Philippe de Montebello, who had succeeded Thomas Hoving in 1977, seemed amused when Heilmeyer later discussed the Berlin Declaration with him. "Well, this is a good idea," de Montebello said, "but it will never work."

  Marion True did not attend the conference. But in a stroke of good timing, she was soon presented with an opportunity to wrap herself in the same mantle of reform.

  IN OCTOBER 1988, while the Aphrodite controversy was still white-hot, True took a cold call from a European art dealer she didn't know. The dealer was offering the Getty four sections of a large Byzantine mosaic.

  The Getty, thanks to its famed wealth, was a favorite target of unsolicited offers. They came in as often as twice a week, often from cranks and goldbrickers offering some knickknack their grandfathers had picked up during World War II. Most of the time True ignored them, leaving her staff to fend them off with polite refusals. But this phone call intrigued her. The mosaic was a remarkable relic featuring carefully arranged chips of colored glass portraying biblical scenes in jarring detail: an archangel; the Apostles Matthew and James; Christ as a boy. True suspected that the piece had come from Cyprus, where looting was rampant in the northern part of the island, which had been under occupation by Turkish forces since 1974. Yet what really caught her attention was the price tag: $20 million. Not even the record-setting Aphrodite had cost that much.

  "Holy doodle," she muttered to herself.

  There was no chance of the Getty acquiring the mosaic; the museum did not collect Byzantine art. So True placed a call to Karageorgis, one of the Getty's strongest allies in the Mediterranean. Karageorgis had started out as an adversary, calling out the museum three years earlier over its display of a Cypriot idol his government believed to be looted. After lengthy negotiations, True's predecessor, Arthur Houghton, had fashioned a peace that only the Getty could afford. The Getty kept the idol and in turn underwrote a major conservation project in Cyprus. At the time of True's call about the mosaic, the Getty was about to fly K
arageorgis to Malibu to be honored at a colloquium on Cypriot art—another sweetener in the deal.

  Karageorgis became alarmed when he heard about the mosaic. He believed that it had been illegally removed from the Church of the Panagia Kanakaria in northern Cyprus. The government and Greek Orthodox Church had published it extensively as being stolen. He moved quickly to have American authorities seize the fragments. With True's help, investigators learned that the mosaic was not owned by the European dealer after all, but by a smalltime art dealer in Indianapolis named Peg Goldberg. The government of Cyprus and the Greek Orthodox Church filed a lawsuit against Goldberg and called on True to give a deposition on their behalf.

  "I am always very concerned about being offered objects that come from countries which objects are known to be removed from illicitly because one wants to know the nature of the business this person does and credibility," True said in her deposition. "You question how that person came into possession of it."

  The curator chided Goldberg for her decision not to notify Cypriot officials, as well as the dealer's cursory check with American officials—who knew nothing about the piece—before buying it from a suspicious middleman. She offered the Getty as a contrast in curatorial conscience.

  "We as an institution would not want to be buying art against the wishes of the country of origin. First, it would be encouraging a traffic that we have no interest in encouraging, and [second]...we really would like to have as good relations with art-rich countries as we can develop ... We also as a matter of policy contact the countries ... and make inquiries if we think that it is appropriate."

  With the Aphrodite scandal still fresh in their minds, Goldberg's attorneys sought to portray True as a hypocrite. They asked during the deposition whether she had ever been offered stolen antiquities. The Getty's attorneys blocked the questions with a series of obj ections, repeatedly threatening to end the proceeding and seek a protective order. "It is annoying, oppressive, harassing of the witness to inquire with respect to what the Getty has done or not done with respect to other acquisitions," said one. "It is simply not relevant here."

  True's side prevailed. The defense attorneys' remaining questions were read into the record with no response from True: Had the Getty ever purchased a work of art contrary to the claim of a foreign government? Had the Getty ever refused to return a work of art claimed by a foreign government? And, specifically, what is the current controversy between Italy and the Getty Museum over the Aphrodite?

  The Goldberg trial caused a media frenzy. In the end, the mosaic pieces were ordered returned to Cyprus. In upholding the decision, an appellate court recognized the moral weight of the 1970 UNESCO Convention. While the treaty could not be directly applied to the civil case, the court found that "the policy that the Act embodies is clear: at the very least, we should not sanction illegal traffic in stolen cultural property." The case, the court concluded, served as a reminder "that greed and callous disregard for the property, history and culture of others cannot be countenanced by the world community or by this court."

  In art circles, the case of the Cypriot mosaic became an often-cited lesson about the need for due diligence when purchasing ancient art. Goldberg had ignored obvious warning signs, prompting one expert witness to testify, "All the red flags are up, all the red lights are on, all the sirens are blaring." It also marked True's emergence as a model of curatorial ethics, earning a note of praise from the appellate court, which referred to her in its decision as "the aptly named Dr. True."

  In the midst of the case—and a year after the Berlin Declaration—True organized what was billed as the first American summit to bring together the warring factions in the debate over antiquities. In a sign of the growing tensions, the symposium at the Getty was an off-the-record affair. There were no minutes of meetings, and participants were guaranteed that their involvement, as well as their names, would be kept confidential.

  After the symposium, True lent her support to the country most harmed by rampant antiquities looting. Meeting with Italian officials at an October 1991 conference in Rome, the Getty curator offered to bridge the divide between American museums and source countries. She suggested that Italy and the Getty join forces to protect Italy's cultural heritage. Picking up the cause of long-term loans that had been articulated in the Berlin Declaration, she said that if Italy was more generous in lending valuable items in its museum basements, American museums would not be forced to buy similar artifacts on the market and could spend their acquisition money helping preserve Italy's cultural heritage.

  As a sign of her sincerity, True offered to return one of the Getty's pieces that had raised questions: a fifth-century lead tablet acquired ten years before. The Lex Sacra, as it was called, was inscribed with instructions for a religious ritual and had been traced to a sanctuary of Demeter near the ancient Sicilian town of Selinunte. Despite the tablet's historical significance, the Getty had never taken it out of storage because it was not deemed beautiful enough for public display. Now, without any prompting, the curator was willing to give it back.

  WHILE BUILDING HER credentials as a reformer, True discreetly maintained her contacts in the art market, keeping her eye open for pieces of interest. As a curator, her primary job was still acquiring objects for the Getty's antiquities collection.

  In March 1992, True received another unsolicited offer, similar in many ways to the one she had received about the Byzantine mosaic. This one came via fax from someone in Munich. In slanting, awkward English, the handwritten note offered a "fantastic examplar [sic]": a funerary wreath crafted in Greece four hundred years before Christ, finely wrought in more than a pound of pure gold. The note was signed by a "Dr. Victor Preis," who claimed to be a Swiss antiquities collector. True had never heard of him.

  "If the museum is interest to buy it," Preis wrote, "please contact me." The words "as soon as possible" were crossed out and replaced with the word "today." He left two Munich phone numbers. His asking price: $1.6 million.

  The photos Preis sent soon after showed a gleaming halo of delicate foil leaves sprouting from two intertwined solid-gold branches. Even in the wreath's slightly crumpled state, the craftsmanship was remarkable, far grander than that of a smaller wreath the Getty had acquired several years earlier. This wreath's dense foliage included dozens of leaves and some thirty flowers with finely wrought pistils and stamens—detailed enough to distinguish them as bellflowers intermingled with myrtle, apple, and pear blossoms. Several had an inlay of what looked like deep blue glass applied to their petals. True noted a signature touch that dated the wreath to the peak of Hellenistic naturalism: the branches were sculpted in such detail that she could make out the thin skin of bark at their cut ends. The effect was mesmerizing—a funerary adornment fit for the head of a king.

  No wreaths of this quality had come on the market in the past twenty-five years. True recognized that if the Getty bought the wreath, it would possess a uniquely important specimen of ornamentation used by the elites of ancient Macedonia, perhaps even the family of Alexander the Great. True also knew that an object of such beauty and rarity had not appeared out of nowhere. Had it been on the market long, word of its existence would have already reached her from various sources.

  On a business trip to Switzerland, True described the wreath and the circumstances surrounding its offer to the Zurich antiquities dealer Frieda Tchakos. The dealer was painfully direct: she had heard talk in the market about the men behind the object. "Don't touch it. These guys are not people you should deal with," she warned.

  But True ignored Tchakos's advice and made arrangements to see the wreath. She checked into the Hotel zum Storchen, distinguished by its flower-draped balconies overlooking the Limmat River in Zurich's historic section. The day before the appointed meeting, a cable arrived from an associate of Preis's named L. J. Kovacevic. "First of all verey welcome in Zurich," the cable said. "Meeting to show gold wreath to your respectable self will be ... at 10:30 am Zurich time in the present
of the owner."

  The next morning, True took a taxi to the Swiss Volksbank on Kirchgasse, just across the Limmat from her hotel. Preis and Kovacevic were waiting for True in a private vault.

  The details of what transpired in the bank vault remain unclear. True engaged in a troubling conversation with the two men, who appear to have attempted a heavy-handed impersonation of wealthy European collectors. There was confusion, a confrontation. The meeting ended badly, and True left without making a deal.

  Days after the botched meeting, Christoph Leon, the Austrian antiquities dealer who had acted as a middleman in the deal, sent an apologetic note to the rattled curator. The wreath's "actual owners" had no connection to the men in the vault, Leon insisted. The owners, he said, were "profoundly shocked, realizing the full dimension of the disaster."

  "I must say that the happenings in Zurich were certainly bizarre," True replied via fax when she arrived back at her office. "I do not think that I have ever had an experience quite like that one! Mr. Kovacevic and whoever was impersonating Dr. Preis have done tremendous damage to a great object."

  True said that the Getty was no longer interested in buying the wreath. "I hope that you will find a possible buyer for it, but I am afraid that in our case it is something that is too dangerous for us to be involved with," she explained.

  GREEK AND GERMAN investigators later concluded that the men True had met with in the vault were likely antiquities smugglers, part of an increasingly sophisticated supply chain run by second-generation Greeks who acted as "mules," carting the fruits of looters in Greece and Turkey to the small circle of antiquities dealers in Zurich, Basel, Geneva, and Munich.