Chasing Aphrodite

by Jason Felch

  77 She refused to return: Interview with a London dealer and an American curator knowledgeable about the arrangement, which True confirmed in her written reply to the authors: "Ingrid McAlpine could not demand the return of the money, because there were no grounds and I was not fired. After 4 months, I had found another position with Stanley Moss and resigned."

  Frel believed: Interview with Faya Causey.

  [>] she left the controversial Straw: In her written reply to the authors, True said, "I had no position in Steven Straw and Co., but was paid on an hourly basis for research done on 19th [century] American and European paintings (not my field) and thus did not consider it a part of my 'professional' experience as a specialist in antiquities."

  largely by default: Account of True's selection based on interviews with Delivorrias, Houghton, Goldner, and a close friend of True's at the time.

  [>] True never did tell: In her reply to the authors, True wrote, "When A. Houghton suggested that I report the dispute with [the] McAlpines as part of my background, I did not understand the need. There was no dispute to report—I had left of my own free will—and no lawsuit was ever filed. Also, to my knowledge, the Getty Museum never did business with the McAlpines."

  Houghton placed a call: Houghton recounted the call in a letter to a former colleague still employed at the Getty.

  [>] True reluctantly picked up: True's kouros investigation is detailed in her December 1986 report to Bruce Bevan.

  only one other person: In 1990, further evidence came to light that the kouros was a fake. Jeffrey Spier, an American archaeologist and occasional antiquities dealer, told True that he had been shown the torso of a smaller kouros that was an obvious fake and bore a striking resemblance to the Getty's. The Italian seller told Spier it was the Getty kouros's "younger brother" and had been made by the same forger. Through further research with market sources, Spier learned that both statues had been carved by Fernando Onore, one of Rome's most renowned restorers and copyists, from the same large block of weathered marble taken from the ancient city of Selinunte, Sicily. When Onore was finished, others created the fake patina by rubbing the surface with lead, then "cooking" it in a bath of muriatic acid to crystallize the surface before giving it a final soak in sulfuric acid. It was then polished with chestnut leaves, which stained the surface a brownish color. The large kouros was reportedly given to a middleman in Calabria, who sold it to Gianfranco Becchina for 200 million lire (about $100,000). It is not clear whether Becchina was aware of its origins. The smaller kouros received a different patina. It was rubbed with vinegar and buried in the ground for more than a year. The result was less convincing. Several major dealers in Switzerland had refused to buy it, despite a rapidly falling price. It was being offered to Spier because it was "burned" on the market. When True heard Spier's story, she was intrigued. The Getty purchased the torso of the small kouros, paying $25,000 plus a $75,000 "finder's fee" to the dealer. Its similarities to the larger kouros led True to doubt the authenticity of the Getty's statue even more. She confided to Spier and others that she now thought the Getty's statue was "almost certainly a fake." When True showed the smaller kouros to Becchina, the dealer became furious, claiming that Giacomo Medici had had it made to discredit the Getty's statue. True's own investigation confirmed Becchina's suspicion: Medici had ordered the forgery made. When True confronted Medici about the small kouros, the dealer laughed and offered to donate its missing pieces—two legs and the head—to the Getty. The pieces had not received the botched acid wash and were a floury white—almost a perfect match to the larger kouros. If, as it appears, the larger kouros was an elaborate ruse orchestrated by Medici to undermine his rival Becchina, the scheme worked. The Getty never did business with Becchina again, and Medici became the museum's principal source of antiquities. The authors were unable to locate Onore, and Becchina refused to comment.

  6: THE WINDBLOWN GODDESS

  [>] she paid a visit: The story of the Aphrodite in Battersea and its arrival at the Getty were detailed in an interview with antiquities conservator Jerry Podany and in his conservation report. Its subsequent acquisition, as well as technical details about the statue, are contained in the museum's files and in confidential Getty records of the subsequent internal investigation. The files include True's acquisition proposal, one of the few expert views rendered on the statue.

  Symes was a fair: In a March 20, 2001, deposition for an unrelated lawsuit against Symes, Christo's sister Despina Papadimitriou described how the couple worked. "My brother had a good eye for beautiful objects. He had enormous drive, energy and vision and usually took the initiative in acquiring objects and undertaking business risk. He also had my family's strong financial background and was accustomed to considerable wealth ... Robin also had a good eye but was more conservative. His strongpoint was an ability to sell works of art to clients at a high price and to keep those clients happy."

  Their London house: The two separate houses at 1/3 Seymour Walk had been joined into one. Symes and Michaelides shared the residence for more than twenty years.

  [>] "Not to worry": Interview with Nicolaos Yalouris, a former friend and colleague of True's, who said that the curator had been corrupted by the antiquities market.

  Love had often warned: Interview with Iris Love. True denied this account through her attorneys.

  The Getty's existing: The Getty's 1980 acquisition policy applied to all acquisitions, not just antiquities, and included the following strict conditions: "No object will be approved for acquisition if it is suspected of being illegally exported from its country of origin or imported into the United States; no object will be approved for acquisition without assurance that valid and legal title can be transferred to the Museum; The J. Paul Getty Museum will abide by all United States and international law concerning transfer of ownership and transportation across boundaries; every effort will be made by the Museum to inquire into the provenance of the acquisition."

  Walsh disagreed with: John Walsh, deposition before Daniel Goodman and Guglielmo Muntoni, New York, September 21, 2004 (hereafter "Walsh's 2004 deposition"); interview with Walsh; Walsh's confidential policy proposal to Harold Williams, November 5, 1987.

  89 Walsh proposed a solution: Walsh's proposal and the internal debate over it in September 1987 are captured in the draft policy and copies of Walsh's handwritten notes. In an interview, Walsh confirmed to the authors the authenticity of the notes and elaborated on them. He and Williams still insist that the conversation—including statements such as "We know it's stolen" and "Symes is a fence"—were hypothetical and not direct references to the Aphrodite, which was being considered for acquisition at the time. True gave a different account, saying that the Aphrodite was seen internally as a "test case" for the new policy. Marion True, statement before Paolo Ferri, Rome, October 28, 2006 (hereafter "True's October 28, 2006, statement before Ferri").

  Could the Getty: While at the Securities and Exchange Commission, Williams had played a central role in advocating for the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act and knew the museum might be held criminally liable for any bribes paid at any point in an object's path to the Getty.

  [>] Luis Monreal.... exploded: Interviews with Luis Monreal. In a 2007 statement to the authors, Walsh said, "I believe we performed every test that the museum's conservators ... thought might possibly be informative." In his own 2007 statement to the authors, Williams said that Monreal often sent "alarmist notes" and that Walsh's response in regard to the Aphrodite was "appropriate."

  [>] If it contained pollen: Some experts today debate whether palynology, the study of pollen, was sufficiently advanced at the time to make such a determination. Twenty years later, when the Getty finally tested the pollen and soil, experts were able to determine that they were consistent with samples from Sicily.

  [>] one very upset antiquities dealer: Hoving's conversation with the dealer was off the record. Hoving, who died in 2009, never broke his commitment to the dealer, refusing to provide the dea
ler's name to Italian authorities.

  A top Sicilian smuggler: Orazio di Simone, according to Hoving. Di Simone's name would emerge again years later as a "friend" of the man who sold Symes the statue. When questioned by Italian authorities in a separate legal case, di Simone offered to lead them to the missing fragments of the Aphrodite, including her nose. In an interview in Rome with his attorney present, di Simone acknowledged knowing Renzo Canavesi, a "fellow coin collector," but denied being a smuggler or having any involvement in the Aphrodite. "What I know I've learned from the papers," he said. "There's nothing worse than a rumor that gets out and goes all around the world and stays on you as a mark forever."

  96 Hoving hung up: Interviews with Hoving; Hoving's personal files.

  7: THE CULT OF PERSEPHONE

  [>] city-state of Morgantina: The description of Morgantina is based on a visit to the site and interviews with Malcolm Bell, the director of the site's American archaeological team. The history of ancient Sicily is from M. I. Finley, Denis Mack Smith, and Christopher Duggan, A History of Sicily, vol. 1 (Viking, 1987). Sources as old as the Homeric "Hymn to Persephone" and Ovid's Metamorphoses mention Lake Pergusa as the site of Persephone's abduction. It was along its shaded banks, the Homeric hymn recounts, that Persephone plucked a "cosmic flower" and out popped Hades, her uncle and the god of the underworld.

  [>] Giuseppe Mascara: The authors tried to contact Mascara in both Sicily and Milan, where he moved after reportedly receiving death threats for cooperating with authorities. He would not comment. In the authors' interviews with Bell, he recalled crossing paths with Mascara several times in the early 1980s.

  Looking at the photos: Despite mounting scientific evidence linking the Aphrodite to the Morgantina region, Bell has long been skeptical of the idea, more because of the absence of concrete evidence than his having any evidence to the contrary. Some experts suspect that Bell's reluctance to accept Morgantina as the source has its roots in his theory of the city's economic decline in the late fourth century B.C., something that would be hard to square with the statue having been created at that time.

  [>] "I would therefore": During the Aphrodite controversy and for years after, True and other Getty officials would distort Bell's conclusion, saying that he had completely ruled out Morgantina as a possible place of origin for the statue.

  Graziella Fiorentini: Fiorentini did not respond to several requests for an interview. Her account is taken from her complaint to Italian authorities; her cables to True; her interview with Patricia Corbett, a reporter for Connoisseur; and Italian investigative documents. Thomas Hoving, Corbett's editor at the time, provided her handwritten notes to the authors.

  [>] True tried calling: True's account of these events is contained in her October 28, 2006, statement before Ferri and in confidential Getty records relating to the subsequent review of the acquisition.

  the precise timing: Years later, Getty officials and the Getty's outside counsel, Munger, Tolles & Olson, would not say which came first—the Mailgram or Williams's signature.

  [>] the Carabinieri's art squad: Information about the art squad's early years is from interviews with General Roberto Conforti and other Italian officials.

  [>] Raffiotta launched an investigation: Based on interviews with Silvio Raffiotta and Fausto Guarnieri, who became the lead investigator of Mascara and the Aphrodite and worked closely with Raffiotta.

  104 Orazio di Simone: The art squad has a lengthy file on di Simone, who was arrested several times in the 1980s and 1990s for his alleged involvement in antiquities smuggling. He was charged but never convicted for his role in the Aphrodite case. In the authors' interview with him in Rome, di Simone described himself as a coin collector and denied being a smuggler or having ties to the Sicilian Mafia, as some have alleged. At the time of the interview, he was under investigation again for his alleged role in another antiquities smuggling operation.

  The three marble: Guarnieri's sources told him that the shepherds, the Campanella brothers, had gone to the hillside of the San Francesco Bisconti district of Morgantina after a big storm looking for coins and saw the top of a marble head poking out of the ground. That night, they returned to the site and put up a small tent to hide the light of their lamps and protect the hole they were digging from the rain. They found two marble heads and a number of matching feet and hands. A few days later, they found a third head nearby. It had a broken nose and was of a slightly different style—a description that matches the head of the Aphrodite. The Campanellas reportedly sold the three heads to middlemen in nearby Piazza Armerina for 200,000 lire (about $1,000). The middlemen allegedly sold them to di Simone. When approached by one of the authors at his farm, one of the Campanella brothers denied having ever seen the Aphrodite. "Here, if you talk, they shut your mouth and cut your throat," the aging shepherd said. His wife added, "Here, you see something and you didn't see anything, you hear something and you didn't hear anything. If you want to live happy, you don't know anything."

  [>] one of Connoisseur's best researchers: Patricia Corbett.

  [>] the feud between: Luis Monreal's exchange with John Walsh is based on interviews with Monreal and a description of the letters by two sources who wish to remain anonymous.

  [>] just beginning his investigation: The description of Guarnieri's investigation is based on Italian court records and interviews with Guarnieri and Raffiotta. The details were confirmed and expanded on in an October 3, 1989, report by the Sicilian journalist Enzo Basso in Il Venerdi di Repubblica. Basso did not name his source at the time but later confirmed that Mascara had given him details of the statue's discovery. Mascara was also one of Guarnieri's sources.

  [>] an anonymous tip: Some have speculated that the source of the tip was Robert Hecht, who was living in Paris at the time and likely would have known about the Aphrodite's discovery. Hecht was known to drop a dime on competitors when he was cut out of a deal. He would not comment on this speculation.

  Nicolo Nicoletti: Nicoletti and di Simone were named in the subsequent criminal complaint filed by Raffiotta but were never convicted.

  8: THE APTLY NAMED DR. TRUE

  [>] Heilmeyer's radical thoughts: Interviews with Wolf-Dieter Heilmeyer.

  [>] "Well, this is": Interview with Heilmeyer.

  [>] "Holy doodle": This comes from True's deposition in the lawsuit filed by the government of Cyprus and the Greek Orthodox Church against art dealer Peg Goldberg regarding the mosaic. Marion True, deposition before Thomas Kline and Joe Emerson of Baker & Daniels, Los Angeles, April 25, 1989.

  Karageorgis had started out: Houghton's notes detail the delicate negotiations with Cyprus over the idol. Houghton learned that the Getty had purchased it in 1983 for $480,000. A little digging revealed that the provenance information submitted by Jiri Frel had been invented. The object had likely been illegally exported from France (not Switzerland) and smuggled into the United States. The Getty also had likely paid nearly $300,000 too much for it. Although all this was troubling, Houghton's real concern was, once again, the optics. "Cyprus would seem to have no evidentiary basis for a claim that might compel the Museum to return the idol," he advised attorney Bruce Bevan, "but ... publicity about it could become very negative, particularly if it follows some vigorous public discussion about provenance issues with other material, such as the kouros."

  had been illegally removed: For a detailed account of the case, see Dan Hofstadter, Goldberg's Angels (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1994).

  117 "We as an institution": When Goldberg's attorney asked her to clarify what she meant, True went further: "Well, obviously we are a museum that is in its acquiring phase, and we buy art on a continuing basis. At the same time it is our feeling that we should do this in as ethical a manner as possible, and that means that in making acquisitions we also want to respect the laws of the art-rich nations ... and it would be I think really against our interests, against the interests of the institution that I represent, and my personal interest as a scholar to bu
y objects that were really—in a way that was counter to the interests of those countries." True carefully avoided any mention of the Getty's recent dispute with Cyprus over the museum's own incautious purchase of the looted idol. Instead, she portrayed the upcoming conference on Cyprus as a happy coincidence rather than part of the settlement of the nation's claim to the idol.

  [>] "All the red flags": Testimony of Gary Vikan, an expert in Byzantine art and at the time curator of medieval art at the Walters Art Museum in Baltimore. He is now the museum's director.

  True organized: A month after the conference, Italy's minister of culture Francesco Sisinni contacted John Walsh about the Getty Bronze. Italy had not forgotten the old sleight. The Getty was ethically and legally obliged to return the bronze, Sisinni wrote, which Italy claimed had been exported illegally from the country. Walsh responded, "The statue has a tenuous relationship to Itali an patrimony ... To our knowledge no new facts have come to light that might affect our view of the status of the statue." Despite Walsh's bravado, the Getty hired Italian attorneys to review their legal standing in the case.

  Meeting with Italian officials: Interview with Adriano La Regina, Rome's superintendent of antiquities. It was during a coffee break at this conference, True would later testify, that she was approached by an acquaintance named Giacomo Medici. Medici introduced his daughter, who was interested in archaeology and had applied to True's alma mater, New York University. True agreed to have dinner with the Medicis that night.

  The Lex Sacra: Adapted from Margaret M. Miles, Art as Plunder: The Ancient Origins of Debate About Cultural Property (Cambridge University Press, 2008); internal Getty documents; and interviews with archaeological authorities at Selinunte, who to this day recall True's gesture.