Boston museum returns disputed artifacts to Italy

BOSTON, Sep 29 (Reuters) Boston's Museum of Fine Arts, one of several top US museums accused of having looted antiquities from Italy, became the first to hand over suspect artifacts to Rome.

Italian authorities had long contended that the 13 items, which include a 2-metre marble statue of Sabina, wife of Roman Emperor Hadrian, were taken from Italy in recent decades and sold by unscrupulous dealers.

In February New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art reached a similar agreement with the Italian Culture Ministry in Rome to return works including a 2,500-year-old Greek vase and third-century B C silverware from Sicily.

The J Paul Getty Trust in Los Angeles, one of the world's richest art institutes, also has agreed to return objects.

Archeologists said the Boston museum's artifacts appear to have been looted mostly from southern Italy after World War Two.

''I think our agreement will be a model,'' Malcolm Rogers, director of the Museum of Fine Arts, told Reuters by telephone from Rome where he attended an unveiling ceremony for the objects and signed an agreement with Italian officials.

''We don't want to display things that we don't have a right to own,'' he said. ''We want to stop the looting of archeological sites and we want to stop the illicit trade in antiquities.'' The returned items include a ceramic water jar depicting Apollo making a libation at an altar before Greek gods and goddesses produced in the fifth century B C, and a 61-cm ceramic vase for bath water from the early Hellenistic period.

''What this shows is tacit admission that this stuff has all been looted. It's the tip of the iceberg,'' said Ricardo Elia, an archeology professor at Boston University. ''So the question is, what other museums are going to be next on Italy's radar?'' He said stolen artifacts are pervasive at US museums.

''All these American museums that are acquiring antiquities are buying looted stuff. They have been for 50 years. It shows that their acquisition policies can't stop that,'' he said.

Under the agreement signed yesterday in Rome, the Italian government will loan significant works from Italy to the Boston museum for displays and special exhibitions.

It also establishes a process by which the museum and Italy will exchange information on the museum's future acquisitions of Italian antiquities. They also agreed to collaborate in conservation and archeological investigations.

The dispute began last October, when Italian authorities investigating the J Paul Getty Museum said they had evidence that Boston's museum had bought stolen works. A flurry of official exchanges and trans-Atlantic meetings followed.

The museum had long denied it displayed or owned any stolen art, and Rogers defended its acquisition policy. He said the provenance of its collection, which is cataloged on the Internet for public scrutiny, is constantly reviewed.

''If people have a good claim we urge them to come forward and we will respond appropriately,'' Rogers said.

''We only want to acquire things that we are able to legitimately acquire. That's not to say that curators in earlier generations did not acquire things in good faith. But the standards of scrutiny were less,'' he said.

The 13 artifacts will be on view at the Museo Nazionale Romano di Palazzo Massimo alle Terme in Rome for a week starting on October 10, before moving to their historical territories.

REUTERS LL SSC1035