The Hunt for Looted Antiquities at the World’s Richest Museum

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CHASING APHRODITE: The Hunt for Looted Antiquities at the World’s Richest Museum by Los Angeles Times reporters Jason Felch and Ralph Frammolino. Looks like it will be a good read. Jason Felch and Ralph Frammolino are the two investigative reporters for the Los Angeles Times (Frammolino is no longer at the paper) who broke the story. The blurb says:

"...a dramatic tale of object lust, curatorial avarice, bribery and deceit at the Getty Museum. CHASING APHRODITE (May 24, 2011; Houghton Mifflin Harcourt) details the knowing acquisition of stolen works of art at the Getty and other American museums. The ensuing international controversy prompted the departure of much of the Getty’s senior leadership and continues to make headlines around the world. [...], offering the kind of fly-on-the-wall account that most museums would do anything to avoid. Felch and Frammolino were able to access confidential documents and elicit remarkably frank interviews that provide a fascinating look at the rarely-seen inner workings of museums. Mining their confidential sources within the Getty, the authors reconstruct a narrative that moves the reader through an exotic and morally challenged world of high art and low impulses. Felch and Frammolino provide a unique account of how officials of the J. Paul Getty Museum grappled with the question of acquiring looted Greek and Roman antiquities over 30 years".

Vignette: yes I know its Daphne, not Aphrodite (Robert Le Fevre 1810).