e Italian Ministry of Culture and Flemming Friborg, director of the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek art museum in Copenhagen signed an agreement that includes the return of archaeological artifacts that Italy said had been looted from Italian soil.
The return includes the contents of a princely tomb excavated near Fara in Sabina, north of Rome, which the museum bought in the 1970s. Italian officials maintained the deal had been brokered by Robert Hecht, an American antiquities dealer who was tried in Italy in 2005 on charges of dealing in looted art. Mr. Hecht died in 2012, shortly after his trial ended without a verdict when the statute of limitations expired. The Danish museum resisted demands for the return of the artifacts for years. But Tuesday’s statement included the museum’s acknowledgment that “investigations have shown that the objects had been unearthed in illegal excavations in Italy and exported without license.”The artifacts will begin to return to Italy in December and in exchange, Italy has agreed to “a number of long-term loans of significant tomb discoveries from Italy.”
This is wha happens when collections acquire paperless antiquities taking as a fact the dealers' claim "they can't touch you for it". Well in some cases they jolly well can.
Source: Elisabetta Povoledo, 'Those Italian Artifacts Actually Were Looted, Danish Museum Now Says' New York Times July
Source: Elisabetta Povoledo, 'Those Italian Artifacts Actually Were Looted, Danish Museum Now Says' New York Times July
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