Belgian Family Never Learnt about not Buying Stolen Antiquities

 

One born every minute. Some villager from Herzele in Belgium was on holiday in Italy and came home with an ancient artefact which he reportedly took out of the country without the requisite paperwork ('Stolen Pompeii earthquake relief found in Belgian village stairwell' The History Blog December 22, 2023)

5-year-old Raphaël De Temmerman, bought the relief under circumstances that were almost comically shady during a trip to Italy in 1975. He was visiting Pompeii with his little boy Geert when they were approached by a man carrying something heavy in a burlap bag. He showed them the contents — a marble slab — and asked them for money. A quick exchange of cash for goods, and the seller turned tail and ran away as fast as his legs could carry him. De Temmerman took his “souvenir” home and added it to the new greay marble cladding on the staircase wall, a renovation inspired by Pompeii and ancient Rome.

It turns out that the marble relief had been stolen on July 14th, 1975, from the house of banker L. Caecilius Iucundus in Pompeii where it originally hung above the atrium altar. Belgium will probably return it to Italy under existing legislation, but there's a snag. Reportedly:

Meanwhile, the De Temmermans want compensation for the looted object [...] and are considering getting a lawyer to advocate for their interests. Their argument is that at least they kept the looted object safe for five decades [...] because after all, the piece hung here for 50 years without anything happening to it. It could so easily have been sold on or broken.”

Or treated as "decor" and cemented into some foreign Philistine's wall.

Vignette: Repairs with grey concrete and then secondariloy grouted, some of which is on the surface of the object. Yuck.