Morgantina Treasure Loan to be Renegotiated?

Hugh Eakin ('Citing Inequity, Sicily Bans Loans of 23 Artworks', NYT November 26, 2013) signals an upcoming problem over the Morgantina Treasure, a rare ensemble of Hellenistic silver that was returned to Sicily in 2010 by the Metropolitan Museum of Art as part of an earlier restitution agreement in 2006 accord between the Met and the Italian culture ministry.

In exchange for turning over to Italy and Sicily 21 disputed antiquities, the Met has received a series of loans from Italy “of equivalent beauty and artistic/historical significance.”[...]  the Morgantina silver, was [to be] subject to a continuing loan arrangement and is supposed to return to the Met for four years in 2014. Harold Holzer, a spokesman for the Met, said that the loan of the silver would take place when the Met returns other material borrowed from Italy. But in an email on Tuesday, Mariarita Sgarlata, Sicily’s highest cultural official, said that Sicily hoped to modify the terms of the silver loan. “At the moment, we are looking for an alternative solution to propose to the Met, one that would be mutually advantageous to Sicily and the New York museum.” Asked about that statement, Mr. Holzer said, “We have not received any notification from Sicily and we will review any such proposal with an open mind.” Malcolm Bell III, an archaeologist at the University of Virginia who is co-director of excavations at Morgantina, a site near Aidone, Sicily, from which the silver is believed to have been looted, said: “The flaw in the agreement, from the Sicilian point of view, is that during the period when the silver goes back to New York, there is nothing in its place at the little Aidone museum. But when the silver is in Sicily, Italy must lend the Met works of equal beauty and value.”