AND war on the return to the Italy ofVictorious Athlete Of Lysippuscurrently preserved at Getty Of Los Angeleswho would be willing to do battle after the Court of Strasbourg he decided return to our country. In fact, the Getty Museum rejects the verdict of the European Court of Human Rights which ruled in favor of Italy on Thursday 2 May. The Californian museum, which only a few days ago returned a stolen bronze head to Turkey, is ready to strenuously defend the permanence in its premises of the Victorious Athlete, statue of bronze fished out in 1964 inAdriatic to the wide from the Marche and for years disputed with the Italian authorities. «We think that the Getty’s ownership of a work of art for over 50 years that Not was created from a Italian artistnor was it found in Italian territoryis right, ethics and in line with the American law and the international law», replied the museum in a statement in which it said it was ready to «continue stick up for The possession in all appropriate places.”
The Getty: «The statue is not Italian»
Referring to one judgment of the 1968 of the Court of Cassation according to which there was no evidence that the Athlete was owned by Italy, the Getty returned to maintain that the statue Of bronzepurchased in 1977 for nearly $4 million, it is Greek originwas fished out in international waters and it has never been part of Italy’s cultural heritage. Theses rejected in 2018 by the same Court of Cassation according to which the sculpture would be brought to Earth from Italians aboard a fishing vessel beating the tricolor flag and then exported illegally. It was precisely following the second verdict of the Supreme Court that the Getty Foundation turned to the Strasbourg court.
Three months to request a review
Both sides have now three months of time for ask a revision by the Court in plenary session. If Italy were to be right again, it would be up to the Department of Justice to evaluate whether the request is admissible and, if so, to defend the Italian case in a California court. The decisions from the Court European for i Human rights in fact they are binding for the States parties to the Court, Not for the United States, whose museums have established collaborative relationships with Italy in the field of cultural heritage in recent decades. In the 2019 Italy had asked the US Ministry of Justice to follow up on the order confiscation. The Strasbourg ruling notes that «the procedure it’s still open».
Tense relations with Italy
In resisting Italian requests to return the Athlete, the Getty is not alone. The minister of Culture Gennaro Sangiuliano recently blocked loans to the Minneapolis Institute of Arts which refused to return a marble statue of suspicious provenance. In general, i relationships between Getty and the Italian Ministry of Culture they are not never States easy. Marion True, a museum curator who had helped assemble a large collection of antiquities, was put under arrest in 2005. process to Rome for traffic Of stolen cultural property. The case expired in 2010, but it helped Italy start negotiations with the museum: a first agreement reached in 2007 with the return of 40 pieces, however, did not include the Athlete. Since then Italy has brought home other important pieces, most recently the Orfeo e le Sirene group which returned to the MArTA in Taranto last year.
