Etruscan Chariot of Fire: Another Repatriation Flare-Up at the Met

Due in Italian bookstores later this month, a new book, "La Biga Rapita" (The Stolen Chariot), above, investigates the allegedly clandestine removal from Italy more than 100 years ago of the Metropolitan Museum's celebrated 6th century B.C. Etruscan chariot. The book's author, journalist Mario La Ferla, writes that the chariot was "dismantled, hidden in barrels of grain, [and] brought first to Paris and then to New York without the necessary export authorization," according to a report by the Italian information agency IGN. The chariot was acquired by the Met in 1903 and is a centerpiece of its new Greek and Roman galleries, to open in April.

According to the IGN report, La Ferla said that he had provided the evidence from his investigation to Tito Mazzetta, an Atlanta, Ga., lawyer who has been pursuing the claim made by the Italian town of Monteleone di Spoleto for return of the chariot. The Met lists the chariot's provenance as "found near Monteleone di Spoleto in 1902."

A detailed discussion of this controversy appeared almost two years ago in the Telegraph of London. Bruce Johnston then reported:

The...bronze and ivory chariot...was originally sold to two Frenchmen by a farmer who dug it up in a field at Monteleone di Spoleto, near Perugia, in 1902. According to family lore, the farmer received two cows in exchange.

Harold Holzer, a spokesman for the museum, said that Monteleone's claim was "like Italy saying it now wants France to give back the Mona Lisa. It's too late to discuss."

When contacted by me this morning, Holzer said that he would give me more details on the contretemps later today, after gathering more information. So CultureGrrl may have an update.

It seems to me that unless there are unusually compelling arguments (as in the case of the sundered Parthenon marbles) for honoring a claim based on events occurring more than a century ago, the legal principle of "repose" should govern: Owners should not be indefinitely subject to stale claims. Otherwise, there is little to prevent attempts to empty our museums of everything that ever arrived under murky circumstances.