Getty Appoints Panel to Determine Whether Italy Should Get "Goddess"

They must have done this just to prove they're serious about doing the right thing:

The Getty Museum has bravely put one of the most outspoken critics of museums' antiquities-collecting practices, Malcolm Bell III, on its just-announced panel of scientists, archaeologists and art historians who will "research the origins of the Cult Statue of a Goddess, an object in the Museum's collection often referred to as the 'Aphrodite,' which has been claimed by the Italian Ministry of Culture."

The Italian ministry refers to it as the "Morgantina Venus." Bell is uniquely qualified to examine that nomenclature, as the longtime co-director of U.S. excavations at Morgantina in Sicily (as well as professor of art history at the University of Virginia).

Michael Brand, director of the Getty, has indicated that the museum would transfer full title to Italy, if research (which could take up to a year) demonstrated that return was appropriate. "The museum originally offered to conduct this research jointly with the Italian Ministry of Culture while sharing ownership of the statue, an approach that the Ministry rejected," the Getty stated today.

The new panel will meet May 9 in Los Angeles, to "define a research project that will include the scientific analysis of the small amounts of pollen and soil that were removed from the statue during its cleaning at the time of acquisition, as well as additional stone analysis to supplement the research also done at that time. The art historians and archaeologists will work to narrow the geographic area in which the scientists will focus their comparative analyses."

The four other panelists are: Clemente Marconi, professor of Greek art and archaeology, Institute of Fine Arts, New York University; Pamela Chester, archaeological palynologist (expert on pollen), New Zealand; John Twilley, art conservation scientist, New York; Rosario Alaimo, professor of geochemistry, University of Palermo (bringing some Italian expertise into the mix).

The Getty has also invited the Italian Culture Minister and the Sicilian Regional Minister of Culture and Environmental Heritage to send representatives.

Meanwhile, on the Getty's other antiquities front, Greek Culture Minister George Voulgarakis announced last week that the two objects that the Getty had recently agreed to return---a 4th-century B.C. gold funerary wreath and a 6th-century B.C. marble kore (statue of a woman)---will arrive in Athens on Mar. 23, to be displayed five days later at the National Archeological Museum.

Will any of this mitigate Marion True's two-nation legal ordeal?

March 8, 2007 11:05 AM | | Comments (0)

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Me Elsewhere

Highlights from my writings and broadcasts: 


MY BOOK
The Complete Guide to Collecting Art (Knopf)

IN THE MAINSTREAM MEDIA
NY TIMES OP-EDS:
For Sale: Our Permanent Collection (museum deaccessions)
Fashion Victim (Chanel at the Met)
Destroying the Museum to Save It (Barnes Foundation)
Reassembling Sundered Antiquities (Parthenon marbles)

WALL STREET JOURNAL:
Los Angeles' New Broad Museum of Contemporary Art
Philadelphia's New Perelman Building
The Walton Effect: Art World Is Roiled by Wal-Mart Heiress

Tricks of the Auction Trade

The Seattle Art Museum: A Work in Progress

Upside Down and Backward, Yet Tame (Boston ICA)
Edith Wharton's Library Is Now an Open Book
Extreme Makeover: Smithsonian Edition (American Art and Portrait Gallery renovation)
This Museum's Expansion is Simply Effective (Minneapolis Institute)
Truth in Booty: Coming--and Staying--Clean (antiquities controversies)
A Betrayal of Trust (NY Public Library's art sales)
The Lost Museum (MoMA's art sales)
Endangered Species (single-collector jewel-box museums)
Money in Motion (the Guggenheim's finances)
The Fine Art of Genocide? (appraisals of Hitler's art)

LA TIMES OP-EDS:
Make Art Loans, Not War
Museums Can't Compete (public collecting endangered)

ART IN AMERICA:
Refreshing the Smithsonian (the renovated SAAM and NPG)
The Atrium That Ate the Morgan (Renzo Piano's addition)
Hot Pots and Potshots (controversies over museum antiquities)
Musings on Museums (book review of "Whose Muse?")

NATIONAL PUBLIC RADIO:
Criticism of AAM's Cultural Diplomacy Initiative

NEW YORK PUBLIC RADIO:
Guggenheim Director Steps Down
Philippe de Montebello's Retirement
Fall '07 Art Auctions
Metropolitan Museum's "Age of Rembrandt" Show
Commentary on the Art Market
Tour of Sculpture Gardens, with Slideshow
Audio Commentary on the Met's New Greek and Roman Galleries
Glenn Lowry's Unorthodox Compensation Package
Commentary on the Art Market

PHILADELPHIA PUBLIC RADIO:
Museums' Purchase and Sale of Eakins' Works (about one-third of the way into the program)
Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts' sale of Eakins' "The Cello Player"

BBC-TV:
Impressionist/Modern Auction at Sotheby's

more of me elsewhere

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About this Entry

This page contains a single entry by CultureGrrl published on March 8, 2007 11:05 AM.

Lewis Libby, Anthony Lewis and CultureGrrl was the previous entry in this blog.

Should Art Critics Collect? is the next entry in this blog.

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