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?