Marion True's Continuing Trial: NY Times Mixes Up the "Laundry"

Elisabetta Povoledo, in her NY Times article last week about the never-ending trial in Italy of former Getty Museum antiquities curator Marion True, seriously muddied the waters with her lead-off quote about the actions of private collectors in acquiring allegedly "looted objects" and later donating them to museums:

It was a "sophisticated method of laundering," a prosecution witness testified on Friday in a trial courtroom here.

This led me to believe that the article was going to somehow link Getty-purchased antiquities to money laundering, which would have added a whole new front to the already serious Italian campaign against American museums and collectors.

Then, seven paragraphs down, Povoledo decided to complete the partial lead-off quote (uttered by trial witness Daniela Rizzo, an Italian archaeologist), giving it an entirely different twist from the one originally suggested:

Objects from their [private owners'] collections went on display in major exhibitions, "becoming known to the public and the scientific world, after which they ended up in museums," Ms. Rizzo said. "It was a different, more sophisticated method of laundering artifacts" [emphasis added].

The provenance of artifacts was indeed cleaned up by museums, although not very convincingly: When I asked the Getty's then director John Walsh, on the occasion of the 1997 opening of the J. Paul Getty Trust's new campus in Los Angeles, how he reconciled the 1996 acquisition of the largely unprovenanced Barbara and Lawrence Fleischman collection with the museum's unambiguous strictures, adopted in 1995, against acquiring unprovenanced antiquities, he said (as I reported in the May 1998 issue of Art in America magazine) that he felt comfortable with the acquisition because the Fleischman trove had been "shown, published and known in the profession for quite a long time." The chief prior exposure was, in fact, the Getty's own 1994 exhibition and catalogue (above).

It's hard to tell whether Povoledo is also muddying the waters with her excerpt from her discussion with Italian prosecutor Paolo Ferri. She reports that Ferri told her he would "draw my own conclusions," after the end of True's trial, as to whether to bring charges against private collectors who had purchased allegedly looted antiquities. For the Times reporter to use only that vague quote to support the notion that "American collectors might one day find themselves at the defense table" seems a bit of a stretch.

Just two weeks ago, Povoledo had in fact reported quite differently on the issue of possible prosecution of private collectors:

Italian officials say that Ms. [Shelby] White is under no legal obligation to return anything but that they hope to appeal to her sense of fairness.

The Italians have asked for the return of nine objects owned by White, a major donor of objects and cash to the Metropolitan Museum. Those talks, Povoledo reported on May 26, broke down "over a demand that she never be pursued by Italy again."

Closure is something that seems to elude almost everyone in their antiquities negotiations with Italy.

And now, CultureGrrl fans, you will have to do without me for a while: I'm going on a busman's holiday, which includes Basel, among other art venues, but (probably) not blogging.

See you later!