«I am pleased that a major cultural institution such as the Louvre recognizes the request I submitted, on the occasion of the meeting in Paris with the director Laurence Des Cars which took place last February. On this occasion we presented an accurate dossier prepared by the competent offices of the Ministry of Culture on some archaeological finds currently in the collections of the French museum stolen and illegally exported from Italy, raising the question of their return. The result was a constructive dialogue, still ongoing, between the Ministry of Culture and the French museum, with the common goal of protecting cultural heritage and fighting the illicit trafficking of cultural assets”.
Requested works
Italy is asking the Louvre Museum to return seven precious archaeological finds, including an amphora with a black background (dated to the 5th century) attributed to the “Berlin Painter”, an unidentified artist, absolute master of Hellenic ceramics. The news bounced on the pages of «Le Monde», confirmed among other things by the Museum itself which had purchased them, as stated in the French newspaper, «between 1982 and 1998 in a historical period in which the directors were more interested to the authenticity of a work and less worried about their provenance».
Minister Sangiuliano at the Louvre: “The problem of returning stolen goods needs to be addressed” 16 February 2023
«Next autumn – reads the investigation signed by Roxana Azimi – there could be a historic agreement between Italy and France. An uninterrupted dialogue between the two countries, for over 10 years, when the first suspicions related to Giacomo Medici, an art dealer originally from Genoa, came to light. The Swiss and Italian police discovered a real treasure in his warehouse. Thousands of objects clandestinely excavated by the ‘grave robbers’ alongside five thousand polaroids, as a sort of inventory of all the works, from discovery to restoration, before sale”. Among the attention-grabbing pieces of uncertain origin, the Ancient Vase by the Ixion Painter (about 330 BC), a work signed by the Antiménès painter decorated with mythological scenes (purchased from the Sicilian antique dealer Gianfranco Becchina for 290 thousand dollars) and a couple of nereids, sea nymphs, originally from Puglia.
The director of the Louvre
Laurence des Cars, director of the Louvre Museum, responds to Italy through the pages of Le Monde: «I am convinced that all those works that have a dubious provenance are a stain within the Louvre collections. We must absolutely take our responsibilities and examine what happened with rigor and lucidity ». According to the French newspaper, Laurence Des Cars promises Italy «the total availability and collaboration of the Louvre. Next autumn we will certainly enter a new phase and we will ask the Ministry of Culture to take a position». And as a pledge of goodwill, Laurence des Cars also adds a statue of an adolescent found on the Medma site in Calabria to the list of works of art to be “returned” to Italy.