Blog'Art

Posted 27 July 2006, The Art Newspaper

Economists like to think that markets tell us about more than money, indeed that economics explain much of human behaviour. Take the art market: the economics of it are governed by a finite supply of art meeting an ever-increasing number of people with money. The inability of supply to adjust to demand, other than through increasing prices, is why the values of art have risen so steeply since the early 1970’s.

But this is not true in the contemporary art market. Here it is possible to increase supply (as well as prices) as demand rises. On the surface a dealer simply provides a venue and arranges an opening for an artist, valuable enough services, but alone they hardly explain why 50% of the value of a picture gets paid to the dealer. It also fails to explain why it is not simply enough for someone with money to walk off the street into galleries, or fairs such as Art Basel, and buy what they want.

But the trick in this market is to encourage demand, indeed creating demand—and crucially demand among the right people. It is here that contemporary art dealers come into their own. The real value of a dealer is the schmoozing, connecting the right collectors to the right artists. And figuring out the value of such a schmoozing is something that an economic analysis can begin to explain.

The discipline of behavioural economics gives an explanation as to why the contemporary art market has developed in the way that it has, in particular why such things as relationships seem to matter more than money. First of all, what “regular” economics says about the contemporary art market is not really applicable to the rest of the art market. If a collector wants a particular old master, no matter how long-standing the relationship with his or her dealer or how close the friendship between them, it would be perfectly understandable if they bought the picture from a rival.

But contemporary art allows dealers to do what financiers can only ever dream of—corner a market. And once any market is cornered, so long as demand can be maintained, there is little limit to how high prices might be pushed. Note the proviso, so long as there is demand. This then is the value of the dealer.

Here we come to the lessons of finance: reputations and relationships matter. Take the most transparent and fast-paced financial market, a market where friends are thought not to matter and relationships are dictated solely by price, the commodities market. But even here, although a trader wants to know that he is getting the best price, he also wants to know that the person he is dealing with is going to be there in future. There is little point in striking a great deal with a new entrant to the market if such a deal might only be struck once.

If relationships matter in the commodities markets, they matter much more in corporate finance. Here financiers need to establish trust with senior executives within a corporation before they will be invited to advise and finance the best deals. These executives rightly think that many bankers could meet their immediate financing needs, but they want to deal with people who will be there in the long term, and will take the time to understand their business and aspirations.

How do they establish such trust? Well, it’s back to schmoozing—and schmoozing not just of corporate executives by bankers, but the reverse as well. At its best, this schmoozing becomes pretty grand (think World Cup tickets and days at Wimbledon). At its most refined, it connects to the art world (is it not preferable to see the Royal Academy summer show at a special private view, followed by dinner?).

Art dealers have similar reasons for taking the same approach. So if a dealer is not showing a new client his best pieces, it has a little to do with money and a lot to do with the need to establish a relationship before the choicest plums are offered. This makes good economic, financial and artistic sense, for a quick buck is far less important than establishing a long term relationship that leads to a long-term demand. Art dealers may not be aware they are following the precepts of economics, but as is so often the case, economic explanations of human behaviour go far beyond cash.

James Sproule is an economist in London and a research fellow at the Centre for Policy Studies

http://www.theartnewspaper.com/article01.asp?id=397

Compiled by STEVEN MCELROY

Published: July 28, 2006, The NY Times

The Italian Culture Ministry said yesterday that it was finalizing an agreement with the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, that would call for the museum to return an unknown number of objects “of Italian origin” in exchange for loans of antiquities by Italy. In a statement the ministry said it was pursuing a partnership that would allow for future “collaboration in the areas of scholarship, conservation, archaeological investigation and exhibition planning.” The meetings between the two parties are taking place in Rome. Last month the Italian government announced that it had reached a similar agreement with the J. Paul Getty Trust, although many details remain to be ironed out. Italy has long argued that objects in the Getty Museum were looted from Italian soil in recent decades and sold to the museum by unscrupulous dealers. In February, Italy and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York came to an agreement that involved ceding title to 21 objects in exchange for loans. PETER KIEFER

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/28/arts/28arts.html?_r=1&ref=arts&oref=slogin

Website disclosures will exceed the minimum standards required by law

By Jason Edward Kaufman | Posted 20 July 2006, The Art Newspaper

NEW YORK. The J. Paul Getty Trust has announced it will publish detailed financial and governance information on its website (www.getty.edu) this month in an effort to restore its tarnished reputation.

The material will include the Getty’s Form 990 statements, which non-profit organisations are required to file to the Internal Revenue Service. The 990s—which are only available on paid for financial research websites such as www.guidestar.org—reveal the salaries of the five highest-paid employees, but a Getty spokesman says the online version will provide a broader cross-section of remuneration within the trust.

For more than a year, the Getty has been embroiled in controversy over its spending practices and governance. An investigation by the California State Attorney General is still underway, and a trustee-led audit led to the resignation of chief executive Barry Munitz in February. Mr Munitz repaid the trust $250,000 and forfeited his severance pay.

“Part of our intent is to increase the transparency of the Getty, to make sure people understand that the Getty is committed to being a leader among non-profit [organisations] in terms of governance,” a spokesman said.

The website will also publish the museum’s code of ethics, policies on conflict of interest, whistle-blowing, employment and discrimination, among other papers. The spokesman said the material is expected to be online by 1 July, the start of the Getty’s fiscal year.

Among the items that will appear on the Getty site is the salary of Getty Museum director Michael Brand, 48, who took over in January. His basic salary is $482,000 plus use of a house just bought by the trust. In comparison, Mr Brand is paid less than the director of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Michael Govan, 43, who started in April and receives a base salary of $600,000 plus housing and a car allowance.

The board decided to publish the information in April when it adopted a number of other internal reforms—although many of these will not be published online. These include “clarification” of rules on expenses, staff training on “issues of personal use and what it means to work for a charitable trust”, and the institution of an annual self-assessment procedure.

The board agreed that all property purchases must be approved by the trustees: previously board approval was required only for sale, a rule adopted in 2005 following the controversial sale of land at under-market value to Eli Broad, a friend of Mr Munitz.

The Getty has also been plagued by charges from Italy and Greece that its collection contains antiquities smuggled from those countries. (see below).

The Trust spokesman said that the website will not include the Getty’s acquisitions policies, including those for antiquities, but that “ultimately” that information will be added. He did not say whether the delay was caused by a planned revision of acquisition policies.

Even as the Getty moves to repair its reputation, a new scandal has emerged. In June, the Los Angeles Times reported that before Mr Munitz resigned, he agreed to pay the retiring chairman of the trust $300,000 to write a coffee table book about the Getty. The project was cancelled in March, but not before David Gardner received $178,000.

The deal raised eyebrows as before Mr Gardner stepped down in 2004, he reportedly helped Mr Munitz secure a five-year contract instead of a one-year extension that board members were considering as a warning about his spending improprieties.

http://www.theartnewspaper.com/article01.asp?id=386

July 25, 2006

By RANDY KENNEDY, The NY Times

A major survey of American museums has found that many have not yet done significant research to determine whether works in their collections were looted during the Nazi era, despite a collective agreement seven years ago to make such work a priority.

The survey of 332 museums, to be released today, was conducted by the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany, known as the Claims Conference, a New York-based organization created after World War II to help restore Jewish property to Holocaust survivors and their families.

The group decided to become more involved in the question of looted art last year after concern arose that the American Association of Museums, which adopted guidelines in 1999 urging its members to examine their collections and later created a special Internet site for such information, was not doing enough to monitor museums’ progress.

According to Gideon Taylor, the executive vice president of the Claims Conference, the museum association said that it was not its job, as a voluntary organization, to examine the extent to which its members were following the guidelines.

“It was an unknown,” Mr. Taylor said. “There was no way to evaluate or judge what individual museums or museums collectively were doing to implement those principles to which they had all agreed.”

But the museum association, while conceding that it does not collect the kind of detailed information that the Claims Conference was seeking, disagrees strongly with the conclusions of the survey. It contends that the conference cast too wide a net, seeking information from many museums whose collections probably have no works that could have been looted.

“I think the thrust of their survey was in many ways asking the wrong questions,” said Edward H. Able Jr., president and chief executive of the museum association. He argued that most American museums have made such research a priority and that the 18,000 artworks now listed at the museums’ special Web site, the Nazi-Era Provenance Internet Portal (www.nepip.org), represent “a major, major portion of the material that meets the criteria” of work that could possibly have been confiscated by the Nazis.

The new survey found that while some museums with major holdings of European art — including the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston — have made substantial headway in provenance research, others have done little beyond identifying which of their works fall within the parameters that might mean they were looted.

The Museum of Fine Arts in Houston and the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art in Hartford, for example, reported that they were spending no money on provenance research and had no staff members devoted to it. Houston said that its collection included 61 paintings and sculptures that fell within the parameters, and the Wadsworth said it had 70 paintings that did.

Of the 332 museums that were sent questionnaires by the conference in February, 214 responded before a deadline of July 10. Of those, approximately 114, or slightly more than half, said that they were actively conducting provenance work. The remaining 100 museums either said they were not doing such work or did not provide enough information for the Claims Conference to be able to make a determination.

The association’s guidelines specify that museums should focus on objects created before 1946 and acquired by museums after 1932, and that underwent a change of ownership between those two dates and might reasonably be thought to have been in Europe during that period.

While the vast majority of those objects are not assumed to have been taken illegally, the only way to know is to pin down their provenance and publish as much information as possible for potential claimants, a job that can be very difficult because ownership histories are often murky and documentation nonexistent.

Exact numbers are impossible to determine, but some experts believe that the Nazis seized 600,000 important works from 1933 to 1945. As many as 100,000 pieces are still thought to be missing, and some have undoubtedly been destroyed.

Estimates of the number of seized works that ended up in the United States vary widely. In the last eight years, as more provenance information has been made available, only 22 works have been returned to owners or their heirs, and another 6 cases are pending, museum officials said. In addition to museums, some private galleries and collections could also contain looted art, but information about those works is even more difficult to come by.

American museums began to focus seriously on the issue only in the 1990’s, and the effort to make information available on the Web site was delayed for more than a year by lack of financing. Eventually, several groups, including the Claims Conference, provided funds.

Among the larger museums that did not respond to the conference’s survey in time were the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York and the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles.

The Guggenheim, which has taken part in the museum association’s Internet portal since the site’s founding, said it had completed the survey but that it was delayed in the museum’s legal office. The museum sent its responses to the conference on Friday.

The Getty has also long conducted provenance research, and its grant program provided money for the association’s Web portal. But in a statement, the museum said it was simply unable to complete the survey before its deadline. “I do not want to excuse our tardiness, but the many issues we have been dealing with distracted us,” said Ron Hartwig, the museum’s spokesman. “We take this issue very seriously and truly regret not being included in the survey results.”

The museums that responded to the survey collectively listed 140,000 works that fall within the period in question, considerably more than the 18,000 works that are now listed on the museums’ Internet portal. Of the museums that clearly responded that they were conducting provenance research, the survey found, 52 percent had completed work on less than half of the relevant items in their collections, and most research was being conducted on paintings and sculpture, not on drawings and prints. The survey also found that only 10 percent of the museums conducting provenance research employ or have ever employed a full-time researcher.

“There has been progress, but there is still a lot to do,” Mr. Taylor said. He added that the conference, which conducted the survey in association with the World Jewish Restitution Organization, was “disappointed that some museums declined to report at all on what steps they have or have not taken.”

“We believe that this is an issue that is not only important; it is also one that must be resolved quickly if it is to be effective,” he said. “The generation who survived the Holocaust is slipping away. This may be a last chance for them to be reunited with a tangible connection to a family that was lost.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/25/arts/design/25clai.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

AFP 18.07.06 | 22h02

L'Iran et le ministère américain de la Justice ont formé une étrange et inhabituelle alliance pour empêcher la vente aux enchères d'oeuvres d'art iraniennes aux Etats-Unis visant à indemniser les victimes d'attentats du Hamas en Israël en 1997.
Des plaignants voulaient mettre aux enchères des objets d'art de la Perse ancienne détenus par l'université de Chicago (Illinois, nord) pour indemniser les victimes d'attentats du mouvement islamiste palestinien Hamas en 1997 à Jérusalem.

Un avocat américain représentant les intérêts iraniens a estimé que les objets perses étaient protégés par une loi fédérale qui précise que seuls des biens destinés à un usage commercial étaient susceptibles d'être saisis.

Le ministère américain de la Justice a estimé de son côté dans une note que permettre la vente de ces objets créerait un dangereux précédent et pourrait menacer les biens américains à l'étranger. Le ministère a toutefois précisé qu'il "ne défendait pas le comportement de l'Iran".

Les objets en question sont des tablettes en terre cuite retraçant la vie des Iraniens de l'époque Achéménide (648 - 330 Av JC), prêtées par le gouvernement iranien à l'université de Chicago dans les années 1930 à des fins de recherche.

En 2004, l'université de Chicago a rendu à l'Iran 300 de ces tablettes. Le nombre de tablettes restantes, qui pourraient faire l'objet de cette vente aux enchères, n'a pas été précisé.

Début juillet, le chef de la diplomatie iranienne Manouchehr Mottaki avait menacé Washington de représailles si ces oeuvres d'art étaient effectivement mises aux enchères.

Plusieurs survivants d'un attentat suicide en 1997 à Jérusalem dans lequel cinq Américains avaient été tués, ont porté plainte contre le gouvernement iranien pour son soutien au Hamas et ont réclamé des dédommagements.

Ils ont déjà obtenu au titre de compensation la saisie d'une maison, proprité de l'Etat iranien, au Texas (sud) et de plusieurs "petits comptes bancaires". "Nous sommes choqués de voir que l'université de Chicago coopère avec l'Iran qui est sur la liste des Etats soutenant le terrorisme", a dit David Strachman, un avocat qui représente les victimes des attentats de 1997.

Gil Stein, directeur de l'Institut oriental de l'université de Chicago, a indiqué de son côté que son département "fera tout ce qui est en son pouvoir pour protéger un patrimoine culturel et de recherches universitaires". "C'est une question de principe pour nous et cela devrait l'être pour toute personne ou nation civilisée", a-t-il dit.

Ce cas est suivi avec appréhension par beaucoup de musées qui craignent que des objets de leurs collections puissent être saisis à la suite de plaintes contre des gouvernements étrangers qui soutiendraient des mouvements terroristes.

July 19, 2006, The NY Times

By ANEMONA HARTOCOLLIS

He was a retired business executive and an important collector of 20th-century art, living in a five-story town house on Sutton Place that had grown difficult for him to navigate, even with the elevator.

The retired executive, Norman Alexander, thought he had met the perfect guest and potential savior in a smooth-talking, charming and knowledgeable man named Tom Doyle.

Mr. Doyle told Mr. Alexander that he would handle all his affairs, selling both his house and his art collection, according to Mr. Alexander’s lawyer.

But in a story right out of the Broadway play “Six Degrees of Separation,” the perfect guest was unmasked yesterday as a swindler, “a talented con artist,” in the words of Robert M. Morgenthau, the Manhattan district attorney, who announced that Thomas Doyle had been indicted on grand larceny charges.

The tale of Mr. Alexander and Mr. Doyle shows that in the great tradition of New York con artists, from the lowliest sidewalk three-card monte players to those who stalk the more rarefied precincts of the Upper East Side, no one, no matter how sophisticated and worldly wise, is immune to the blandishments of a talented poseur.

Mr. Alexander, who is in his early 70’s, was single, childless and living alone in the elegant gray brick house at 19 Sutton Place, its bay windows and stone Medusa head half a block from the East River promenade, when an acquaintance introduced him to Tom Doyle in 2004.

Mr. Alexander had recently had a stroke, and the house, even with staff, was too big, his lawyer said. He had put it on the market through a reputable broker for $11 million, and the price certainly did not seem out of line.

Mr. Doyle, 48, carried a business card that identified him, despite his last name, as a member of the Duveen family, a descendant of Joseph Duveen, later Lord Duveen of Millbank. Lord Duveen (1869-1939) dominated the world art market during the 1920’s and 30’s, according to a biography, “Duveen: The Story of the Most Spectacular Art Dealer of All Time,” by S. N. Behrman and Glenn Lowry. Mr. Duveen’s firm sold art to the likes of Andrew Mellon, J. P. Morgan and Henry Clay Frick, so why not sell art for Norman Alexander, who had a substantial collection of 20th-century paintings and sculptures?

Mr. Doyle was not ostentatious, which only added to his credibility, said Robert S. Cohen, Mr. Alexander’s lawyer. He favored casual khakis, and was knowledgeable about art. “He walked the walk and talked the talk when it came to art,” Dan Castleman, chief of investigations for Mr. Morgenthau, said yesterday. But in fact, Mr. Castleman said, Mr. Doyle was self-taught in art.

He was an experienced con artist, “not an ingénu,” Mr. Morgenthau said. He said Mr. Doyle arrived in New York City near the end of 2001, after skipping parole in Kansas on a federal conviction for transporting stolen goods across state lines. Officials said he had swindled $200,000 in jewelry from a Tennessee woman, and served two years in prison.

Mr. Alexander entrusted Mr. Doyle with a Degas bronze of a nude dancer looking at the sole of her right foot, a piece that prosecutors said was worth $600,000. Mr. Doyle said he would buy the sculpture, and in February 2005, he wired a $100,000 down payment to Mr. Alexander’s lawyer. But when asked for the rest, he gave a variety of excuses — his father had died, he had broken his leg, according to court papers.

In fact, prosecutors said, Mr. Doyle had sold the dancer to a Manhattan art gallery for $225,000, a fraction of its true value. Within three months, according to court papers, it changed hands three more times, ending up in the hands of a collector in Hong Kong. Mr. Alexander finally grew suspicious and contacted the district attorney’s office.

In 2005, Mr. Alexander sued three Manhattan galleries, Spanierman Gallery, Universe Antiques and the Rafael Collection Ltd., demanding the return of the Degas or repayment of its value. The suit is still winding its way through the courts, and Gavin Spanierman, director of the Spanierman Gallery, the last gallery to have the Degas, has refused to disclose the name of the Hong Kong buyer, saying that customers’ identities are confidential. “I bought it in good faith and sold it in good faith,” he said yesterday.

Mr. Doyle did not enter a plea yesterday. As for Mr. Alexander, he referred questions to his lawyer, Mr. Cohen, who said: “Mr. Alexander hopes that this indictment will assist him in the return from Spanierman Gallery of this very important sculpture that he loved.”

Sarah Garland contributed reporting for this article.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/19/nyregion/19scam.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

A court ruling ordering ancient Persian clay tablets to be auctioned off as part of a terrorism lawsuit sends chills through museums.
By P.J. Huffstutter and Kasra Naji
Special to the Times

July 13, 2006, The LA Times

CHICAGO — For decades, scholars at the University of Chicago's Oriental Institute have painstakingly pieced together ancient clay tablets they had on loan from the government of Iran — deciphering the cuneiform writings and studying what these thousands of fragments revealed about the history of Persia.

But now, this treasure trove sits in the middle of a politically charged legal battle that has museum professionals worried about the willingness of other countries to loan artifacts to the U.S.

A federal court last month upheld a decision to seize and sell off the collection, in order to raise funds to compensate Americans injured in a terrorist attack in the Middle East. The reasoning, according to court documents, is that the Islamic Republic of Iran is a state sponsor of terrorism.

The lawsuit dates back to a 1997 attack in Israel, when suicide bombers attacked the Ben Yehuda mall in downtown Jerusalem. Five people were killed and more than 190 were injured. Hamas, the party that controls the current Palestinian government and has received some support from Iran, claimed responsibility for the bombing.

Some of the survivors were Americans, who filed suit in federal court in Chicago against Iran in 2001. They said that the country was responsible for their injuries because of its support of Hamas.

A federal judge in 2003 ruled in their favor and, when Iran didn't appear in court to fight the claim, awarded the survivors more than $400 million.

That opened the way for the plaintiffs to go after Iran's assets in America — including the collection of ancient Persian tablets.

Patty Gerstenblith, a professor of cultural property law at DePaul University College of Law in Chicago, said this was believed to be the first case to link cultural artifacts on loan to terrorism litigation.

"The question now becomes, 'How do you treat cultural artifacts? Are they to be seen like any other kind of property, like land?' " Gerstenblith said.

Attorneys for Iran, who appeared in federal court here Tuesday, are appealing the seizure. They claim they are protected by a legal principle known as sovereign immunity, which states that governments can't be sued like regular citizens.

A hearing in the case is slated for Monday in federal court in Chicago.

The Department of Justice has tried to intervene, by filing court documents claiming that the country's national interest would be better-served if the dispute were settled through diplomacy instead of legal action.

The University of Chicago and the Field Museum, a natural history museum in Chicago that also has a collection of ancient Persian artifacts from Iran, are defending the Islamic regime. Museum officials said they worried that turning over the on-loan artifacts could create a chilling effect, and were concerned that nations would curtail their willingness to share priceless objects — and that American artifacts could be at risk of being seized while touring overseas.

The decision also has sparked outrage among Iranian citizens, who fear the thorny relations between Iran and the U.S. could lead to an important part of their heritage being lost forever.

The tablets and other artifacts, which date back to the Achaemenid period (550 BC to 330 BC), were excavated in the 1930s by a team of U.S. archeologists digging near the site of Persepolis (in southern Iran).

Over the years, researchers in Chicago and in Iran discovered that the tablets were records of administrative details, including "salary and wages of government employees and workers, child benefit to mothers with babies, [and] offerings to gods and temples," said archeologist Shahrokh Razmjou.

Even the condition of the items offers a nod to the past: Some of them were broken when the army of Alexander the Great set fire to Persepolis in 330 BC, during the last of the wars between ancient Greeks and Persians.

Standing at a table in her windowless office in the basement of the Iran National Museum in Tehran, chief archeologist Zahra Jafar-Mohammadi carefully pulled out from a small wooden box a yellowish clay tablet, one that had been returned to Tehran from the Chicago museums. (University officials say that between 1948 and 2004, two-thirds of the collection was sent back.)

Most of the tablets are small enough to fit into the palm of a person's hand. Many were broken, forcing scientists to sift through thousands of shards to piece the tablets back together.

She's still waiting to see the estimated 5,000 tablets and 10,000 clay fragments that remain in Illinois.

"Auctioning off these pieces would be a catastrophe," Jafar-Mohammadi said.

*

Staff writer Huffstutter reported from Chicago and special correspondent Naji from Tehran.

http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/asection/la-na-antiques13jul13,1,3043784.story

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· Getty museum success inspires antiquities hunt
· We'll scour world to get them back, says minister

Helena Smith in Athens
Tuesday July 11, 2006
Guardian

Greece is to reclaim hundreds of looted art works and antiquities from museums and private collections around the world, the government said yesterday.
Emboldened by the J Paul Getty Museum's move to return two prized antiquities to Greek ownership, Athens had decided to demand more repatriations, said the culture minister, Giorgos Voulgarakis. A list is being made of items believed to have been illicitly removed.

"Whatever is Greek, wherever in the world, we want back," Mr Voulgarakis told the Guardian. "This development with the Getty is a very important step, but just the beginning." Asked how many works were in question, he said: "We're not talking about a handful, we're talking about hundreds of artefacts that have ended up in many different places."

Archaeologists and police will scour catalogues, museums, and private collections, and study documents in Greece and abroad. Byzantine icons as well as archaic and classical antiquities are expected to be among contested items. "We will only demand repatriation where there is very strong evidence it has been sold illegally," said one.

The move was announced 24 hours after Greece's accord with the Getty. The Los Angeles-based institution agreed to surrender the two sculptures - an ornate 2,400-year-old black limestone grave marker, and an archaic votive relief portraying two women bearing gifts to a goddess - after negotiations with Athens lasting less than three months.

The relief was stolen from the French archaeological school on the island of Thassos at the turn of the 20th century. It had been of special importance to the museum because of its association with J Paul Getty. The oil tycoon bought it to adorn his personal collection in 1955. The tombstone, engraved with the image of a dead warrior with the name Athanias, was illegally excavated near Thebes between 1992 and 1996. Athens had pressed for the return of the works for the past decade.

Announcing the agreement, Mr Voulgarakis said the artefacts could be back in Greece by early September. "Their return sets a precedent. It is a huge success both for Greece and other countries," he said. In a joint statement, the museum conceded that after an internal investigation it had decided to return the artefacts. But the minister said the battle was far from over. Athens also claims a fourth-century BC Macedonian gold funerary wreath, and a sixth-century BC marble kore, or statue of a young woman. Both are highlights of the Getty's antiquities collection. Greek officials say they were illicitly dug and smuggled out and sold to the museum in Europe.

Their repatriation is the focus of talks continuing until the end of next month, Mr Voulgarakis said. He did not exclude agreeing long-term loans to the museum: "In negotiations you have to be flexible."

Earlier this year Greece's art squad seized 300 artefacts in two Aegean villas, one belonging to the Getty's disgraced former antiquities curator, Marion True. She is on trial in Rome for allegedly knowingly purchasing stolen antiquities in Italy, and is also being investigated in Greece.

Stolen or saved?

The J Paul Getty Museum is not the first to be forced to return antiquities to their country of origin. In February the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York agreed to yield ownership of its famed Euphronios krater, purchased for $1m in 1971, along with 19 other disputed antiquities, to Italy. Italian prosecutors, who are demanding the return of 52 objects from the Getty, claim at least six other leading art institutions in the US have become repositories for looted artefacts. Egypt has also threatened a "big legal action" against the Saint Louis Art Museum if it does not return a 3,200-year-old mummy mask.

http://arts.guardian.co.uk/news/story/0,,1817586,00.html

By Michael Muskal, The LA Times

Times Staff Writer

9:27 AM PDT, July 10, 2006

After months of official and media examination of its collection of Greek and Roman art, the J. Paul Getty Trust has agreed to return two ancient works to Greece, it was announced today.

The announcement was issued this morning by the Getty trustees and the Greek Culture Ministry. The parties also agreed to hold talks about two additional works that Greece claims were illegally taken out of the country.

The two works to be returned are a sixth century B.C. Thasian marble relief showing women making an offering to a goddess and a fourth century B.C. carved tombstone from the Boeotian region of ancient Greece. The relief was stolen from a storeroom and the tombstone was illegally excavated, according to Greek officials.

Both works are on display at the Getty Villa in Malibu.

No date for the return was given.

The unanimous decision by the Getty board to return the works stems from a mid-May agreement between Greece Culture Minister Georgios A. Voulgarakis and Michael Brand, director of the J. Paul Getty Museum, according to the joint statement.

"The decision to return the items to the Hellenic Republic was based on an internal scholarly review by the J. Paul Getty Museum that concluded it was appropriate that the objects be returned," the statement said.

The parties also agreed to talks about two other works, a sixth century B.C. marble statue of a young woman and a fourth century B.C. gold funeral wreath. They will also discuss long-term loans of Greek antiquities to the Getty Museum.

In recent years, authorities in Greece and Italy have stepped up their efforts to reclaim looted antiquities, many of which have ended up in museums and private collections throughout the world.

"This is just the beginning," Voulgarakis said in Athens. "I believe that in the future we will have very good results concerning other antiquities whose return we are seeking."

Last month, the Getty said a tentative agreement was reached in negotiations with Italian authorities over allegedly illegally obtained antiquities. Italy has been negotiating for the return of dozens of artifacts.

http://www.calendarlive.com/galleriesandmuseums/la-071006getty,0,1042927.story?coll=cl-art-features