February 26, 2006
Met allowed to keep disputed bowl until January '08
 Terms of the the Metropolitan Museum of Art's agreement with Italian officials over looted art will allow several of the key pieces to remain in New York for the next two to four years, according to a statement from the Met.
The museum will return the bulk of the disputed items "as expeditiously as possible" but the most valuable pieces will get the extended visit. From the Met's statement:
... the Italian Culture Ministry has officially agreed that the Metropolitan may keep on view the 2,500-year-old Attic krater by the potter Euxitheos and the painter Euphronios until January 2008, some nine months after the scheduled April 2007 opening of the Museum's new galleries for Etruscan, Hellenistic, and Roman art. The collection of Hellenistic silver will remain at the Metropolitan until 2010 in a newly designed treasury. The bowl, described by the museum of one of the finest of its kind, shows Sarpedon, a Trojan War hero, lifted by Sleep and Death on one side, and youths arming for battle on the other.
The agreement, which states that all the items "were acquired by the Museum in good faith," will give the museum future loans of Italian works "of equivalent beauty and importance" for up to four years each.
Though the intrigue with the museum may not end here, despite director's Philippe de Montebello promise that the Met will not accept any new loans or gifts of antiquities sullied with legal disputes, according to Bloomberg News. From the story:At least three members of the Met's board or its curator- appointed committees have bought smuggled artifacts for their personal collections, according to rulings in three Italian and U.S. cases since 1999. Earlier: Met Museum agrees to return stolen art to Italy
Italy frustrated by Met Museum's delay on 'looted' art
Museums and museum goers complicit in art thefts?
Italy says Met Museum agrees to return looted art
Italians seek meeting with Met Museum on looted art
February 26, 2006 09:11 AM in Museums, Sightsology, Upper East Side
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