Etruscan tripod

Etruscan tripod

In 1996 the Getty Museum returned a fifth-century BCE Etruscan bronze tripod after Italian authorities provided evidence that it had been stolen from a well-known Italian private collection.

According to the Italian repatriation demand, the bronze tripod – along with a bronze candelabrum also in the Getty's collection – had been stolen from the Guglielmi collection in Italy. Compiled by the marquises of Guglielmi in the early nineteenth century, the collection comprised over 800 antiquities derived from early excavations at the Etruscan city of Vulci. Half of the collection belonged to the Vatican Museum, while the other half remained with the Guglielmi family until 1987, when it too was acquired by the Vatican.

It is unclear when and under what circumstances the tripod was stolen from the Guglielmi collection, but both pieces were in Switzerland by May 1987, when Getty curator Marion True viewed them in the Geneva warehouse of antiquities trafficker Giacomo Medici.

Shortly after this visit, the tripod and candelabrum were sent to the Getty for consideration. The works were shipped as the property of Swiss conservator and dealer Fritz Bürki, who allegedly provided the false cover for their origin outside of Italy. Both pieces were later sent to Atlantis Antiquities, a New York gallery headed by Medici associates Robert Hecht and Jonathan Rosen, which sold the tripod to the Getty for $80,000 in 1990.

The museum published an image the tripod in its acquisitions bulletin that year, and placed it on exhibit it in the galleries. The tripod soon drew the attention of Italian authorities, however, who recognized it as a missing work from the Guglielmi collection and demanded its return. The Getty repatriated the tripod to Italy in November 21, 1996, but retained the bronze candelabrum until 2005, when it relinquished the piece in light of evidence produced during the criminal trial of Marion True.

1

Equipment – weapons, helmets, tools, musical instruments

Etruscan

J. Paul Getty Museum

90.AC16

Italy

Peter Watson & Cecilia Todeschini. The Medici conspiracy: the illicit journey of looted antiquities from Italy's tombs to the world's greatest museums, New York: Public Affairs, 2006.

Lisa Duffy-Zeballos

Jason Felch