Getty to Return 3 Acquisitions to Italy

The J. Paul Getty Museum announced Wednesday that it will give three objects from its collection of antiquities to the Italian government because the works may at some time have been stolen from Italy. Although the artworks--an important Greek vase illustrating the Trojan War, a torso of the Persian god Mithra and a Roman head of an athlete--were acquired individually in good faith by the Getty over the last 17 years, museum officials have determined, through their own investigations, that the vase was illegally excavated, the torso was stolen from a private collection and the Roman head was taken from the storeroom of a scientific excavation. The Getty would not reveal the value of the artworks.

In announcing the move, museum officials said they are acting on their own initiative, unprompted by the Italian government. Circumstances of the artworks' history and travels remain uncertain at best, and Getty officials said they are taking the action because of persuasive information recently compiled by the museum's staff or presented by independent scholars.

Questions about the rightful ownership of cultural property have become increasingly urgent during the last few years, whether the issue is artifacts stolen by peasants from grave sites or Old Masters paintings confiscated by the Nazis. But the museum's decision to remove three works from its collection is a graphic illustration of the Getty's continuing attempt to position itself as a model of ethical behavior in the notoriously shady world of collecting antiquities.

"I admire the Getty for taking this progressive stance," said Guy Hedreen, a specialist in Athenian vase painting who is head of the art department at Williams College in Williamstown, Mass. "The [Getty's vase] is one of the most important Greek vases I've ever seen. For the Getty to return that is a courageous move."

The museum's action is also likely to ease tension in a field in which scholars despair over artworks acquired with no documented histories, Hedreen said. "The Getty is a lot more than a museum that acquires art and puts it on display. It's the most important institution of its kind in the United States; it has become a big player in academia."

As an unusually wealthy, high-profile institution, the museum has often been accused of harboring fakes and stolen objects. Studies of a few of the 40,000 pieces in the museum's antiquities collection have proved them to be modern copies or left their authenticity open to question, but the museum has never been found guilty of knowingly acquiring stolen or illegally exported property.