The return of antiquities a blow to Getty - Forty disputed artworks that are hallmarks of the museum's collection will be returned to Italy in end to a long legal fight.

After months of impasse, the breakthrough came with a flurry of faxes late Tuesday. Of the 46 pieces Italy had demanded, the museum agreed to send back its signature statue of Aphrodite, 10 other masterpieces and more than two dozen other important vases and sculptures.

The objects are expected to be taken off display in the fall, museum officials said, and returned to Italy by the end of the year. The exception is the Aphrodite statue, which will remain at Getty Villa, the Getty's recently renovated antiquities museum near Malibu, until December 2010.

Italian Culture Minister Francesco Rutelli, speaking to reporters Wednesday evening at the Parliament, where he was attending to other business, said the deal with the Getty was "an agreement of historic value."

Getty Museum Director Michael Brand also welcomed the accord, which came after two years of often-rocky negotiations.

But he acknowledged the settlement's toll on the Getty's collection of Greek, Roman and Etruscan antiquities, considered one of the best in the country.

"It will change the status," he said Wednesday. "We're losing great masterpieces. In other cases we're losing smaller, less aesthetically important items, but which might be a linchpin of a particular display."

Many of the objects are now prominently exhibited at the Villa.

The 7 1/2 -foot marble and limestone Aphrodite is the focal point of the Gods and Goddesses gallery on the Villa's ground floor. A statue of Apollo that the museum agreed to return dominates the first-floor Basilica gallery.

The painted sculpture "Griffons Attacking a Fallen Doe" greets visitors as they exit the second-story elevators.

The agreement came after both parties agreed to postpone discussion about the Getty bronze, a 4th-century BC statue of an athlete, whose fate had been a sticking point in the negotiations.

As part of the deal, Italy has agreed to make long-term loans from its museums to the Getty, which Brand said would help plug holes left by the returns.