ITALY: Moving to end a long and embarrassing dispute over scores of allegedly looted antiquities, the J Paul Getty Trust has reached a deal to return to Italy "a number of very significant" pieces, including several of the Los Angeles museum's masterpieces, representatives for both sides said.
A joint statement released by the Getty and Italian officials on Wednesday did not say how many objects would be returned nor which ones. But it did provide that Italy would lend Roman and Etruscan objects to the Getty that are "of comparable visual beauty and historical importance".
The Italians have been demanding that the Getty return 52 items, including a 2,400-year-old marble statue of the goddess Aphrodite, a prized feature of the museum's collection.
Getty officials have acknowledged that there is substantial evidence that some items in the museum were looted from Italian sites and should be returned, but they have appeared less willing to relinquish the Aphrodite statue.
A final agreement "which will include mutual collaboration, research and the exchange of important antiquities" is expected to be concluded shortly, the statement said.
The Getty, the world's wealthiest art institution, could be of substantial help to the Italians on art conservation and research.
A deal with the Getty would be the capstone so far in a campaign by Italy to end the smuggling of its vast trove of antiquities to the world's top museums and private collections, a clandestine operation spanning generations and continents.
Until recently, officials here acknowledge, Italy had turned a blind eye to such plunder. Earlier this year, the Italians reached a similar deal with New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art that involved the return of one of the Met's best-known antiquities.
The Italian Culture Ministry is in discussions with Boston's Museum of Fine Arts and the Princeton University museum for the return of suspect antiquities, and Italian authorities say they will be approaching other major US institutions in the future.
The Getty agreement must be ratified by the museum's board of trustees. It also lacks the imprimatur of a key member of the Italian negotiation team, Maurizio Fiorilli, who has maintained the most hardline, all-or-nothing stance among the Italian negotiators.
Mr Fiorilli, a lawyer for the Culture Ministry, said earlier this week that 33 items would be added to the list of Italy's demands. However, other participants said, that the original 52 was the number under negotiation.
The deal on Wednesday was reached only after Mr Fiorilli left the negotiations for a medical appointment.
Mr Fiorilli's boss, new culture minister Francesco Rutelli, has been keen to reach an accord, seen as a political victory early in his tenure.
"For us the most important thing is that the Getty for the first time recognises our demands," a Rutelli spokesman said. The broad outlines of the proposed deal conform to the terms of the accord between Italy and the Metropolitan, which in February agreed to return 21 pieces in exchange for loans.
But as with the Met agreement, Getty's deal leaves many details unresolved. Among the "major issues" that remain, one source involved in the talks said, are the mechanism for exchanging items and how to determine which piece Italy would lend to the Getty.
The statement said Italy and the Getty would collaborate on joint exhibitions, "which will maximise the potential of the newly-renovated Getty Villa, the only art museum in the United States dedicated to the art and culture of ancient Italy and Greece".
For the Getty, resolving the dispute has been both urgent and especially tricky, in part because of the large number of items Italy has claimed and also because of the criminal prosecution of the museum's former antiquities curator, Marion True.
Ms True is standing trial on charges of conspiring to acquire illegally excavated works of ancient art.
She has pleaded not guilty but was forced to step down from her job.