Crime: The Medici of the title of this book has nothing whatever to do with the Florentine Medici, munificent art collectors and patrons through several centuries. No, he is Giacomo Medici, a Geneva-based dealer in mainly Greek and Roman antiquities who is now sitting it out in an Italian jail having been sentenced last year to 10 years for trading illegally in looted sculptures, vases, and other artefacts.
Thousands of people, from tomb-robbers to dealers to collectors are involved in this trade but Medici was perhaps the most important. The interest evoked by his being sentenced stemmed from the fact that his clients included Sotheby's, the Getty, the Metropolitan, other major museums, and the few really big private collectors of such works of art.
Medici was fined heavily, his stock confiscated, and he was ordered to pay €10 million in damages to the Italian government. The judge also announced a list of objects that were to be confiscated (from the Getty and elsewhere) and returned to Italy. The Italians, it seems, have got serious about a traffic that has been going on for centuries and to prove the point, the former curator of antiquities at the Getty, Marion True, is currently on trial in Rome together with Robert Hecht, a US dealer and middleman trading from Europe. British dealer Robin Symes has already served time in Pentonville.
Although some few antiquities are stolen to order from private collectors and even museums, most of the objects concerned are found by illegal excavation of ancient sites. The tomb robbers - tombaroli - far from being simple peasants tilling their land, as is often pretended, are professional in their work and they have links with a pyramidical network of individuals who can sell on the objects at ever ascending prices. It is an enormous business. In Turkey, between 1993 and 1995, there were more than 17,500 official police investigations into stolen antiquities; in Greece, police reported that they had recovered 23,000 artefacts between 1987 and 2001; and in Italy, which was the first country to have a specific police force for art and archaeological crime, 180,000 works of art and more than 350,000 antiquities have been recovered since the squad was established in 1969. In addition, charges have been brought against 12,000 people. Greece this month also announced that it will now actively seek the return of more looted art works and antiquities.
When Giacomo Medici was caught and the tens of thousands of objects in his Geneva warehouse impounded, the Art Squad of the Italian carabinieri (with the permission of the Swiss authorities) came upon an enormous amount of evidence, including dossiers of photos which documented the "provenance" of items from muddy tombs to showcases in the Metropolitan Museum and elsewhere. It is a squalid and unscrupulous trade. Greek vases are sold, fragment by fragment over a number of years, and usually to the same museum or collector. The pieces are assembled, the vase "restored", and then it is exhibited to the public as in perfect condition. Wall paintings are hacked from their interiors and also sold off piece by piece, with the more attractive details fetching the highest prices. Marble sculptures too are reassembled and restored and their original patination disguised.
It is sometimes argued by those opposed to restrictions on the antiquities market that, in conducting their illegal excavations, the tombaroli are performing a helpful service in bringing to light valuable archaeological material which would otherwise be unknown to us. This is a very spurious argument. The aesthetic quality of any antiquity is only one aspect of its value. Just as important are the circumstances of its excavation: where the object was found and its context vis-à-vis the other items discovered alongside. An examination and record of these aspects is vital to our understanding of the object itself. Yet the tombaroli - and the dealers - must, almost by definition, go out of their way to conceal these details for fear of the illegality of their activity being discovered.
"Provenance" is essential to the integrity of any antiquity yet, as the authors of this book point out, it is this documentation that is frequently missing from scholarly catalogues of private and public collections; and that is because the works concerned have all been looted.
Peter Watson is an investigative journalist who has written several books highlighting iniquities in the art world. His tone in The Medici Conspiracy is indignant and he is scandalised by what he has uncovered. Piecing the evidence together, he tells his story well and is lightly informative about such technicalities as the painting styles of Attic vases and the difference between a Corinthian olpe and an oinochoe. As she sits out her trial in Rome, which is expected to last at least two years, I doubt if Marion True will derive much pleasure from the fact that Watson and Todeschini have assembled such a catalogue of wickedness.
Homan Potterton was director of the National Gallery of Ireland, 1980-88 and editor of Irish Arts Review, 1993-2002
The Medici Conspiracy: The Illicit Journey of Looted Antiquities Peter Watson and Cecilia Todeschini PublicAffairs, 379pp. $26.95