Status of New Getty Acquisition Stirs International Furor

News that Italian police are investigating the possibility that a classical Greek statue recently acquired by the J. Paul Getty Museum might have been smuggled out of Sicily a decade ago has caused an international uproar.

(On Friday, an Italian magistrate said he believed the Aphrodite sculpture bought by the Getty for $20 million was not stolen from Sicily as indicated in earlier reports this week, but the case there is awaiting final evaluation.)

Meanwhile, the Aphrodite affair has raised questions about museum policies of acquiring antiquities.

What is the procedure for purchasing a rare and valuable work?

How does the process of acquiring antiquities differ from buying more recent works of art?

Do the Getty’s policies, for example, correspond to those of other major museums?

Why are museums, especially the Getty, so secretive about where works of art are bought and how much is spent?

Museums typically make private purchases only after a series of meetings. At the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, for example, curators present proposed acquisitions in monthly meetings with the director who then takes approved pieces to the board of trustees’ acquisitions and exhibitions committee and finally to the full board.

Such matters are generally resolved on the basis of budgets and aesthetics, but in the case of antiquities, questions about authenticity and legal ownership can cloud the process. And even the most prestigious institutions get burned.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York recently revealed that its beloved Egyptian bronze cat is a fake. The Dallas Museum of Art and the St. Louis Museum both got stung by purchases of pre-Columbian forgeries.

After insistent challenges and an ongoing battery of tests, the Getty itself may have to declare that one of its prized possessions, a monumental head attributed to Greek sculptor Skopas, is not his work.

But a sampling of museum officials across the country indicates that the Getty not only adheres to nationally accepted regulations, it takes more precautions and requires more documentation than is customary.

“One hears from dealers that because of the Getty’s stringent codes it is difficult to do business with them. They require an incredible amount of disclosures,” said one source who declined to be identified.

Issues of ownership can be complicated. In one highly publicized case, Thailand is currently seeking the return of an 800-year-old stone carving from the Art Institute of Chicago, presented as the gift of the Alsdorf Foundation. The Thai government claims that the piece was stolen during the Vietnam War.

All Greek antiquities displayed in American and European museums have been uprooted from their countries of origin, usually years ago when export regulations were less stringent or nonexistent. Objects that come on the market today rarely have full pedigrees and customs papers, experts say, so prospective purchasers must rely on dealers or do their own research to avoid buying pieces that might be on record as stolen property.

The Getty’s practice of seeking information about proposed acquisitions from countries of probable origin is standard among museums that collect antiquities. But no other American institution engages in this process so frequently as the Getty because none can afford to vigorously compete in a field where scarceness drives prices into the stratosphere.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art recently bought a Greek water jug at auction but prefers to get antiquities donated.

“We try to receive antiquities as gifts from private collections,” said Ashton Hawkins, executive vice president and counsel to the Met’s board of directors. Gifts help the budget but also tend to eliminate questions of provenance, particularly if the work has been in one collection for many years.

Unlike the Getty, the Met seldom queries foreign ministries of culture about proposed acquisitions, Hawkins said. “Generally speaking, you have the warranty of a dealer” that indicates he has a clear title. “That is what a dealer is supposed to do, deliver a good title.”

Earl A. Powell, director of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, concurred. In rare cases the museum might request information from a foreign ministry, he said, “but generally you just rely on the good faith of a reputable dealer and follow a very standard operating procedure. What you don’t do is buy out of trunks of Fiats parked in the alleys of Naples.”

Like other museums contacted, the County Museum of Art requires of dealers “a signed warranty that the object is not stolen property, that there are no liens or encumbrances against it and that the dealer has full title to it,” Powell said.

The County Museum does not have special acquisition policies for antiquities. According to Powell, the museum acquires about 50 or 60 antiquities a year, only three or four of them of particular importance and nothing to compare with the Getty statue.

“To the extent possible, we acquire no work of art exported from a country contrary to its laws. It should be legally exported and imported. The ideal thing is to have customs certificates,” but they are not always available, Powell said.

In addition to submitting inquiries of countries of probable origin prior to acquiring its sculpture, Getty officials say that they took the extra precaution of filing similar requests with agencies that keep records of art thefts, including Interpol and the Italian carabinieri , who are currently investigating the sculpture.

Hawkins said the Met never follows this procedure, “because we have no presumption that anything we consider for acquisition would be stolen. Generally in a field this small and involving objects of such importance, a theft would be instantly known.”

The current investigation of the Getty revolves around a rumored theft in 1979, not a documented crime. But the history of questionable deals in the international art world shows that the plundering of national treasures is a reality that police have been unable to stop. As prices rise, so does the motivation for thievery, experts say.

Museums generally try to keep details of their purchases confidential, but public sales trumpet record prices around the world. In keeping with its policy, the Getty did not reveal the $20-million price of its controversial statue, but the amount appeared on customs forms made public during the investigation.

“We don’t really want people to know what we pay for things,” said Hawkins, echoing the replies of other museum officials on matters of confidentiality. “It serves no interest. In fact it hurts us in terms of the marketplace if people know what we are paying and who we are buying from,” he said.

Despite efforts to maintain a low profile, the Getty has become a highly visible player in a dwindling market that is increasingly troubled by questions about the ethics of displaying one country’s culture in another land.

“It’s a very complicated issue,” said Hawkins, who served on the panel of the American Society of International Law, which worked out the current law defining U.S. policy on the patrimony of antiquities. The Cultural Property Implementation Act was adopted by U.S. Senate in 1972 but not passed into law until 1983. “It was so controversial that it took 11 years to pass,” Hawkins said.

A lengthy debate pitted “archeologists who oppose all exports from countries of an object’s origin” against “dealers who want free trade,” while museums were stuck in the middle, Hawkins said.

Sacred and historic sites--from Turkey to Peru to the American Southwest--have been raided for centuries, but the issue of repatriation has heated up in the last decade. “Countries of origin are increasingly sensitive and feel put on the spot” if major pieces of their cultural heritage are on the market,” Hawkins said. “It’s a matter of national pride.”

As a result, “UNESCO increasingly calls for repatriation, although Western countries don’t necessarily comply,” he said.

The United States honors UNESCO’s rulings, but a country making a claim must show that it has made a good-faith effort to regulate its antiquities at home and cooperate with other countries on matters of repatriation, Hawkins said. The situation is “highly erratic,” however, because some countries “pay lip service but have no internal regulation while others try to comply completely.”

Questions of provenance and repatriation also concern museums that do not collect antiquities, such as the Smithsonian Institution. “If there is any question about the provenance of a proposed acquisition, the museum director must determine that the object has not been stolen or wrongfully acquired” by contacting the country of probable origin to determine the object’s status, said Linda St. Thomas, assistant director of public affairs at the Smithsonian. “If the object is found to be part of the country’s patrimony, the Smithsonian will take appropriate steps to see that it is repatriated.”

Some museum officials feel that the tide toward repatriation is so strong that collecting antiquities is almost impossible. Others say that investigations such as that involving the Getty statue are a predictable reaction to national embarrassment.

“Everything bought in the first world is suspect. It’s difficult for museums to function within that environment,” Hawkins said.

Times intern Kristin Olson contributed to this article.