Getty signs deal to return 2 Greek items

The Getty Museum and Greek officials have settled details of a tentative July agreement that will send two of the museum’s disputed antiquities back to Greece. But two other contested items remain in limbo.

Under the deal signed Sunday, the Getty is returning a Boetian stele that dates to the 4th century BC and a Thasian relief that is about 100 years older.

The Getty bought the stele through a New York dealer in 1993, museum director Michael Brand said, and the relief was bought by J. Paul Getty himself in 1955.

Both items were removed from display in July. They’ll go back to Greece “toward the end of the month,” Brand said.

Like Italian officials who have long contended that the Getty has more than 50 items that left Italy illegally, Greek officials have contended for a decade that the relief and stele were looted. Getty officials said they had never knowingly bought looted items, but they also said that “an internal scholarly review ... concluded it was appropriate” to return these two.

Brand said the deal was signed after a Getty visit by Hellenic Ministry of Culture officials on Thursday and Friday. The Getty and the Greeks will talk further about the two other contested items, Brand said, including a gold funerary wreath. Both items were bought in 1993.

Brand noted that that conversation could include discussion of future loans from Greece to the Getty.

Earlier this year, Greek law enforcement officials raised the prospect of criminal prosecutions over the looted items -- a step that Italy has already taken in its trial of former Getty antiquities curator Marion True.

Brand said the museum had been negotiating with cultural officials, not law enforcement, but added that “when you sign and return objects, you’re seeking closure on those objects.”