Italy will return statue to Libya
Italy will return to Libya an ancient Roman statue taken from its former North African colony, a gesture Rome hopes will help its own campaign to retrieve allegedly looted antiquities from museums worldwide.
The 2nd century statue of the goddess Venus was found in 1913 by Italian troops near the ruins of the Greek and Roman settlement of Cyrene, on the Libyan coast, the Culture Ministry said Tuesday. It is now housed in Rome’s National Roman Museum.
Libyan authorities requested the statue in 1989, but a protracted judicial battle ensued with a group that considered the work part of Italy’s cultural heritage. Last week, a court ruled in favor of returning the statue to Tripoli, the ministry said in a statement. No date has been set for the return.
New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art and Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts have agreed to return antiquities to Italy, but negotiations with the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles have been stalled for months.
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