Under the proposal, the Met would accept no liability for acquiring objects determined to have been looted, maintaining that it bought them in good faith. In documents delivered yesterday in Rome by the Met’s lawyers after weeks of negotiations, the museum pledged to return the vase, known as the Euphronios krater 15 pieces of Hellenistic silver and four other vessels from the Classical era to Italy in exchange for long-term loans of other prized antiquities. The Italians have long contended that the vase was stolen from an Etruscan tomb near Rome and smuggled from the country. Reversing a position it has held for more than 30 years, the Metropolitan Museum of Art said yesterday that it would relinquish ownership of a 2,500-year-old Greek vase, considered one of the world’s finest, to Italy. Met Sending Vase to Italy, Ending 30-Year Dispute This offer is not dissimilar to the offers that Greece has regularly made to the British Museum. The deal that the Met is offering involves the exchange on long-term loan of other artefacts from Italy, as part of an offer put forward by the Italian government. Many were discovered by foreign-led excavation teams (or looters), without whom the item would never have been found in the first place.Ending thirty years of arguments, the Metropolitan Museum in New York has agreed to return a vase (known as the Euphronios Krater) to Italy. Some objects were plundered, but some traded for, some given as gifts.
The past is messy, confused and how we have arrived at today is neither simple, nor black and white.
She claims, “It would be ludicrous to suggest every tiny pot and statuette across the continent needs to be re-litigated” – but that is precisely the issue if someone else has a claim to it, the precedent of the Elgin Marbles, if returned, strengthens the case for repatriation at the request of the claimant, not diminishes it. When listing the arguments against the repatriation of the marbles, she missed the strongest one: repatriation is a Pandora’s Box and will have unforeseen and unpleasant consequences, due to the complexities of a murky past. Sir, – There is a flaw in Finn McRedmond's argument on who history belongs to, as exemplified by the Elgin Marbles debate, and how Ireland is not immune from this issue ( Opinion, November 25th).
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