Italy: 14th June 2018:    Getty bronze to be seized rules italian court:

An Italian court ruled this month that a Greek bronze, found in the open waters of the Adriatic by Italian fisherman, and now standing in the Getty Villa in Los Angeles, belongs to Italy and should be returned there. The work, also known as, “Statue of a Victorious Youth”, is once again embroiled in a legal battle over its rightful home.

The statue is thought to have either been inspired or created by Lysippus, the renowned Greek sculptor, and is one of the few life size bronzes to have survived, dating to roughly 300 to 100 B.C.

The Getty, sending a clear signal that it intends to keep the statue and to continue the litigation, said that it will not be deterred by the latest ruling and will file another appeal with Italy‘s highest judicial authority, the Court of Cassation.

Getty said that the accidental discovery of the statue by Italian citizens does not make the statue an Italian object as it was found outside the territory of any modern state, and immersed in the sea for two millenniums. Hence, it is claimed, that the bronze has only a fleeting and incidental connection with Italy.

The statue was discovered submerged in a shipwreck in 1964 by fishermen from Fano, a town on the Italian coast. It is likely that the statue had been carried out of Greece by Romans, whose ship was lost at sea. The fishermen later sold it, and it was shipped out of the country and became the subject of subsequent sales. It was purchased in 1977 from a German dealer by The Getty Trust for $3.95 million.

A 1939 Italian law states that Italy owns any antiquity discovered on its territory and that any ancient work requires a government export licence to be shipped out of the country The Getty has maintained that the discovery of the work in the sea puts it outside Italy’s jurisdiction - and several judges in Italy have, in various rulings, agreed or disagreed with that position.

In the1960s the Italian authorities brought charges against the Italian dealers who first purchased the sculpture from the fishermen. The Court of Appeals of Rome overturned the convictions on the grounds that there was no proof that the item had any value or that it was discovered in Italy.

In 1989, the Italian government asked the Getty to return the item, and in 2007 the Italian cultural ministry struck a deal with the Getty Trust to return more than 40 pieces to Greece and Italy because of questions regarding provenance.

However, the “Victorious Youth” was claimed by the two sides and the battle moved again into the Italian court system where in 2010, an Italian court demanded the statue be seized in a case where it was debated whether the Getty Trust had done its proper due diligence before acquiring the statue.

The Getty Trust appealed to the Court of Cassation, who relayed it back to the regional court, which then upheld the decision in 2012. After several more hearings and appeals the latest decision from the local court in Pesaro, near where the fishermen first returned with the statue in their boat, judged that the Getty must return the bronze.

The Italian culture minister, Alberto Bonisoli, suggested on Thursday that a request would be made to the United States government to seize the statue from The Getty if the Court of Cassation rules in favor of the statue’s return. He did, however, express hope that Italy and the Getty would be able to reach an agreement on returning the statue “through reciprocally advantageous terms.”

United States Justice Department declined to comment on the recovery of an artwork which is the subject of a repatriation claim.