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White Knight
A source working with Italy’s carabinieri says I got it wrong in my post last week about antiquities collector Shelby White’s negotiations with the governments of Italy and Greece, two countries that claim her collection includes objects looted from their soil. “Shelby initiated the negotiations and that they are progressing,” says this source. “The opening [of the Metropolitan’s new antiquities galleries] will not be like the Getty Villa when [Getty curator Marion] True resigned and [antiquities collector, donor and Getty trustee] Barbara Fleischman left, too.” Let’s hope that’s true for New York City’s sake. True ended up on trial in Rome alongside Robert Hecht, the well-born dealer who sold the Metropolitan Museum the Euphronios krater, the famous ‘hot pot,’ as former Met director Thomas Hoving memorably called it–among other treasures. Speaking of Hoving, word is he’s putting the final touches on his latest memoir, The Artful Tommy. If past performance is any indication, it will ruffle feathers all along Fifth Avenue and prove as popular as King Tut.
April 5th, 2007 at 4:41 pm
[…] I’ve posted on this before here and here (and as an aside, Mead’s article confirms my report that Metropolitan trustee Shelby White is negotiating with Italy for the return of disputed objects in her collection). I am not at all one of absolutists who feel that encyclopaedic museums should be emptied of their contents. But neither should they be enabled to roll over their opponents like tanks. […]