COLLECTION OF LOOTED ANTIQUITIES DISCOVERED IN GENEVA FREEPORT

Nick Squires reports in the Telegraph that a trove of Roman and Etruscan antiquities that was previously owned by British art dealer, Robin Symes—who was sent to prison in 2005 for contempt of court and who has long been suspected of having dealt in looted antiquities—has been discovered hidden in a freeport in Geneva. The antiquities were found inside forty-five crates and have been there for fifteen years in boxes labeled with the name of an offshore company. Among the pieces in the boxes are two life-size Etruscan sarcophaguses, dating from the second century before Christ. There are also fragments of a fresco from Pompeii, as well as terracotta pots, decorated vases, busts, and bas-reliefs. These items are suspected as having been looted from such archaeological sites as the tombs in the ancient Etruscan city of Tarquinia, in the hills north of Rome, by tomb raiders. Prosecutors in Geneva claim they are “exceptional pieces (which were taken from) clandestine excavations.”

The crates were discovered by a specialist unit of Italy’s Carabinieri police dealing with art crimes, in collaboration with the Swiss authorities. Their investigation of these pieces dates back to March 2014, when the Italians first began to suspect that looted antiquities might be kept in storage in Geneva, and was taken up by the public prosecutor’s office of Geneva. The antiquities have been returned to Rome and are to be unveiled at a press conference later this week.

The J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles, the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City have all returned antiquities that they acquired through Symes due to fears that they were originally obtained by him illicitly.