Posted September 08, 2022 at 6:04 pm
When New York City hunts for stolen works of art – © Grant Faint
The American press learned on Wednesday 6 September that the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York (most often abbreviated to “Met”), a true institution in the art world, was the subject of two searches in mid-July which led to the seizure of 22 antiquities.
With a total value of $ 11 million, this lot of objects, including a sculpture of a Hindu mother goddess from the mid-6th century.And century and a marble head of Athena, it would have passed through several networks of art traffickers before being exhibited in the galleries of the Met.
Several of the names of the criminals involved were cited by the American inspectors, including that of the British Robin Symes, a merchant who fell from grace after being convicted of concealment in 2005, and that of the Italian Gianfranco Becchina, considered by all specialists “the godfather. of the art mafia “.
Six searches in a year …
This is not the first seizure of works of art directly affecting the Met’s collections. Since 2017, the museum has been the subject of nine searches (six of which have been ordered in the last twelve months). A particularly embarrassing accumulation for the institution, which sees its prestigious image gradually tarnish.
One of these searches led, last May, to the seizure of five objects of Egyptian origin. Five antiquities that, according to Alvin Bragg (New York State Attorney for Manhattan), were looted from archaeological sites in Egypt during the Arab Spring of 2011, before being auctioned by the Parisian company “Pierre Bergé & Associés” at Met, between 2013 and 2015. An organized scam that led to the arrest and indictment of nine people in France, including the former director of the Louvre, Jean-Luc Martinez.
700 works returned in 14 countries
These seizures at the Met are part of a vast campaign for the restitution of antiquities, carried out for two years by the New York State justice. Between 2020 and 2022 – the last restitution ceremonies with Italian and Egyptian representatives took place a few days ago – almost 700 works were returned in fourteen countries.
These pieces have been recovered from various galleries in the Big Apple, but also from important collectors such as the billionaire Michael Steinhardt, who had to deliver to the authorities almost 180 stolen works for a total value estimated at 70 million dollars …
