Marion True on trial

Here's more on a major case, previously noted here:

A case about to go to court in Italy could have far-reaching implications for museum curators and their relationships with the murky world of international art dealers.

On Thursday, a judge in Rome will be called on to decide whether Marion True, curator of Antiquities for the J. Paul Getty Museum in Malibu, California, should stand trial on charges of conspiracy to deal in stolen antiquities, receiving stolen goods and conspiring to export stolen antiquities.

Her co-defendants in the case are the antiquities dealers Emanuel Robert Hecht, an American citizen operating in Europe, and Giacomo Medici, a Rome native with business interests in Switzerland and whom police investigators describe as an important international trafficker in archaeological artifacts. A Swiss man has also been charged.

"This case will have repercussions on our relationship with the Getty, but I think also on the relationship between the Getty and other Mediterranean countries," said Giuseppe Proietti, director-general for archaeology at the Italian Culture Ministry. "It brings to light the whole question of commissioning that's behind the illicit trafficking of art works."

Posted by David on December 3, 2003 2:11 PM