Collector to Return Antiquities to Greece

[Angelo]

Collector to Return Antiquities to Greece


Compiled by Julie Bloom
Published: July 12, 2008
Six months after reaching a similar agreement with Italy, the New York collector Shelby White, right, will hand over two antiquities to Greece that the Greek government says were illegally excavated and exported from the country. In a statement on Friday, the Greek Culture Ministry and a spokesman for Ms. White said she had acquired the objects in good faith. The antiquities will be transported to Greece this month and exhibited at the National Archaeological Museum in Athens before being sent to museums in the regions from which they are thought to have been taken. One object is the upper part of a grave marker dating from the early part of the fourth century B.C. The lower part was found in the early 1960s in a legal excavation in Porto Rafti in Attica and is currently in the Vravrona Archaeological Museum. The two parts will be exhibited together. The other object is a bronze calyx krater dating from around 340 B.C. that Greek archaeologists say was probably found in illegal excavations of a royal tomb. Countries like Greece and Italy have waged an aggressive campaign in recent years to recover artifacts from museums and private collectors that they contend were looted. Ms. White agreed in January to return 10 classical antiquities to Italy.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/12/ar....html?ref=arts