Pasquale Camera’s handwritten “organigram,” found by investigators in Danilo Zicchi’s apartment.
Forensic Archaeology in the Freeport
This is a fuller list of the specific comments on particular objects as drawn up by Professor Bartoloni and her colleagues during their inspection of the contents of Corridor 17. Some details are repeated from the main text. Specialist archaeologists are referred to the actual fifty-eight-page report.
Among the Medici objects were:
• An iron age fibula (ninth century BC) with a stirrup-shaped disk, the arch part covered in a twisted gold thread. The fibula is aptly described as the “grandmother” of the safety pin, but its use was rather more dramatic in antiquity, being employed to hold together the drapes in clothing. It became a decorative object in its own right and often identified the social and economic status of the wearer. The stirrup-shaped disk was the end part, where the two pins fitted together, one of the pins usually being curved, unlike modern safety pins. The experts pointed out that this fibula was very similar to one legally found in Tarquinia in the necropolis of Poggio dell’Impiccato, which dates from the second half of the ninth century. Fibulae like this one were only rarely made in gold.
• Five other fibulae were decorated with little ducks, a motif previously found only in Villanovan necropolises in Bologna, Tarquinia, Veio, Capua and Pontecagnano; a sixth fibula, decorated with a feline figure, was very similar to one found in the Tomb of the Warrior at Tarquinia.
• Several of the eighth-century BC ceramics in Medici’s warehouse were specific to the necropolises of Campania, either from the Sarno Valley or Cuma—that is, they were made there, in antiquity, and nowhere else.
• Three small amphorae with knotted handles, two blended bacellate (vases decorated in bas-relief), and three ribbed olle (a different form of wine pitcher, like a oinochoe but with fat handles) with arched cordons (i.e., decorated with ribbing in the shape of arches). These designs were madeexclusively in the Vulci area, in the eighth and seventh centuries BC, so can only have come from there.
• Thirty-two miniature cups and twenty miniature olle were “very similar” to a series of miniature vases (especially olle) found on an official dig at Bandinella, Canino, in 1992, after the discovery of an illegal dig.
• Five kantharoi with cusped handles (i.e., the handles were embossed with small cones, in a row), and three small amphorae, also with cusped handles, all dated to the seventh century BC, “can be easily recognized as coming from Crustumerium,” where cups and amphorae “became famously cusped.” Francesco di Gennaro, inspector of the Archaeological Superintendency for Rome, reported illegal digs in the Marcigliana or Monte del Bufalo area, where the necropolis of Crustumerium is located: “The greater part of information on funereal customs, architectural typologies, local artisan production and imported products, comes from the digs of the largest sepulchre complex known, the one south-east of Monte del Bufalo, where repeated clandestine digs have caused the loss of data which we presume covers half the overall number of burials.... The overall number of the plundered sepulchral monuments . . . is now evaluated at not less than one thousand; there is carpet-destruction and plundering of the burials. . . . Archaeological material of unquestionable Crustumerium provenance has recently been seized (for example, in Monte Rotondo near Rome, photographs of objects for sale were circulated in Cerveteri and Ladispoli) but are also exhibited for sale on the American antiquities market where a large quantity of Crustumerium objects is on show in antiquarians’ shops in Manhattan. . . .”
• A silver goblet with scale-decoration (i.e., with a fishlike surface): These have “only ever been found” in very high-level tomb dowries in Palestrina, Caere, Veio, or Casal del Fosso.
• A tubular askos in laminated bronze (an askos is a smaller vase, maybe three inches long, used for oils or perfume and often in the shape of animals), decorated with a rich apparatus of small chains. There is a parallel in “the rich tomb of the Bronze Chariot in Vulci.”
• One belt hook with stylized equine protome. A protome is an embossed face, human or animal. Several similar objects have been found in the Vulci area.
• So-called impasto ceramics (what is called “coarseware” in English) of the seventh and sixth centuries BC, similar to those found in southern Lazio or northern Campania at Teano. In recent years illegal digs have been reported around the Liri River, particularly at Teano where a sanctuary suffered “intense clandestine digs.”
• Two magnificent painted Etruscan amphorae, “in fragments but reconstructable.” This was attributed by Dr. Bartoloni and the other experts to the Painter of the Cranes, who was active in Caere in the second quarter of the seventh century BC. Anotheramphora, decorated with two huge fishes in netted squares, and a rare askos with a frieze of animals were both by the same Painter of the Cranes.
• One biconic vase, painted in the “white-on-red” technique, had a frieze of small Phoenician palms. A biconic vase is shaped roughly like this, 
, like two cones, one on top of the other. “White-on-red” simply means that the decoration was white and the ground red. And, say the experts, “this is an excellent example of Cerveteri production,” attributable to the “Bottega dell’Urna Calabresi.” Bottega is Italian for “studio” or an “artist’s workshop.” In this case then, these biconic vases were in the manner of a well-known example, called the Urna Calabresi, but by different hands, varying slightly from the unknown painter who created the masterpiece in this particular style.
• One olla, also painted in “white-on-red” concentric circles, belongs—according to the experts—to the “Bolsena Group” from the Vulci hinterland. A “group” is more diffuse than a bottega: The vases are in the same style, but no specific master is known to name the group after, so the group is named for an area, in this case Lake Bolsena, near Vulci.
• Figured Etruscan-Corinthian ceramics (i.e., vases in the Corinthian style, but made in Etruria). The circulation of this class of vase, produced between 630 and 550 BC in southern Etruria, and to some extent in Etruscanized Campania, was limited to Etruria, ancient Lazio, and Campania, with rare sea export into Greek Gallia (southern France), Sardinia, and Carthage (North Africa). In the Medici Geneva seizure, Etruscan-Corinthian ceramics are present in some numbers, produced by a variety of painters and “botteghe.” The most antique is a rare oinochoe with a frieze depicting ibexes and is attributable to the Swallows Painter, who was an eastern Greek ceramicist active in Vulci at the beginning of the period of Etruscan-Corinthian ware. “Thus the vase, of modest quality, certainly comes from the Vulci area.” Another vase, an olpe (a slender wine pitcher with high handles), is attributable to a pupil of the Bearded Sphinx Painter and “would seem to be by the same hand as the olpe in the Faina Museum of Orvieto.” A third vase, an oinochoe with a narrow body, and painted in various colors (“polychrome”), is “probably attributable to the Feoli Painter, a ‘second generation’ maestro of Vulci ceramic masters, of whom only one other work with the same technique is known.”
• One-hundred fifty-three Etrusco-Corinthian aryballoi and alabastra: “. . . the collection comes from the plundering of about 20–30 room-tombs of southern Etruria (one object still has the remains of an iron nail with which it was attached to a wall of the room).”
• Buccheri: Bucchero ceramics are a form of ceramic invented by the Etruscans and are black inside and out. They are made by firing in an oven with no oxygen. “As is known,” say the experts, “they were the ‘national’ ceramic of the Etruscans,” being produced throughout Etruria and Campania from the mid-seventh, through the sixth, to the beginning of the fifth century BC, with an early start in Caere around 675 BC. Their circulation was wider than that of Etrusco-Corinthian ceramics and even slightly touched southern Italy, Sicily, and the Po Valley in the north. In Geneva, Medici had 118 intact vases, all of which “appear to have been produced in southern Etruria.... With the knowledge we have today, the vast majority of the vases can be judged as coming from the ‘botteghe,’ active between 675 and 575 BC, of Caere or its cultural area.” All were distinguished by graffiti in the form of “small fans” made up of dotted lines. Buccheri have been widely studied and the minute differences in the mineral composition of the clay have been associated with different specific sites. This latest science explains why the experts could be so sure which botteghe these Buccheri came from.
• One large amphora, dated to the end of the seventh century BC, with graffiti decorations on the body of two animal friezes, separated by horizontal cordons (rib decoration). This amphora is attributable to the same master painter who decorated a similaramphora found (legally) in Cerveteri.
• Etruscan imitation Ionic-and-Attic ceramics. Dating to the sixth and fifth centuries BC, the experts considered that all these came from the Vulci “botteghe.”
• A number of Etruscan stone sculptures and stelae were made of the local volcanic stone, known as nefro. In this case, not just the style but the geology proves the sculptures’ origin.
• An eastern Greek goblet was “very similar” to one found in the Panatenaica Tomb at Vulci and almost identical to a fragment found in the Sanctuary of Gravisca at Porto di Tarquinia.
• Bronze and iron statues, ornaments, necklaces, and rings—all found in Medici’s warehouse—were in a style “particularly associated” with Ascoli Piceno in the central Adriatic region (on the border between the central regions of Marche and Abruzzo).
• Ceramics of Greek production: As the three experts make clear, the Greek colonies of southern Italy and Sicily, together with Etruscan cities, were primary commercial destinations for vases made in Greece—in Athens, Sparta, Euboea, and Corinth. Amphoraeand perfume flacons in particular were traded. However, Etruria was obviously a special area for some reason, because only in Etruria “have objects of exceptional quality been found.” Scholars believe that these exceptional objects were sent as examples, as “commercial propaganda,” to show what various “botteghe” were capable of, to encourage international trade. This general picture is deduced from two types of evidence.
First, that the vast majority of museum-quality pieces of these Greek vases have been found in Italy. One example is a famous olpe, found at Veio and today in the Villa Giulia Museum in Rome. A second example is the so-called Levy oinochoe (of Miletus production, from the ancient Greek colony of Miletus on the Ionian coast in modern-day Turkey), bought in Rome in the nineteenth century and today in the Louvre. Third, the so-called François krater. This was made in Athens but found in a tomb at Chiusi in Tuscany and is now in the Museum of Florence. It is a splendid monumental object, with several layers of scenes—wedding processions, battles, and so on.
The second type of evidence lies in the fact that it is also known that certain shapes of vase were produced in Greece but solely for export to Italy or Sicily. For example, the so-called Nolane vases have an Attic shape, but their most important excavation spots have been at Nola, northeast of Naples; Gela, a city founded in the eighth century BC on the southern coast of Sicily by ancient Greek colonists; Capua, situated north of Naples; and Vulci. In fact, statistical studies have shown that out of more than 800 objects known, only one has ever been found in Greece itself.
As the experts conclude, “One can without doubt say that the material of the Medici seizure includes an almost complete exemplification of the above-mentioned workshops.” In addition, there was in the Medici warehouse a third kind of evidence. In the Freeport, even on vases of a type thatcould have come from Greece, some had “hallmarks.” These were inscriptions scratched on the vases after their arrival at their destination, for some as yet unknown commercial reason. A seminal study by Alan W. Johnston, Trademarks on Greek Vases (1979), which looked at 3,500 vases of this type, concluded, “[U]p till now no vase found in continental Greece . . . bears hallmarks of this kind,” which are “basically limited to vases travelling toward the west . . . Etruria, Campania or Sicily.” Moreover, the hallmarks are scratched exclusively in the Etruscan alphabet. When you add in the fact that some of these vases were those found wrapped in Italian newspapers, the situation needs little further clarification. Yet more support for an Italian provenance comes from the fact that many of these vases were intact. This all-important detail is almost certainly due to the circumstance that in the Etruscan necropolises, there were entities known as room tombs, which didn’t exist in ancient Greece. Almost all vases that have been found intact on legitimate digs have been found in room tombs. Finally, in regard to this matter of ceramics of Greek production, an exhibition held at Florence in 1985 of the dowry (contents) of Tomb 170 of Bufolareccia in Cerveteri, there were four objects on display almost identical to objects found in the Geneva Freeport. For the record, these were a Laconian krater, a Laconian amphora (“Laconian” refers to material from Laconia, the region of Greece where Sparta was located), an Ionic drinking goblet, and an Attic amphora by the Gorgon Painter.
• Not unnaturally, in view of the events described in the Prologue concerning the vase by Euphronios and because the Getty Museum acquired a kylix by the same painter, the experts devoted no little attention to objects by famous artists that were found on Medici’s premises in Geneva. In particular, they concentrated on Exekias and Euphronios.
As the experts point out, J. D. Beazley, in his 1956 publication, Attic Black-Figure Vase Painters—still today a reference book for black-figure ceramics—identified sixteen vases by Exekias, for which the provenance was known, and another six for which the provenance was not known. According to Beazley, thirteen of the vases whose provenance was known came from Etruria—five from Vulci, five from Orvieto, one each from other places in Italy—whereas only three came from other countries (two from Athens, one from France). In the case of Euphronios, in a similar publication drawn up in 1963 by Beazley, Attic Red-Figure Vase Painters, there were thirteen vases for which the provenance was known and nine for which it was not known. For those vases of known provenance, nine came from Etruria (two from Cerveteri, two from Vulci, one each from other places), three from Greece, and one from Olbia on the Black Sea.
The experts then add that in the case of Euphronios, there was an exhibition held in 1990–1991, in Arezzo, Paris, and Berlin, in which eighteen vases, or fragments of vases not known to Beazley had come to light (this is not counting the Euphronios vase at the Metropolitan Museum in New York). Not one of these new vases, or fragments, had any provenance at all. Of these eighteen, eleven were in U.S. collections or museums, five in Switzerland, and two in Germany. As the experts dryly remark, “Paradoxically, objects which are part of old collections yield far more scientific data than objects of recent purchase.”
The role of J. D. Beazley was important in another way, too. His prestige and eye were such that after he produced his books, even people with unprovenanced vases sought him out, because an attribution by Beazley was commercially valuable. At the back of subsequent editions of his book, therefore, Beazley illustrated these unprovenanced vases and gave them attributions. As the experts point out, the fact that Medici had in his possession vases that fall under the aegis of Beazley’s publications, but are not in it, invites the conclusion that they have been excavated subsequent to the appearance of Beazley’s books.
• One of the vases in Medici’s warehouse was an example of Calcidian vases, which were produced in the Calcidian colony of Rhegion (Reggio Calabria). Its exportation beyond the region, or beyond Sicily, is unknown.
• One of the Laconian vases in Medici’s warehouse was a single-handled pitcher, decorated with a red sash between two narrow white lines. This, the experts say, is “particularly comparable” to a vase that was “just like the one we are considering,” which was part of the load of an ancient ship that was wrecked off the island of Giglio, off the coast of Tuscany.
This by no means completes the evidence amassed by the three experts. Their report was fifty-eight pages long, tightly spaced, in small print. There were many other cases where they could, for example, recognize the hand of a particular painter, or the style of a particular bottega, whose work is known only from sites in Italy, and there were plenty of other cases in which graffiti in the Etruscan alphabet had been scratched on to the vases.
Antiquities in the J. Paul Getty Museum That Are Pictured in the Polaroids Seized in Corridor 17 in Geneva
• A red-figure Attic kylix signed by Douris and a red-figure Attic kalpis, attributed to the Kleophrades Painter. Douris (fl c. 500–c. 460 BC) had a long career and produced at least 280 vases, according to Beazley. He had his own school and because his works appear in the works of other painters, it is clear that he was well known and well regarded among his collegues. The Kleophrades Painter flourished between roughly 505 and 475 BC but never signed his works, so he is named after the potter Kleophrades, son of Amasis, a well-known black-figure painter. Kleophrades’ signature appears on an exceptionally large red-figure cup in the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris. A kalpis was, like a hydria, a water jug but, unlike a hydria, tended not to have a neck and shoulders. Among the documentation seized in Geneva were negatives showing these objects on display in the Getty, though they were also shown in Medici’s Polaroids, still in fragments. According to Getty records, these objects were bought through Robin Symes.
• Next, there was what was described in the public prosecutor’s report as a “mutilated” marble statue of a kouros (a statue of a youth). This was acquired by the Getty in June 1993 but was never exhibited “in spite of its being an extremely important object.” This statue was found in the photographs seized from Medici, still dirty with earth.
• A male marble head was acquired by the Getty in the late 1980s. This too appears in the negatives seized in Geneva, where the head is shown on display in the Getty Museum. But Pellegrini also discovered an image of the head among the Polaroids, where it was covered in dirt and earth. This object was offered to the Getty by Robin Symes, and from the documentation furnished by the museum, we learn that it arrived in the Getty with light encrustations of a mixture of iron clay and carbonate. These are the disfigurements a statue would acquire over the years while it was in the ground and are, usually, the first things a restorer or museum curator would remove.
• A red-figure Attic amphora, decorated with a scene in which the protagonists are fighting over a tripod. This, acquired by the Getty in 1979, was found among the Polaroids at Medici’s warehouse in Geneva, pictured as covered with encrustations. According to Getty documentation provided to Ferri, this object was purchased by the museum from Antike Kunst Palladion in Basel, owned by Gianfranco Becchina.
According to the same documentation, it was originally in the Rycroft Collection in England in 1890. If this object reached the Rycroft Collection in 1890, in a pristine state, it is difficult to see how it could have been photographed, with encrustations, with a Polaroid camera. Can the Getty’s information on this be trusted? The acquisition of this vase dates from before the animosity between Medici and Becchina.
• A red-figure Attic kylix attributed to Epiktetos was acquired by the Getty in the early 1980s. Epiktetos flourished between 520 and 480 BC, and he was one of the major artists of the first generation of red-figure vase painters. Over 112 vases by him survive, most of which are kylix types, though he also painted plates. Valued at $60,000, this kylix appears to have been donated to the museum by Michael R. Milken in August 1983 and to have come from the Rycroft Collection in London. (Milken was “the junk bond king,” the banker at Drexel Burnham Lambert, a firm that was one of the leaders of the mergers and acquisition mania of the 1980s. He was indicted in 1989, pleaded guilty to one charge of securities fraud, and was jailed for ten years.) Yet here, too, the kylix was found among the Polaroids in Medici’s warehouse in Geneva, where it is shown as not only dirty but fragmented.
• A Corinthian olpe, shown in a photograph in Geneva, on which is written, “Photo sent to the P.G.M. on the 30/12/91.”
• A red-figure Attic phiale (a shallow dish) signed by Douris, with an inscription by the ceramicist Smikros. This, bearing a graffito in Etruscan letters, was acquired in fragments (see Chapter 9 for more detail).
• A red-figure chalice-krater, signed by Syriskos. This was acquired for the Getty as part of the Fleischman Collection (see Chapter 9).
• A red-figure Attic chalice attributed to the Berlin Painter. This too was acquired in fragments over a period of six years (see Chapter 9).
• A Corinthian olpe and a three-lobed Corinthian oinochoe attributed to the Vatican Painter, purchased from Robin Symes in 1985.
• A mirror with cover, decorated in bas-relief, purchased from Robin Symes and acquired for the Getty as part of the Fleischman Collection (see Chapter 9).
• A polychrome marble lekanis (a votive bath), a marble sculpture depicting polychrome griffins, and a marble statue of Apollo with a griffin. Purchased by the Getty as part of the Maurice Tempelsman Collection (see Chapter 9). The Polaroids of these objects, all found in Geneva, all bear the same batch number. These objects are shown in fragments, resting on an Italian newspaper.
• A ceremonial table, with griffins.
• A marble head, a Roman era copy of Polycleitus’s Diadoumenos. Polycleitus, along with Myron, Phidias, Lysippus, and Praxiteles, was one of the great classical Greek sculptors. The Diadoumenous, together with the Doryphorus (the ideal human form), was one of his two most famous compositions. This was actually stolen from Venosa, a town not far from Melfi from whose museum the eight vases were stolen, which had triggered off Operation Geryon. The Diadoumenos was returned to Italy. It was acquired by the Getty through the Fleischman Collection (see Chapter 9).
• An Etruscan antefix in the shape of a dancing Menades and Silenus. This was partially burned at some point in the past, and the burning is shown both on the object in the Getty and in the Polaroid photographs seized in Geneva. The antefix was acquired by the museum as part of the Fleischman Collection (see Chapter 9).
• A Roman fresco, a lunette with a mask of Hercules. There was a twin to this among the objects in Medici’s warehouse in Geneva. It was acquired by the museum as part of the Fleischman Collection (see Chapter 9).
• A red-figure Apulian bell-krater attributed to the Choregos Painter. This, shown in the Medici Polaroids, was sold by Fritz Bürki to the Fleischmans, from whom the Getty acquired it (see Chapter 9).
• A marble statue of Tyche. Acquired by the Fleischmans from Robin Symes, it was then purchased by the Getty as part of their collection (see Chapter 9).
• A small statue of Dionysos with an animal. In the Fleischman Collection.
• A black-figure Attic amphora attributed by Dietrich von Bothmer to the Berlin Painter. On one of the seized photographs the following words are visible: “OK con Bo 14/2/91. TUTTA MIA” (“OK with Bo 14/2/91. ALL MINE”). “Bo” here stands for Bob Hecht, as is shown by the fact that the amphora had been published in Atlantis Antiquities’ catalog, Greek and Etruscan Art of the Archaic Period (New York, 1988). The amphora was purchased by the Getty Museum with the Fleischman Collection.
• A black-figure Attic amphora attributed by von Bothmer to the Three Lines Group (a group whose distinguishing characteristic was a motif of three short lines). It was sold by Bürki to the Fleischmans in 1989 and was acquired by the Getty from them. A note in the Getty files, which they were forced to make available to the Italian public prosecutor, reported that “RG” (Robert Guy, of Princeton) had said that this object had been “found together with” another object, still in the possession of “REH” (Robert Emmanuel Hecht) and a vase—a hydria by the Würzburg Painter—still in the possession of Robin Symes (italics added). This is a clear sighting of the cordata at work.
• A red-figure Attic kylix attributed by Robert Guy to the Nikosthenes Painter. Sold to the Fleischmans by Robin Symes in 1988 and acquired by the Getty from them.
• A Pontic amphora by the Tityos Painter. Sold to the Fleischmans by Bürki in 1988 and acquired by the Getty from them.
• A red-figure Attic amphora, allegedly from the Rycroft Collection in England (1890), yet shown in the Polaroids seized in Geneva.
• A terra-cotta askos of the Clusium group, shaped like a duck. Donated to the Getty by Vasek Polak of Canada, this allegedly came from the S. Schweitzer Collection, dating from 1940. It too appears among the seized Polaroids in Geneva. Clusium, the modern city of Chiusi, near Arezzo in Umbria, was named after Clusius, son of Tyrrhenos, one of the mythical founders of Etruria.
• An Attic Gianiform kantharos attributed to the Vatican Class. This was purchased by the Getty from the Royal Athena Galleries in New York.
Antiquities in the Fleischman Collection That Are Pictured in the Polaroids Seized in Corridor 17 in Geneva
• A red-figure Apulian bell-krater, bought from Fritz Bürki.
• A marble statue of Tyche, acquired in this instance, according to the documentation, from Robin Symes. The heavily draped female figure is identified as Tyche by her turreted crown, which probably also identified the city she was meant to protect. Once again, this statue is depicted in the photographs seized in Geneva, where it is shown before it had been cleaned of the dirt that was encrusted on it. It was an important object, purchased by the museum from the Fleischmans for $2 million. In antiquity the Greek word tyche, meaning chance or fortune, with its inherent mutability, applied to both men and cities. The great centers of Antioch and Alexandria both established cults to the goddess Tyche, but smaller towns would have worshipped her, too.
• A Roman fresco, a lunette showing a mask of Hercules and valued at $95,000, was acquired by the Fleischmans from Bürki. On this occasion, however, the fresco was associated with Medici not because of any photographs, but because, in dimensions, subject matter, and condition, in Ferri’s words, it “would appear to be a twin to another fresco” seized in Geneva from Medici. In the catalog of the Passion for Antiquities exhibition, in relation to catalog number 126, the text reads: “The superb illusionism of Second-Style Roman wall painting is brilliantly in evidence in this fragment from the upper zone of a Pompeian wall.” It goes on: “The upper portion of the fresco matches precisely the upper portion of a fresco section in the Shelby White and Leon Levy Collection . . . and is from the same room as catalogue number 125.”
• Catalog number 125 was another fresco fragment, consisting of two rectangular panels and showing landscape scenes bathed in a light blue-green hue. The text says that based on the right-to-left orientation of the shadows on the columns, “this was part of the right-hand wall upon entering the room.” These two items recall the frescoes from the Pompeian villa that Pellegrini first encountered when delving into Medici’s documentation—they too were of the Second Style (see entry just above).
• There was even more of a paper trail in connection with a black-figure Attic amphora attributed by Dietrich von Bothmer to the Berlin Painter 1686 and dated to circa 540 BC. (This painter is called the “Berlin Painter 1686” because his name vase is also in the Berlin Museum and the “1686” refers to the museum acquisition number, to distinguish him from another Berlin Painter, whose name vase is in the same museum.) Depicted on both sides of the vase is one of the twelve labors of Hercules, one of which is the theft of the cattle of Geryon, the triple-bodied warrior, and the legend after which the original investigation of Conforti’s Art Squad was named.
This object appears in the Polaroid photos seized in Geneva, on one of which the following words are visible: “OK con Bo 14/2/91. TUTTA MIA” (“OK with Bo 14/2/91. ALL MINE”). “Bo” here stands for Bob Hecht, as is confirmed by the fact that thisamphora featured in Hecht’s Atlantis Antiquities catalog, entitled Greek and Etruscan Art of the Archaic Period, published in New York in 1988. Other documentation confirms that this piece was reassembled by Fritz Bürki in 1988. The amphora, valued at $275,000, was then acquired by the Getty with the Fleischman Collection.
• No less revealing was another black-figure amphora attributed by von Bothmer to the Three Lines Group (a group whose distinguishing characteristic was a motif of three short lines). This amphora can be seen in numerous regular photographs and Polaroids seized from Medici in Geneva. It was offered to the Getty by the Fleischmans, having been sold to them by Fritz Bürki in June 1989. From other documentation, we find that “RG” (Robert Guy) said that this object had been “found together with” another object with gigantomachia (the revolt of the Giants against the Gods, and their consequent slaughter, a familiar theme in classical and Hellenistic art) that was still in the possession of “REH” (Robert Emmanuel Hecht), and a third vase, a hydria of the Würzburg painter, “still in the possession of” Robin Symes. How did Guy know this? Here, plainly, more triangulations are in operation, or in the process of beginning. This is a clear sighting of the cordata.
• A separate vase, a red-figure Attic kylix, attributed by Robert Guy to the Nikosthenes Painter, is also seen in the Polaroids seized in Geneva; it then became part of the Fleischman Collection, sold to them through Symes in 1988.
• In the same Polaroid as the Attic kylix was a Pontic amphora by the Tityos Painter, seen with prominent encrustations but also in another photograph after it has been restored. This amphora, dated to 530–510 BC and showing the scenes of Medusa’s death, reached the Fleischmans through Bürki in 1988, valued at $400,000. It was acquired by the Getty with the kylix.
• A red-figure Apulian bell-krater was seen in the Medici Polaroids. By the time it reached the Fleischmans, it had been attributed (by A. D. [Dale] Trendall) to the Choregos Painter and dated to circa 380 B.C. This was different from the other vases in that it was a “comic” vase. Rather than depicting a scene from everyday life or from mythology, it showed a scene from a phylax play, a type of farcical comedy that was widely performed in southern Italy during the fourth and third centuries BC. The action takes place on a wooden stage, with the grain of the wood being indicated. At stage-left there is a door and steps lead down off the boards. There are a number of characters on the stage itself, two indicated by an inscription that describes them as “choregos.” This meaning is not certain. It could mean “leaders of the chorus,” but they could also be “backers of the play.” The krater was important because of its rarity and because it was more or less complete. It has been published several times in important reference works on Greek vases. In fact this was the name-vase for the Choregos Painter, meaning it was the object used—by Trendall—to name this artist, whose work is known from a few other examples around the world. The Fleischmans acquired the krater from Fritz Bürki and when the Getty bought it, the vase was valued at $185,000, yet another example of the fact that Medici dealt not in everyday dross but in very important objects. Did the Fleischmans never ask themselves where Fritz Bürki and Robin Symes got these objects?
• The same pattern is also evident with a small statue of Dionysus, accompanied by an animal. It formed part of the Fleischman Collection and, again, is depicted in the photographs seized in Geneva.
Antiquities in the Levy-White Collection Shown in the Polaroids Seized in Corridor 17 in Geneva
• A small kouros statue in bronze, published on page 106, number 87 of the Levy-White catalog. “This appears in three Polaroid photos and in about ten [regular] photographs in which the small bronze clearly appears still dirty with earth.”
• A Calcidian amphora, number 102 in the catalog, published on page 134, also appears among many seized photographs, where it is shown before proper restoration, with many gaps between the fragments.
• A Panathenaic amphora, attributed to the Louvre Painter F6,ar number 104 in the Levy-White catalog, appears in a Polaroid in one of the albums Medici kept. In the Polaroids, the amphora is broken and dirty with earth. In two other photographs, in a second album, it is shown as restored. Pellegrini also traced this amphora as being put up for sale at Sotheby’s in London, on July 17, 1985, Lot 313.
• A black-figure Attic amphora attributed to the Bucci Painter (540–530 BC) was number 106 in the Levy-White Collection. This too appears in the seized photographs, and it too was sold at Sotheby’s in London, this time on December 9, 1985—the very sale that Brian Cook of the British Museum had warned Peter Watson about. This is actually the vase that the British Museum would have bid for, had it had a proper provenance.
• Another black-figure Attic amphora, this time attributed to the Medea Painter Group and dated to 520 BC, number 107 in the Levy-White Collection, is depicted in four seized Polaroid photographs.
• A whole series of seized photographs show dozens of fragments appertaining to a psykter, “an important black-figure object,” published by von Bothmer in the catalog of the Levy-White Collection, page 149. The object in the seized photographs is completely fragmented and pictured on a kitchen tablecloth. In the Levy-White catalog it is of course totally restored but, as is evident from the motifs, it is undoubtedly the same object.
• A chalice-krater attributed to the Eucharides Painter (490–480 BC), showing Zeus, Ganymede, Hercules, and Iolaos, with an Etruscan inscription under the foot. This, number 117 in the Levy-White Collection, appears in fragments in the seized photographs.
• Pellegrini’s report draws particular attention to two Caeretan hydrie (water storage vases from Cerveteri). It is especially interesting that these two vases were used to explain an article in the journal Greek Vases in the J. Paul Getty Museum (vol. 6 [2000]). The two vases in the Levy-White Collection were very distinctive—one showed a panther and a lioness attacking a mule, and the other showed Ulysses and his companions fleeing from Polyphemus’s cavern (Polyphemus was the one-eyed giant in Homer’sOdyssey who refused hospitality to Ulysses and his companions). Both these vases were shown in the seized photographs, where they are both broken and in fragments, with sizable gaps. In this case, however, the photographs also consisted of a number of enlargements, showing the fragments close up. What struck Pellegrini was that in the Getty article, discussing their construction and so forth, various drawings of the vases were used, and these show the vases with the original break lines as revealed in the seized photographs. In other words, Peggy Sanders, who made these drawings, must have seen the vases either in the stages of restoration, or she must have seen the photographs that were eventually seized.
Also, in connection with at least one of these vases, the seized documentation included correspondence between the Levy-Whites (in fact the curator of their collection) and a Dutch authority on Greek vases, Professor Jaap M. Hemelrijk, of Wanneperveen in Holland. Professor Hemelrijk was interested in publishing the hydrie and in the course of his letter asked if he might include the photos (which, from his phrasing, he had obviously seen) “taken before restoration of the vase.” Alongside this, someone has written in hand: “Aboutaam?” The date on this letter is May 16, 1995, just over a year after the Phoenix Fine Art invoice to the Levy-Whites. In other words, it was obvious to everyone that these hydrie had only recently been put together.
Maurizio Pellegrini’s List of Objects Seized in Corridor 17 in Geneva That Had Been “Laundered” Through Sotheby’s in London
1. A terra-cotta head, sent to Sotheby’s by Editions Services on March 2, 1990, number 44 on the consignment note. This was taken in by Sotheby’s with the property number 1012763 and was Lot 344 in the company’s antiquities sales on May 31, 1990. It was sold on that day for £550.
2. A Nolan amphora, originally sent to Sotheby’s by Editions Services on March 2, 1990, was number 24 on the consignment note. This was taken in by Sotheby’s with the property number 1012763 and was Lot 125 in its antiquities sale held on December 8, 1994, when it sold for £6,000.
3. An Apulian “mascheroni” krater (with two protomi, one of Medea) was sent to Sotheby’s by Editions Services on September 3, 1991, number 1 on the consignment note. It was taken in by Sotheby’s with the property number 1037837 and was Lot 161 in its antiquities sale held on December 8, 1994, when it sold for £11,000.
4. A Gnathian-style hydria was sent to Sotheby’s by Editions Services on September 13, 1989, number 25 on the consignment note. This was taken in by Sotheby’s with the property number 1002611 and was Lot 295 in its antiquities sale of December 8, 1994, when it sold for £1,200. (This was the object that first alerted Pellegrini to the laundering process.)
5. Four Apulian terra-cotta vases were sent to Sotheby’s by Editions Services on March 2, 1990, numbers 51 and 57 on the consignment note. They were taken in by Sotheby’s with the property number 1012763, and were Lot 319 in its antiquities sale of December 8, 1994, when they sold for £1,100.
6. Two Apulian terra-cotta vases were sent to Sotheby’s by Editions Services on March 2, 1990, numbers 10 and 36 on the consignment note. They were taken in by Sotheby’s with the property number 1012673 and were Lot 317 in its antiquities sale held on December 8, 1994, when they sold for £600.
7. A marble torso was sent to Sotheby’s by Editions Services on April 24, 1990, number 43 on the consignment note. It was taken in by Sotheby’s with the property number 1016305 and was Lot 287 in its antiquities sale held on December 8, 1994, when it sold for £2,000.
8. An Etruscan Corinthian alabastron was sent to Sotheby’s by Editions Services on March 2, 1990, number 43 on the consignment note. It was taken in by Sotheby’s with the property number 1012763 and was Lot 350 in its sale of antiquities held on May 31, 1990, when it sold for £950.
9. An impasto biconic vase was sent to Sotheby’s by Editions Services on April 24, 1990, number 9 on the consignment note. It was taken in by Sotheby’s with the property number 1002611 and was Lot 498 in its antiquities sale held on July 9, 1990, when it sold for £1,700.
10. A marble statue was sent to Sotheby’s by Editions Services on September 13, 1989, numbers 35–37 on the consignment note. It was taken in by Sotheby’s with the property number 1002611 and was Lot 480 in its antiquities sale held on July 9, 1990, when it sold for £1,400.
11. An Apulian oinochoe was sent to Sotheby’s by Editions Services on September 5, 1990, number 56 on the consignment note. It was taken in by Sotheby’s with the property number 1023190 and was Lot 300 in its antiquities sale held on December 8, 1994, when it sold for £2,200.
12. A terra-cotta head was sent to Sotheby’s by Editions Services on September 13, 1989, number 50 in the consignment note. It was taken in by Sotheby’s with the property number 1002611 and was Lot 100 in its antiquities sale held on December 11, 1989, when it sold for £2,200.
13. Four Teano ceramic vases were sent to Sotheby’s by Editions Services on September 3, 1991, number 12 on the consignment note. They were taken in by Sotheby’s with the property number 1037837 and were Lot 312 in its antiquities sale held on December 8, 1994, when they sold for £2,400.
14. Two terra-cotta heads were sent to Sotheby’s by Editions Services on September 5, 1990, number 20 on the consignment note. They were taken in by Sotheby’s with the property number 1023190 and were Lot 235 in its antiquities sale held on December 8, 1994, when they sold for £1,400.
15. A red-figure Attic kylix was sent to Sotheby’s by Editions Services on March 2, 1990, number 17 on the consignment note. It was taken in by Sotheby’s with the property number 1012763 and was Lot 228 in its antiquities sale held on December 8, 1994, when it sold for £1,800.
16. An Apulian ceramic thymiaterion (candelabrum) was sent to Sotheby’s by Editions Services on September 5, 1990, number 47 on the consignment note. It was taken into Sotheby’s with the property number 1023190 and was Lot 313 in its antiquities sale held on December 8, 1994, when it sold for £750.
17. A black-figure Attic kylix was sent to Sotheby’s by Editions Services on April 24, 1990, number 17 on the consignment note. It was taken into Sotheby’s with the property number 1016305 and was Lot 271 in its sale of antiquities held on December 8, 1994, when it sold for £1,100.
18. A black-figure Attic oinochoe was sent to Sotheby’s by Editions Services on April 24, 1990, number 37 on the consignment note. It was taken into Sotheby’s with the property number 1016305 and was Lot 232 in its sale of antiquities held on July 9, 1990, when it sold for £4,200.
19. Two Apulian vases and a bronze were sent to Sotheby’s by Editions Services on September 3, 1991, number 16 in the consignment note. They were taken into Sotheby’s with the property number 1037837 and comprised Lot 305 in its antiquities sale of December 8, 1994, when they sold for £1,500.
20. A black-figure Attic amphora was sent to Sotheby’s by Editions Services. It was taken into Sotheby’s under the account number 216521 and was Lot 283 in its antiquities sale held on December 14, 1987, when it sold for £17,000.