Network of dealers smuggled antiquities out of Italy, trial told

Italian prosecutors at the trial of former Getty Museum curator Marion True have outlined an antiquities smuggling network that includes a New York gallery.

Manhattan's Merrin Gallery was named as a key link in the chain that brought artifacts out of Italy illegally.

Prosecutor Paolo Ferri presented dozens of documents to the court where True, former curator of the Los Angeles-based Getty, and art dealer Robert Hecht are on trial on charges of conspiring to deal in illegally acquired antiquities.

"This was one big swamp where many swam and many others came to drink," said Ferri, quoted in the New York Times.

Much of the testimony presented Wednesday focused on a Swiss-based dealer, Gianfranco Becchina, who dealt with both U.S.-based collectors and with the Merrin Gallery.

The Merrin Gallery was a conduit for artifacts smuggled out of Italy that eventually were sold to various U.S. museums, including the Getty, Ferri said.

The Associated Press reported that calls to the gallery were not returned.

The case against True involves about 35 artifacts acquired by the museum between 1986 and the late 1990s — including bronze Etruscan pieces, frescoes and painted Greek vessels.

The museum has returned three artifacts to Italy as a gesture of goodwill.

Becchini's files contained records of the Merrin buying a sarcophagus and a marble head of the 2nd century Roman emperor Commodus that were later bought by the Getty, according to police officer Giuseppe Putrino.

Becchini also sold artifacts to Shelby White, a trustee of New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art. The Met has made a deal with the Italians to return some artifacts in return for borrowing privileges on other antiquities.

At one point, Becchini sold directly to the Getty, but the relationship between the museum and the Swiss dealer soured after a kouros, or naked youth, he sold the Getty in 1983 proved to be a fake.

"Of all these objects there is no trace, no documents of their export from Italy," Putrino said in his testimony. He said he believed the objects were illegally smuggled out of the country.

The trial in Rome is part of a wider effort by Italian authorities to crack down on antiquities trafficking. Rome has asked both the Getty and the Met to return artifacts.

Italy's investigation has also uncovered smuggling of Greek artifacts, sparking a probe in Greece.

Lawyers for True and Hecht say there is no relationship between their clients and the smuggling network described by prosecutors.