Geneva Seizure - Archaeology Magazine Archive


Geneva Seizure	May 3, 1998; updated September 14, 1998
by Andrew L. Slayman

On September 13, 1995, Swiss police raided four bonded warehouses in Geneva, seizing a large number of artifacts allegedly smuggled from Italy. The premises were registered to a Swiss company called Editions Services, which police traced to a Roman named Giacomo Medici. In January 1997, the Carabinieri, Italy's national police force, arrested Medici, whom they described as "the real 'mastermind' of much of [Italy's] illegal traffic in archaeological objects." Medici claims that he acquired all of the artifacts legally and that he is not the "monster" he has been portrayed as. He also claims that the search was conducted without his presence or that of a representative of Editions Services, and that the police did not find documents, now missing, that would have shown the legal provenience of the artifacts. He is believed to have been released on his own reconnaissance, and to date he has not been charged with anything.

According to the Carabinieri, Italy's national police force, the warehouses contained 10,000 artifacts worth 50 billion lire (about $35 million), which would make the seizure one of the largest antiquities seizures ever. Medici disputes these numbers, saying that the warehouses contained between 200 and 300 artifacts worth far less than $35 million. Photographs of a portion of the material, however, show at least 500 artifacts, and Medici admits that "the photographs do not represent in full the objects which were inside the premises."

Last year, an account of the seizure and Medici's arrest, along with three photographs of artifacts in the haul, appeared in Peter Watson's book Sotheby's: The Inside Story (New York: Random House, 1997). John J. Herrmann, Jr., curator of classical art at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, recognized two stone column capitals in one picture as having been stolen from the House of the Fish at Ostia, the port of ancient Rome. Herrmann alerted the archaeological superintendent of Ostia, and he says the capitals are now back where they belong.

How the capitals came to be in the warehouse is not known, but comparison of the photographs with Sotheby's catalogs, brought to our attention by readers, shows that some of the other material came from auctions in New York and London. A Boeotian figurine and a Minoan jar were sold at a 1990 auction of antiquities in the collection of the Erlenmeyer Foundation for Animal Welfare; according to the catalog, these two items had been published in Orientalia in the early 1960s. Three pieces of Attic pottery--a black-figure kylix, a red-figure kylix, and a red-figure hydria--were sold at a 1990 auction of antiquities in the collections of the Texas oil barons Nelson and William Hunt. According to the catalog, two of these had been purchased at the Summa Gallery in Los Angeles in 1981, while the third had been exhibited at the J. Paul Getty Museum the year before. A bronze griffin protome and two Egyptian relief fragments were sold at a 1991 auction. Frederick Schultz, president of the National Association of Dealers in Ancient, Oriental & Primitive Art, says that many of the other artifacts were acquired at auctions as well.

None of these pedigrees, however, reveals where ultimately the artifacts came from, or whether their excavation and exportation from their country of origin were legal. According to Reuters, in October 1996 the Swiss investigating magistrate, Jean-Pierre Trembley, ruled that they should be returned to Italy. They were cataloged by officials from the Archaeological Superintendency of Southern Etruria, but the following month a Geneva court revoked Trembley's decision, saying that the artifacts' provenience had to be proven before they could be returned. Italy has appealed, and Switzerland's federal court will hear the case.

Medici asserts that "most of these objects could not have been found in Italian archeological sites." Archaeologists who examined the photographs on behalf of ARCHAEOLOGY say the material was made in a wide range of places around the Mediterranean, including Greece (in photos 2, 8, 10, 20, 22, 24, 26, 50, 55, 63, 64, and 67) and Cyprus (54), as well as Britain and northern Europe (59). To this list, Schultz adds Egypt (32 and 51) and the ancient kingdom of Urartu (in parts of what are now Iran, Turkey, and Armenia; see photo 44). There are also a number of Roman pieces (18, 21, 29, 38, 39, 40, 41, 43, and 66), but without further evidence it is difficult to tell whether much of it was made, or found, in Italy or one of the empire's far-flung provinces. Greece, Cyprus, Italy, and Turkey--as well as most of the countries spread over what was the Roman Empire--have longstanding laws establishing national ownership of archaeological remains.

According to the archaeologists who examined the photographs, however, a great deal of the material probably did originate in Italy. There are Etruscan bronzes and ceramics (1, 5, 6, 9, 13, 15, 16, 21, 25, 27, 28, 56, and 57); South Italian pottery (2, 4, 5, 8, 9, 11, 15, 16, 22, and 68); and Villanovan material (from northern and central Italy, 19 and 23). Furthermore, Greek pottery was much loved by the Etruscan elite. The art historian Nigel Spivey has written that "Vulci [an Etruscan necropolis] is still our main source of [Greek] pots. After Vulci, other Etruscan sites: Tarquinia, Cerveteri, Orvieto and Chiusi." Of the pieces whose country of origin are identified in John Boardman's standard survey, Athenian Red Figure Vases, more than 60 percent come from Italy; Greece is second, with only 25 percent.

Letter from Giacomo Medici (also in Italian)

Letter from Frederick Schultz, president of the National Association of Dealers in Ancient, Oriental & Primitive art

We would like to hear your comments, e-mailed to editorial@archaeology.org.

1. Miscellaneous pottery, some South Italian; Etruscan candelabrum; Roman (?) sculptures
2. Attic and South Italian vases
3. Bronze griffin protome from a cauldron. Formerly of the Thetis collection. Sold at Sotheby's London on July 8, 1991. No further provenience information available.
4. South Italian pottery
5. Mixed Etruscan bronzes and South Italian pottery
6. Etruscan fibulae
7. Gold jewelry
8. Various Messapian, Attic, and South Italian vessels
9. Miscellaneous pottery, some South Italian; Etruscan candelabrum; Roman (?) sculptures
10. Boeotian terra-cotta figurine. Formerly of the Erlenmeyer collection. Published in Orientalia in 1962. Sold at Sotheby's London on July 9, 1990.
11. Miscellaneous pottery, some South Italian
12. Pottery, figurine, and sculptural head
13. Etruscan pottery
14. Bronze fibulae
15. Miscellaneous pottery, some South Italian; Etruscan candelabrum; Roman (?) sculptures
16. Mixed Etruscan bronzes and South Italian pottery
17. Mixed pottery and sculpture; opus sectile, possibly fake
18. Mixed pottery and Roman column capital
19. Villanovan and other pottery
20. Attic pottery, South Italian figurines, and sculpture
21. Mixed material, including Etruscan vases and a Roman painting
22. Mixed South Italian, Attic, and Messapian pottery
23. Villanovan and Etruscan funerary material, and later sculpture
24. Attic red-figure plate and other sherds
25. Etruscan and Italo-Geometric pottery
26. Attic black-figure cup. Formerly of the Hunt collection. Sold at Summa Galleries, Los Angeles, on September 18, 1981. Sold at Sotheby's New York on June 19, 1990. No further provenience information available.
27. Etruscan pottery chalice
28. Etruscan bronze fibulae
29. Roman glass vessels
30. Italian black-glaze pottery and lamps
31. Pottery
32. Relief of marching warriors, possibly fake. Left and center, sold at Sotheby's London on July 8, 1991. No further provenience information available.
33. Corinthian or Italo-Corinthian aryballoi
34. Two pots
35. Bronze horse bits, fibulae, and dagger
36. Sculptural fragments
37. Miscellaneous
38. Roman draped female figure
39. Roman column capitals
40. Roman column capitals
41. Roman architectural block
42. Flask and zoomorphic vase
43. Etruscan and Roman bronze candelabra
44. Cypriot (?) pottery
45. Various, mainly sculpture and carved architectural blocks
46. Fish plates and other pottery
47. Stone and metal points, and metal ax heads
48. Stone beads
49. Opus sectile, possibly fake
50. Minoan (?) jar. Formerly of the Erlenmeyer collection. Published in Orientalia in 1961. Sold at Sotheby's London on July 9, 1990.
51. Grave relief and Herakles statue
52. Bronze bull protome
53. Metal vessels
54. Mixed Cypriot and possibly some Attic pottery
55. Rhodian pottery
56. Mixed Etruscan bronzes
57. Mixed Etruscan bronzes and votive terra-cotta anatomical models
58. Corinthian or Italo-Corinthian aryballoi
59. Miscellaneous Romano-British and Celtic bronzes
60. Label
61. Pottery
62. Glass vessels
63. Attic red-figure cup. Formerly of the Hunt collection. Sold at Summa Galleries, Los Angeles, on September 18, 1981. Sold at Sotheby's New York on June 19, 1990. No further provenience information available.
64. Attic red-figure hydria. Formerly of the Hunt collection. Published in Stamnoi: An Exhibition at the J. Paul Getty Museum (1980). Sold at Sotheby's New York on June 19, 1990. No further provenience information available.
65. Gnathian krater
66. Roman wall paintings
67. Mixed Mycenaean and Geometric pottery; Boeotian figurine
68. South Italian pottery