Abstract
The 1995 raids on the Geneva Freeport premises of Giacomo Medici have had a profound impact on the collecting of and dealing in antiquities.1 The set of Polaroids seized during the raids (“the Medici Dossier”) has allowed objects that had passed through the hands of Medici to be identified. Fractured, salt-encrusted and mud-covered objects were shown as they appeared to have emerged from the ground and before they passed into the hands of expert conservators who prepared them for sale. The unravelling of the story has become known as the “Medici Conspiracy.”2 The photographic evidence has brought about the voluntary return of objects from a range of prominent North American museums: Boston’s Museum of Fine Art, the Cleveland Museum of Art, the J. Paul Getty Museum, New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Princeton University Art Museum.3 To these may be added a selection of objects from the Royal-Athena Galleries in New York, and items from the Shelby White (and the late Leon Levy) collection.4
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Notes
P. Watson. Sotheby’s, the Inside Story (London: Bloomsbury 1997)
P. Watson, and C. Todeschini. The Medici Conspiracy: The Illicit Journey of Looted Antiquities from Italy’s Tomb Raiders to the World’s Great Museums (New York: Public Affairs 2006), p. 20
V. Silver. The Lost Chalice: The epic hunt for a Priceless Masterpiece (New York: William Morrow 2009).
D.W.J. Gill, and C. Chippindale. “From Boston to Rome: Reflections on returning antiquities” International Journal of Cultural Property 13 2006: pp. 311–331
D.W.J. Gill, and C. Chippindale. “From Malibu to Rome: further developments on the return of antiquities” International Journal of Cultural Property 14 2007: pp. 205–240
D.W.J. Gill). “Homecomings: learning from the return of antiquities to Italy,” in Art and Crime: Exploring the dark side of the art World, ed N. Charney (Santa Barbara: Praeger 2009b), pp. 13–25
D.W.J. Gill. “The returns to Italy from North America: An overview” Journal of Art Crime 3 2010c: pp. 105–109.
L. Godart, and S. De Caro. (Eds) Nostoi: Capolavori ritrovati. Roma, Palazzo del Quirinale, Galleria di Alessandro VII, 21 dicembre 2007–2 marzo 2008 (Rome: Segretariato Generale della Presidenza della Repubblica 2007).
P. Watson (1997); see also D.W.J. Gill. “Sotheby’s, sleaze and subterfuge: inside the antiquities trade” Antiquity 71 1997: pp. 468–471.
Gill and Chippindale (2006); D.W.J. Gill and C. Chippindale. “South Italian pottery in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston acquired since 1983” Journal of Field Archaeology 33 2008: pp. 462–472.
See D.W.J. Gill. “Collecting histories and the market for classical antiquities” Journal of Art Crime 3 2010a: pp. 3–10, at pp. 5–6.
P. Watson. Sotheby’s, the Inside Story (London: Bloomsbury 1997), opp. 120; see also Gill 2009c, p. 84.
D.W.J. Gill. “Context matters. Italy and the US: reviewing cultural property agreements” Journal of Art Crime 3 2010b: pp. 81–85, at p. 83.
See B. McNall. Fun While it Lasted (New York: Hyperion 2003)
V. Nørskov. Greek Vases in New Contexts. the Collecting and Trading of Greek Vases — an Aspect of the Modern Reception of Antiquity (Aarhus: Aarhus University Press 2002), p. 270.
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© 2016 David W.J. Gill and Christos Tsirogiannis
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Gill, D.W.J., Tsirogiannis, C. (2016). Polaroids from the Medici Dossier: Continued Sightings on the Market. In: Charney, N. (eds) Art Crime. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-137-40757-3_17
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-137-40757-3_17
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