Homecoming at the National Etruscan Museum

Some New York and California residents, or frequent visitors to the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Getty Center may be missing a few splendid pieces from their antiquities collections.  Thousands of Etruscan, Greek and Roman artefacts have found their way back home to Italy. Hundreds of these most famed ancient vases and sculpturettes are now on display at the National Etruscan Museum in Rome as part of an exhibition that celebrates not only the masterpieces but the masterworks of Italian and Swiss police that cooperated in discovering and seizing a decades long antiquities looting and laundering operation.  Here is an excerpt from a recent article I wrote for Wanted in Rome magazine on the current exhibition that ends in mid-December.

The National Etruscan Museums at Villa Giulia is displaying several hundred antiquities from among thousands illegally exported and now repatriated to Italy.  The pieces are mainly from central and southern Italy and are part of an exhibition that documents a decade-long criminal investigation and legal battle to obtain pieces that were sold after clandestine excavations all over Italy.  

Read the full article- Wanted in Rome Link