More coverage of the statue located by chance in a New York gallery thirty years after being stolen from a museum in Rome.

From:
New York Post

Roamin’ cop nabs hot art
Italian sleuth spots statue in NYC gallery
By CLEMENTE LISI
Last Updated: 7:36 AM, November 20, 2010

An eagle-eyed Italian cop was hailed as a hero yesterday for spotting a precious stolen statue in a Manhattan art gallery — leading to the miraculous homecoming of that artifact and another filched sculpture.

The items, stolen in Italy in the 1980s and worth about $680,000 apiece, were unveiled in a small museum outside Rome, thanks to the police art-squad expert who was on vacation when he saw one of them during a stroll up Madison Avenue.
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A book due out next year by Michael Gross looks behind the scenes at the Met – in particular, how they made some of their acquisitions & whether they really did believe that they were always acting in good faith. The author tells me that quite a bit of previously unknown information will be revealed in the book.

Perhaps this will offer an interesting antidote to James Cuno’s book, giving the other side of the story of how a universal museum actually operates.

From:
New York Post

MUSEUM EXPOSÉ
September 17, 2008

ONE unwelcome chore for Thomas Campbell, director-elect of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, will be the repercussions from “Rogues’ Gallery” by Michael Gross – the exposé Campbell’s predecessor, Philippe de Montebello, failed to stop. Though it’s not due out until spring, it’s already ruffling feathers. Among its revelations is the real reason why the Met returned its Euphronios vase and other looted objects to Italy this year: Italian prosecutors threatened to indict the museum’s emeritus antiquities curator, Dietrich von Bothmer, and put the wheel-chair-bound nonagenarian on trial if the treasures weren’t returned. Just like that, they were.

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