The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) ruled on Thursday (2 May) that Italy can continue to claim an ancient Greek bronze statue known as the Victorious Youth that has been in the collection of the Getty Museum in Los Angeles since 1977.
The ruling is the latest chapter in a decades-long dispute between the Getty and Italian authorities over the life-size statue, which dates back to 300 BC. C. to 100 a. C. (some attribute it to the sculptor Lysippus) and that it was taken from the Adriatic Sea. by Italian fishermen off the coast of Fano in 1964. In 2018, Italy’s highest court ruled that the Getty must hand over the work and issued a confiscation order; the museum appealed that decision to the ECHR based in Strasbourg. That court’s ruling this week is what’s known as a chamber decision, and it means both sides now have three months to demand that the case be sent back to the court’s grand chamber for a final ruling.
In its ruling this week, the ECtHR censured “the negligence or bad faith of the Getty Trust in the purchase of the statue despite knowing the claims of the Italian State and its efforts to recover it”. The court’s statement concluded that “the confiscation order had been proportionate to the objective of ensuring the return of an object that was part of Italy’s cultural heritage”.
Statue of a Victorious Youth, circa 300 BC-100 BC, as it appeared shortly after its recovery from the Adriatic Sea, before its preservation J. Paul Getty Museum
In a statement shared with The Journal of ArtA spokesman for the Getty said it may appeal this week’s decision to the ECtHR’s grand chamber for a final decision, adding: “While the European Court of Human Rights has found that Italy’s confiscation order relating to Victorious Youth did not violate European Convention on Human Rights rights, we believe the Getty’s nearly 50-year public possession of a work of art that was not created by an Italian artist or found on Italian soil is appropriate, ethical, and consistent with American and international law.”
Italy first made a formal request for the return of Victorious Youth (alternatively known as Fano’s Athlete) in 1989. In 2010, the Italian government asked US authorities to confiscate the object, after a city investigating judge de Pésaro is ruled that the Getty. he had acquired the statue “in bad faith” and in “full awareness of its illicit origins”. A pair of legal decisions in Italy in 2018 reaffirmed the country’s claim to seniority, and in 2021 the Italian Senate passed a resolution aimed at giving the country a stronger hand in complex restitution cases.
Following the ECtHR’s ruling, journalist Gennaro Sangiuliano, whom Italy’s far-right Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni appointed as the country’s Minister of Culture in 2022, praised X’s decision (formerly Twitter).
The Getty spokesman added: “We greatly value our long-standing relationships with the Italian Ministry of Culture, Italian museums and Italian art and heritage scholars, which have resulted in a number of mutually beneficial conservation, research and exhibition projects. Moving forward and expanding those collaborations in the future.”
The Getty acquired Victorious Youth in 1977 for nearly $4 million from the German dealer Herman Heinz Herzer in a sale that ended in the United Kingdom. The bronze was put on display the following year at the Getty Villa, the museum’s campus in Pacific Palisades.
