New York authorities returned stolen antiquities worth nearly $14 million to Italy, including dozens of artifacts seized from American billionaire Michael Steinhardt.
More than a third of the 142 items returned at a ceremony on Wednesday (20) had once belonged to the former hedge fund manager, who was once one of the world’s top collectors of antique art, according to the prosecutor’s office. Manhattan.
Among the artifacts repatriated was a 2,000-year-old fresco depicting a young Hercules strangling a snake. Worth an estimated $1 million, it was looted from an archaeological site near Mount Vesuvius in Italy in 1995.
Later that year, Steinhardt purchased the work without seeing evidence of its ownership history, investigators said. Another 47 of his collectibles were among the items returned.
In a statement, Italy’s consul general in New York, Fabrizio Di Michele, said the restitution is “very important for our country”.
The announcement follows a years-long investigation into Steinhardt, who avoided charges after handing over 180 artifacts, worth an estimated $70 million, and agreed to what officials called an “unprecedented” lifetime ban. to acquire antiques.
In recent months, objects from his collection — from statues and sculptures to gold masks, ceremonial bowls and vases — have been returned to countries such as Iraq, Israel and Turkey.
Among them was a $1.2 million marble statue of the head of a veiled woman, who was repatriated to Libya in January. A helmet believed to have belonged to Alexander the Great’s father Philip of Macedon has been returned to Bulgaria.
In February, 47 items from Steinhardt’s collection were returned to Greece, including a rare statue valued at $14 million.
The investigation analyzed more than 1,000 antiquities linked to Steinhardt since at least 1987. Authorities discovered that he possessed looted artifacts that had been smuggled from 11 countries by 12 criminal networks.
After the investigation concluded in December, then-Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance Jr. said that Steinhardt had “displayed a voracious appetite for looted artifacts without regard for the legality of his actions, the legitimacy of the pieces he purchased, and sold, or the serious cultural damage it has caused around the world.”
In a statement provided to CNN at the time, Steinhardt’s attorneys, Andrew J. Levander and Theodore V. Wells Jr., said their client was pleased that the investigation was completed without any charges “and that items wrongfully stolen by others will be returned to their countries of origin.”
They maintained that “many” of the dealers from whom Steinhardt purchased stolen artifacts “made specific representations as to the dealers’ legal title to the items and their purported provenance,” adding, “To the extent these representations were false, Mr. Steinhardt has reserved its rights to seek reward from the dealers involved.”
Of the other 94 items returned to Italy on Wednesday, 60 were recovered from the Royal-Athena Galleries, a defunct New York gallery founded by antiques dealer and forgery expert Jerome M. Eisenberg.
The prosecution did not suggest any wrongdoing on the part of Eisenberg or the Royal-Athena Galleries, which thanked them for their “assistance and cooperation” in the investigation.
The other 34 objects were related to “other ongoing investigations”.
Source: CNN Brasil
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