Rome Museum Exhibits Recovered Italian Art

In Rome, Italy – The Museum for Rescued Art will display the recovery of its stolen artifacts that were once smuggled into the United States but have been returned to its home country.

Opening in the month of June through October 15, the recovery exhibition includes one hundred Greek, Etruscan, and Roman artifacts to be displayed.

According to the Guardian, the museum will showcase the recovery efforts led by the Carabinieri Unit for the Protection of Cultural Heritage. The artifacts will be on display in the first exhibition and in every few months, the items will be swapped out, eventually to be returned to their territory of origin.  The Italian Culture Minister, Dario Franceschini, quoted “we thought it’s right to have the pieces return to the places where they were stolen from.”

Accounts by the Associated Press stated how these pieces include large “imposing painted jars,” with a designs of Greek mythology, the blinding of Polyphemus, the one-eyed giant, along with “carved Etruscan figures.”

The Etruscan civilization belonged to the ancient people of Etruria, Italy, where many of its cultural features were adopted by the Romans. The Etruscans were intrigued by Greek myth, and this indicates that they were bilingual as these artifacts revealed “Etruscan heroes that identified with Greek heroes.”

The Italian Culture minister continues by explaining that “protecting and enhancing these riches is both an institutional duty and moral commitment” and yet the recovery unit still has its eye set out for Statue of a Victorious Youth.

It is currently being held by the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles, U.S. despite the highest court in Italy order for its return in 2018. The statue was discovered by an Italian fishing boat in the 1960s and purchased in 1977 by the J. Paul Getty Museum. Because it was fished out of international waters, the museum has countered this order on this claim.

-Juliet Reyes