The Italian government and New York's Metropolitan Museum have agreed a landmark deal that could pave the way for a wide-scale return of looted antiquities from museums in the US.
Culture Minister Rocco Buttiglione and Met director Philippe de Montebello were expected to officially sign the agreement on Tuesday, sources close to the talks said on Monday.
The disputed antiquities covered by the deal are believed to include a sixth-century BC painted vase called the Euphronios Krater, widely regarded as one of the finest examples of its kind.
Italian art police recently presented the Met with strong evidence that the red and black terracotta vase, or calyx, was stolen from the Etruscan burial site of Cerveteri near Rome in the early '70s.
The agreement is also thought to include several ancient vases from Apulia (present-day Puglia) and a large collection of silverware stolen from the Ancient Greek colony at Morgantina near Enna, Sicily.
Italy recently began a strong push to reclaim ancient art and crack down on antiquities smuggling.
A former curator of the John Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles, Marion True, is on trial in Rome for allegedly acquiring stolen artefacts. It is the first such trial of an American museum curator. In exchange for getting long-sought pieces back, the Italian government has proposed loaning works of equivalent beauty and importance to the museums concerned.
This is the kind of deal the Met and Italy were expected to seal on Tuesday.
The Italian government is soon expected to offer other US museum chiefs the same terms.
As well as the Met and the Getty, two other US museums with huge antiquities collections have come under the scrutiny of Italian investigators: Boston's Museum of Fine Arts and the Cleveland Museum of Art.
In November the Getty, reputedly the world's richest museum, returned three of 42 allegedly stolen Italian
treasures that True acquired.
Buttiglione has been pushing for the return of the remaining 39, which include a colossal 4th-century Greek
statue of Aphrodite from Sicily. It emerged over the weekend that Italy has recently given the Getty a list of some 300 other works it claims were also taken illegally out of the country. They include a famous bronze statue of an athlete, believed to have been made by Greek sculptor Lysippus in the fourth century BC.
True, 57, appeared in court here on November 17 to face charges of buying ancient objects she allegedly knew came from tomb raiders. She denies wrongdoing. At the start of the proceedings, True's lawyer said his client was convinced of the legitimacy of the objects' provenance when she got them.
If convicted, she faces eight years in jail.
A US art dealer, Robert Hecht, is on trial with True for allegedly providing stolen antiquities with bogus provenance certificates in Geneva. Hecht has yet to attend the trial. The 1970 United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization convention, which both Italy and the US have signed, bans the import, export and transfer of ownership of cultural property.
