An ancient and beautiful chalice that symbolizes a turning point in a long-running Italian-US dispute over disputed antiquities has finally arrived at its permanent home in Rome.
The Euphronios krater has been given its own display case at the Villa Giulia Etruscan Museum, a year after New York's Metropolitan Museum agreed to return the drinking cup to Italy.
Created by a potter named Euxitheos and painted by the 5th-century BC Greek master Euphronios, the red-and-black vessel was originally used to mix wine with water.
The decorations on the krater depict two scenes. On one side, an episode from the Trojan War shows the death of Sarpedon, son of Zeus. The other side bears a scene of young Athenian men arming themselves for battle.
It is the only complete example of 27 surviving vases painted by Euphronios and is considered one of the finest Greek vases in existence.
Before coming home it was at the centre of a decades-long argument between the Met and Italian authorities.
It was snatched from a tomb near the central Italian town of Cerveteri in 1971 and a year later sold to the Met for a million dollars.
The Rome-based American dealer who sold the krater, Robert Hecht, is now on trial for dealing in illicit antiquities but it took years of negotiations for the Met to secure the vessel's return.
Under a 2006 deal with the Italian government, the Met said it would return the krater and several other pieces of art in exchange for series of long-term loans of similar value.
Although just one of many snatched treasures returned to Italy under landmark deals with US museums, the Euphronios chalice was considered the greatest coup of all.
Since arriving back in Italy in January 2008, the krater has been the centrepiece of a travelling exhibition featuring 70 long-disputed Greek, Etruscan and Roman works.
Many of the vases, amphorae and statues were signature pieces in their former homes in the John Paul Getty Museum, the New York's Met, the Boston Museum of Fine Arts and the Princeton University Museum of Art.
The krater is now show alongside another cup also decorated by Euphronios and returned from the Getty in Los Angeles.
Fourteen other masterpieces snatched from tombs in Lazio and Umbria and returned under deals with US museums are displayed in the same room on the museum's ground floor.
Italy's art police spent years gathering evidence that the objects were looted from tombs and ruins, smuggled out of the country and trafficked by dealers.
All the US museums said they were unaware of their illicit origins.
