A show at Rome’s Castel Sant’Angelo museum displays stolen Italian artworks, frescoes, artefacts and antiques that have been recovered by the state. Called ‘Capolavori Dell’Archeologia: Recuperi, Ritrovamenti, Confronti’ (Masterpieces of Archaeology: Salvage, Recoveries, Comparisons), the exhibition contains looted, stolen and illegally exported pieces that have been returned to Italy. The show also relates the stories of those who recovered the plundered treasures, sometimes in investigations that took years. The problem of illegally traded art and antiquities is huge. In the past two years, Italy’s Guardia di Finanza police force, has recovered 2,416 paintings and 874,163 archaeological artefacts. Some of the pieces on display have never been on show to the public before. The crowning glory of the exhibition is the Euphronios krater that dates to c. 515 BC. The Ancient Greek terracotta vessel was used to mix wine with water. Experts consider it to be one of the finest Ancient Greek vases in existence. The vase is an example of red-figure pottery, and shows red figures depicting scenes from the Trojan War against a black background. The piece was part of the collection in New York’s Metropolitan Museum until 2008 when it was repatriated to Italy after a legal case that demonstrated it had been smuggled out of Italy illegally. The ‘Masterpieces of Archaeology: Salvage, Recoveries, Comparisons’ show runs until 5 November 2013.
