The disputed statue, usually identified as the goddess Aphrodite, holds court thousands of miles away, at the J. Paul Getty Museum�s antiquities villa in California
By ELISABETTA POVOLEDO
Published: July 4, 2007
AIDONE, Sicily � The star attraction of the archaeological museum in this sleepy backwater in central Sicily actually isn�t here.
Instead, this ancient treasure, a giant statue from the fifth century B.C. usually identified as the goddess Aphrodite, holds court thousands of miles away, at the J. Paul Getty Museum�s antiquities villa in California.
In the Aidone Archaeological Museum, which houses artifacts from a nearby dig at an ancient Greek settlement called Morgantina, visitors settle for a large poster at the entrance depicting the statue and announcing a national campaign to bring it back.
�This is her rightful place,� said Nicola Leanza, the culture minister for Sicily, who, like many others, argues that the goddess was illegally excavated from Morgantina.
A view of the excavation site
The Getty, which bought the statue in 1988 for $18 million, isn�t so sure.
For nearly two decades it fended off the Italian government�s sporadic claims to the sculpture. But as the demands grew more pressing, the Getty acknowledged that there might be �problems� attached to the acquisition. In November it announced that it would study the object and reach a decision on whether to hand it over within a year.
�We are on target to achieve that objective,� Ron Hartwig, a Getty spokesman, said in an e-mail message. (The museum has already offered to transfer title to the statue.)
Yet the people of Aidone are tired of waiting. For this town the statue has become a blazing symbol of Italy�s legal and moral battle against foreign museums and private collectors that bought archaeological artifacts with hazy backgrounds, plundering the nation of its heritage.
For decades the Sicilian countryside has been a prime target for tomb robbers and a network of compliant traders.
�Morgantina was sacked for too long,� said Giovanni Calafiore, president of the Aidone chapter of an amateur archaeology association, who organized a bring-back-the-Aphrodite protest march in December. �Now we�re fighting to get back what�s rightfully ours.�
Beatrice Basile, the art superintendent for the province of Enna, which includes Morgantina, said the campaign to win back the statue had had a profound psychological impact on the townspeople.
�It�s given an identity to the people in Aidone, who feel very strongly that this is a restitution that in some way would compensate for a collective loss to their society,� she said.
Even though the statue is still in the Getty Museum�s villa in Pacific Palisades, Calif., this newfound self-awareness has already had a practical effect. Sicilians here are now far more willing to patrol the countryside to crack down on clandestine digs and to help investigators in individual cases, Ms. Basile said.
�This is the miracle of the Aphrodite,� she added.
The statue, 7 � feet tall with a limestone torso and marble head and limbs, is also among the contested pieces cited in the case against Marion True, the Getty�s former curator of antiquities, who is being tried in Rome on charges of trafficking in looted art. She denies any wrongdoing.
The museum is also negotiating with Italian officials over 51 other artifacts in its collection.
The Getty bought the Aphrodite from a London dealer, Robin Symes. A handwritten bill of sale dated March 18, 1986, indicates that Mr. Symes bought a fifth-century B.C. �acrolith statue of a draped woman� from Renzo Canavesi, then a currency-exchange operator in Chiasso, Switzerland.
A postscript in the bill of sale said the statue had belonged to Mr. Canavesi�s family since 1939, the year that a law was passed in Italy making it illegal to export any archaeological artifact from the country without government permission.
In 2001 Mr. Canavesi was tried in Italy on charges of illegal trafficking involving the Aphrodite. But on appeal his conviction was thrown out because the statute of limitations had expired, according to Italian documents. In August 1987, before buying the artifact, the Getty contacted the Italian culture ministry through a lawyer seeking information on the authenticity and provenance of a statue of Aphrodite. The museum later said the ministry told the lawyer that Italy had no information about the statue.
In July 1988 Ms. True officially informed the culture ministry that the Getty board had approved the acquisition. She invited the Italians to contact the museum with �any information on the recent history of this object that you believe might be important to us.�
Italian investigators had already redoubled their efforts to track down the statue�s origins.
