Last night, Tom Mashberg of the NY Times broke the story about an ancient vase that was seized from the Metropolitan Museum of Art (“the Met”). The 2,300-year-old object, the “Python Vessel,” had been displayed at the NY institution since 1989, when it was purchased from Sotheby’s for $90,000. Matthew Bogdanos, a celebrated and Assistant District Attorney in the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office (as well as author and colonel in the United States Marine Corps Reserves), seized the work based on evidence that it was looted from Italy in the 1970s. He was presented with evidence from forensics archaeologist Christos Tsirogiannis that the vase was connected to well-known looter Giacomo Medici. Medici was convicted in a Rome court of conspiring to traffic in ancient treasures, and is perhaps best known for his role in the looting and trafficking of the Euphronios Krater.

The Euphronios krater (also known as the Sarpedon Krater) is a red-figure vase attributed to the famous Greek painter Euphronios and the potter Euxitheos, dating from around 515 BCE. The Euphronios Krater is believed to have been illegally excavated sometime in December 1971 near Cerveteri, Italy, from the Greppe di Sant’Angelo region of the town’s ancient Etruscan cemetery, by tombaroli (tomb raiders). The looters sold the vase to Medici who them smuggled it into Switzerland and sold it for $350,000 to an antiquities dealer, Robert Hecht. By this point, the vase, which had been found in a remarkably excellent state, was intentionally damaged and broken into fragments to more easily illegally export it. After restoring the fragmented object, in February 1972, Hecht wrote to Dietrich von Bothmer, the Met’s Curator of Greek and Roman Art, about the krater. In August 1972, the Met bought the vase for $1 million.

Throughout the 1990s, Italian authorities investigated Giacomo Medici, and they eventually found enough evidence to bring legal claims against him. The Italian authorities also demanded the  repatriation of the Euphronios Krater from the Met. The case drew international attention and led to the restitution of dozens of Italian artifacts from institutions across the country, including the Met, the MFA in Boston, and the Princeton Art Museum. The return of objects also led to the cultural exchange of artifacts from Italy in the form of long-term loans to the American institutions repatriating looted good. The Euphronios Krater has since returned home and is now on display at the Archaeological Museum of Cerveteri.

In the case of the Python Vessel, Mashberg reports that the Met removed the item from its viewing case and that it is now in the custody of law enforcement agents.