Bob Hecht, the American art dealer who brought the world the finest vases by the greatest Greek vase painter (and spawned the globetrotting tales of intrigue behind them) died in Paris this week. His death comes less than a month after his trial in Rome came to an end when the statute of limitations ran out on charges related to the Euphronios krater and other artifacts. His lifelong adventure ended with a clean criminal record and his most famous vases back on Italian soil. Until the finish, he had a twinkle in his eye, and I thank him for sharing what he could about his incredible life.
NYT: Bob Hecht, 92

Former Getty curator Marion True finally gets her well-deserved say now that her Rome trial is over. In a stunning interview by Hugh Eakin (published on The New Yorker’s Web site) True tells off both the Italians (who had charged her in dealing with loot) and the Getty (which had been paying her legal bills). “My greatest sadness is that the Italians were able to intimidate the entire American art world, and especially museums, without having to produce any evidence at all,” she says. Of the Getty, which she essentially says hung her out to dry: “I have nothing but the greatest contempt for them in the world.”
New Yorker: True Speaks Out

The Rome trial of former Getty antiquities chief Marion True fizzled out after five years when the statute of limitations ran out on the charges. True, who denied the allegations that she’d played a role in stocking the California museum with artifacts looted from Italy, never got to present her defense. It’s just a matter of months before the clock also runs out on charges against her co-defendant, Bob Hecht, who is accused of dealing in loot including the Euphronios krater, and also says he’s innocent.
NYT: True’s Rome Trial Ends

In a compelling twist, Michael Kimmelman shows how Italy winning back the Krater makes a good argument for the British Museum keeping the Parthenon Marbles:
Stolen property is stolen property. But how curious that an ancient Greek vase, which centuries after it was made came into the possession of an Etruscan collector (a kind of ancient Elgin) living on what is now the outskirts of Rome, and then ended up buried for thousands of years below what became modern Italy, is today Italian cultural patrimony. By that definition, Elgin’s loot is arguably British patrimony.
NYT: Culture’s Borders

A feature in the Philadelphia Inquirer revives the mystery of the Penn Museum’s gold—whether it came from Troy, and how it got to America—and in the process reveals that the dealer behind the sale was the very same man who brought the Euphronios krater to the Metropolitan Museum of Art: Bob Hecht.
“Hecht confirmed that he was indeed the source of Penn’s Trojan-style gold, with Allen acting as his agent. Hecht easily recalled the pieces and proclaimed them “beautiful.” He said he had purchased them from another dealer, George Zakos, who is dead… He said Zakos, who lived in Switzerland, had not shared the objects’ history. ‘He didn’t say, and I didn’t ask,’ Hecht said. ‘I thought it was beautiful, and I thought it was genuine.’”
Tracing the Gold