European court upholds Italy’s right to seize prized Greek bronze from Getty Museum

The statue “Victorious Youth,” right, is at the center of a dispute between the Getty Museum and Italy. A European court on Thursday upheld Italy’s right to seize a prized Greek statue from the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles, ruling that Italy was justified in trying to reclaim an important part of its cultural heritage and rejecting the museum’s appeal. The European Court of Human Rights, or ECHR, determined that Italy’s decades-long efforts to recover the “Victorious Youth” statue from the Getty were not disproportionate. “The court further held that owing, in particular, to the Getty Trust’s negligence or bad faith in purchasing the statue despite being aware of the claims of the Italian state and their efforts to recover it, the confiscation order had been proportionate to the aim of ensuring the return of an object that was part of Italy’s cultural heritage,” said the summary of the ruling. It said they relied on legal opinions from the sellers’ lawyers who “had a clear interest in presenting the provenance as legitimate.” Citing the lower court rulings, the ECHR judges determined the Getty Trust had “very weighty reason to doubt the statue’s legitimate provenance.” When Getty officials went ahead and purchased it anyway, they acted “at the very least, negligent, if not in bad faith.” It said the Getty couldn’t expect to be compensated for the statue, since it “accepted, at least implicitly, the risk that the statue might be confiscated.” Italy has successfully won back thousands of artifacts from museums, collections and private owners around the world that it says were looted or stolen from the country illegally.