Even though Italian officials have been going after American museums like the Getty and Boston’s MFA over looted antiquities. They hadn’t been hounding Minneapolis’s Institute of Arts. Nonetheless, the museum is doing the right thing and return a Greek vase that it will likely never be able to replace in its collection:
The Minneapolis Institute of Arts has agreed to surrender a 2,500-year-old Greek vase that has been a museum showpiece for nearly 30 years. The institute intends to return the object to Italy, which says it was looted from an ancient grave.
Italian government officials first claimed the ceramic vase in 2005 as part of a wide-ranging investigation into the source of antiquities at eight U.S. museums, including the Getty in Los Angeles, New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art and Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts.
“We’re very sorry to lose this object because it’s a very important example” of ancient art that museums essentially can’t acquire anymore, said Kaywin Feldman, the institute’s director and immediate past president of the American Association of Museum Directors.
The Minneapolis museum is not accused of wrongdoing.
Museum to Give Back Looted Vase (Minneapolis Star Tribune)