Part of a priceless collection of
Etruscan-era treasures that police discovered in a Geneva
repository in 2014 is returning to Italy, including temple
paintings, sarcophagi, friezes, statues and busts.
The collection, which authorities believe disgraced British
art dealer Robin Symes locked up in the repository, is estimated
to be worth around 9 million euros in total.
It consists of treasures believed to have been stolen by
tomb raiders in the 1970s and 80s from excavations in Lazio,
Campania, Calabria, Sicily and Puglia, art crime specialist
General Mariano Mossa said at a news conference on Tuesday.
Illegally exported and acquired by Symes, the pieces were
destined for markets in Britain, the U.S. and Japan. Instead
they remained hidden in crates for decades.
Colourful Etruscan paintings recovered among the haul are
"exceptional and unique", according to superintendent for
Etruria Alfonsina Russo. She said their restoration could help
shed new light on Etruscan art and the decoration of temples at
the time.
She is convinced that the decorated fragments and paintings
of divinities derive from the raiding of an Etruscan temple in
Cerveteri, north-west of Rome. They point to two phases of
painting of the site: one in the middle of the sixth century BC
and a refurbishment at the end of the same century.
"In terms of the paintings of Etruscan temples we
previously had only the fragments conserved in the Villa Giulia
Etruscan Museum," she said.
She added that she hoped their restoration would only take
about a year, and that it could be open for the public to
follow.
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