Italy Will Drop Former Getty Curator's Civil Charges

ROME — Italy will drop civil suits against former J. Paul Getty Museum antiquities curator Marion True after the Los Angeles museum agreed Wednesday to return 40 works Italy says were looted, Culture Minister Francesco Rutelli said yesterday. Ms. True still faces criminal charges.

Italy had brought the civil charges against Ms. True as part of the related criminal trial, in which she is accused of receiving stolen art and conspiracy in her role building the Getty's collection. Ms. True, 58, denies any wrongdoing. Her Rome-based lawyer, Franco Coppi, couldn't immediately be reached for comment.

"We're withdrawing the civil suits for those 40 works," Mr. Rutelli told reporters at his office in Rome, where he displayed slides of the statues, pots, and frescoes the Getty will ship at its own expense from Los Angeles. At least 22 of those objects were included in Ms. True's indictment of April 1, 2005.

"Dr. True's position will be greatly improved," said Maurizio Fiorilli, the lawyer who has represented the Culture Ministry in Ms. True's trial and has led the ministry's negotiations with museums including the Getty, New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art, and Boston's Museum of Fine Arts. Ms. True resigned her position at the museum in 2005.

Since Ms. True's trial opened in November 2005, those museums have all agreed to give Italy disputed antiquities. Mr. Rutelli said more may soon follow because he's negotiating with museums in Europe and Asia to reach similar settlements.

"This will create an irreversible precedent for the restitution of works," he said of the Getty agreement. "The U.S. administration also collaborated to favor the resolution of negotiations," Mr. Rutelli said.

Italy's aim is to stop the illicit trade in antiquities that often begins with tomb robbers sacking archaeological sites and destroying information about the past, Mr. Rutelli said. "We want there to be less water in which the traffickers can swim," he said.

All but one of the 40 objects will return to Italy by December 31, Mr. Rutelli said. The one remaining work, a statue of a goddess believed to be Aphrodite, will stay at the Getty until 2010. Italian officials refer to it as the Venus of Morgantina, named for the site in Sicily from which they say it was looted.

Italian officials are still figuring out where to display the returned works. The statue of the goddess — which the Getty bought from a London dealer for $18 million in 1988 — will go back to Sicily, Mr. Rutelli said. "That one statue is worth a museum," he said.

The larger-than-life sculpture, which probably served as a cult image in a temple, is made from a combination of limestone and marble, and scholars believe it was carved in the Greek colonies of southern Italy or Sicily between 425 and 400 before the common era. The figure's wet gown is blown against her body by a stiff breeze. Mr. Fiorilli, the government lawyer, said he plans to inform the Rome Tribunal of Italy's intention to drop the civil charges during the next hearing in Ms. True's trial, scheduled for September 26. It isn't clear whether that will end all her civil charges, as the list of objects being returned to Italy doesn't entirely overlap with the list of objects in her indictment.

Today the culture minister presented Mr. Fiorilli with a gold medal for his work.

Negotiations between the Culture Ministry and museum-owner the J. Paul Getty Trust began in January 2006.