Greek artefact pulled from sale amid claims of illegal excavation
BONHAMS has withdrawn an ancient Greek drinking vessel from sale amid accusations that it was excavated illegally and that major auction-houses are failing to make adequate checks into whether antiquities were looted from their country of origin.
Archaeologist Christos Tsirogiannis alerted Interpol after producing evidence linking the Bonhams antiquity to convicted traffickers in stolen artefacts. He says auction houses worldwide are not taking “basic steps” to trace an artefact’s history.
Dr Tsirogiannis recognised lot 95, an ancient Greek vessel from 375-350 BC in Bonhams’ catalogue for its July 3 antiquities auction at its flagship London salesroom. The 8in-high Apulian red-figure kantharos or drinking cup was estimated to fetch between £20,000 and £30,000. Dr Tsirogiannis has access to images confiscated in police raids and he found a picture of the vessel, still with soil on it, in archives seized from Gianfranco Becchina, convicted in Italy and Greece of illegally dealing in antiquities. Becchina’s note records that it was acquired from Raffaele Monticelli for 60,000 Italian lire (£28,000) in 1988. Monticelli was jailed for four years for trafficking offences in 2002.
In the archive of Robin Symes, a jailed British dealer, the kantharos is shown fully restored, as in the Bonhams catalogue.
Dr Tsirogiannis has identified 1,100 such artefacts in 13 years. He said that Bonhams, Sotheby’s and Christie’s are among auction-houses that are repeatedly failing to check the provenance of an antiquity: “Why does this continue to happen? They don’t take the basic steps in due diligence by contacting the authorities beforehand.”
He said that auction houses claim that they do not have access to the seized archives: “It’s not true. They could send a single photo of any object that they have or intend to buy to the Italian or Greek authorities.”
Bonhams said: “To the best of our knowledge, all items consigned for sale at Bonhams are legitimate.”
Christie’s said: “Despite numerous requests, there remain databases that have not been made freely available to responsible market players.”
Sotheby’s said it worked with authorities and that its due diligence was never at doubt.