Italian art investigators have exhibited a fresco that survived the destruction of the ancient Roman beach town of Herculaneum in the AD79 eruption of Mount Vesuvius only to be plundered from its ruins and smuggled to the US, among 60 relics returned to home soil.
The total value of the works, some of which date back to the first century BC, looted from Italy over the past five decades and eventually traced to the US is estimated at more than $20m (£16m). The relics, which were displayed during a press conference in Rome on Monday, include a terracotta Etruscan kylix, bronze busts, ancient vases and kitchenware.
“These are works pillaged from our country, and unfortunately this continues to happen by unscrupulous traffickers, and which end up in the hands of international brokers before being sold,” said Vincenzo Molinese, the chief of Italy’s art police. “For us Italians, the value of these art works, which is the value of our historic and cultural identity, is incalculable.”
The 60 artefacts are among more than 250 that have been returned to Italy from the US in the last year. Prosecutors in New York seized the items from private collections, auction houses or museums, although for the latest returns they would not specify the precise locations owing to continuing investigations into other stolen works.
Previous relics returned to Italy were found in museums including the Metropolitan in New York and the Getty in Los Angeles, which last year sent back a group of lifesize terracotta statues known as Orpheus and the Sirens.
A white marble head of the Roman emperor Septimius Severus that had been stolen in 1984 from a museum in Italy’s southern Campania region was found in June 2020 just as it was about to be put up for auction at Christie’s in New York.
The Manhattan prosecutor Matthew Bogdanos said his team had carried out 75 raids involving the discovery of 500 “priceless” Italian antiquities. “And we have been able to do that without having to rely on treaties or memorandums of understanding,” he said.
Italy first made a request to the US for the return of the Herculaneum fresco, which depicts an infant Hercules strangling a snake, in 1997. The fresco was believed to have been stolen by tombaroli, or tomb raiders, who for years have made a fortune by digging their way into Italy’s archaeological sites and stealing relics to sell on to art traffickers around the world.
Bogdanos said his team managed to seize and repatriate the fresco “within a matter of months”.
Italy’s culture minister, Gennaro Sangiuliano, said: “This a great success against illicit trafficking. What we are presenting today is the result of international cooperation, but much still needs to be done on this front.”
Some of the artefacts so far returned from the US have been put on display in Rome’s Museum of Rescued Art, which opened last summer in a space among the ruins of the ancient Baths of Diocletian. The aim of the museum is to temporarily display the artworks before returning them to the place from where they were stolen.
When it comes to art, Italy is one of the most plundered countries in the world. Bogdanos pledged his team would redouble its efforts to recover more stolen art.
He said: “There are so many more looted antiquities around the world, so many more looters and smugglers and criminals that have to be stopped, and it is our sworn duty to do that, because as we sit here right now enjoying this moment, somewhere in Italy something is being stolen.”
• This article was amended on 24 January 2023. An earlier version rendered the name of the Roman emperor in the Italian form Settimio Severo instead of the Latin form Septimius Severus.
