Bob Hecht: Fragments Of An Antiquities Conspiracy?
Friday, 28 December 2007, 1:59 pm
Opinion: Suzan Mazur

Bob Hecht: Fragments Of An Antiquities Conspiracy?


By Suzan Mazur

Hugh Eakin's recent "Treasure Hunt" story in The New Yorker profiling
Marion True, the former Getty curator on trial in Rome for conspiracy
to traffic in ancient art, devotes a column to True's 1991 paper on
the destruction of ancient cultural sites, giving the impression that
the Italian government is to blame for looting half of that country's
Greek and Roman history because it may have neglected its sites –
Eakin doesn't note that the entire country is an ancient site. Eakin
also suggests that the Italians lack seriousness in prosecuting the
two-year old antiquities trial in which dealers Bob Hecht and Giacomo
Medici are named as co-conspirators – even though Medici's already
been convicted, sentenced to ten years and is appealing the court's
decision. Moreover, Eakin reduces Italy's efforts in seeking the
return of its cultural patrimony to a sports rivalry between the art
carabinieri and ministry of culture – he doesn't illuminate that from
the outset one faction fought to get the loot back from American
museums with no strings attached, i.e., it did not want to cave in to
the Metropolitan Museum of Art's demands for loans.

What New York Times contributor Hugh Eakin particularly fails to do
is reveal names, details and sources of information in his 14-page
New Yorker cover story -- even of the name of the editor of
Connoisseur? Or give further insight into the actual looting and
trafficking that's taken place. And nowhere is there mention of the
role played for decades by the NYT as an enabler of the trafficking,
which Met Ancient Near East expert Oscar Muscarella first exposed
years ago. [LINK Antiquities Whistleblower Oscar White Muscarella]

The above fragments, for example – which may serve as clues to the
mindset of those charged in the Rome trial – were sold by Hecht in a
1988 Atlantis Antiquities Greek and Etruscan Archaic art show in New
York that was highly publicized by the NYT. Times reporter Rita Reif
barked dollar amounts in her pre-sale coverage, previously discussed
on these pages [LINK Add NYT To Bob Hecht Antiquities Ring
Organigram? ] – even of the exhibition's fragments, noting a starting
price of $500. Said Reif:


"Some of the richest detail is on fragments of painted vessels. Among
the most compelling are. . .three headless satyrs. . . One of the
smallest fragments in the show, less than two inches high, shows a
tough-faced Thracian boxer scarred near the eye and jaw, with a hook
nose and protruding chin, and with both hands visible – his right
hand already wrapped while he draws the thong taut on his left."
However the fragments that Reif described above in the NYT, and that
are pictured at the top of this story, were never assigned a price on
Hecht's list at the time of the actual sale because by then they were
already SOLD and disappeared into the market for an undisclosed
amount.

Hecht pal and long-time Museum of Fine Arts curator of classical art,
Cornelius Vermeule also promoted the sale, writing an introduction to
Hecht's catalog. Vermeule was one of Marion True's early mentors and
first introduced True to Bob Hecht, which Eakin surprisingly does
mention in his article.

The boxer fragment Reif refers to (above, left) is from a red figured
wine cup, 500 bc, proto-Panaitian painter. It indeed depicts the
fierce profile of a boxer wrapping his hand. He bears a nasty scar
under his eye and gash under his chin. And knowing what we now know
about Bob Hecht's history of thuggery, the fragment appears to be
somewhat autobiographical. [LINK "Bully Bob" Hecht And The Euphronios
Questions]

Hecht's affection for and exhibition of the second piece on the
right, three "ithyphallic" silenes (satyrs) reveling, painted by
Sophilos, 570 bc, may be Hecht's personal statement about the
conspiracy itself.

One of the silenes carries a drinking cup, a karchesion. Vermeule
describes the procession as "woolly" and "charming" with "nymphs on
their minds". Or perhaps a Euphronios vase or two. . .