Field Notes

Marion True Resigns from Getty

Museum Curator Faces Looming Legal Problems

Last October Marion True resigned from her position as Curator of Antiquities at the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles, a post she has held since 1986, amid accusations that she violated the museum’s conflict-of-interest policies. While purchasing a vacation home in the Greek islands in 1995, True secured a $400,000 loan with the assistance of a lawyer referred to her by one of the Getty’s main suppliers of ancient art. She neglected to report this fact to Getty authorities.

And that’s just the beginning of True’s professional and legal troubles. Last May Italian authorities handed down an indictment accusing True of conspiring to traffic in looted antiquities. The trial is slated to open in mid-November, in Rome.

On the same day that True tendered her resignation, Italian Culture Minister Rocco Buttiglione announced that the Getty would repatriate three artifacts to Italy in the form of “a donation”—a legal formula permitting the museum to avoid acknowledgement of wrongdoing in the acquisition of the pieces. They include a fourth-century B.C. red-figured drinking vessel from the Greco-Roman settlement of Paestum and a funerary inscription from the Greek colony of Selinunte, both identified in an Italian police investigation as having been illegally excavated. The Getty will also return an Etruscan bronze candelabrum believed to have been stolen from a family collection.