The Medici Conspiracy (64 page)

Back in Athens, late at night, as a member of the team that searched Schinoussa mentioned the story of how the photo albums were discovered, he remarked:

“They were bound in green-colored synthetic leather and the photos were of a professional standard, suitable even for publication.”

“How many of them?” I asked.

“Seventeen, I think.”

I felt I had been hit by electricity. In a flash, I thought back to one of my meetings with Peter Watson in London in 2001, when I was investigating the international network smuggling Greek antiquities, for the documentary “The Network.” At that time Peter had mentioned a series of visits he had paid to the Papadimitriou lawyers' offices at Lane and Partners, in Bloomsbury Square in London. There, he had seen part of the archive kept by Symes, then in the hands of the Greek family. And he had mentioned seventeen green-colored leather-bound photo albums that contained antiquities handled by Robin and Christo.

The penny dropped. The photos from Schinoussa were probably exact copies of the original London file. If so, they were not photos showing objects in museums, for Symes and Christo to study, but were photos of their
own
objects, showing the most important antiquities to have passed through their business during the 1980s and 1990s, right up until the death of Christo in 1999. I also recalled that a spokesman for the Papadimitriou family, and also a couple of employees from the villa in Schinoussa, had claimed that shortly after Christo's death, Robin Symes and an assistant had arrived at Schinoussa and, in the absence of the Papadimitriou family, destroyed files and inventories which were kept there. “For three days and three nights they were burning documents,” all three witnesses specifically reported.
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The albums, however, were apparently forgotten in the storeroom of Schinoussa and had escaped destruction. Whether copies or originals, accidentally or with the assistance of Aeolos, the Symes' file of photos—that the Greeks and Italians, the prosecutors and archaeologists were so eagerly searching for—had landed in Gligoris's lap.

I called him and told him what he had.

In November 2006, charges were brought against Marion True, Christoph Leon, the two Greek looters, now named as Georgios Tsatalis and Georgios Kagias, and the Serb middleman, L. J. Kovasevic, for their involvement in the golden wreath case. On December 13, Marion True arrived in Athens to meet with prosecutor Apostolos Zavitsianos. She had been summoned to testify concerning the golden wreath. She asked for a postponement, which she received, and finally testified in January 2007, when she pleaded “not guilty” and submitted a fourteen-page defense. She was released on bail, for $19,500.

By then, however, the Getty had announced, in December 2006, that it had agreed to hand over the wreath and the marble kore because, as Michael Brand said, “There was a disturbing element regarding provenance . . .” Among this evidence were Polaroids of the wreath found in Gianfranco Becchina's archive. It seems that Becchina refused to buy the wreath but the Polaroids were a giveaway all the same. Even more important, though, were Seliachas'—the painter's—photographs.

Simultaneously, the Greek prosecutor began an inquiry into the illegal trafficking and sale of the kore. After Marion True, Robin Symes is now being investigated by both the Italian and the Greek authorities. In fact, both the wreath and the kore were returned to Greece in March 2007.

The Papadimitrious were also charged with receiving illegal goods. Despina and her three children, Alexis, Dimitri, and Angeliki all denied the charges, claiming that the seized antiquities belonged to the deceased Christo, and that some of the objects mentioned in the indictment had been bought at Christie's in New York the previous year, and hadn't been unwrapped.

It did not go unnoticed, either by Gligoris and Diotis, by Ferri (who had been given copies), or by Daniela Rizzo that the Symes/Michaelides photographs were professionally made—and displayed antiquities of equal and at times
higher
quality than is shown in either Medici's or Becchina's Polaroid archive. Whereas the main body of the Italians' inventory was made up of vases, supplemented by sculptures, bronzes, and marbles, the Symes archive—besides being huge—is chiefly comprised of marble sculptures, portrait busts, and bronzes of different kinds. The overall quality is breathtaking.

Some of these are shown in the photographic section. More than that, however, we can report that Christos Tsirogiannis, the young Greek archaeologist who accompanied Gligoris on the two raids, has now spent several months examining the Symes photographic record—and has made more than
200
matches between objects handled by him and antiquities in the world's museums and auction houses.

The Schinoussa photo archive contains 2, 191 photos of 995 artifacts. All photos were shot by professional photographers except for just four Polaroids. On the reverse of the professional photos there are stamps of the studios, which range from Basel, Switzerland to Kingston-upon-Thames and Bond Street in Britain to Madison Avenue in New York.

Again according to Christos Tsirogiannis, out of the 995 artifacts shown in Symes' archive, 610 are Greco-Roman, 136 are Egyptian and 249 are from the Far East, Syria, Mesopotamia, and Persia.

Symes' photo archive was also examined by the distinguished Greek archaeologist, Professor Giannis Sakellarakis, who says that the photos from Schinoussa portray “meticulously restored artifacts of great artistic significance that could effectively constitute the contents of an entire museum in their own right.” He adds: “These antiquities are of great artistic achievement and they cover an extensive spectrum of civilizations and chronological periods dating as far back as the third millennium BC up to early Christian times.”

Tsirogiannis agrees that the person responsible for their selection must have an exceptionally keen eye since only significant artifacts were included, the creme de la creme, and no single item proved of inferior quality.

This fact is particularly noticeable where Greek pottery is concerned. In order to amass a collection of such outstanding quality, thousands of artifacts must have been inspected. This could only be the result of extensive looting of at least hundreds—if not thousands—of tombs and temples. Many artifacts appear unrestored in some photos, shown in the condition in which they were discovered, still smeared or encrusted with the remains of various sediments deposited during their prolonged stay in the ground or underwater, further clear indication that they derive from illegal excavations.

Comparing these unrestored antiquities with others that have undergone full restoration, it also becomes evident that the restorers employed by Symes must have been among the best in the field.

The photo archive from Schinoussa is important not only because it provides the best record of (part of) the most important unprovenanced antiquities handled by Symes but also because it allows us in many cases to match these artifacts with Polaroid pictures taken by the looters and
also to match the same objects as they surface in the showcases of museums or important private collections. Here, too, as with Medici, the whole chain—from the ground to the great museums and collections—is gradually being exposed.

Here are some examples:

In the American magazine
House and Garden
for June 1998, the statue is shown in the living room of a luxury villa belonging to an unnamed couple in Colorado, restored, surrounded by other antiquities—Cycladic idols, Etruscan vases, Egyptian, Greek, and Roman sculptures, and an art deco Eileen Gray lacquered chair. This same statue, of Artemis, matches one from the Medici photos, found in the Geneva Freeport. The statue has dirt on it and is not restored. Five other artifacts shown in the living room of the unnamed collector are also shown in Symes' files from Schinoussa.

This
Artemis is, in fact, the same as the one whose photograph was found in the glove compartment of Pasquale Camera's overturned Renault the day he was killed near Monte Cassino. It is the same Artemis as the one Frida Tchacos eventually returned, having tried to mislead Ferri by first returning a fake version (see above, pp. 13–14 and 189–190). Apparently, Frida Tchacos sold the Artemis to an Italian middleman in Japan before the Colorado couple acquired it. Now it is exhibited in a museum in Rome.

This vase, described as “exceptional” by Tsirogiannis, is shown in the Medici archives, depicted in five Polaroids, where the vase appears partially restored, with holes and joins visible, encrusted with dirt, and is placed on a wooden box. The same vase, fully restored, appears in the Goulandris Cycladic Art Museum in Athens (col. No. 716), with no provenance.