Giacomo Medici during a visit to the Getty Museum
Robert Hecht poses in front of the famous looted Greek vase he sold the museum in 1972 for $1 million.
Christo Michaelidis and Robin Symes
Sicilian dealer Gianfranco Becchina gives the authors a tour of his renovated pallazzo in Castelvetrano, Sicily.
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CHASING APHRODITE 
This is a great website/idea.
There are many internet websites that sell antiquities. They source from countries like India, bring them out of India despite the 1972 law against removing any statues/antiques older than 100 years and offer them at great prices on their internet sites. How can we put an end to such sites? Closing them down would discourage their thievery.
Thanks,
Yes but, art works like these may be better off in a huge public museum institution in countries that can be visited with free access so that hundreds of millions of people can look , observe and study and learn from them whereas now they are returned to their country of origin where very people will ever see them or study them. There are many sides to this argument..
isn’t it true that many of these antiquities are beautifully cared for and carefully displayed when placed in large important museums where they are studied by scholars and lay people alike and that the higher good is that they are then to be seen widely rather than narrowly?
I was a friend with Christo Michaelidis and Robin Symes. I was a young artist that they supported by buying much of my early work and encouraging me with grace and intelligence. I saw some extraordinary pieces of art in Robin’s house and I have always felt indebted to him for enthusiastically championing my art in the beginning. If I could tell Robin Symes one thing it would be thank you!