The Lost Chalice: The Epic Hunt for a Priceless Masterpiece

Anyone who pays any attention to art news these days cannot have missed the increasing number of stories about archaelogical artifacts being sent back from the museums where they have been housed to the countries from when they came. This book is the saga of artifacts stolen from Etruscan graves at Cerveteri in Italy, who profited, how they were dispersed, and the struggle to recover them. Late in 1971, a few months before the effective date of UNESCO Convention on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property, tomb robbers in Cerveteri, Italy (Etruscan Caere), dug into an Etruscan necropolis and uncovered a trove of grave goods, including fragments of a krater signed by the Athenian vase painter Euphronius, depicting the death of Sarpedon. This and other artifacts were ripped from the site, wall carvings hacked away. Sold to a regular buyer of antiquities, Giacomo Medici, who smuggled it out of the country, through him to the collector and dealer Robert Hecht, taken by Hecht to the Swiss vase restorer Fritz Bürki, the krater ended up at New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art, where blind eyes were turned to the question of its origin. Shortly after the million dollar purchase and all its attendant publicity, the existence of a kylix by Euphronius, decorated with the same subject, was revealed. It had come from the same tomb. But where was it now? That's one of the plot lines of Silver's book, which reads like a good thriller. If only it were fiction. There are many villains here. One can, to a small degree, feel sympathy for those in poverty who know that what is buried deep in the ground can bring them a modicum of comfort. No sympathy can be felt for the dealers in stolen grave goods, and the collectors who buy them. Most disturbing of all, however, is the attitude of people like those at the Met, who not only didn't care if an item they desire was stolen patrimony, they actually thought it didn't matter. Silver quotes Philippe de Montebello, the Met's recently retired director, as saying "How much more would you learn from knowing which particular hole in -- supposedly Cerveteri -- it came out of? Everything is on the vase." It is astounding to me that anyone with an ounce of concern about items such as the Euphronius kylix could fail to understand or care about the importance of the context in which it was found. To think that such an item exists in a vacuum, and is of value only for itself and in relation to the artist's other work, is abysmally short-sighted and narrow-minded. Silver is right on the money when he notes that what was exciting about the find of Tutankhamen's tomb, and the exhibit of the artifacts therefrom, was the fact that it was the discovery of an undisturbed tomb. Despite the minor importance of Tutankhamen in the political history of Egypt, this find gave us a vast amount of information because the artifacts were found and record

In September of 1972 the Metropolitan Museum of Art purchased, for one million dollars, one of the most magnificent products of the ancient world ever seen. It was a krater, a large vessel for mixing wine, and it was the work of the legendary Etruscan craftsman Euphronios. The image on it, done in delicate glazes, depicted Zeus' son Sarpedon being carried away by the figures of Sleep and Death. It was, perhaps, the greatest of all the works done by Euphronios- and yet, it had never been seen before- and that was what made it more amazing still. It was, in the words of one reporter, "as if it had been conjured out of thin air." Reportedly, it had only recently been restored from a box of shards in the collection of a man whose family had acquired it long ago. The truth, though, was very different. It had indeed been assembled only recently from a collection of shards- but those shards did not come from an old family collection. They came from a tomb that had been raided only recently, along with a good deal of other material, and had been carefully spirited out of Italy under the noses of the Italian authorities. The robbers might well have never been discovered, except for the fact that a second unknown work by Euphronios turned up on the market not long after, with a similarly murky provenance. What followed was a series of events that shook up the world-side trade in ancient art, and brought about a great many reforms in the way that not only collectors, but also major museums and auction houses conduct their affairs. Author Vernon Silver is an Oxford-trained archaeologist as well as a skilled writer, and as such is the perfect person to tell this complex and sometimes puzzling tale in which the lines are often blurred between the roles of art historians, museum curators, art dealers, and tomb robbers. Even though this book was written in 2009, thirty-seven years after the appearance of the krater, story still isn't quite over. As I write this in June of 2009, there are fresh reports appearing in the world's newspapers regarding further twists and turns in this story, as well as reports of one of the principals in this tale offering to trade yet another great, unknown work of the ancient world- possibly a third Euphronios- for his freedom. This is a wonderfully rich story, full of richly drawn characters and events that at times boggle the imagination.

Long ago I read Irving Stone's story about Henry Schliemann and it piqued my interest in Greek treasures. The Lost Chalice is very interesting and I especially like it for the factual details. Vernon Silver details Giacomo's life and business dealings from personal interviews with Medici, accesses his personal files and uses legal documents, all to give an accurate AND fascinating account of the chalice created by the famous potter, Euphronios. Robert Hecht (of Hecht Department Store fame), Dietrich von Bothmer (Metropolitan Museum of Art curator) and Thomas Hoving (Metropolitan Museum of Art director) all figure in this account. This wonderful story tells of the tomb robbers methods and really the sad fact that so much history is lost when tomb robbers steal these precious artifacts, not just because the artifacts are stolen but also because so much DNA that might have been studied in the way of plant, animal and human matter is destroyed in their attempt to cover up their crime. Further sad fact is the unscrupulous side of art dealers and collectors in pursuit of their perfect specimens to complete a collection. The politics, the lies, the egos of curators, art collectors, and archeologists make you realize it isn't just about historical understanding; it's about acquisition, pride and money. AND the very people who are supposed to rescue these treasures from the unscrupulous end up making you cringe as you read how they handled and stored the incredible treasures while investigating. Such a group of amateur inspectors that one handles the evidence and ends up breaking a two thousand year old kylix! Did I say 'break?' He dropped it and it smashed to smithereens! At times I thought it would have been better to leave it in the hands of the unscrupulous- at least they appreciated the value of the objects! I read the book from an uncorrected proof and it looks as though there might be photos in the sale copy. That would be a real bonus! I googled the Euphronios Krater and I really hope pictures of that are in the final copy of the book, if not you have to look it up to appreciate the acquisition! So much research, so many interviews, and so much documentation went into this book to make it accurate on an historical level, but Vernon Silver doesn't rest on those laurels; he goes on to make the telling of the lost chalice spellbinding as well.

The "clink clink clink" from beneath the soil is the sound that the clandestine diggers north of Rome hear when their tools finally find what the tomb robbers have been seeking: an ancient burial ground filled with riches that will become the obsession of collectors, curators, antiquities dealers and, it seems, the archaeologist-journalist who wrote this page-turner. In the tradition of Jonathan Harr's "The Lost Painting," the fun here is both the chase and what we learn from it about the art world. "The Lost Chalice" takes readers back in time and across the globe, from the Trojan War, to the Italian countryside (the word "Tuscany" turns out to come from "Etruscan," an ancient civilization) to modern Manhattan, as it follows the fate of a Greek wine cup (and its famous matching twin, which goes to the Metropolitan Museum of Art) along with the improbable cast of characters, who get mixed up with the art in good, but mostly bad, ways. I had heard of some of these ancient works and the smugglers and tomb robbers, but this was the first time I found I understood them as people. The Lost Chalice manages to get into the underside of the story to show the real lives, motives and the fact that some of the people behind the underground trade are more complex than simple "bad guys." It's an inside look at an amazing world.

Vernon Silver's "The Lost Chalice" is a study in making a niche topic - of interest to few except scattered patrons of the arts and the high-brow crowd hungry for new subject matter to impress friends and social rivals at East Hampton summer cocktail parties - a page turner that connects tomb raiding in central Italy to European auction houses, Upper Eastside antiquities brokers and the powerful Metropolitan Museum of Art. Who would have known that pottery that pre-dates the Roman Empire by half a millennium would have kept me reading until 4 am, skipping a dinner party, my daily run and even grocery shopping so I can learn the identity of the auction house bidder in "the green Lacoste shirt" or get the dirt on hard drinking art dealer Robert Hecht? Similar to Jonathan Harr's "The Lost Painting," I kept with Silver page to page, left hanging at the end of each chapter as I was eager to learn more about, wait a minute. I was eager to learn more about art. How strange. Art is nice and I am glad people appreciate it, but I have never been eager to learn more about it. That's what makes Silver's writing so compelling, I am getting a kick out of learning and I didn't even realize it. Now I'm ready to dust off my old copy of Homer's "Odyssey." I think I only read the Cliffs Notes in college. Tomb raiders and their wealthy patrons are robbing us of the few traces that remain of our heritage. I may not have raised an eyebrow to this if Silver's style hadn't sucked me in and spit me out three hundred pages later leaving me illuminated, a bit angry, and wanting more.