Worcester Museum And Italian Gov't Working To Return Stolen Art

WORCESTER, MA - The Worcester Art Museum has entered into a cultural cooperation agreement with the Italian Ministry of Culture following a voluntary return of two artifacts from its collection.

In 2024, the museum hired a provenance research specialist to conduct research into its collections. They identified two antiques acquired in the mid-1950s that appeared to have been illegally removed from Italy.

The two artifacts are a black-figure amphora (storage jar) and a kylix (drinking cup).

After notifying the Italian Ministry of Culture, the two bodies entered into a cultural cooperation agreement. The museum transferred ownership of the two antiques to Italy, but will keep them as loans for a period of four to eight years. Italy will then transfer comparable antiques to Worcester in exchange. The loans will recur on a rotating basis, and are the first of its kind for the Worcester Art Museum.

"We are deeply grateful to the Italian Ministry of Culture for their collaboration," said Claire Whitner, the museum's director of cultural affairs. "Provenance research is vital to ethical collecting, and we look forward to continuing this work."

The amphora is credited to the Rycroft Painter, an Athenian vase-painter from the last decades of the sixth century B.C.E., and the kylix was made in the fifth century.

"The Ministry of Culture can only express its utmost appreciation for the Museum's voluntary decision to return to Italy two finely crafted artifacts of Attic production," said Dr. Paolo D'Angeli, head of the Department of General Affairs of the Italian Ministry of Culture.