Call it a tale of two objects.
In late March, after scanning the online catalogue for Christie’s upcoming antiquities auction in New York, an archaeology expert flagged two objects that he believed had potentially questionable provenance. After matching them with pictures of what he described as identical objects associated with notorious traffickers, he alerted the authorities.
By the time his concerns were reported on a blog known as ARCA (the Association for Research into Crimes Against Art) on April 11, one work—an Etruscan “Pontic” black-figured neck-amphora attributed to the “Paris Painter” and dated circa 530 BC—had already been withdrawn from the sale. It had been estimated to sell for between $30,000 to $50,000.
