Ancient Vase Comes Home to Italy to a Hero's Welcome
ROME — As the restless crowd applauded, and flashbulbs popped, the Euphronios krater, at the heart of a three-decade tug of war between the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and the Italian government, received a hero’s welcome here on Friday.
When the krater, a 2,500-year-old vase, first appeared at the Met in 1972, seemingly out of nowhere, it was hailed as the acquisition of a lifetime. But the Italian government, suspecting that it had been plundered from Italian soil, soon began pressing the museum for information on its provenance.
This week the krater was finally packed up and shipped to Rome, one of 21 treasures turned over by the Met under the terms of a pathbreaking 2006 accord.
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When the krater, a 2,500-year-old vase, first appeared at the Met in 1972, seemingly out of nowhere, it was hailed as the acquisition of a lifetime. But the Italian government, suspecting that it had been plundered from Italian soil, soon began pressing the museum for information on its provenance.
This week the krater was finally packed up and shipped to Rome, one of 21 treasures turned over by the Met under the terms of a pathbreaking 2006 accord.