The FBI said in a press release on Friday that a mosaic that had been hidden for decades was a “key part of Rome’s history” and had been returned to the Italian government.
In 2020, a lawyer contacted the FBI Art Crime team on behalf of an unknown agent who was in possession of “an enormous mosaic of the legendary Medusa figure,” the FBI said.
The mosaic was cut into 16 pieces, each weighing between 75 to 200 pounds, and had been stored individually in pallets kept inside a Los Angeles storage unit since the 1980s, according to the FBI.
“The agent had no documentation – known in the art world as a source – so they were unable to sell the pieces,” the FBI wrote. “Selling artwork without a source is like trying to sell a car when you don’t have its title.”
It is unclear how the artwork was acquired by the unknown client, or how long it was in the United States, although the FBI says, “it may have been lost for up to 100 years.”
Two special agents – Elizabeth Rivas and Allen Grove – worked to discover the origin of the mosaic so that it could be returned to its rightful owners.
The FBI said the Italian police force confirmed that the mosaics were Italian and that “they were entered into the cultural property records in 1909”. “The only recent record of the mosaic’s existence was a 1959 newspaper advertisement that appeared to be for sale in the Los Angeles area.”
“The mosaics were handcrafted from an era when people put an incredible amount of care and effort,” Grove said. “It really speaks to the ingenuity and creativity of that time.” “It’s not supposed to be in Los Angeles. The mosaic belongs to the people of Rome. It allows us to understand a little bit about human history 2,000 years ago.”
Officials from Italy traveled to Los Angeles to inspect the mosaics and help plan the best way to return them to Rome.
To ensure that the artifacts reached Italy undamaged, the anonymous customer covered the costs of specialized shipping boxes that were then sent through diplomatic channels. The FBI confirmed that the artwork arrived safely in April.
Art experts in Italy are currently cleaning and restoring mosaics. The FBI said that while some of the storage pallets were infested with termites, the artifacts were “largely intact thanks to the climate-controlled facility in which they were kept.”
There is an ongoing effort in the United States to return cultural artifacts that are being sold, often illegally, to private collectors or museums.
Dozens of ancient artifacts that investigators believe were looted have been seized from the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art. Officials also returned stolen artifacts worth about $14 million to Italy in July, including dozens of artifacts confiscated from US billionaire Michael Steinhardt.
In 2021, the museum returned to Nigeria three pieces of African art, including a pair of 16th-century Benin brass plates. The move came after European museums began to face increasing pressure to return irreplaceable artifacts looted during the colonial era.
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