These Twin Marvels of Art Conservation Are Now Seen as Looted Works

Their restoration has been embraced as a remarkable testament to the skill of art conservators who identified disparate, ancient pottery fragments and used them to recreate the treasures of antiquity.The Metropolitan Museum of Art rebuilt two classical Greek drinking cups from random shards that arrived at the Met in small batches from a variety of sources over a period of more than 15 years, beginning in 1978.But the fragments from both cups, it turns out, had been gifted or sold to the museum by nearly an identical set of people — three of whom were later associated with the sale of looted antiquities.Investigators for the Manhattan district attorney’s office seized one of the cups two years ago, asserted it had been looted, valued it at $1.2 million and returned it to Italy.Now the Met has acknowledged that last year, without fanfare, it had returned the second cup, or kylix, agreeing that it too had been looted.A spokeswoman for the Met, Ann Bailis, said the investigators had “provided the Met with new information that made it clear the work should be returned.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe....