In a ceremony held in Rome earlier this year, Italy welcomed back nearly 60 ancient artifacts that had been repatriated from the U.S. Experts estimated the objects to be worth more than $19 million, but for the European country, they represented something even more. 

“For us Italians, the value of these artworks, which is the value of our historic and cultural identity, is incalculable,” said Vincenzo Molinese, head of the Carabinieri Art Squad, at the time. 

But maybe they’re not worth that much after all. At least not according to Italian archaeologist Gianfranco Adornato, who wrote in a recent report that a “good percentage” of the returned relics are “easily recognizable fakes.” 

In an article published last month in Il Giornale dell’Arte, the experts points to several suspicious pieces, including a 500 B.C.E. cup adorned with eyes and a Dionysian mask. The vessel has “an unconventional foot clumsily attached to the tank,” Adornato says. The markings show a “strange pattern of the eyes, devoid of the long tear caruncles [that are] characteristic of this vascular typology,” while the painted mask “is simplified with cursory and imprecise graffiti.”  

Another cup, hailing from the second half of the sixth century B.C.E., has two decorative monsters “in a totally wrong pose” that has not been found on vases from its time period, per Adornato. For the archeologist, the question goes beyond these individual artifacts. He concludes his report with a question about what the “investment of resources and energy in the recovery of fake antiquities purchased on the black market” means for the state’s efforts in tracking down illegally stolen cultural heritage.  

“What will they do?” he asks of the Carabinieri art squad, public museums, and other groups involved in the effort. 

For Americans, the repatriation of these and 50 other objects to Italy was of particular significance, and not just because of their supposed value.  

More than 20 of the pieces, including a marble Head of Athena that dates back to 200 B.C.E., were seized from the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, according to the Art Newspaper. Several others had been owned by Michael Steinhardt, a billionaire who agreed to an unprecedented lifetime ban from acquiring antiquities in 2021 after a multiyear investigation into his collecting practices. 

More Trending Stories:  

Is TikTok Trying to Cancel Salvador Dalí? Why Art Historians on the Platform Are Denouncing the ‘Problematic’ Surrealist Icon 

Why Andy Warhol’s ‘Prince’ Is Actually Bad, and the Warhol Foundation v. Goldsmith Decision Is Actually Good 

The Art Angle Podcast: James Murdoch on His Vision for Art Basel and the Future of Culture 

Art Advisor Maria Vogel Hosts Art-Inspired Dinner Parties, Cherishes Handwritten Notes, and Keeps an Eye Out for Overlooked Women Artists 

A Palatial Home by Frank Lloyd Wright—With a Circular Design Echoing His Guggenheim Museum—Has Hit the Market for $8 Million 

Scarlett Johansson, Bryan Cranston, and Other ‘Asteroid City’ Stars Respond to the Viral Wes Anderson TikTok Trend With Their Own Parody 

A British Couple Actually Paid Nearly $250,000 to Remove a Banksy Mural From Their Building Due to the ‘Extremely Stressful’ Upkeep 

Archaeologists in Hungary Have Uncovered the Remains of an Ancient Roman Doctor Alongside His Surgical Toolkit 

The World’s First A.I.-Generated Statue, Cobbling Together the Styles of Five Celebrated Sculptors, Has Landed in a Swedish Museum 

Meet the Young Collectors Calling the Shots at the Guggenheim, a Highly Placed Art Worlder’s Anti-Woke Tweets, and More Art World Gossip 

An Extraordinary Wristwatch Belonging to the Last Emperor of China Just Sold for $6.2 Million, Setting Multiple Auction Records 

A Sculpture Depicting King Tut as a Black Man Is Sparking International Outrage 

Archaeologists Have Found a 3,000-Year-Old Bakery in Armenia, After Realizing a Layer of Ash Was Actually Wheat Flour 

Why the Supreme Court’s Decision in the Andy Warhol Copyright Case Shows the Dangers of a Sympathy Vote 

An Exhibition of Taylor Swift’s Stuff Has Just Opened at the Museum of Arts and Design. Here Are 5 Must-See Displays, Swifties