San Antonio Museum of Art and Italian Ministry of Culture Sign Agreement to Promote Cultural Exchange

SAMA Returns Nine Ancient Works to Italy

The Ministry of Culture of Italy and the San Antonio Museum of Art (SAMA) are pleased to announce the successful repatriation of nine significant archaeological artifacts from SAMA’s collection to Italy as part of a broader cultural agreement signed in 2023 to foster long-term collaboration and promote cultural exchange between the two institutions.

This return includes a marble head of the Greek god Hermes, now back in the custody of the Italian government, and eight additional works—ceramic vessels from Athens and southern Italy, and a terracotta statue of a woman—which will remain on loan to SAMA. At that time, they may be replaced for the next eight years by a loan of other items of equal value.

The Head of Department for the Protection of Cultural Heritage, Dr. Luigi La Rocca, expresses his satisfaction for the agreement and his thanks to the Museum for the high ethical sense demonstrated in the return of the important cultural artifacts to the cultural context from which they were excavated and illegally exported. “This agreement strengthens cultural relations between Italy and the United States and stands as an international best practice in the field of combating illicit trafficking of cultural property.”

Emily Ballew Neff, the Kelso Director of the San Antonio Museum of Art, said, “The San Antonio Museum of Art is pleased to have resolved the status of these objects in a spirit of mutual cooperation with the Ministry of Culture. We look forward to continued collaboration with the Ministry to share extraordinary works from Italy’s rich cultural heritage with our visitors from South Texas and around the world.” 

The cultural agreement establishes a collaboration through which the Italian government will loan important works from Italy to SAMA, where they will be exhibited in special displays and feature exhibitions. The agreement also creates a process for SAMA and the Ministry of Culture to exchange information concerning future acquisitions of archaeological objects from Italy by the Museum. The agreement between SAMA and the Italian Ministry of Culture is the result of more than one year of discussions.

The marble head of Hermes was found in the ancient Roman houses under the Church of SS. Giovanni e Paolo on the Caelian Hill in Rome between 1887 and 1891, and it was recorded in the publication of this excavation in 1894. An antiquities dealer in Rome sold it to Gilbert M. Denman, Jr., of San Antonio, in 1971, with no documentation of its collecting history. Denman donated the sculpture to SAMA in 1986. In February 2016, a German scholar, Jörg Deterling, informed SAMA staff that the Hermes head had been found in the houses on the Caelian Hill. After receiving this information, the Museum undertook further research on the sculpture and contacted the Ministry of Culture in May 2016 to inform them of its whereabouts. The Ministry confirmed the sculpture’s provenience in November 2016 and requested that it be returned to Italy.

The other repatriated works passed through dealers and auction houses in London and New York in the 1980s and 1990s before the Museum acquired them. They were identified from photographs seized from former antiquities dealer Giacomo Medici.

Further information about the works returned to Italy, including their provenance and images, is available at: https://sanantonio.emuseum.com/collections and https://dit.cultura.gov.it/ https://dgabap.cultura.gov.it/ 

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San Antonio Museum of Art:
The San Antonio Museum of Art serves as a forum to explore and connect with art that spans the world’s geographies, artistic periods, genres, and cultures. Its collection contains more than 30,000 works representing 5,000 years of history. Housed in the historic Lone Star Brewery on the Museum Reach of San Antonio’s River Walk, the San Antonio Museum of Art is committed to promoting the rich cultural heritage and life of the city.