The Smuggling Dealer: Stefano Bardini and the Illicit Export of Artworks Out of Italy - Brill
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Chapter 4
The Smuggling Dealer: Stefano Bardini and the
Illicit Export of Artworks Out of Italy
(…) nothing easier. Always put the picture in the bottom of your
trunk.1
Isabella Stewart Gardner to Bernard Berenson
∵
4.1 Legal Matters
Dear Bardini,
As you see in the newspapers, it is a question of life and death, and it is
necessary that you strive to repair or diminish the damage, and that you
renew your forces that proved so successful the other time.
Remember that it is an urgent matter and that you have to use all your
power and influence. I am shaking your hand and believe me to be,
Your friend
Simonetti2
The rather obscure message dated 11 June 1903, sent to Stefano Bardini by Attilio
Simonetti (1843–1925),3 a former painter and an antiquarian based in Rome,
1 Isabella Stewart Gardner’s letter to Bernard Berenson dated 10 December 1897, see Rollin
Van N. Hadley, op. cit., p. 106.
2 ‘Caro Bardini, Come vedi dai giornali si tratta di vita e di morte, ed è necessario che tu ti ado-
peri per riparare o diminuire il danno e che rinnovi i sforzi altra volta così ben riusciti allo
scopo. Ricordati che trattasi di cosa urgente e che devi usare ogni tuo potere ed influenza. Ti
stringo la mano e credemi. Tuo amico Simonetti.’, ASEB, Attilio Simonetti’s letter to Stefano
Bardini dated 11 June 1903. I am thankful to Lynn Catterson for drawing my attention to this
document.
3 Sabina Spinazzè, ‘Artisti-antiquari a Roma tra la fine dell’Ottocento e l’inizio del Novecento:
lo studio e la galleria di Attilio Simonetti’, Studiolo, 8 (2010), pp. 103–122, p. 103. On Attilio
Simonetti see also Giovanni Carboni, Attilio Simonetti, pittore e antiquario romano, e via
Margutta, in Valentina Moncada di Paternò (ed.), Atelier a via Margutta. Cinque secoli di cul-
tura internazionale a Roma, Torino: Umberto Allemandi & C., 2012, pp. 82–87.
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The Smuggling Dealer 149
demonstrates the full scope of the exasperation Italian art dealers were expe-
riencing in the first years of the twentieth century. Only a year earlier, the Nasi
law had been enacted.4 Named for Nunzio Nasi (1850–1935), the Minister of
Public Education, it regulated the art export policy of the Kingdom of Italy, and
would prove a notable obstacle for the art business, which depended chiefly on
foreign buyers. A day before Simonetti’s note to Bardini, an even more restric-
tive amendment was passed by the Italian Camera dei Deputati, and was about
to be discussed in the Senate.5 The Association of Art Dealers (Società degli
Antiquari), of which Attilio Simonetti was the president, had intensified its
lobbying practices in an attempt to preserve the status quo.6 Simonetti’s note
to Bardini was handwritten on an appeal circulated that same day amongst
the Association’s members, urging them to unite in sending a telegram in pro-
test to the Minister of Public Education. The previous evening, an assembly of
the Association had determined the text of the telegram. The dealers’ battle
against the Italian lawmakers was about to begin.
Relations between art dealers in Italy and the Italian State can be described
as the dynamic of action and reaction. Each step taken by the lawmakers and
enforcers to stem the tide of the spoliation of the country’s artworks was met
with a new response on the part of dealers and collectors as they sought to
adjust to new circumstances. The inventions of dealers seeking profit through
an incessant flow of artworks to foreign clients in turn inspired the law enforc-
ers, who responded with ever new measures. A complex strife was underway
between collectors and dealers smuggling artworks out of the country on the
one hand, and the Italian State’s continuous attempts to deliver efficient ad-
ministrative tools to prevent these losses on the other. The struggle for control
was incessantly played out in the vicinity of artworks that were simultaneously
objects of national identification in Italy and objects highly in demand by in-
ternational collectors.
The lobbying initiative of the Association of Art Dealers in 1903 is only one
instance of this complex dynamic. The efforts of Stefano Bardini and Attilio
Simonetti were a direct response to the events at the Chamber of Deputies on
10 June 1903. On that day the Ministry of Public Education proposed an amend-
ment to law no. 185 (passed 12 June 1902) that would prohibit the export of any
important object of the artistic patrimony until the completion of a catalogue
4 The law of 12 June 1902, no. 185.
5 A CS, Atti del Parlamento Italiano, Discussioni della Camera dei Deputati, 1° tornata del 10
giugno 1903, p. 8908.
6 See ASEB, Attilio Simonetti’s letter to Stefano Bardini dated 12 April 1898.
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150 Chapter 4
of the most important artworks banned from export.7 Such regulation would
practically suspend the entire trade in art objects until the publication of the
said catalogue, foreseen for December 1903.8 The extreme severity of this mea-
sure already met with criticism during its discussion in Parliament. Deputy
Giuseppe Pescetti summarised the overtly defensive tactic as having the char-
acter of a ‘catenaccio’.9 Minister Nasi himself recognised that the suspension
of sale and export of all art objects until the catalogue should be completed
‘would gravely harm the interests of numerous persons’, a remark that referred
mainly to those who traded in art.10 As a result the article in question was re-
written, and complemented with a phrase specifying that the ban was imposed
only on objects of notable archaeological and artistic importance.11 That same
day, the voting of the Deputies resulted in 202 votes in favour of the amend-
ment against 31 contrary votes.12 It was the news of its passing that compelled
Italian art dealers to take action to protect their interests in unrestricted deal-
ing in art with foreign buyers. Lobbying against the laws harming the business
and interests of a particular social group has a long history, and was practiced
in the realm of art market as early as the end of the eighteenth century, when
British auctioneers lobbied the Government against acts regulating the art mar-
ket in Britain that would have harmed their interests. The lobbying practices
of the Italian antiquarians were, however, met with a contrary response by the
Italian lawmakers. On 26 June 1903, during the session of the Senate in which
the amendment passed by the Deputies was to be approved, voices were raised
by the Senators that even before the law would enter in force, those dealing in
art would most certainly take every opportunity to sell and export every last
valuable work of art still remaining in the country.13 The Senators were acute-
ly aware of the level of international demand for Italian art, as well as of the
spending power of certain contemporary collectors, most notably American
7 A CS, Atti del Parlamento Italiano, Discussioni della Camera dei Deputati, 1° tornata del 10
giugno 1903, p. 8908.
8 Ibidem.
9 ‘un provvedimento che ha tutti i caratteri di un catenaccio’, Ibidem. By ‘catenaccio’
Pescetti was referring to a law issued suddenly to prevent tax evasion or the hoarding of
goods that would result from prior knowledge of the regulation.
10 ‘Il sospendere la vendita e l’esportazione di qualsiasi oggetto d’arte fino a quando non ci
sia il catalogo recherebbe grave danno agl’interessi di molte persone e non mi pare che ciò
risponda al concetto dei proponenti.’, ACS, Atti del Parlamento Italiano, Discussioni della
Camera dei Deputati, 1° tornata del 10 giugno 1903, p. 8908.
11 Ibidem.
12 Ibidem, p. 8941.
13 A CS, Atti del Parlamento Italiano, Discussioni del Senato del Regno, Tornata del 26 giugno
1903, p. 2555.
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The Smuggling Dealer 151
millionaires (during a debate at the Chamber of Deputies two years later, on
19 May 1905, the names of John Pierpont Morgan and Baron Rothschild were
explicitly mentioned),14 with whom the Italian State was chronically unable to
compete.15 As a result, the amendment restricting the art export was approved
by the Senate with an overwhelming majority of 61 votes against 8.16
In the course of the five decades of the booming demand for the Italian
Renaissance art that coincided with the political and legislative creation of
the Kingdom of Italy Italian dealers and international collectors were caught
up between the art market demand and the Italian State’s developing cultural
heritage protection policy. Continuously, a tension was generated that was a
driving force of the constant interplay between the dealers and the Italian law
enforcement entities. Through their interactions, dealers and policymakers
both created and enforced the evolving legal norms of the protection of the ar-
tistic patrimony. The inventive solutions excogitated by dealers and collectors
who sought to circumvent the Italian protective measures of customs and bor-
der controls were a significant factor in the forward progress of the Kingdom
of Italy’s regulation policies and practical approach to the protection of its ar-
tistic patrimony.
4.2 The Business of Exporting Art
When in 1872 a certain Walter Kennedy Laurie requested an export permit for
his Madonna of Loreto by Raphael,17 he gave his word as a gentleman to the
exportation inspectors that the painting would return to Florence from Rome,
where it was about to be dispatched for restoration.18 Laurie, a Scot residing
in Florence who had inherited his father’s large collection of paintings, was
in truth a gentleman and the painting did return to Florence. A year later it
travelled again, this time to London for the World Exposition.19 Also in this
instance the permit was granted, and the picture safely returned to Italy.20
Each time he desired to send the masterpiece in his possession abroad, or
14 A CS, Atti del Parlamento Italiano, Discussioni della Camera dei Deputati, 1° tornata del 19
maggio 1905, p. 2976.
15 Ibidem.
16 Ibidem, p. 2584.
17 The attribution to Raphael was later revoked.
18 A CS, Min. P. I. DG AABBAA, I Ver, Busta 393, 31, 8 Walter Kennedy Laurie Gualterio.
Estrazione di un quadro del Sanzio a Roma, 1872.
19 Ibidem.
20 Ibidem.
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even to another Italian province, Laurie was obliged to deal with the ufficio
d’esportazione, the Italian exportation office. His case was commonplace. The
same process was required of the German-born wife of the British Ambassador
in Florence, Lady Paget (1839–1929) when she decided to send a painting as a
gift to her sister in Germany in 1875.21 In order to sell abroad four paintings
attributed to various Dutch and Flemish Old Masters in 1867, a Florentine art
dealer Auguste Riblet (1841–1910)22 also had to file for an export license to the
Italian State.23 Thus, both native Italian and Italian resident foreign owners of
significant works of art, owners of private art collections and dealers in art, all
depended on the State’s approval to dispatch their art objects abroad whether
for temporary loans or sales.
To legally export an artwork, the person who intended to do so needed to
submit an application for a license. This service was usually performed by the
packagers and shipping companies on behalf of the art dealer or art owner
wishing to ship the artwork.24 Dealers, however, also applied for export permits
on their own, as Bardini’s application for the export license for the Botticelli
frescoes in 1881 shows. To file for a license a written application had to be sub-
mitted directly to the local institution mandated to release such documents.
As the number of exportations increased over the years, the export applica-
tion form changed and evolved. The initial simple, informal letter delivered
on unstamped paper gave way to formal application forms on stamped sta-
tionary (domanda in carta bollata) provided by the exportation offices (uffici
d’esportazione).25 In the course of time the number of art objects declarable
per form also changed: the initially imprecise number of objects permissible
per form transformed into an individual application form for each object.26
The forms further came to require a precise set of information pertaining to
the artwork that was the object of the license request, including the date of the
application, the name and residency of the applicant and a description of the
object comprising its typology, author, material, measurements, value and, if
21 A CS, Min. P. I. DG AABBAA, I Ver., Busta 387, 25, 20: Esportazione degli oggetti d’arte.
22 http://ricerca.gelocal.it/iltirreno/archivio/iltirreno/2012/03/16/ZR_19_02.html [Accessed
on 21 November 2016].
23 A CS, Min. P. I. DG AABBAA, I Ver., Busta 392, 31, 3: Riblet. Permesso di estrazione di ogetti
d’arte, 1867, 4 quadri di scuola fiamminga e olandese.
24 Barbara Bertelli, op. cit., p. 146.
25 Ibidem. See also ACS, Min. P. I. DG AABBAA, I Ver., Busta 394, 33, 1, Letter dated
20 March 1882: ‘La prevengo che io conservo presso di me la domanda in carta bollata del
Sig. Bardini, scritta e firmata da lui, nella quale viene dichiarato il prezzo degli affreschi a
L 60 000.’
26 Ibidem.
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applicable, title.27 In the early 1880s the name of the recipient was also added
to the form.28
Once the request for a license had been filed – as inferred from Bardini’s let-
ter of 1878 – an art object packed in a case, regardless of its dimensions, had to
be brought to the exportation office for examination.29 From other accounts,
such as that of Accademia Ligustica, as well as from the documentation re-
garding the exportation of the bust of the Princess of Urbino in 1887, we know
that art objects could also be examined by inspectors at their then current lo-
cations.30 In such instances, the applicant was required to cover the costs of
the inspectors’ travel.31 Exportation offices were located in the major art gal-
leries of the Kingdom, a precise list of which was compiled by the Ministry of
Public Education in 1879.32 Once in the office, the art object was to be scrupu-
lously examined by three exportation inspectors, i.e., by an art historian or an
archaeologist, a painter and a sculptor. If all three approved the exportation,
an export permit was released by the director of the gallery in which the ex-
portation office resided.33 If an object was permitted to leave the country, the
27 Ibidem.
28 Z A SMB-P K, IV-N L Bode 629, Stefano Bardini’s letter to Wilhelm Bode dated
12 December 1888.
29 ‘Preg.mo Sig. Direttore, Per l’esportazione degli oggetti d’arte hanno messo tanti rigori
che non è possiblie spedire per terra un oggetto importante. Le casse di qualunque di-
mensione siano devono esser portate nel piano terreno della Galleria e dopo una visita
scrupolosa viene ammagliata e bollata esternamente senza il qual bollo la ferrovia non
riceve casse contenenti oggetti d’arte tanto antichi che moderni perchè anche per cose
di piccola entità ricorrono al ministero.’, ZA SMB-P K, IV-N L Bode 629, Stefano Bardini’s
letter to Wilhelm Bode dated 10 October 1878.
30 Enrico Stumpo, ‘Per una storia del mercato dell’arte nell’Europa dell’Ottocento: le espor-
tazioni di antichità e oggetti d’arte in Italia dopo l’Unità’, Studi Storici Luigi Simeoni, LV
(2005), pp. 243–273, p. 258; ACS, Min. P. I. DG AABBAA, I Ver., Busta 387, 25, 44: Regolamento
per la spedizione di oggetti d’arte, 1881, Accademia Ligustica di Belle Arti, Regolamento
per i diritti sui documenti scolastici richiesti alla Amministrazione Accademica e sulle
visite e relativi certificati pei capi d’arte da spedirsi all’estero.
31 A CS, Min. P. I. DG AABBAA, I Ver., Busta 387, 25, 44: Regolamento per la spedizione di
oggetti d’arte, 1881, Accademia Ligustica di Belle Arti, Regolamento per i diritti sui docu-
menti scolastici richiesti alla Amministrazione Accademica e sulle visite e relativi certifi-
cati pei capi d’arte da spedirsi all’estero.
32 A CS, Min. P. I. DG AABBAA, I Ver., Busta 387, 25, 43: Sulla normativa in materia di es-
portazione di opere d’arte, 1879–1880, Circolare N. 585, 31 luglio 1879. See also Matteo
Musacchio, Introduzione, in Matteo Musacchio (ed.), L’archivio della Direzione generale
delle antichità e belle arti (1860–1890): Inventario, Roma: Ministero per i beni culturali e
ambientali, 1994, pp. 9–105, p. 68.
33 Ibidem. See also Barbara Bertelli, op. cit., p. 145. For the names of some of the exportation
inspectors in Tuscany see Barbara Bertelli, op. cit., p. 146, footnote 231.
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inspectors would bind the box with a string and attach a seal; without such,
a package containing any work of art would not be accepted by the railway.34
In instances where no export permit was released, the State had the right to
pre-empt the export-banned object by purchasing it for the same price the for-
eign buyer had offered.35 As already seen in the instance of the Conestabile
Madonna in 1871, a chronic lack of funds sufficient for the pre-emption at the
Ministry of Public Education almost always precluded the Italian State from
competing with foreign buyers willing to spend huge sums on Italian artworks.
In January 1873 in Florence Julius Meyer, Director of the Berlin Picture Gallery,
purchased a painting by Luca Signorelli depicting the Education of Pan.36 Upon
his request for an export licence, the Director of the Royal Galleries in Florence
dispatched a letter to the Ministry of Public Education enquiring whether the
important picture, which had been described in one of the volumes on the
history of the Italian painting by Joseph Archer Crowe and Giovanni Battista
Cavalcaselle, would be pre-empted by the State. The Ministry declined, as
Meyer had acquired it for 66,000 lire which the Ministry did not have to spend,
and specified that there were four other Signorelli paintings still remaining in
Italy.37 The picture was thus granted the license and left Italy for Berlin, where
it was displayed at the Picture Gallery (Gemäldegalerie) until its destruction
in the Second World War.38 Apparently due to the same lack of funds for pre-
emption, Venus and Mars by Sandro Botticelli that had been acquired by an
Englishman named Barker in 1874 for 27,000 lire from the Florentine families
of Pucci and Ridolfi, was allowed by the Ministry to go abroad, eventually en-
tering the collection of the National Gallery in London.39 In many instances,
however, the State imposed permanent export bans that could not be waived
even by repeated appeals of applicants. In 1878 Stefano Bardini described the
situation in a letter to Wilhelm Bode: ‘It has become much more difficult to ex-
port an artwork in recent years. They have begun to apply so many rules [about
what can be sent abroad] that it is almost impossible to dispatch an important
34 Z A SMB-P K, IV-N L Bode 629, Stefano Bardini’s letter to Wilhelm Bode dated
10 October 1878.
35 Barbara Bertelli, op. cit., p. 73.
36 A CS, Min. P. I. DG AABBAA, I Ver., Busta 392, 31, 13: Richiesta Meyer per esportare tele di
Signorelli, Schiavone e Pollaiolo, 1873.
37 Ibidem.
38 Berlin, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Gemäldegalerie, Luca Signorelli, The Education of
Pan, Tempera on canvas, Inv. no. 79A (lost).
39 A CS, Min. P. I. DG AABBAA, I Ver., Busta 392, 31, 4: Barker. Permesso di estrarre quadri
comprati dai marchesi Ridolfi e Pucci, 1868, London, National Gallery, Sandro Botticelli,
Venus and Mars, Tempera and oil on poplar, Inv. no. NG915.
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object by land.’40 Such was the case, for instance, with the Botticelli frescoes
from Villa Lemmi that were not granted a license in 1881 despite ferocious ef-
forts on the part of the dealer.41 Six years later, in a letter to Wilhelm Bode dated
1 February 1887, Bardini referred to the situation as ‘the acute stage’,42 in which
the Italian State was consistently without the funds to acquire export-banned
works of art, yet at the same time blocked their exportation. These complex
circumstances created an increasingly difficult environment for dealers and
collectors, who adjusted by way of the circumvention or outright breakage of
the law.
4.3 There Is Always a Way
I now have a great piece of news for you – the PICTURE is safely out of
Italy!
The agent is going with it all the way to London to put it in safe hands.
Did I tell you my invention for getting it out?
The above question was posed by Mary Costelloe (1864–1945), later known
as Mary Berenson, in a letter to her family of March 1900.43 Due to their par-
ticular materiality works of art are onerous to transport and to clandestine
export. The difficulties created by art objects result in labour that must be in-
vested to overcome the produced obstacles. The difficulties thus result in the
performance of social action: to successfully arrange, carry out and complete
an illicit operation aimed at the dispatch of an artwork abroad, significant
effort involving many social interactions is required on the part of the en-
gaged individuals. In a letter to Isabella Stewart Gardner (1840–1924), Bernard
Berenson (1865–1959), who at the turn of the twentieth century on occasion
smuggled art out of Italy, referred to this complicated process as ‘the agony
40 ‘Per l’esportazione degli oggetti d’arte hanno messo tanti rigori che non è possibile spedire
per terra un oggetto importante.’, ZA SMB-P K, IV-N L Bode 629, Stefano Bardini’s letter to
Wilhelm Bode dated 10 October 1878.
41 See Prologue.
42 ‘Il Governo mette degli inciampi nuovi tutti i giorni e siamo arrivati allo stadio acuto,
non vuole comprare nè lasciare partire gli oggetti.’, ZA SMB-P K, IV-N L Bode 629, Stefano
Bardini’s letter to Wilhelm Bode dated 1 February 1887.
43 Mary Berenson’s letter to her family dated 15 March 1900, see Barbara Strachey and Jayne
Samuels (ed.), Mary Berenson: A Self-Portrait from Her Letters and Diaries, London: Victor
Gollancz Ltd, 1983, p. 90.
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of getting it out of the country’.44 Berenson was referring to Raphael’s Count
Tommaso Inghirami (fig. 10) smuggled to Isabella Stewart Gardner in 1898, of
which he had to order a high-quality copy that would eventually replace the
painting in its original setting in Volterra to deceive the Italian art inspectors.
Smuggling is defined as the clandestine importation or exportation of pro-
hibited goods from one jurisdiction to another.45 It was to surreptitious trans-
portations of artworks that dealers and collectors frequently resorted when
the transacted object was placed under an export-ban by the Italian author-
ities. The easiest technique for exporting a work of art against the imposed
ban was the substitution of an object that had obtained an export permission
with the one that had been banned. Indeed it was commonly practiced, as we
know both from accounts of collectors and from reports of the Italian export
administration.46 In 1899, Mary Berenson described the method in detail in a
letter to her daughter, Karin Costelloe:
I promised to tell you how the picture is to be taken out of Italy: (…)
They take it to the Overseer at the Gallery here, packed in a large box,
to get permission to export it. That is, they’re supposed to, but in real-
ity they take another picture, some worthless daub of the same size. The
Inspector looks at it, and of course says they can do what they like with
rubbish like that. He then gravely seals up the box and puts the mark on
which serves to carry it through. But all that time the box is cunningly
made to open where he would never think of putting a seal, and they
carry it home, open it in this secret way, and substitute the good picture
for the bad. Myself I think the Director knows all about it, and he knows it
is hopeless to enforce the law, but of course he cannot go openly against
it. So for dealers with whom he is good friends (i.e. who bribe him), he
doesn’t look too carefully into how the boxes are made!47
44 Bernard Berenson’s letter to Isabella Stewart Gardner dated 21 March 1898, see Rollin
Van N. Hadley, op. cit., p. 130.
45 Mathieu Deflem and Kelly Henry-Turner, Smuggling, in David Luckenbill and
Dennis L. Peck, Encyclopedia of Criminology and Deviant Behaviour, vol. 2: Crime and
Juvenile Delinquency, Philadelphia: Brunner-Routledge, 2001, pp. 473–475, p. 473.
46 A CS, Min. P. I. DG AABBAA, I Ver., Busta 387, 35, 42: Relazione sulle licenze di esportazi-
one, 1880, Relazione intorno al servizio delle licenze per l’esportazione da Roma degli
oggetti d’arte e di antichità.
47 Mary Berenson’s letter to Karin Costelloe dated 25 November 1899, see Barbara Strachey
and Jayne Samuels, op. cit., pp. 85–86; see also Ernest Samuels, Bernard Berenson: The
Making of a Connoisseur…, p. 252.
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Figure 10 Raphael Sanzio, Count Tommaso Inghirami, c. 1515–1516, Oil on panel, 90 cm × 62,5
cm, Acquired in 1898, Boston, Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum
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The substitution of objects was popular as early as in the 1870s.48 Later, new
regulations made the technique more difficult, albeit – due to a widespread
practice of bribery – not impossible. In 1898, Stefano Bardini bluntly informed
an American architect and art collector, Stanford White (1853–1906), about the
possibility of getting an export licence through the financial payoff of an im-
portant ministerial clerk:
In regard to the Taormina affair, it would distress me greatly if Mr.
Whitney believed that it is my fault that it has not yet gone through. The
Prince of Cerami is quite ready to deliver all woodwork, but it is not pos-
sible to have all this woodwork gotten out of the country without the per-
mission of the Ministry of Public Instruction, resident in Roma. It is also
impossible to get it out of the country secretly, as it is too bulky… I have
promised 10 000 francs recompense (since you authorised it) to a person
of influence in the Ministry, so that he should obtain a permit for us, and
we will then end by getting it.49
If, however, an application for an export permit was denied, the banned object
had to be exported furtively.
The arrangement of clandestine transport began with the search for the
individuals trustworthy enough to be engaged in the endeavour. Intensified
communication, traceable in correspondence of dealers and collectors, con-
structed confidential groups of individuals working together to circumvent
Italian export restrictions. There are known about fifteen letters and telegrams
between Stefano Bardini, Wilhelm Bode and Albert Figdor pertaining to their
hunt for a circumvention of the export ban imposed in 1887 on the bust of the
Princess of Urbino.50 Although the correspondence is generally explicit, and
no encryptions seem to have been practiced,51 in a letter of 9 August 1887, in
48 A CS, Min. P. I. DG AABBAA, I Ver., Busta 387, 35, 42: Relazione sulle licenze di esportazi-
one, 1880, Relazione intorno al servizio delle licenze per l’esportazione da Roma degli
oggetti d’arte e di antichità.
49 Quoted after Wayne Craven, op. cit., p. 62.
50 See Chapter 1.
51 Isabella Stewart Gardner and Bernard Berenson developed a secret code to communi-
cate about purchases. For instance, if the collector approved of an acquisition of a paint-
ing by Carlo Crivelli, she would cable Berenson ‘YECRIVELLI’, and correspondingly
‘NOCRIVELLI’, if she declined the offer. The code, however, was designed to save time
rather than to encrypt the meaning., See Bernard Berenson’s letter to Isabella Stewart
Gardner dated 26 April 1896 and Isabella Stewart Gardner’s letter to Bernard Berenson
dated 24 November 1897, Rollin Van N. Hadley, op. cit., p. 53, p. 102. I am thankful to Hiroko
Nagai for drawing my attention to the letters featuring the code.
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which Bardini asked for someone willing to smuggle to be sent to Rome, he
instructed Bode to reply with an unsigned telegram consisting of a single word:
‘On receipt of this letter, if you have a person to be sent, telegraph me one
word only, without a signature, and possibly add the day of departure.’52 As is
evident from the documentation, organisers of smuggling operations usually
reached out to friends and acquaintances with requests to carry an object away
with them whilst travelling, or to act as the necessary strawmen. While organ-
ising the export of the bust of the Princess of Urbino to Berlin, Bode contact-
ed two friends in Rome and in Vienna before deciding to collude with Albert
Figdor, who agreed to act as a strawman.53 In later instances, Bode engaged
another collector friend, Adolf von Beckerath, as the strawman. To smuggle the
Botticelli frescoes out of Florence to Paris in 1881, Stefano Bardini conspired
with a dealer acquaintance in Milan, Giuseppe Baslini, while the purchaser
of the frescoes, Léonce Both de Tauzia, worked with a Parisian friend, Charles
Ephrussi.54 Bernard Berenson habitually engaged friends to smuggle pictures
out of Italy, as may be read in his reports to Isabella Stewart Gardner: ‘(…) the
best, indeed the only thing to do with it [Giovanni Bellini’s Christ Carrying the
Cross (fig. 11)], is to put it into a trunk and carry it away with one. This I will
have done now, by the first reliable friend who crosses the frontier’.55 Giovanni
Bellini’s Christ Carrying the Cross, ascribed at the time of purchase to Giorgione
and destined for the Boston collection of Isabella Stewart Gardner, was handed
by Berenson to friends, who carried the painting with them ‘swaddled up like a
baby in a blanket’ at their departure for London in early 1898.56
Methods of smuggling any goods are all variants of two basic techniques: the
undetected running of cargoes across borders, or the concealment of goods in
unlikely places on vehicles, in baggage or cargo, or on a person.57 Due to their
physical particularities such as unusual dimensions, heavy weight, and fragil-
ity of materials, works of art constitute a category of objects that are relatively
difficult to be transported in a clandestine fashion. In addition, their destina-
tion to be displayed for the admiration of their visual qualities requires that
52 ‘Appena ricevuto questa mia se ha la persona da mandare mi telegrafi una sola parola
senza firma spedizio e possibilmente mi aggiunga il giorno di partenza.’, ZA SMB-P K,
IV-N L Bode 629, Stefano Bardini’s letter to Wilhelm Bode dated 9 August 1887.
53 Z A SMB-P K, IV-N L Bode 629, Wilhelm Bode’s letter to Stefano Bardini dated
27 September 1887.
54 See Prologue.
55 Bernard Berenson’s letter to Isabella Stewart Gardner dated 12 December 1897, see Rollin
Van N. Hadley, op. cit., p. 109.
56 Bernard Berenson’s letter to Isabella Stewart Gardner dated 9 January 1898, Ibidem, p. 114.
57 https://www.britannica.com/topic/smuggling [Accessed on 23 August 2016].
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Figure 11 Circle of Giovanni Bellini, Christ Carrying the Cross, c. 1505–1510, Oil and tempera
on poplar panel, 49,5 cm × 38,5 cm, Acquired in 1898, Boston, Isabella Stewart
Gardner Museum
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Figure 12 Giovanni de Fondulis, The Deposition of Christ with Carlotta of Lusignano, after
1483, Polychromed and gilded terracotta, 96 cm height, Acquired in 1897, Boston,
Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum
they arrive in as unharmed a condition as possible. Though the latter is not
always an issue – after all, some works of art infamously were, and continue to,
be fragmented into smaller, more easily transportable pieces, in order to facili-
tate surreptitious transport58 – care for the piece’s physical condition excluded
some ways of conveyance and in general determined the fashion of the clan-
destine movement. It was not, however, the case of the Deposition of Christ
with Carlotta of Lusignano (fig. 12), a painted terracotta group then attributed
to Bartolomeo Bellano, which was shipped by the Florentine dealer Emilio
Costantini59 to Boston piecemeal in three parts, from three different ports,
58 To name but a one example of an artwork fragmented for transportation, the statue of
Venus, which came to the British Museum with the collection of Charles Townley in
1805, after its discovery by Townley’s Italian agent Gavin Hamilton had been shipped to
England as two separate fragments., see Francis Haskell and Nicholas Penny, Taste and the
Antique: The Lure of Classical Sculpture 1500–1900, New Haven: Yale University Press, 1981,
p. 68.
59 On Emilio Costantini see Mark Westgarth, op. cit., p. 82.
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in order to minimise the risk of detection by customs officers.60 If in some
cases nineteenth-century dealers and collectors showed astonishing fantasy
and invention for the furtive transport of artworks across the Italian frontiers,
the elaborate techniques still fell under the general categorisation of one of
the two basic techniques cited above. The second technique, easier to organise
due to the use of existing travel connections crossing the border, was more
frequently employed.
The most widespread method of all was to put the artwork in a trunk car-
rying personal items. Such was Stefano Bardini’s first suggestion of getting the
bust of the Princess of Urbino out of Italy in 1887.61 Indeed, the dealer con-
tinued to smuggle objects out of the country in this manner for Adolf von
Beckerath, despite the collector’s initial fears that bigger trunks for objects of
larger dimensions might arouse suspicions during the border control.62 The
practice was commonplace among foreign collectors buying in Italy. Isabella
Stewart Gardner was somewhat aghast at Bernard Berenson’s first mention, on
26 May 1897, of the necessity to smuggle artworks (‘It would be much easier for
you in your vast trunks to get the picture out of Italy without risk of discovery
than for me in a modest – a man’s trunk is always modest – box.’63), but by
December of that year she embraced the idea and went on to inform her agent:
(…) I have seen wonderful things in Paris, bought by those Jews, Kann
and Dreyfus. They have had great luck and have packed up and walked
off with things they bought in Italy. Don’t you think the best way to do is
that. Put the Giorgione in a trunk and presto!64
Trunks were of course filled with other goods that hid the object from sight,
and, in case of a border or custom control, could theoretically deceive the offi-
cers. A cross from the collection of Giuseppe Toscanelli (1828–1891), at the time
attributed to the Florentine goldsmith Maso Finiguerra (1426–1464), was car-
ried from Tuscany to London in a trunk in which it was covered with linens.65 In
60 Bernard Berenson letters to Isabella Stewart Gardner dated 24 November 1897 and
13 March 1898, see Rollin Van N. Hadley, op. cit., p. 101, p. 129.
61 Z A SMB-P K, IV-N L Bode 629, Stefano Bardini’s letter to Wilhelm Bode dated 9 August 1887.
62 A SEB, Adolf von Beckerath’s letter to Stefano Bardini dated 5 February 1894.
63 Bernard Berenson’s letter to Isabella Stewart Gardner dated 26 May 1897, see Rollin
Van N. Hadley, op. cit., pp. 84–85.
64 Isabella Stewart Gardner’s letter to Bernard Berenson dated 13 December 1897, Ibidem,
p. 110.
65 Barbara Bertelli, op. cit., p. 153; Barbara Bertelli, Un museo in divenire. Il Bargello, le sue
collezioni e il mercato antiquario fiorentino: protagonisti e circolazione delle opere d’arte, in
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Figure 13 Piermatteo d’Amelia, The Annunciation, c. 1487, Tempera on panel, 102,4 × 114,8
cm, Acquired in 1900, Boston, Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum
March of 1900, the panel with The Annunciation by Piermatteo d’Amelia (fig. 13)
was covertly transported to London by the Florentine dealer Guido Chiesa
Gagliardi. The painting, which originated in the convent of SS. Annunziata in
Amelia was bound for the collection of Isabella Stewart Gardner in Boston.66 It
was hidden in a large, custom-made trunk with double bottom that was filled
with dolls ordered by Mary Berenson especially for this enterprise:
Benedetta Chiesi and Ilaria Ciseri, Beatrice Paolozzi Strozzi (ed.), Il Medioevo in viaggio,
exh. cat. Museo Nazionale del Bargello, 20 March–21 June 2015, pp. 41–63.
66 Lucilla Vignoli, op. cit., p. 352.
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(…) We had a huge trunk made with false bottom in which the picture
was safely packed away. To explain the size and shape of the trunk I had
a lot of dolls made, and Signor Gagliardi went as a commercial traveller
in the doll trade. They were, though, large, cheap and worthless dolls, or
I should have sent one to you. He went on Tuesday, and sent a telegram
yesterday morning from Basle to say it was all right. When I get back I re-
ally must take you to see it.67
False bottoms, due to the potential security that they offered, were frequently
used. According to the rumours circulating in Rome at the time of the events,
the Portrait of Cesare Borgia, then considered by some as a Raphael and sold in
1891 by Prince Paolo Borghese to Baron Alphonse de Rothschild in Paris, also
left Italy concealed under a second bottom of a trunk.68 The travel trunks that
were much in use in the late nineteenth century were a particularly convenient
means for the furtive transport of goods. Varied dimensions that could reach
the height of 70 cm and the possibility of customising their size, shape and the
arrangement of the internal compartments enabled easy concealment of vari-
ous types of objects. Their sturdy wooden body with protective metal banding
allowed for the insertion of a second bottom.
Smaller objects that could fit in a personal travelling suitcase were of course
easier to transport, requiring less ingenuity and labour to hide. Stefano Bardini
repeatedly dispatched small-size artworks acquired by the Berlin collector
Adolf von Beckerath in suitcases carried across the Italian border by a man
hired by Beckerath to do the job.69 Size and the materiality of objects deter-
mined the method of their furtive transport. The particular materiality of
canvas, for instance – even a large canvas weighs only a few pounds when it
is deprived of its frame and can be reduced to a fraction of its original size –
made for the high portability of paintings that were easily rolled up, hidden
in secret places, and carried off, as was the case in the notorious ‘exhaust-pipe
plot’ in 1907, when the Italian dealer Antonio Monti rolled up seven portraits
by Sir Anthony van Dyck formerly owned by the Cattaneo family of Genoa and
inserted them into a metal tube attached to the undercarriage of a car.70 The
67 Mary Berenson’s letter to her family dated 15 March 1900, see Barbara Strachey and Jayne
Samuels, op. cit., p. 90.
68 Wayne Craven, op. cit., p. 65.
69 A SEB, Corrispondenza 1894, Beckerath Berlino, Adolf von Beckerath’s letter to Stefano
Bardini dated 5 February 1894.
70 Esmée Quodbach, ‘The Last of the American Versailles’: The Widener Collection at
Lynnewood Hall’, Simiolus: Netherlands Quarterly for the History of Art, 29, 1/2 (2002),
pp. 42–96, pp. 73–75; Gerald Reitlinger, The Economics of Taste: The Rise and Fall of Picture
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case was investigated by the Italian State and, not surprisingly, attracted the
attention of Stefano Bardini, who collected the legal evaluations of the cul-
pability of Monti.71 Paintings were also frequently inserted into large framed
mirrors or placed as a second bottom under tables.72
An international regulation that allowed diplomats to send off and re-
ceive dispatches without examination of their content was known to deal-
ers and was taken advantage of.73 In 1897, when the Florentine dealer Emilio
Costantini had problems getting an export permit for the Deposition of Christ
with Carlotta of Lusignano purchased by Isabella Stewart Gardner, he sug-
gested sending the sculpture group to an ambassador friend, either in Paris or
London, what – in words of Bernard Berenson – ‘would obviate all difficulties
as anything may be sent to ambassadors without examination at either end’.74
This method of circumventing inspection was practiced for decades, but even-
tually caught the eye of the Italian authorities. During a parliamentary debate
on 28 January 1892, Ferdinando Martini noted that the two main routes for
smuggling works of art out of the country were via foreign embassies and the
Vatican.75 Stefano Bardini had considered this when he was planning the ex-
port of the bust of the Princess of Urbino in 1887. His idea was that the sculp-
ture should be consigned in a box to the German Archaeological Institute in
Rome, from where it would be delivered to the German Embassy, which would
ship the sculpture to Berlin.76 The Bavarian Embassy in Rome was also under
discussion.77 The German Consul in Florence, Carl Schmitz, regularly accepted
consignments of artworks sold by Italian dealers to Wilhelm Bode.78
Similar techniques were used for illicit import of artworks, notably into
the United States of America. In 1883 the U.S raised the tariff on works of art
Prices 1760–1960, London: Barrie and Rockliff, 1961, p. 181; see also Cynthia Saltzman, op.
cit., p. 5.
71 A SEB, Affari legali, Filza IIIa, Udienza del giorno 12 Luglio 1909 in tema di preteso contra-
bbando dei Van Dyck di Casa Cattaneo.
72 A CS, Atti del Parlamento Italiano, Discussioni della Camera dei Deputati, Tornata 28 gen-
naio 1892, p. 5536.
73 Guido Guerzoni, op. cit., pp. 253–254.
74 Bernard Berenson’s letter to Isabella Stewart Gardner dated 24 November 1897, see Rollin
Van N. Hadley, op. cit., p. 101.
75 ‘Noi abbiamo due grandi vie di esportazione: il Vaticano e le Ambasciate’, ACS, Atti del
Parlamento Italiano, Discussioni della Camera dei Deputati, Tornata 28 gennaio 1892,
p. 5536.
76 Z A SMB-P K, IV-N L Bode 629, Stefano Bardini’s letter to Wilhelm Bode dated 18 August 1887.
77 Z A SMB-P K, IV-N L Bode 629, Wilhelm Bode’s letter to Stefano Bardini dated
27 September 1887.
78 See Enrico Stumpo, op. cit., p. 253.
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imported from abroad from 10 to 30 percent, causing many collectors to either
store their collections in Europe (as in the case of John Pierpont Morgan), or to
import artworks clandestinely to avoid the tax.79 When prior to her departure
from Paris to Boston in December 1897 Isabella Stewart Gardner was impa-
tiently awaiting the arrival of Carlo Crivelli’s Saint George Slaying the Dragon80
bought through Bernard Berenson and the London dealer Colnaghi, she wrote:
‘I think, if the Crivelli had come, I would have put it into the bottom of my
trunk, said nothing to anybody, and smuggled it into unwilling America.’81 Two
years later the collector was already herself bold enough to smuggle Andrea
Mantegna’s panel depicting a Sacra Conversazione along with a small paint-
ing by Martin Schongauer in a trunk.82 As Wayne Craven observed, ‘otherwise
respectable citizens (…) indulged in the most devious schemes to avoid the
hated duty tax’, one of which was a common practice of creating two inven-
tories of purchased objects, an accurate one, and one featuring significantly
reduced prices to be presented to the American customs officials.83 The vari-
ous strategies at times did not of course prove successful. In 1904 a claim was
brought against Isabella Stewart Gardner by the American Customs Office for
a million dollars worth of artworks that she had imported in 1898, which the
collector had listed as exempt from the tax because she exhibited them to the
public at her home.84 The Customs Office, however, disqualified her house as
a public institution.85
There were also instances of the running of artworks across the Italian bor-
der. These usually remained undetected by the authorities, but it is sometimes
possible to trace them in the archives of the involved dealers and collectors.
In the spring of 1895 the Canessa brothers, who were Neapolitan dealers in
79 ‘The New Tariff Law. To Go Into Operation On July 1. How It Differs From the Old Law’,
New York Tribune, 30 June 1883, p. 3. For a history of the tariff and its revisions see
Kimberly Orcutt, ‘Buy American? The Debate over the Art Tariff’, American Art, 16, 3
(2002), pp. 82–91.
80 Boston, Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Carlo Crivelli, Saint George Slaying the Dragon,
c. 1470, Gold and tempera on wood, 94 cm × 47,8 cm, Acc. no. P16e13.
81 Isabella Stewart Gardner’s letter to Bernard Berenson dated 14 December 1897, see Rollin
Van N. Hadley, op. cit., p. 111.
82 ‘(…) I am always really frightened at the prices they ask you – even what you call cheap
are very dear compared with my Mantegna. I am hoping to manage to send you a photo-
graph of it soon. I smuggled it and the Schongauer in. Being small they went in my trunk.’,
Isabella Steward Gardner’s letter to Bernard Berenson dated 11 February 1900, quoted after
Rollin Van N. Hadley, op. cit., p. 205.
83 Wayne Craven, op. cit., p. 68.
84 Manfred J. Holler and Barbara Klose-Ullmann, op. cit., p. 106.
85 Ibidem.
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antiquities, organised a cycling tour for amateurs that started in San Remo,
Italy and finished in Nice in France.86 The tour was in fact designed to smug-
gle a large number of antiquities out of the country from the excavations at
Boscoreale, and each of the circa 100 participants was given a piece to carry.87
During the last years of the nineteenth century, a case in which Roman busts
were hidden amongst mandarin oranges in a refrigerated train carriage was
cited by Ferdinando Martini at the Italian Parliament in 1892 and became no-
torious.88 Indeed, the inventiveness of dealers and collectors was unlimited.
In Florence sometime after the 1882 illicit departure for Paris of the Botticelli
frescoes from the Villa Lemmi, a local shipping agent Ramacci blatantly stated
to the officials at the exportation office: ‘If you, gentlemen, give me sufficient
means, I will take on dispatching across the border this entire room with all of
you in it, without them [border controllers] noticing.’89
Along with the concealment of the object, the path of the trafficking played
a crucial role in the success of an art smuggling operation. Art trafficking routes
from the Kingdom of Italy in many cases reflected the traditional avenues used
for centuries to smuggle goods in or out of Italy, such as contraband from
Switzerland. The carriers employed by Stefano Bardini and the Berlin based
collector Adolf von Beckerath travelled either via the Swiss Chiasso or the
Gotthard Pass and Basel in order to avoid Austrian-bound trains.90 Another of
their routes, discussed by Bardini and Beckerath in their correspondence, was
86 Giuseppe Picciano, ‘E pedalando, pedalando il tesoro andò in fuga. La vicenda del più
incredibile trafugamento di reperti archeologici della storia’, Neifatti.it, 9 February 2018
[Accessed on 25 June 2019].
87 Ibidem. I wish to thank Guido Petruccioli for drawing my attention to the example of the
Canessa brothers.
88 A CS, Atti del Parlamento Italiano, Discussioni della Camera dei Deputati, Tornata 28 gen-
naio 1892, p. 5536.
89 ‘Apriti cielo! tutto fu in trambusto e il Direttore tenne subito un‘adunanza di vari pezzi
duri, che non ricordo chi fossero, per vedere che poteva farsi, e fu chiamato, per trarne
pareri, anche il Sig. Ramacci spedizioniere, che aveva il suo banco presso le case di Dante
in Via S. Margherita. A lui che lavorava molto in spedizioni di oggetti d’arte, fu chiesto se
era possibile che gli affreschi, nella loro mole, avessero realmente potuto esser trasportati
in modo così inaspettato; ed il vecchio Sig. Ramacci rispose ironicamente: “Se signori mi
danno i mezzi sufficienti, io mi impegno di mandar oltre frontiera questa stanza con tutti
loro dentro, senza che se ne accorgano!”’, SGNAMC, Fondi Storici, Fondo Ugo Ojetti, serie
1: Corrispondenti: artisti, Corrispondenti: B 106. Bardini Ugo (antiquario), 2 lettere del
figlio Ugo [Bardini] e Angiolo Lemmi, figlio di Petronio Lemmi a proposito dell’acquisto
fatto [da Stefano Bardini] degli affreschi del Botticelli, venduti poi al Louvre [proprietà
Petronio].
90 A SEB, Corrispondenza Adolf von Beckerath, Adolf von Beckerath’s letter to Stefano
Bardini dated 29 January 1894; ASEB, Coppialettere, Stefano Bardini’s letter to Wilhelm
Bode dated 2 February 1894.
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via Paris. As can be inferred from Bardini’s letters, this was due to a numerically
inferior number of controls of the content of packages destined for France.91
With regularity, art objects were also clandestinely shipped from the ports of
the Kingdom of Italy, especially if they were bound for France.
Even after successful trafficking, however, smuggled artworks created dif-
ficulties. Such objects were often already being sought by the Italian Ministry
that investigated dubious sales abroad, and once they had illicitly become
part of a foreign collection they proved to be a risk for the recipient’s repu-
tation. For museums as public institutions, such risk was potentially devas-
tating. While a collector like Adolf von Beckerath or Isabella Stewart Gardner
who displayed his or her objects on private property would have been able to
hide a smuggled object in a place far from public sight, the curator of a public
museum faced the challenge of putting on display an object with a history of
doubtful exportation. In 1896, writing to Quincy Adams Shaw Stefano Bardini
noted that he could not sell a marble bas-relief of a Virgin and Child with Angel
and Saint John by Bartolomeo Bellano to a foreign museum because the sale
would have garnered too much publicity.92 The risk of undesired exposure
was higher, the more common it became for museums to publish catalogues
of new acquisitions and to regularly update their collection catalogues and
guides. Unlike some early nineteenth-century Grand Tourists who boasted in
their collection catalogues of how they had outsmarted export restrictions and
managed clandestine exports of objects,93 Wilhelm Bode sixty years later had
to carefully refrain from publishing on the smuggled works of art under his
curatorship, or at least delay potentially damaging publications on such pieces
until their particular cases had fallen into oblivion.94 Notwithstanding, such
a strategy had not always proved successful, as in the case of the bust of the
Princess of Urbino, which was discovered at the Berlin Royal Museums by the
Italian Ministry of Public Education after the sculpture had been included in
the Museums’ yearly catalogue.
Even objects that had gone abroad from private collections risked discovery.
The Italian public was relatively familiar with the most important privately-
owned domestic art collections. The project of cataloguing the national ar-
tistic patrimony was initiated by the Ministry of Public Education, and this
process would prove essential for an assessment of the artworks that had gone
91 Z A SMB-P K, IV-N L Bode 629, Stefano Bardini’s letter to Wilhelm Bode dated
27 January 1894.
92 Lynn Catterson, Introduction …, p. 1.
93 Erin L. Thompson, op. cit., p. 10.
94 Z A SMB-P K, IV-N L Bode 629, Stefano Bardini’s letter to Wilhelm Bode dated 22 May 1894.
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missing. It was, in fact, not unusual for an inspector to discover the absence of
an artwork in a collection while visiting a site. Thus copies – for practical rea-
sons mostly of paintings – were often made to deceive Italian authorities once
an artwork had been smuggled out of the country.95 The practice became so
commonplace amongst dealers that in some instances the price of an original
included the price of execution of a good copy to substitute it in situ. Bernard
Berenson, when organising the clandestine exportation of the Christ Carrying
the Cross (fig. 11) for Isabella Stewart Gardner in 1896, wrote explicitly about the
necessity of having a copy of it made:
I’m having the absurdest difficulties about the Giorgione, and it still may
escape. (…) They [the owners] insist on two conditions before they will
sell the picture. One is that we shall furnish them with a good copy. That
is a matter of £100 at the utmost. The further and real difficulty is that
they insist I shall assume all penal consequences – that is to say, they
insist on saying that I have bought the picture, and if the Italian govern-
ment takes them to account, they will say that they sold it to me – as in
Italy to a resident they have a right to. In that case the government could
hold me responsible and it might be very nasty for me. Now I assure you
that I like not this, yet will do it for you.96
Stefano Bardini produced copies on an almost massive scale to substitute origi-
nals sold abroad (at times he also profited by selling to an unassuming collec-
tor one of a multitude of produced copies as an original, as in the case of the
bust of Saint Laurent and Prince Liechtenstein).97
As we have seen, the five decades following Italian Unification in 1861 and
preceding the introduction of the Nasi and Rosadi laws, in 1902 and 1909 re-
spectively, saw an ongoing struggle for control over the country’s works of art.
It was a dynamic that involved, on the one hand, dealers and collectors striv-
ing to obtain and sell works of art, and on the other, the Italian Government
struggling to save them for Italy. The response of the Italian authorities to the
95 See Wayne Craven, op. cit., p. 67.
96 Bernard Berenson’s letter to Isabella Stewart Gardner dated 26 May 1897, see Rollin
Van N. Hadley, op. cit., p. 84; see also Ernest Samuels, Bernard Berenson: The Making of a
Connoisseur …, p. 250.
97 See Francesco Caglioti, ‘Donatello misconosciuto: il ‘San Lorenzo’ per la Pieve di Borgo
San Lorenzo’, Prospettiva, 155–156 (2014), pp. 2–99 and Pierre Rosenberg, Un’esportazione
fraudolenta nel XVIII secolo, in Anna Ottani Cavina, Mauro Natale (ed.), Il falso specchio
della realtà, Torino: Allemandi, 2017, pp. 157–163, p. 162.
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ongoing illicit export of art played out on various administrative levels and
spanned a variety of preventive measures.
4.4 Italian Combat
When on 23 March 1906 the Prefect of Florence, Angelo Annaratone (1844–
1922) warned the Italian Minister of Public Education, Paolo Boselli (1838–1932)
that a painting depicting the Holy Family by Andrea del Sarto had been bought
in Tuscany by the American millionaire John Pierpont Morgan and would pos-
sibly leave the country, it was one of the final stages of the ministerial fight
against the widespread clandestine traffic of artworks out of the country:
Some confidential information has led me to suspect that PIERPONT
MORGAN has purchased from Marchese TOLOMEI the painting ‘THE
HOLY FAMILY’ by Andrea DEL SARTO, which, I am told, is judged by
VENTURI to be a masterpiece by this artist and estimated to be worth
about two hundred thousand lire. I have no way to ascertain the reliabil-
ity of this information. However, having the suspicion that a clandes-
tine exportation by sea might be attempted, I arranged for appropriate
investigations here and have telegrammed the Police stations of Genoa
and Livorno and the Prefect of Massa for direct dispositions to prevent
the boarding and to enable the seizure of this highly important work
of art.98
The Minister replied that the authorities of Civitavecchia, another port easily
reachable from Tuscany, should also be alerted.99 Thus measures were taken,
and it seems that the governmental side prevailed – no Holy Family by Andrea
98 ‘Confidenziali informazioni mi farebbero supporre che PIERPONT MORGAN abbia quì
acquistato dal Marchese TOLOMEI quadro “LA SACRA FAMIGLIA“ di Andrea DEL
SARTO che mi si dice giudicato dal VENTURI Capolavoro di quell’Artista e valutato
all’incirca duecentomila lire. Non ho modo accertare attendibilità notizia. Venendomi
però fatto supporre che possa tentarsene clandestinamente esportazione per via di mare
ho disposto qui opportune indagini ed ho telegrafato ai Questori di Genova e Livorno
ed al Prefetto di Massa per disposizioni dirette impedire imbarco e ottenere sequestro
di tale importantissima opera d’arte.’, ACS, Min. P. I. DG AABBAA, III Ver., II Parte, Busta
263, Vigilanza alle frontiere per prevenire esportazione illegale di quadri acquistati da
Pierpont Morgan, Telegram dated 23 March 1906.
99 A CS, Min. P. I. DG AABBAA, III Ver., II Parte, Busta 263, Vigilanza alle frontiere per pre-
venire esportazione illegale di quadri acquistati da Pierpont Morgan, Telegram dated
27 March 1906.
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