Browsing by Author "Nääjärvi, Anitra"

The aim of this thesis is to determine the cultural heritage value of the statue group of Orpheus and the Sirens, and to discover the reasons leading to the restitution of the statues. The statues were returned from the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles to the Italian Ministry of Culture in the spring of 2022. The statues were illicitly acquired from the area of Taranto, Italy, in the 1970s and then sold to the Getty Museum in 1976. Restitution in this context means returning of cultural property to its place of origin. In this context, the place of origin is Taranto, Italy.The research material for this thesis consists of the statues themselves, and of the public discussion about the statues by media, museum personnels, and the Italian Ministry of Culture. In addition, the ethical and legal guidelines for restitution and cultural property are being analyzed with the purpose to discover reasons for the restitution, since restitution in general is a complex manner and the claims for restitution do not always succeed. As a research method content analysis will be used. The results of this study suggest that the statues have significance to the Southern Italian cultural history. This is due to the uniqueness of the statues, which is defined by the mythological scene, the theatrical composition, and the connection to Orphic mysteries. In addition, the Getty Museum valued the statues highly and the statues were an important part of their collection of the ancient works of ancient Southern Italy. Due to illicit transportation of the statues and their original provenance in Italy, the Getty Museum followed the ethical guidance and legal framework to return the statue group to the Italian Ministry of Culture.