The Plundered Past: The Story of the Illegal International Traffic in Works of Art.
by: Meyer, Karl E.

Hardcover. NY, Atheneum, 1st, 1973, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket, 353 pages. This is the first book-length survey of the international illicit trade in antiquities, and of the worldwide destruction of what is left of our civilized past. Museums, dealers, tomb-robbers, police, and scholars form the cast of a story that moves from tropical jungles to Madison Avenue galleries, from a rifled temple to a collector's private museum. A centerpiece of the book is a detailed consideration of the Metropolitan Museum of Art's acquisition of the beautiful calyx krater by Euphronios, which the Italian authorities are claiming was taken illicitly from an Etruscan tomb in 1971. 24-page b/w photo section. Index. Extensive, 23 page Bibliography. Clean copy.