The Metropolitan Museum of Art Returns Objects to Greece
The Metropolitan Museum of Art announced that it will return a group of objects to the Hellenic Republic, as part of its ongoing efforts to review the ownership histories of objects in its collections.
The return of three works follows new information that emerged through the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office’s ongoing investigations and The Met’s own provenance research into works that came to the Museum from art dealers who have been under investigation, which contributed to determining that they should be returned to Greece. These works comprise a Hellenistic gold and garnet pendant amphora, Middle Helladic terracotta beak-spouted jug, and a Roman marble head of a veiled man from the first half of the first century CE.
The Met is also returning two helmets and three mitrai, or protective metal guards worn around the waist, that come from the site of Afrati in north central Crete in 1964.Dated to the late seventh century BCE, this Archaic Cretan bronze armor is believed to have been deposited in an Archaic Greek sanctuary at the site of Afrati, where rescue excavations were undertaken by the Greek archaeological service in 1968-1969.
Among the works being loaned by Greece is the Griffin Protome from Olympia, which The Met returned to the Hellenic Republic in 2025 following collaborative research into its provenance. The object’s return to New York for the exhibition, on loan from the Archaeological Museum of Olympia, is a testament to the continuing scholarly relationship between The Met and its Greek counterparts, expanding access to Greek cultural heritage for audiences in New York and beyond.